#cw aphobia

[wilbug]

"being aroace is easier than being alloallo because you dont have to worry about romance or sex!!" hey maybe dont say that?? maybe dont say being a minority is easier?? being aroace has completely ruined entire relationships for me. i am not safe in my own community. that is not easier for me or ANYONE at all

[aro-barrel]

i was blissfully ignorant of how much that one poll blew up. all i gotta say is, yikes.

i guess, just a PSA for aspec folks? even if it's tempting, don't get dragged into discourse with aphobes. many of them are set in their beliefs about us. (apparently, they've just been waiting for an opportunity to voice their aphobia.) generally, i see too many aspec people bringing up instances of oppression to prove exclusionists wrong, and honestly? a lot of them don't care. they tend to adhere to some strict definition of queerness that we cannot meet. if we say we face oppression, they'll just move the goalposts.

don't interact with these bad faith actors. you won't change their minds.

on the other hand, it was nice seeing non-aspec people stick up for aspec identities. maybe i saw the poll too late but i saw way more people in the notes supporting aspec identities than not. i genuinely don't think this would've been the case a few years ago. i'd like to believe we're making good progress. crossing my fingers and hoping we don't bring the discourse into 2024.

[stiffyck]

would love to see when in history cishet aro men/women were legally discriminated against, prosecuted, burned at the stake, shot in the streets for uuuuh not feeling romantic emotions? what???? huh????? LGBTQ isn't a fun club for anyone to find community in, it's specific purpose was and remains to fight for the legal rights and lives of marginalized sexualities/etc. no cishet person gets an invite as anything other than an ally. signed, someone's who's identified as asexual since 2010 and does not consider herself queer because it'd be wildly ignorant to do so.

If you don't consider yourself as a part of your community then good for you.

But guess what? What did you do just now? What was that??? Aro and ace people aren't discriminated against??? What did you do just now. What do you think you just did.

The world is based around romantic relationships and everyone expects you to find a partner and have sex and just in general it's considered "normal" to NOT be ace and/or aro.

You can be cishet and still queer because the lack of sexual or romantic attraction to others is still inherently queer.

I need you to shut the fuck up okay? If you don't want to consider yourself queer that's fine. But stop telling others who ARE queer that they cannot identify themselves as such.

This is the only ask like this I'll be answering. I'm not gonna argue with people who won't change their minds.

Send another ask and you're getting blocked.

[greenteaandtattoos]

"Aroace people aren't queer!!" We're more queer than you cuz we're not the ones trying to erase the existence of multiple spectrums of identities. Just like the homophobes and tranphobes do.

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

You’re pissed that no one took any accountability for their supposed “aphobia/arophobia” but where is the accountability for the constant inhumane and disgusting homophobia, biphobia and transphobia STILL spewing out of ace spaces like puss? When will you all realize you feel that way because you are directly adjacent to the oppressor class and have next to nothing in common with the LGBT community as a whole but nearly everything in common with the average cishet? Y’all aren’t queer for not wanting to fuck, only fucking sometimes “if you emotionally connect”, or being emotionally unavailable to romantic partnership. And if you aren’t also gay, trans, or bisexual, you never will be.

I got my laptop out for this, goddamn. Where would i even start?

"You’re pissed that no one took any accountability for their supposed “aphobia/arophobia”" This tells me everything about you, you possibly don't believe in aro/ace identities. You don't believe people can hate on, or be hateful to, aro/ace spec people. And yes I am pissed. Because it was fucked up.

I would try to justify it with "if this was transphobic/homophobia you wouldn't be acting this way" but im guess you don't care about that as you obviously don't see it the same way.

you were also probably someone who sent asks like this (but more hateful) in 2016 and before, you were probably also someone who posted and reblogged aphobic content and said it was "just a joke" later while still sending asks like this to people. Take of that anon and show your face coward.

"where is the accountability for the constant inhumane and disgusting homophobia, biphobia and transphobia STILL spewing out of ace spaces like puss?"

where is the accountability for the homophobia, biphobia and transphobia still spewing out of ALL lgbtqia+ spaces? Where is the accountability in the REAL world? Where is it anon? Where is the accountability for the acephobia, the arophobia and so many other "not real sexualities/gender identities" -phobias?

You saw a post about aphobia, and instead of being like "yeah that was f-ed up" or "i dont care" you went "but what about meeeeee" which is very all lives matter of you. (I am not comparing racism to homophobia, however the "what about me" bs can be summed up very easily using all lives matter as an example) For the fucking record, all spaces have assholes, all of them. On behalf of the "normal" aro/ace spec folks, i apologise for any homophobia, biphobia and/or transphobia you have experienced from us. "When will you all realize you feel that way because you are directly adjacent to the oppressor class and have next to nothing in common with the LGBT community as a whole but nearly everything in common with the average cishet?" This is a main aphobe talking point so thank you for doing this by the text book so i can break it down easier!

Three pages about asexual hate crimes which im sure every average cishet has to deal with (assuming their white and male) 1 2 (a booklet for asexual people to be actually fucking included) 3

An incredible interview is here but im going to quote a few things from it as theres a 99.9% chance aphobes wont click a link

"We know aromantics and asexuals have existed for as long as humans have. However, it’s only through the terminology recently going mainstream"

"Because of Freud’s influence, many of us grew up learning that our sex drive is the primary motivator of human behavior, but that isn’t the case."

"That mindset replicates itself within the community so that when a new identity emerges, or when people try to explain themselves, there is resistance and pushback from within the community with the mindset that “if we let these kinds of people in, then that will dilute the access to power and resources we have.” And it forces the community to maintain adjacency to white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, ableism and classism, all while leaving behind entire groups of people."

" Do you think there will be more identities joining the LGBTQIA+ acronym? JP: Yes. The more words we have to describe ourselves, the better we are understood."

"The biggest comparisons are the lack of visibility and exclusion from communities on the basis that they’re weird, different, othered or “don’t belong in this space.” Every queer person has experienced this narrative and as more join under the umbrella, the newbie will experience the same challenges, discrimination and misunderstandings as those who came before." and here is another article that has a quote i just live by

"When did trauma become the mark of queerness?"

but back to the aphobe ->

"Y’all aren’t queer for not wanting to fuck, only fucking sometimes “if you emotionally connect”, or being emotionally unavailable to romantic partnership. "

if you think queer = sex then so help me. queer does not equal sex, queer is sexuality. and guess what that is NOT always sexual. sexuality is who your attracted to, whether it be romantically OR sexually.

and Asexuality is a spectrum, some asexuals never have sex, some don't want to have sex but have had it due to trauma or peer pressure, some don't care for it, some did it for a partner but just dont care about it.

same with aromantic. Its a spectrum. By your process here, so so so so so many people are removed from the lgbtqia+ community but you couldn't possibly mean that-

"And if you aren’t also gay, trans, or bisexual, you never will be."

-oh you did.

So none of these are part of the community either then? Agender, Bigender, Intersex, genderfluid, pansexual, omnisexual, Omnigender, Questioning, transgender and queer?

interesting anon.

Anyways i hope my followers enjoyed that! Let me know what you think if you finished reading all this!

Love;

An aegosexual, pansexual, aromantic, trans guy with to much fucking time on his hands.

[arowitharrows]

God how I wish there'd been articles like this years ago when people were tripping over themselves to deny any and all struggles asexual people face. The amount of times people demanded "proof" when we talked about our experiences. Well, there's certainly more research being published nowadays, if that counts as "proof". I hope they read it.

Today “asexuality is widely accepted as a sexual orientation in the literature,” Hille says, but cultural awareness remains in its infancy, especially compared with other orientations under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Saying you don't experience sexual attraction is still like saying you don't eat, Hille explains, and “if you don't eat, there's something wrong with you, and you're hurting yourself.” Asexual people sometimes get this message not just from family and acquaintances but from their health-care providers. Shelby Wren, a health equity researcher at the University of Minnesota, published a study in 2020 in which 30 to 50 percent of respondents who had disclosed their asexuality in a medical setting said a therapist or doctor had attributed their asexuality to a health condition. The proposed diagnoses included anxiety, depression and, in one case, a personality disorder. “You don't know what's going to happen when you disclose your sexual orientation,” Wren says. “And for a lot of people, that stops them from talking about things that could be relevant to their health care.”

[...]

Refraining from disclosing one's asexuality to a mental health provider is often a “very rational decision,” Chasin says. “It's always much worse to be actively rejected and misunderstood.” For instance, asexual people are sometimes subjected to conversion therapy, a practice aimed at changing someone's sexuality or gender identity. It is banned for minors in 22 U.S. states because of its well-documented and extensive harms, including increased rates of suicide. A 2018 U.K. government survey of LGBTQIA+ people found that asexual respondents were the most likely to be offered conversion therapy and as likely as gay and lesbian people to receive it. A recent survey by the Trevor Project found that 4 percent of asexual youths in the U.S. were subjected to conversion therapy, on par with bisexual respondents. On the legislative level, bans on conversion therapy should explicitly reference asexuality, Benoit says. So, too, should professional associations of health-care practitioners, says Samantha Guz, a social work researcher at the University of Chicago. “Asexual people are made to be so invisible in our society that I don't think just having a broad call against conversion therapy is specific enough,” Guz says.

Even well-meaning doctors might unwittingly harm their patients. To a clinician, a patient who is worried that they should feel more sexual desire—and who does not know they are simply asexual—might initially look similar to patients who want sexual intimacy and could benefit from treatments aimed at increasing or restoring desire. Treatments for certain types of sexual dysfunction do help some people whose level of sexual desire leaves them distressed and unsatisfied, Brotto says. For some people, though, this distress may be coming not from an intrinsic desire to want sex but from external pressures such as partners or society as a whole. “I have worked with folks where it's taken us many, many months for the person to really understand how well asexuality fits with their identity,” as opposed to having an issue that is rooted in a health problem or a situational condition, Brotto says. Most doctors, though, don't know that such a distinction exists or is necessary, she adds.

[i-3at-s0ap]

"when I decide women and girls don't know how to label themselves and that my opinion is more valid than their lived experiences, it's because I'm a ✨feminist✨"

[burntblueberrywaffles]

Aphobia is so funny to me, I’m literally just sitting here not fucking people and you’re mad??? You good?

[tempests-bards-and-birds]

reminder that if you think that asexual people, aromantic people, aroace people, aroallo people, demisexual people, and demiromantic people are invalid

then you are not welcome on this blog.

i will never be okay with aphobia in any way, shape or form, so if you in any way discriminate against aspec people then this is your cue to leave. go. get the fuck out.

i don't care if you find it 'weird' or 'unnatural'. i don't care if it makes you uncomfortable that some people don't experience certain feelings or attraction the same way you do. i don't care if you think any of those things. if you don't even have the basic human decency to respect other people for who they are then honestly i don't even know what to say anymore.

if you're aphobic, please just fuck off.

[hasattory689]

Kinda ironic how the ace attorney fandom, who has the word "ace" in it, is packed full of aphobic lgbt+ exclusionists.

Headcanoning a character as asexual, aromantic or as aroace is as valid as any other queer headcanon. Even if some here have the IQ of a rock and cannot comprehend that.

[aftonsparv-bugzz]

:33 < if someone whos aroace tells you they like someone and asks you to call them a (insert any form of teritary attraction) do it. youdont get to pick the name you call them. youdont get to call them a "crush". that isnt your choice. just tell me youre aphobic/see forms of teritary attraction as "lesser" or "not real" without telling me

[bloopiebloop]

Something that annoys me even more than Hazbin Hotel itself is how the fandom (and Viv) ignores Alastor's AroAce-ness.

People will ship him left and right, and when people get upset at it it's "oh he's just a character" or "he could just be Aspec/Arospec" instead of actually trying to acknowledge his identity.

And Viv borderline erasing that identity herself (by saying it was okay to ship him with people) makes things even worse by enabling her fandom's aphobia. Not that this is out of character for her, but it still sucks.

A lot of people have made similar posts to this before, I know, but I really wanted to say my opinion on it.

[a-bit-of-a-queer-one]

Shoutout to all the alloromantic and allosexual members of the community who're sticking up for us in this weird wave of aphobia. I am giving each of you a friendly hug, a shoulder nudge, a fist bump or an enthusiastic wave, depending on your personal preference.

And of course the same to all the cis hetero aros and aces. You're all valid as hell and I'm so happy you're part of our communities in particular and the queer community in general🍰🏹

To all the aphobes out there, please find the nearest blender, stick your head in and press 'on', thank you.

[heartless-aro]

Some Thoughts on Aspec Identity, Pathologization, and Disability

A lot of asexual and aromantic activism involves dismantling the notion that being asexual and/or aromantic is NOT a mental illness or medical condition, and while this is 100% true, it’s important that we in the aromantic and asexual communities recognize how our community is intrinsically linked to the disabled community. The fact of the matter is that, even though there is nothing inherently pathological about aromanticism or asexuality, our identities have historically been pathologized by society and are still often pathologized to this day.

The very first time I heard the word “asexual” used in mainstream media was in 2012 in an episode of House M.D., titled “Better Half.” For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the episode featured a side plot where an asexual couple comes into the clinic for a bladder infection, and the protagonist, Dr. House, decides that he wants to find a “medical cause” for their asexuality. This isn’t entirely unusual for the show, since a major part of House’s character is that he’s somewhat of an asshole who says a lot of blatantly offensive things and attempts to find medical causes for anything and everything. However, what makes this notable is that the subplot was resolved by House actually finding a medical cause for the patient’s asexuality and curing him of said asexuality. It was then revealed that the patient’s wife had been lying about being asexual to make her husband happy.

This was before Yasmin Benoit (an alternative fashion model who is among the most prolific asexual and aromantic community activists) publicly came out as aroace. This was before Bojack Horseman and Koisenu Futari and the 2015 Jughead comics (i.e., the ones where Jughead is confirmed to be asexual). For many people, this episode of House M.D., where asexuals are portrayed as being either liars or people who can and should be “cured,” was their first exposure to the concept of asexuality.

While this was just one episode of one tv show, it is a symptom of a much larger issue relating to the pathologization of asexuality and aromanticism. Take, for example, Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) which was defined by the following criteria in the DSM IV-TR:

A — “persistently or recurrently deficient (or absent) sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity”

B — “marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.”

There are certainly plenty of cases where HSDD is unrelated to asexuality and is something that causes very real struggles for the person suffering from it; I won’t deny the experiences of these people by claiming that HSDD is “just asexuality” and shouldn’t be considered a disorder at all. The reason I bring up HSDD, however, is because it has often been used to pathologize asexual patients. It wasn’t until 2013 that the DSM-5 was released and changed the diagnostic criteria to include the caveat that “If a lifelong lack of sexual desire is explained by self-identification as ‘asexual,’ then a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder would not be made.”

While this is a step in the right direction, the addition of this caveat has not people from pathologizing asexuality. A 2015 study (linked at the bottom of the post) by Dr. Lori A. Brotto, Morag A. Yule, and Dr. Boris B. Gorzalka notes that “Various theories have been proposed to explain how asexuality should best be classified, and some have maintained that asexuality is an extreme variant of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD)—a sexual dysfunction characterized by a lack of interest in sex and significant distress. To date, this has never been empirically examined.” (The study in question sought to empirically examine this very issue and found that “there are notable differences between AIS >40 individuals (those likely to identify as asexual) and those who meet diagnostic criteria for HSDD.”). Another article (also linked at the bottom of the post), which was written by Dr. Lori A. Brotto and Sonia Milani, states that “Various theories have been proposed to classify asexuality as a mental disorder, a sexual dysfunction, or a paraphilia.” This is all without even getting into older ideas like the concept of “sexual frigidity,” which also may have led to many asexual and aromantic people being seen as disordered.

While there is much less information on how aromanticism, specifically, has been pathologized, it’s pretty well known within the aromantic and asexual communities that people outside out our communities often group us together or consider aromanticism a subset of asexuality, so the pathologization of asexuality also affects the way aromantic people are perceived. Not to mention the fact that, historically, people who chose to remain single, and especially women who chose to remain single, were often seen as deviant or unnatural.

Regardless of whether or not we, as individuals, are actually disordered, we are often viewed as being disordered solely on the basis of our aspec identities. Furthermore, there is a lot of actual overlap between the aspec community and the disabled community. While similar research has not yet been conducted in relation to aromanticism (in fact, there is very little research at all on aromanticism), studies of asexuality have found some evidence that asexuality may be associated with both autism and schizoid personality disorder. (And, not to bring up anecdotal evidence or anything, but I have often noticed myself that the vast majority of people in online schizoid communities seem to be asexual, aromantic, or both.)

Additionally, disabled people, particularly those who are physically, intellectually, and/or developmentally disabled, are often desexualized by society and assumed by default to be incapable of having romantic and sexual relationships, experiencing sexual or romantic feelings, or understanding sex and romance. As a result, they are affected by many of the same stigmas as asexual and aromantic people, regardless of whether or not they’re aromantic and/or asexual (in addition to all the other forms of ableism that they face).

All this is to say that the asexual and aromantic communities share a lot of common ground with the disabled community. This makes it all the more important that we fight against ableism and stand in solidarity with our disabled siblings, both inside and outside aspec communities. Moreover, this makes it all the more important that we recognize the prevalence of disabled people in the asexual and aromantic communities and acknowledge the ways aspec identity and disability can intersect.

So, here’s to all the disabled aces and aros out there. Here’s to the disabled aspec people who have been treated as broken or pitied. Here’s to the nonpartnering disabled aspecs who need caretakers or otherwise can’t live alone and are struggling to navigate what that may mean for their futures. Here’s to disabled aspecs who do want a relationship, sexual, romantic, or otherwise, but who struggle not only with finding a partner who will accept their sexual/romantic orientation(s) but also with doing so with a disability that affects their relationships. Here’s to alloaros who want sexual partners but struggle with disability-related issues that affect their sex lives, such as touch aversion, incontinence (including ptsd induced bedwetting and bladder/bowel motor tics), body dysmorphia, fatigue, and/or limited mobility. Here’s to d/Deaf, hard of hearing, low vision, blind, and d/Deafblind aces and aros, who are sick of being treated as though they’re “missing out” in more ways than one on some “fundamental” part of the human experience, (namely sight and/or hearing and sex and/or romance). Here’s to the developmentally and intellectually disabled aces and aros who are tired of being treated like children as grown adults. Here’s to disabled aces and aros. You are wonderful and it is such a privilege to share a community with y’all.

Edit: @arrows-for-pens pointed out that I forgot to add the links. (Thanks for that!) So, here are the links to the articles that I mentioned in the body of the post.

[1wn8ure]

Acearo people are queer. Aceallo people are queer. Aroallo people are queer. Even if they’re cishet. The lgbtqiA+ community is not some exclusive club you have to reach a certain threshold of queerness to join. And to any exclusionists who have somehow found this blog, fuck you. Nobody needs your permission to call themselves queer. Get off your high horse of perceived superiority and just be kind

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

I'm going to a queer event on Friday but I'm scared people will be aphobic, because you know, being aromantic and asexual isn't too well known, even in queer spaces.

What do you recommend doing if people ask what aroace is or if people are aphobic?

Also how do you recommend defining bi oriented aroace?

I missed this fuck I’m so sorry- I’ll still answer it but I’m less detail now as tumblr was a bitch and deleted my 200 word essay for you

If you want to and feel comfortable doing so, explain aro/ace spec identities. It doesn’t have to be very complicated, just a base explanation that they can understand. Like “asexual is little to no sexual attraction” even though that isn’t entirely accurate.

If you feel comfortable, you can explain your own identity but don’t feel pressured to do so!

If people are aphobic, walk away. It’s not worth the trouble even if it will be satisfying to punch an aphobe. Get a cooler mark on your permanent record then that, like arson.

Hope this helps someone and I hope you were safe and okay after Friday. Stay safe asker and please remember you are valid