#even if your argument is that bi people are only oppressed for our same-sex attraction

[watermelinoe]

patrick star it's not my wallet meme but it's just "class-based oppression exists" "yes" "oppression is based on material class and not how an individual is perceived" "yes" "for example trans men who pass as men socially are still oppressed for being female" "yes" "because oppression manifests as more than surface discrimination" "yes" "therefore even straight-passing bisexual people are oppressed for being bisexual" "NO you can't be oppressed for being straight!!!!"

[greggorylee]

Wait are you okay with asexuals??? I found out that you're against ace inclusionism :(((

Yes, i’m okay with ace/aro people. Yes, i’m against “ace inclusionism”

Honestly, these asks are so exhausting because ive made myself clear for nearly a decade now my stance on whether or not being ace/aro makes you lgbt. I’m going to put all the points ive gathered into one place, so this post can simply be referenced if you’re curious.

Keep in mind these thoughts are in no particular order, but altogether represent the problems with ace/aro inclusionism and the behavior of the inclusionist community over the past years

Asexuality and aromanticism are valid identities

Allow me to get this out of the way. The experience of being aro/ace not being the same experience as an lgbt person does NOT mean that these experiences are invalid. If the label of asexual or aromantic fits you, thats awesome. The ace/aro community as a whole is its own resource, and support and understanding is deserved for people who fall under these ids.

However, that does not mean you are oppressed for being ace/aro, especially not in the same way the lgbt community is oppressed for being gay/lesbian/bi/trans. When considering peoples oriantations and identities, cishets have different experiences than lgbt people, and ace/aro people have different experiences from both. 

The straight ace/aro fallacy

If being gay and ace doesn’t make one any less gay, why would being ace make straight people less straight? Asexuality/aromanticism is about whether or not you feel sexual or romantic attraction to your partner, not WHO you are attracted to generally.

To emphasize, what a cis straight ace/aro person experiences is NOT the same as what an LGBT person experiences. The fact that they are cis and straight does not change with the amount of sex or intimacy they have, just like the amount of sex and intimacy of a gay/bi/lesbian person does not affect whether or not theyre gay, bi or lesbian. LGB orientations are about WHO you are attracted to, not HOW. 

Sexualizing the LGBT community

Treating asexuality or aromanticism as lgbt orientations assumes that every other orientation is sexual by default, which is not only wrong, but dehumanizing. terms like bisexual/homosexual etc do not literally mean Horny Only. these labels were coined back when sex (as in genitalia) was often used for gender, but these terms have evolved in meaning beyond “who you have sex with”. 

asexuality and aromanticism arent orientations, theyre modifier identities. The fact you can be gay and ace but also straight and ace should end the inclusionism argument altogether, but the ace/aro community have developed such a victim fantasy that even suggesting our experiences are different is somehow oppressing them. Which its not.

Even worse is treating microlabels like demisexual as LBGT orientations, because it assumes that not only are the other orientations sexual by default, but they are careless in their intimacy / sleep around / are “easy”. It doesnt matter if ace and demi people arent literally saying these things–by acting like their ace/demi identity makes them LGBT, that by default is saying “i dont have sex / i dont have casual sex and therefore i am different and separate and special from you”. 

Let’s talk about the term “allosexual”. Its insulting and degrading for the ace/aro community to refer to LGBT people as “allos that contribute to our oppression because they Have Sex and dont want us in their club”. seriously think about the implications of creating a term that is supposed to represent an oppressive group, and applying it to LGBT people that have sex. Especially since that cis/straight ace/aro people have been given the understanding that their sex drive or desire for romance is something theyre oppressed for, even oppressed by the “sex havers” that include lgbt people. Which they are not. 

Think about that, and stop using it.

Bullying vs oppression

Oppression requires massive, widespread cultural AND systemic power imbalances that target a group of people for a harmless trait or behavior. For these cultural and systemic powers to be oppressive, they must force the oppressed into changing or hiding. To be oppressed is for religious masses, entire governments, and thousands upon millions of people wanting you dead for something you cant control, for simply existing. To be oppressed is to fear being yourself at the cost of your life. Not a life of constant terror, but living with the reminder that you are always in potential danger and always at a disadvantage that was set up against you on purpose because of who you are.

This is not something that asexuality or aromanticism faces. Do ace/aro people face stigma? Absolutely. Even targeting bullying based on their identity. And to live in the hypersexualized, hyperromantic heterosexual hellscape that is pervasive through most of the world is stressful for anyone who doesn’t fit that mold. That is real, and that struggle and hurt is real. But it is not oppression.

ace/aro people are not being targeted as groomers like lgbt people are. ace/aro people are not the victims of hate crimes and murder because of being ace/aro, like lgbt people. ace/aros do not have specific laws taking their rights as humans away because of being ace/aro, like lgbt people have for our entire existence and still are. To be LGBT is literally deadly because we are hated for who we love, who we are attracted to. To be ace/aro is NOT deadly, not oppressed, because there has not been a campaign to eradicate them from public life for not feeling romantic or sexual attraction

This is not “oppression olympics”. This is what oppression really means and is. Microaggressions are a PART of oppression, a SYMPTOM. Real oppression is defined by generations of systemic abuse. Facism and bigotry hate ANYTHING that is different. ace/aro people inevitably will be stigmatized for their identities by facism, and that is fucked up, and can even be traumatic, but the source of that trauma is bigotry that already exists, not aphobia. 

Your sex life and romantic life are intrinsically linked to your gender and orientation. If you’re a straight ace/aro person, you’re going to be under the pressure to have sex because of sexism/cissexism. If you’re a gay/trans ace/aro person, you’re going to be under the pressure to start having sex in a cis straight relationship because of homophobia/transphobia. Oppressive actions that ace/aro people face are because of oppression that already exists, and happens to overlap with characteristics of their ace/aro identities.

For example, furries are notoriously bullied and harassed. On a surface level, it is because “cringe animal person”, but beneath the hatred is genuine bigotry. Furries are always compared to being gay or trans, mentally ill, or it means youre a sexual predator because of your “deviant” behavior. That’s not furryphobia, that’s facism, specifically ableism and trans/homophobia. Cis straight furries are also subject to ridicule, but that is because of their proximity to the “dangerous deviance” thats lgbt or “insane/autistic” coded. The reason that there have been actual gas and shooting threats at fur conventions is because of the diversity of body and identity that the fandom is known for. Furries are not oppressed for being furries. There simply happens to be a lot of furries that also fall into oppressed communities. The same goes for asexuality and aromanticism.

“But the bigots say they hate LGBTQA+ now! That includes us!” 

The very fact that trans/homophobes are even thinking to complain about ace/aro people is because the ace/aro community has pushed their oppression fantasy into the public eye so hard for literal years, demonizing anyone who pointed out that a cis straight person who doesnt fuck is not “queer”. 

It is quite literally self inflicted bullying. ace/aros are only ever targeted by bigots because of their proximity to the lgbt community, or like mentioned previously, the punishment of any kind of deviancy under facism. Bigots dont understand or care that our experiences are vastly different, they just want victims to target. And the ace/aro community stood in front of the lgbt community for nearly 10 years and screamed “look at us! We’re just as weird as them!”. You think that some reactionaries arent going to take advantage of that?

Blue’s clues including ace/aro and other microidentities does not actually “confirm” theyre lgbt somehow. The very idea that someone would be targeted for not wanting intimacy in the same way someone is targeted for WANTING intimacy, and how they perform their intimacy, is insulting. The idea that being called “weird” or “broken” is in any way comparable to literally fearing walking down the street being yourself, is insulting. The idea that struggling with oversexualized media is in any way comparable to being killed for who you have sex with, is insulting. Remember what i said about microaggressions and how they do not add up to oppression without literal legal and cultural abuse of power?

The redundancy of microlabels

labels such as demi or grey romantic/sexual are even more insulting to pretend like they are lgbt orientations. There is literally no abnormality to being demiromantic or demisexual. The need to develop intimate feelings for someone else is an experience that is MUCH more common than feeling no attraction at all. Despite what the hypersexualized media may tell you, your experience of needing a friendship before romantic attraction is not rare

Its so common, in fact, that demirom/sexual identities are in essence the same thing as going “i need to get to know someone before i can be intimate with them, and that makes me queer.” really? The experience of making friends and falling in love or sexual desire is not exclusive to being LGBT, nor is it something that is even remotely stigmatized in the way LGBT people are, or even ace/aro people. A LOT people are demiromantic and demisexual without knowing what those labels even are. Treating demirom/sexual as lgbt orientations is treating a cishet person that doesnt kiss on the first date as an lgbt person.

And yeah, there are LGBT ace/aro people. But what makes them LGBT is the LGBT part of their identity. Once again, the fact you can be ace/demi and gay OR straight means these identities are not orientations

This redundancy and ignorance applies to most of microidentities, such as pan/omni which were only made under the misunderstanding that bisexuality wasnt already inclusive of nonbinary people or that bisexuality hasnt meant “many or all” for DECADES, but thats an entire other post

Ignoring trauma

Another thing that is harmful about treating asexuality as an lgbt orientation is that not everyone is asexual in the same way. 

What i mean is, there are some people who simply dont feel attraction to others. Thats absolutely cool, deserving of respect and its own unique support. However, some people are ace/aro because of trauma, mental illness symptoms, inexperience, dysphoria/dysmorphia, racism, disability, and internalized hatred and fear. These things are NOT an lgbt orientation, OR an identity, and treating them as such dangerously ignores the possibility of recovery.

Im not saying “ace/aro people are all just traumatized” or whatever because thats literally not true. But a large amount of them are. I was one myself, and im close with several people who also went through this identity because of some form of trauma and/or depressive symptoms and/or dysphoria. For all of us, labeling these symptoms as “ace/aro” kept us from truly examining our problems with intimacy, because we had simply accepted said problems as “being ace/aro”. After self exploration, we discovered we were in fact not ace or aro

AGAIN. Being ace/aro does NOT inherently mean you have problems to work through with your intimate life. My point is that when people see symptoms of things that ARENT inherent to asexuality or aromanticism and so readily misdiagnose them as a sexual or romantic orientation instead of, yknow, literal trauma, it leads people to misunderstand themselves or simply not try to explore their feelings toward intimacy.

And that doesnt even mean that you have to or will automatically change from ace/aro if you examine why you identify that way. Plenty of people are ace/aro because of trauma and know this and their identity helps them in their recovery. But things like dysphoria, internalized homophobia, and trauma symptoms that are genuinely distressing NEED to be addressed beyond the concept of “being ace/aro”. Healing is what’s important, not using your personal distress as a public identity

TMI / no one asked

The thing that’s strange i find about the push for ace/aro inclusionism is the seemingly complete lack of awareness of what you’re actually telling strangers when you say you’re asexual specifically

When you introduce yourself as LGBT, for example, it’s because its an intrinsic part of your identity. Gender and orientation are face level facts appropriate in all situations. Introducing yourself as trans is saying “hey, i’m not cis”. Introducing yourself as LGB is saying “hey, i’m not straight.” as i mentioned before, both of these things can be exclusive to peoples sex lives, and even if they arent, mentioning their identity is not bringing up anything sexual whatsoever. (again. If you hear that someone is lgbt and your first thought is i wonder how much sex they have, maybe youre the problem)

However, when you introduce yourself as asexual, you are specifically bringing your sex life into the conversation. “I dont feel sexual attraction to anyone” is not usually something you’d bring up to a stranger when introducing yourself. Like, idk, no one asked how much you’re not fucking, yknow? Especially not the underage people that you may be around. This oversharing is worse for asexuality since you’re directly mentioning your lack of sex drive. 

By NO means is it anything like sexual harassment or whatever, but seriously please just imagine yourself meeting a stranger and “im not really into sex” is one of the FIRST things you tell them. Is that necessary?

Sexualizing minors

One of the most dangerous results of specifically asexuality being pushed as an lgbt identity is now minors are being open in public about their sex drives. Under no circumstances do strangers online need to know how much sex a child wants or doesnt want to have. I have seen predators that draw CP label themselves as ace, and i can all too well see a scenario where a minor is groomed under the pretense of asexuality, seeing that they share a sexual identity with an adult and trusting them because said adult apparently doesnt want sex either. These predators obviously are NOT a part of the ace/aro community, nor is being ace/aro somehow predatory, but my point is that its become incredibly normal for kids to make their sex drives public knowledge, which can EASILY be taken advantage of

“But being ace is about NOT wanting sex! Isnt that the opposite of sexualizing?”

This argument is still astonishing to me. Not only is asexuality specifically about how much SEXUAL attraction one feels, but ive seen people insist that asexual people can still feel sexual attraction and have sex. This identity is ABOUT sex, whether or not the identifier wants sex or not. It is literally a description of your sex drive.

Which is also why adults making asexual headcanons about minor characters actually IS borderline predatory. No adult should be thinking in depth about whether or not a child feels sexual attraction. Period. There is no reasonable explanation for looking at someone underage and going “i bet that literal 14 year old doesnt want to fuck anybody. And i bet theyre really proud of it too and want to tell everyone else.” is there seriously nothing uncomforatable about adults making headcanons about how much sex a minor has? 

Stealing from other communities

The biggest one to talk about are cishet ace/aros who, by all accounts, do not experience the oppression that lgbt people do. Therefore they do not need our resources. Our community is for our own support. Its not a “fun diversity club” that anyone can join just because theyre a ~little different~ than ~normal cishet people~. This is the biggest example of the acearo community laying claim to experiences and resources that arent theirs. Look me in the eyes and tell me that a straight cis person deserves a spot in the lgbt community because they feel weird for not wanting to have sex. Meanwhile the lgbt community are at the same time hypersexualized and punished for their sexual partners by straight and cis people. What about that to you isnt stealing?

“Aspec” was being used for the autism spectrum well before asexuality was popularized, being autistic myself i had known it as part of our community before 2014. “Allo” sounds suspiciously close to “allistic” which is the term used for people who are not autistic. Also, if the aro flag came first please correct me, but its weird that the agender and aromantic flags both were made in 2014 and the aromantic flag is just the agender flag cut in half

Also, as a rape survivor, i do not even want to touch on the fact some inclusionists have co-opted corrective rape as a part of aphobia, even though corrective rape has specifically and historically been targeted towards trans and LGBT people, lesbians in particular, to turn them cishet. i'll just say it really pisses me off and move on.

Really Evil Gays

One of the ugliest behaviors of specifically the inclusionism movement is to compare and conflate lgbt people and survivors of abuse with our abusers and oppressors. Any lgbt person who does not want cishets pushing themselves in our community and claiming our suffering as their own is “aphobic”, or using “terf rhetoric” (which some of yall really need to learn what that actually is) and are now a bigot. “Exclusionists” are listed right next to trans/homophobes, predators, and racists in DNI lists and banners as if literally being bigoted is in any way comparable to going “the amount of sex you have doesnt make you queer”.

Like, it is genuinely revolting to act like lgbt people explaining the differences between our experiences is not only oppressing you, but is just as bad treatment as us experiencing hate crimes and abuse. Like the “radical exclusionary” sex having gays and transes are gatekeeping you out of the Fun Club. being progressive does not always mean “validating uwu”  people’s compulsion to find ways to feel ostracized for oppressed points, because once again, stigmatization alone not oppression. and the validity of these experiences can be mutually exclusive

I as a marginalized white person suffer under capitalism. however, i’m not about to cry racism when someone reminds me that i have objectively different experiences and advantages under capitalism over people of color, because capitalism is inherently tied to white supremacy. Some of what we go through under capitalism may overlap, but my whiteness is not a factor in my suffering under capitalism like how anyone elses race is. Asexuality and aromanticism suffer under the hypersexual patriarchy, but that does not mean that aphobia is a system of oppression, and certainly not one that lgbt people are somehow perpretrating by literally just not wanting cishets acting like they belong in our community because they dont have a sex drive.

Also, claiming that “your sex life doesnt define your orientation” is “terf rhetoric” is SO insulting to your transfem sisters. Please look up what a terf even means and where that description is applicable, instead of throwing it around at things that are not even about something that affects trans women in particular

The damage of the split attraction model

Now, correct me if im wrong, but i had never seen the split attraction model be popularized before ace/aro identities were pushing for inclusionism. They are also inextricably linked to and encouraged by the aroace community. For anyone who doesnt know, it is the split of romantic and sexual attraction between different orientations. For normal people, that would mean “gay ace” or something. However this normalization of “romantic attraction wholly different than sexual attraction” (which while can be true in the sense of being ace/aro, but is inherently untrue in the fact that WHO youre attracted to cannot simply be split between sex and romance)

This has lead to nonsense such as “bisexual lesbians” or in other words, biromantic homosexual, which does not exist. If you are femme and are attracted to anyone other than femmes, you’re not a lesbian by definition, and so on. The reason people seem to think that your sex life and romantic life can and do cancel each other out is, again, the push for ace inclusionism, and the idea that being asexual somehow makes a person less straight. Remember: a cis straight person who doesnt feel sexual attraction is still cis and straight.

ace/aro: not straight but not gay (a secret third thing)

What about people who are both ace and aro, some argue? I definitely agree that they are not straight and it’s not fair and insulting to label them as such. However, they aren’t any form of LGBT either if they are cis. Being lesbian, gay, and bi are specifically about intimacy and attraction to gender, and being trans intersects with this intrinsically. We connected as a community because of our shared persecution of who and our sexual partners and self presentation outside the gender binary, not who we DONT love or have sex with. Stonewall was not about asexuality or aromanticism. 

No one is being oppressed for not having attraction to anyone at all. Once again, i direct you to the section comparing stigma to oppression, and ask if there are laws making it illegal to not be in a romantic or sexual relationship. If there are people being killed for the sole reason of not having an intimate partner. I will repeat myself: the struggles aroace people go through under an entirely too sexualized and romance obsessed cishet culture are VERY real and absolutely deserve understanding, support, and a community of their own. However to compare said experiences to the active oppression and lets, be real, ongoing genocide of the lgbt community is frankly ignorant at best and actively insulting and degrading at worst.

Accept that your experiences as aroace people are unique, and push for understanding on your own instead of hijacking the lgbt community for validation. If you’re not trans, you do not experience what we do.

Dont try to change my mind

The reason replies and reblogs are turned off is because i have literally been talking about this for 9 years and i have so many better things to do. My stance will not change by being discoursed at online by strangers with a victim complex. I’ll be blocking any discourse asks as well. If you made it here (or didnt) and feel compelled to argue, just block me instead, go take care of yourself and be with friends and reflect on what ive said.

However feel free to screenshot and share or reference back to this post. Obviously i cant stop anybody. But hopefully this will be helpful for anyone left with questions about whether or not im “okay with ace people”. (hint: i am, and just because i dont think being ace makes you lgbt means i’m against ace people existing)

[man-squared]

Everytime the queer community gets a little bit bigger or better, we all make the mistake of labeling others. This puts us back years and on the side of those who dislike us.

Think about it. The trans community, at large, finally getting space to talk about our issues and most of the community understanding the variety of experiences only for us to be hit with people inside and outside of our community labeling us. But you know, at least it's worth progressive labels and these people seem to be excepting /sarcasm.

This has nothing to do with the actual usefulness of these words, but the way they have been ransacked to label others because humans gonna arbitrarily push others into boxes based on their liking and understanding of them, forgoing autonomy and respectfulness -- which I think stems from the feeling of being out of control, but that doesn't justify the behavior. So now we have assholes, using other's AGABs (assigned gender at birth) as a tool of oppression and silence. And this isn't just from conservatives, though their approach seems largely based in poor, delusional, oppressed AFABs (assigned female at birth) and terrible, scary, oppressive AMABs (assigned male at birth). It's used by us to justify who gets a say, a voice, to demean others, and that's not right.

Another bastardized "progressive" term that's used very similarly is TME and TMA (transmisogyny exempt and affected). As far as I have seen (and feel free to correct me with sources), these specific terms have not been used in helpful ways. That's definitely not to say transmisogyny is not helpful in queet theory and to talk about issues. However, the binarism that has come from the terms TME and TMA are less than helpful in my opinion and are often used to mean either someone's perceived AGAB or "me versus them." What I mean by the second us is when someone disagrees with someone (oddly, I've largely seen it used by people who aren't trans or who would be deemed TMEs) then the person who disagrees is TME.

Easier put, Person A writes something that Person B disagrees with (let's say transandrophobia or lesbianism or basically anything). Person B labels Person A as a TME to discredit their argument or statement with no knowledge on whether or not Person A is TME or TMA.

Hell, you can even see this done with identities. I have seen people who are bi or against bi lesbians as well as those who are lesbians or against bi lesbians create a binary of lesbian or nonlesbian (and bi or non-bi even). Not only is that ridiculous because any community should be allowed to talk about other communities and issues within, but also it hurts everyone. It is not helpful to call a bi lesbian or a bi lesbian supporter a nonlesbian, because you do not get to decide who is a lesbian or not -- nor do you get to create a hierarchy out of lesbian. Bi lesbians are a type of lesbian, no matter if you believe people can be one or not, and guess what! there are lesbians who are mono-attracted (not mspec) who support mspec lesbians (including bi lesbians) and there are mspec people who aren't them that support them, too.

The only thing that using this rhetorical tool does is help separate communities. If everyone who disagrees with you is "not a part of your community," then it's pretty easy to say "listen to our/my/their community" or "no person who is a part of this community believes in or thinks or is *that*."

And let's not forget how these binaries harm anyone not a part of them or not easily deconstructed into one or the other labels. That's definitely something that gets touched on a bit, but never really hashed out. What about those who weren't so easily assigned a sex or gender at birth? What about those who are TMA but not the same way *this type of person is*? What about the lesbians who have attraction to more than one gender but don't identify as bi or mspec lesbians?

If you want to feel more in control, talk to your community as a whole, not just the ones you deem worthy, and stop assigning labels to others because you can or think you can. Lest you be the next person assigned a label without any say and with no care if you are said label.

Please, those who are outside of these binaries of terms feel free to add your input. I don't care if you disagree with any sentiments, I just want to hear from you.

[rantingcrocodile]

I’m so tired of following lesbian radfems for months, enjoying their posts, interacting with them, trusting their judgement on issues and thinking they’re generally very rational and insightful, feeling a sense of community with them etc and then they start posting about how much they hate bisexual women out of nowhere. like, the amount of times someone i’ve followed has posted something kinda iffy about bisexuals, i’ve gone on their blog and searched the word bi or bisexual and every. single. post is negative is insane. like, hundreds of posts complaining about bisexuals and nothing positive whatsoever. imagine if that was the other way around, we would get absolutely slaughtered. i swear this happens SO much, like more often than not at this point, and it’s so heartbreaking everytime knowing that they think i don’t belong or that they hate me and think i’m taking up space because of imaginary scenarios they’ve created about bisexual women. I’ve spent years in lgb spaces talking over and over about how great lesbians are and how much i support them and don’t want to intrude on their space and am lucky to be allowed in shared spaces w them etc, and more recently have put so much energy into defending them against ridiculous arguments TRAs make, and i really meant every word but i’m starting to think nothing would ever be enough to be accepted or to make up for the crimes they think other bisexuals have done or whatever and like i really don’t think the majority would do the same for us. and I think I’m realising how much the hostility towards bisexuals has affected me and how i’ve always felt like i should be eternally grateful to lesbians for showing basic respect and not hating me and to the rest of the community for “letting” bisexuals like me in their space. idk if its just me but its like theres always been this unspoken agreement that the community is really for lesbians & gay men and that bisexuals are only here because they allow us to be, not because we are as valid and as important a part of the community in our own right. I joined rablr only a couple months ago thinking i’d finally found a group of women i feel solidarity with whose views i share, but it has been particularly unwelcoming i honestly dk what to do anymore like i can’t deal with the ridiculousness and misogyny of the rest of the community but I can’t with this either . and everytime I mention feeling this way everyone’s first response seems to be the whole “youre not oppressed for being attracted to men or for not feeling like you can talk about opposite sex attraction in lgb spaces!!” thing even tho I never bring that up in the first place as a reason for feeling unwelcome. like, ever!! and that’s always the only thing they think we might be complaining about. and the small handful of times I’ve complained about facing biphobia from lesbians off anonymous i’ve been told off for generalising lesbians but idk how else to even talk about it because even adding “some” before the word lesbian every time you say it is still not enough apparently. it starts to feel like im just not allowed to talk about any negative experiences w them at all. I’m so frustrated. Sorry for the long rant, apologies that this is is not very eloquent & thank you if you take the time to read this & ty for speaking up for bisexuals

Don't ever apologise for ranting, first of all.

The most important thing to remember is that it never matters how badly others treat you, you have to stick to your principles and do the right thing. It wouldn't matter if every single lesbian wanted us all dead, homophobia is still wrong and it's still good to stand against homophobia.

You're absolutely right, though. Whatever good we do will never be enough for biphobes. As far as the LG communities go, we're only "allowed" to be tacked onto the end for half of our bisexual attraction. They're not interested, generally speaking, in us as full people. We're only allowed in their spaces to support them. Because LGB spaces are their spaces, not ours, not really, not when the constant complaint boils down to the biphobia that they believe we somehow "bring in heterosexuality" if we discuss our full bisexuality.

There are a lot of arguments back and forth and denials about why there's so much biphobia in radfem spaces, but I think this short Twitter thread breaks it down perfectly:

The above is exactly what it boils down to: biphobic lesbians believing that they can't be biphobic because they genuinely do believe that bisexuals are automatically infected by men.

That's why there's such thin-ice praise for "febfems," because at least those bisexuals are loudly proclaiming that they're not going to allow themselves to be infected by men.

Biphobic lesbians can deny it until they're blue in the face, but they genuinely believe that they're somehow "purer feminists" because they're incapable of feeling attraction to men.

They believe, down to their bones, that every single woman who isn't a lesbian is a danger that carries male danger somehow.

That's why they praise "febfems" so much, especially the "febfems" who openly hate other bisexuals, because those bisexuals are sharing in their misogynistic "women that are capable of being attracted to men are inferior and infected with innate anti-feminism."

There's a huge biphobic belief that a woman being bisexual means "forever available to be used by men" (the same biphobia that denies bisexual women's agency and ability to consent), so when "febfems" distance themselves from the word "bisexual" by downgrading it to the "b" in "febfem," then that specific biphobia against them can be forgotten about, right while they allow others to keep believing that the rest of us are man-hungry.

It's also why biphobic lesbians get so angry when called out for biphobia and why there's so much, "So you're saying we're oppressing you?!" rubbish, because they view us not as fellow women, but as extensions of men. And the idea of lesbians somehow being bigoted towards male-adoring objects is an anathema to them.

They claim "we want women's liberation," but they don't trust other women. Not just for the reasonable reason of, "As a lesbian, I fear that other women are homophobic," but because they believe that women with the capacity to be attracted to men are always on the cusp of turning their backs on feminism to become tradwives. They see themselves as actual people, free from the taint of men, while the rest of us are weaklings waiting for the next hit of male validation.

They hate straight women of course - unless those straight women loudly proclaim how much they hate men and would never touch another man - but they see straight women as poor shmucks who were born inferior and it's not their fault. Still oppressors for being straight, but they're women, so that isn't their fault.

Ironically, in the first tweet, it says that it would only be biphobic to deny bisexuality is real - but that's what the vast majority of monosexuals (and even plenty of bisexuals with internalised biphobia) already do.

The reason that they hate bisexuals more than straight women is because they really do believe that we don't have actual human feelings, emotions and reactions. They believe that we can "choose" who to love and date, so if we don't loudly proclaim to hate men and never want to touch a man, then we're worse than straight women, because if we aren't performing like that, then to them, that must mean that we're actively "choosing" men. But even if we are seen as "choosing" women, then we're accused of not "really" being attracted to women, that we're "destined to end up with men," that we only ever "use" lesbians, and the thick undercurrent of, "how dare bisexuals date lesbians when there are relatively few lesbians about, you're taking Our Rightful Women."

That's also why there's a denial of biphobia, because the only thing that matters to them is same-sex attraction, not full bisexual attraction. Which also ends up becoming victim-blaming, because according to them, we "choose" men so we deserve whatever rape and abuse we get, but if we "choose" women then we're also "choosing" to be oppressed, so then we still don't matter and only lesbians should ever matter. We can share statistics, explain the truth, give the most basic and obvious examples to prove biphobia is real, even share our own stories, but they don't want to listen, because they're coming from the misogynistic standpoint of "you're infected by men and therefore bad and I don't want to be infected."

That is why sexuality is so moralised here. Because biphobic lesbians have elevated themselves above all others. The biggest victims of patriarchy, and yet the only ones who can somehow fully examine patriarchy because they're the only ones not "infected."

Despite the fact that a massive amount of patriarchy has nothing to do with individual romantic relationships. Despite the fact that there are some specific kinds of misogyny that no lesbian will ever be able to understand, purely because she's a lesbian. Despite the fact that all of this is predicated on the misogynistic idea that women are all naturally obsessed with and will be subservient to men.

So I'll give you the same advice that I give to others. Always try your best to stick to your principles. Your principles are only your principles when you stick by them even when it's hard and you really don't want to. But don't expect anyone other than bisexuals to care about bisexuals. Because that way, you won't be disappointed when you find the usual biphobia that's around, but instead will be pleasantly surprised and overjoyed when you find the rare person that does care about us.

As for the state of radical feminism now? That's not for us. Not in practice.

I recommend radical bifeminism. It goes back to the roots of radical feminism, takes all the theories we know and understand, focuses on material reality, prioritises bisexual women without tiering ourselves above anyone else, strips out the biphobia, doesn't moralise sexuality and stands against all misogyny to strive for women's liberation.

If you're over 18, then you should join the bisexual discord, too, because you're guaranteed a home with us.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Bisexuality didn't "feel right" as a label because you're biphobic and will do anything to distance yourself from bisexuality. Get well soon, the bi community will be here when you're ready.

Are you the raging homophobe anon back for round two or a new guy? ...It doesn’t really matter, you people are all the same.

If you are the same anon, then now I’m extra pissed off at you because do you have any idea how difficult it is to make fun of your messages? You’re making this really hard for me. First you send a five word ask declaring me a homophobe with no details, and it took a lot of thinking to come up with a vaguely funny response to such a lackluster prompt. You’re a really bad improv partner.

And now you send me this shit. Sorry everybody, no jokes today, now I’m actually just fucking furious.

Let me tell you a story, anon. When I was an innocent little twelve year old back in the far of reaches of 2011, I first discovered Tumblr, and soon enough I was learning about different genders and sexualities, and began exploring my own identity. As you already know since you’re sarcastically quoting me talking about my own fucking feelings, I’d been having a minor sexuality crisis for several years at that point, since gay, straight and bisexual were the only label I’d known before then, and none of them fit me. Despite me trying all of them. Multiple times. You condescending piece of shit.All this was resolved by me stumbling across a post defining pansexuality, and that being the first and only sexual identity that’s ever actually felt right for me. It clicked instantly, and has continued to be my sexuality for literally a decade now.

But back when I first started entering the queer community, pansexuality was actually pretty controversial. So was bisexuality. The two were just lumped together actually, because according to the exclusionists back then, bi/pan people are attracted to the opposite sex, and therefor are basically just straight. Actually they rarely cared enough to bother differentiating between bisexual and pansexual people, they just lumped us all in together as a bunch of heteros pretending to be gay for attention and oppressing the real gays. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be gay for attention. So there I was, a twelve year old queer kid with a brand new identity, being welcomed by a bunch of exclusionists angrily yelling about how I was definitely just a hetero faking it for attention, and being pansexual was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Let’s jump forward a few years. I was older, and still perfectly confident in my identity as a pansexual. I hadn’t considered any other parts of my identity. Why would I? I just never really thought much about gender. Then shortly after my fourteenth birthday, I watched a short film online about a trans boy figuring out his identity and working up the courage to come out to his mother. I don’t remember what it was called or most of the details. All I remember was the last scene where the boy and his mother got into an argument about him not feminine enough, which ended with him screaming that he wasn’t a girl. And then I unexpectedly burst into tears because neither was I.

So that was a fun surprise. Once I pulled through that unexpected sobbing breakdown in the middle of the night and re-evaluated my entire life, I realized that yeah. I really wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t a boy either. Fortunately by then I knew that nonbinary people were a thing, so I had plenty of options. I spent awhile feeling things out and experimenting with different labels and pronouns before finally settling on agender and they/them pronouns. Which was great! I felt better than ever, and was confident that I had my identity down and everything would be fine. But everything was not fine. Because I’d been so happy about the biphobia dying down that I hadn’t quite noticed the exclusionists switching targets. Now the nonbinary people were lying. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. The ones who wanted to medically transition were declared to actually be poor confused trans people who couldn’t get over their internalized transphobia to accept their True Identities. And the rest of us... well, we were just a bunch of cishet special snowflakes playing at being trans for attention, and oppressing the real trans people. I wasn’t agender. I was a cis girl making up fake identities for attention, and calling myself nonbinary was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Step forward a few more years, now to eighteen year old me. There’s no dramatic revelations or long struggles this time, just a slow realization. Because I’d been single for years, and I wasn’t bothered by that. I actually enjoyed it. Marriage didn’t sound very appealing. Neither did dating. I’d dated people before, but I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to; it was just... the thing I was supposed to do. I found people attractive, sure. But I hadn’t wanted to flirt with anyone. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, had I ever felt romantically attracted to anyone? I didn’t even want romance in fiction! So I experimented. Went on some dates just in case age made it more appealing (it didn’t). Began calling myself aromantic, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the longer I used it, the better it felt. It was right.

But once again, the exclusionists were back and even angier than ever. Because now aphobia was in full swing. After all, asexuality wasn’t really queer. It’s just not having sex! It’s basically straight! What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. And the aromantics, oh the aromantics who weren’t asexual were even worse. Because everyone knows that love is what makes us human. How could someone not feel romance? Us aro people weren’t just lying about our identities, we were pretending to not have feelings so that we could get away with using people for sex without commitment. Being aro meant I was an abusive sex crazed monster taking advantage of all the poor innocent allo’s. I wasn’t aromantic. I was a sexual predator making up a fake identity to take advantage of people, and even though I wasn’t actually sleeping around calling myself aro was Bad and Wrong. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

And I didn’t fucking do that.

Look. I’ve been here for a very long time, and I have dealt with so many versions of exclusionist bullshit. Every aspect of my identity has been met with random fucking strangers online smugly informing me that I was wrong about myself and they were right. And that’s just the ones that wanted me to pretend to be something else; about half of the exclusionists didn’t make any attempts at conversion therapy, and instead skipped straight to suicide baiting. I’m not even getting into the actual homophobes I’ve had to deal with, or the TERF’s that have come after me under the assumption that I’m a trans woman. My point is, I’m pretty fucking used to this sort of thing.

This just hurts a little more, because like I said earlier, the first round of exclusionism I faced was just expanded biphobia. And the bi/pan community banded together in the face of that. We weren’t the exact same identities, but we were being treated the same, and we were similar enough that nobody really minded the difference. It was wonderful. Bi and pan people were a tightly knit group, and that was a sense of community I desperately needed when I was young. I’ve been seeing this coming for awhile. There’s been increasing amounts of bi people getting drawn in by exclusionist bullshit, and I’ve seen anti-pansexual sentiment growing. I just... really hoped it wouldn’t get this far. It’s sad, y’know? It feels like losing an old friend. I’m really disappointed that you think trying to force people out of their community is right. It’s fucking pathetic, and I hope that someday you’ll rediscover basic compassion and realize how much damage you’re doing to yourself and others. This sort of thing doesn’t help the bisexual community. It drives people away. It’s like the damage that TERF’s have done to the lesbian community; this sort of thing poisons the whole well. I hope you re-evaluate what you’re doing and find a more healthy mindset.

...But also at the same time: Who the fuck do you think you are? Take your condescending bullshit and shove it directly up your ass you fucking waste of oxygen. How the fuck dare you. Do you realize the fucking audacity it takes to claim to know someone's identity better than they do? You self centered egotistical douchebag. Your parents should feel ashamed for having raised such an utter failure of a human being. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but I can already tell you beat off twice a day to how fucking clever you think you are. If you ever darken my inbox again you’d better be damn sure you keep it anonymous, because if I find you I’ll kick your fucking teeth in, you smug piece of shit.

[ownerofidaho]

also not to fucking mention. LEGIT every argument is like "so i'm demisexual according to this" yeah well... sure? why not? whenever i see arguments that are like, "apparently I'm gray-ace lol that really proves how bullshit the ace spectrum is" nah mate that doesn't prove anything, we don't know your life you might be gray-ace actually. no one care if you're gray-ace bi, het or homo. with those arguments, there’s also the additional subtext of "but I'm normal so that can't be right." Their full statement therefore reads: "so I'm demisexual according to this, but I'm normal so that can't be right". To them, "demisexual" is code for "weirdo", and no one wants to be a weirdo. even worse, if you asked them for a reason why they weren't demisexual I'm sure they'd legitimately say what you just said. They honestly have no clue that their own aphobia is so strong.

i think these people are missing the fact that demisexuality isn't actually supposed to be a secret backdoor to the super cool exclusive asexual society. saying "haha so I'm '''demi'''??? LOL" like it's some sort of GOTCHA loophole?... it's just a word. to describe how some people feel. if the label helps you feel more comfortable with making sense of the world around you, then cool, you're welcome! if you don't think it's necessary, then cool, don't use it! people don’t realize that it’s not a oh i don’t want to be with someone who i don’t have a connection with. it’s a i’m not attracted to anyone and the thought of sex is a bit disgusting unless it’s with someone i have a real connection with.

The hatred and dismissal of aro/ace people is so confusing to me. i think it might stem from some sort of "how dare you be different" thing. so far I've figured out it can come from either insecurity ("do you think being different makes you better than me?! huh?!") or conformity ("here's a list of traits it's acceptable differ in: hair color, which middle-class car you drive, which tv show you watch, etc. you're not allowed to replace your hair with a feather wig. you're not allowed to ride a unicycle instead of car. you're not allowed to swear off watching tv altogether, in favor of only reading books.")

actually, it’s because they think asexual people aren't oppressed and that the only queer experience people get to have is suffering. there's another semi-popular tumblr post floating around about trans people that says (paraphrased) "if you got hrt before 20 and you're family accepted you then you're cis for all i care, we have like two things in common" and that's obviously bullshit, but it highlights their thought process. thing is, being queer isn't inherently based on suffering and it's not a competition where the people who have suffered the most are really queer. like sure, in the eyes of the law asexual people aren't oppressed, but... why would you wish that harm and suffering on them just for some oppression points?

the best way to explain it to people is it isn’t an action, it’s attraction. just because a guy chooses not to have sex with a man doesn’t say anything about his sexuality, he could still very well be gay. this is action. if a man finds himself attracted to a man but chooses not to have sex with him that does not change that he is gay. just like the gay man doesn’t choose to be attracted to men, demisexuals don’t choose who we end up attracted to after the emotional connections are formed. we can choose not to or even to have sex outside of that, but our attraction remains the same regardless of what actions we choose. just like a gay man can choose to have sex with a woman even if he isn’t attracted to her. if demisexuality were normal, porn would not be a thing, being turned on by strangers would not be a thing, etc.

ARO/APHOBES, TRANSMEDS, TERFS, BI/PANPHOBES DNI WITH THIS FUCKING POST.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

does being bi mean there are only 2 genders? bc i think that there are more than 2 but i’m not pan

To answer your question you have to define what bisexuality means and there’s more then just one definition here are some examples as seen here:

Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one sex or gender. It may also be defined as romantic or sexual attraction to people of any sex or gender identity, which is also known as pansexuality.

The BRC uses bisexual as an umbrella term for people who recognize and honor their potential for sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender. We celebrate and affirm the diversity of identity and expression regardless of labels.

A bi person has the capacity for romantic and/or sexual attraction to more than one gender.

This is how we define it: A bisexual is someone who is attracted to more than one gender. You might care about the gender of your partner a lot, a little, or not at all – but their gender doesn’t prevent you from being attracted to them.

Bisexual – A person whose enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction is to other people of various sexes and/or gender identities. Individuals may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime.

Bisexuality is the potential to feel attracted to and to engage in sexual and/or romantic relationships with people of any sex or gender.

I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.

Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders, not necessarily to the same extent, not necessarily in the same way, not necessarily at the same time.

bisexuality is, broadly speaking, the attraction to two or more genders. bisexuality is not inherently or transphobic or exclusive of non binary genders—note that there are both binary and non-binary trans people who identify as bisexual. it is possible for bisexuals to be attracted to be attracted to anywhere from two to an infinite number of genders. many times, bisexuals will define their own sexuality as the attraction to both similar and different genders (which encompasses all genders). however, it is important to remember that bisexuals can be attracted to multiple genders without being attracted to people of their own gender. for example, an agender bi person may be attracted to women, bigender, and genderfluid people, or a bi woman might be attracted to men and agender people…..

bisexual: the (sexual) attraction to two or more genders. sometimes defined as the attraction to same + different genders; however, this is not true of all bisexuals.

bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders”

Bisexuals have been defining bisexuality as the attraction to two or more/same and other for decades. This isn’t some made-up tumblr joke. Words change meaning. Prefixes change meanings. We didn’t even give ourselves the term bisexual to begin with, doctors did.

bisexual- sexually attracted to your same/similar gender and other gender(s), OR sexually attracted to 2 or more genders. Some bisexuals feel that they experience different kinds or degrees of attraction to different genders/gender presentations.

Bi: attracted to two or more genders. Some people will define it as “attracted to similar and different genders,” but this is slightly less inclusive than the above definition. I’m of the mind that “similar and different” evolved to satisfy bi=2 prescriptivists, but they are insatiable and forever gross.

…being bi does not reinforce the gender binary. And some bi people are only attracted to men and women–and that’s ok! However, bi is not defined as the attraction to men and women, or two genders. It can be for an individual, but not for our entire community. That definition is not only false, but harmful. (This is not to imply that bi people can’t be transphobic!) This also means that you don’t have to be sexually attracted to people to be bi. There are so many different kinds of attraction, and to just focus on bisexuality would be excluding a lot of people (e.g. being biromantic).

What does bisexual mean?

Attraction to:

1. Two or more genders or

2. More than one gender.

Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders

Bisexuality is not half gay and half straight. Bisexuality is not in between gay and straight. Bisexuality is not gay when dating the same gender and straight when dating a different gender. Bisexuality is not gay-ish or straight-ish. Bisexuality is its own fully independent self-contained complete orientation.

We are tired of being analyzed, defined and represented by people other than ourselves, or worse yet, not considered at all. We are frustrated by the imposed isolation and invisibility that comes from being told or expected to choose either a homosexual or heterosexual identity. Monosexuality is a heterosexist dictate used to oppress homosexuals and to negate the validity of bisexuality. Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have “two” sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit. Do not equate promiscuity, infidelity, or unsafe sexual behavior with bisexuality. Those are human traits that cross all sexual orientations. Nothing should be assumed about anyone’s sexuality, including your own. We are angered by those who refuse to accept our existence; our issues; our contributions; our alliances; our voice. It is time for the bisexual voice to be heard

Defining bisexuality, just like defining any identity label, can be complicated and controversial. My definition of the label “bisexual” is informed by the work of The Bisexual Organizing Project. It includes people who use labels such as “bisexual,” “non-monosexual,” “persexual,” “omnisexual,” “ambisexual,” “pansexual,” “queer” or any other term that people use to identify themselves as individuals who are emotionally, romantically or physically attracted to people of more than one sex, gender or gender identity. I also recognize that not everyone chooses to adopt a label to describe their sexual orientation, and I also include non-labeling people who see themselves as part of a queer, non-monosexual or bisexual community under my definition of “bisexual.

Reasons why the prefix/etymology argument is not a very good one against “bi = attraction to 2 or more

[my-darling-boy]

What is ace? I hope asking this isn’t offensive, I’m just honestly curious.

Oooh no worries, it’s not offensive to ask :P I’d be glad to explain!

Ace is short for being asexual, and there are many ways that asexual people interpret and view what being asexual means to them, but asexuality generally means you do not experience sexual feelings for others. However, some use asexuality as a blanket term to describe other orientations in the ace spectrum such as greysexual or demisexual (more on these later). So with that in mind, asexuality is also categorised by those who experience quite inconsistent or unclear sexual feelings. Asexuals may experience forms of attraction, such as romantic, aesthetic, and sensual attraction, but still not feel the need to pursue someone sexually. This is NOT to be confused with sex repulsion; although there are some asexuals who are sex repulsed as well, the two are separate ideas. This is also NOT to be confused with low libido, which is often an argument to discredit asexuality. Having a low libido, the body’s low desire to feel bodily satisfaction, is not the same thing as asexuality, which is, loosely, the mental feeling of having no (or unclear) desire to have sex with someone. Contrary to popular belief, an asexual person can actually have a very high libido and still not experience sexual attraction. Asexuality is also NOT to be confused with being celibate, which is the act of consciously abstaining from having sex.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of hate towards people who identify as ace, both within the LGBT+ community and outside of it. There are even recent accounts of asexuals being driven out of Pride events because they were flying ace flags. You might think a lack of sexual attraction would be cause for people to leave us be, but instead, it draws just as much harassment from LGBT+ people as it does from cishets. Many trans individuals are targeted as well since a higher number of trans people identify as ace. Lots of asexuals sometimes feel unsafe to disclose their asexuality because of situations like this. Seemingly nice people have even abruptly stopped talking to me after I casually mention being ace. And if you are unfamiliar with asexuality as you say, I think it’s important to know that there is a lot of misinformation surrounding asexuality which needs to be taken into consideration if you ever plan on looking more into it. So here’s a bit of some General Info and it’s a bit Longᵀᴹ and I’m by no means a Highly Educated Ace Expert, but this is what I can tell you as best I can!

Some people feel asexuals receive no oppression or hardships at all, and that they don’t deserve a place in the LGBT+ community simply because they lack attraction in that manner. This is not true.

Something asexual people hear, ironically from people who claim to be LGBT+ allies, a lot is: “You just haven’t found the right person yet!” which, surprise, is what lots of other lesbian, gay, bi, etc. people hear. “You just haven’t had sex yet” is an invalid argument since people accept gay men all the time who have never dated men before; those men know they are gay because they feel romantic feelings towards a man before having intercourse with one. Asexuality works in the same fashion. I don’t have to have sex to know if I’m asexual, because the fact I already lack sexual desire, sexual attraction, etc. is already enough to tell.

People who are ignorant towards asexual people will often say that they’re “sick and demented” for having no sexual attraction, since society has been predisposed to think for a very long time that the pinnacle of a relationship is sex, which is untrue. Sex can be a way for a couple to express their love for one another but it is NOT the only way, though society often treats it like it is. Many asexuals, myself included, felt very alone and confused growing up into adulthood as seemingly everyone around them–friends, family, advertisements, films, music, clothing–assured them they were SUPPOSED to be feeling sexual attraction, and they weren’t, and it can make an ace person feel very isolated and yes, mentally ill. I myself thought there was something wrong with me when all of my contemporaries were obsessed with sex and I wasn’t. Even more pressure is put on asexual people when their parents demand children from them, when people make fun of them for seeming “so innocent” for not having sex or, even worse, when partners FORCE them to have sex with them. Asexual people sometimes suffer in relationships where their partner feels sex is vital to being a couple and forces the asexual person into having sex to “convert” them and you guessed it! It’s called rape. If you ever encounter a situation as an ace person where your partner feels that they are entitled to sex with you just because you are in a relationship with them, they do not deserve you, as NO ONE is entitled to your body but you. Allosexual people, the term used to describe anyone who DOES feel consistent sexual attraction, do not often understand how strongly steeped society is in sexual content and how even large corporations capitalise off of perpetuating the idea that sexual attraction is the hallmark of being a human. This massive and widespread idea has led lots of people to believe asexual people are mentally ill and that is COMPLETELY untrue. It is completely normal to have no sexual attraction or very weak/unclear sexual attraction to people. And this is what asexuality means.

Usually, people who are misinformed on asexuality hear the term and think of this completely heartless, emotionless person, and this is also untrue. They can be lovable, bubbly, and sweet! Asexuals are not emotionless: they experience the same levels of emotion as anyone else. ALSO. Asexual people can be romantic! Asexual people can hug AND kiss! Asexual people can masturbate! Asexual people can even have sex and still be asexual! Why? Because it has to do with the fact in all these examples, they still lack sexual desire and/or attraction to the person or object they engage in these activities with. You can like the feeling of sex as an asexual person; what makes you asexual is that you enjoy the feeling of the action versus feeling the actual desire towards the person you’re having it with. However, some people feel this latter fact makes them greysexual, a term used to describe someone who has unclear levels of sexual attraction or simply doesn’t know where to identify on the asexual scale. Some may even feel they are demisexual, a person who feels sexual attraction only after getting to know a person very well or being with someone for a long time. And some people even feel liking sex, without having sexual desire/attraction to the person they have it with, makes them not asexual. Some asexual people do not feel comfortable with kissing, and some love sloppy kisses. Some asexuals love things like very bodily romantic activities (such as what some might refer to as foreplay), and some just prefer holding hands or hugs. Some asexuals masturbate a lot, and some may never feel the want to or do it seldom. Some asexuals experiment with kinks, and some do not. Often, the definition of being asexual, along with its general perception, is often too black and white. You don’t have to hate EVERY bit of physical interaction to be considered asexual because like a lot of sexualities, it’s a sliding scale. And figuring out whether or not your personal preferences regarding romantic relationships makes you ace or not is really completely up to you when determining which term feels more comfortable.

Acephobic people often use the same historic argument that was used against gay men through the decades: that just explaining the sexuality is being inappropriate towards teens, which is also untrue. Acephobic people, after some Mental Gymnastics, believe that asexual people are pushing the idea that teens need to be constantly contemplating sex in order to even figure out if they’re asexual, and therefore, perverted, which is just??? The same kids get taught sex education in school (For instance, I was 10 when we had our first lesson) and some adults object to this because they don’t want their kids to be learning about sex at so young an age. But like school sex ed, or even explaining what being a lesbian means or what being asexual means, it’s being done so educationally, so that when a person is ready to determine something about themselves in regards to sexuality or gender, they have the tools and resources to make an educated self discovery with themselves and how they feel they identify. I can’t tell you how relieved I would have been at 14 for someone to tell me that it was normal to feel no interest in all of the sexual content my friends were obsessed with at the time. Instead, I was made to feel “weird” and was made fun of because I wasn’t infatuated with it like everyone else. It even led me to have so many nights crying, wondering how I was going to ever find someone to love after being taught that ALL my partner would want is sex. Explaining being gay to a 13 year old isn’t trying to force the teen into having thoughts on whether or not they like male sex, it’s simply saying “If you like boys, and you’re a boy, that’s normal!” Asexuality is the same way. It could simply be introduced by saying “If all your friends are getting curious about sex and certain body parts and you don’t feel very interested in that now and ALSO as time goes on, that’s normal!” And this is VERY important for asexual people to know. A lot of kids grow up thinking sex is expected of them, and are more likely to, once adults, be pressured into it and get stuck in relationships they feel abused or uncomfortable in. In a highly-sexulised modern society, it is important anyways to inform younger people it is normal to not be interested in sex and they should not be pressured into feeling like they should be. In fact, there are studies which show asexual people are just as likely to experience corrective rape, dehumanisation, abuse, sexual harassment, and invalidation, as other LGBT+ members and may also experience unique forms of sexual abuse allosexual people, within the LGBT+ community or not, do not endure. Educating people about asexuality is just as important as educating them about being gay or being transgender. It’s giving LGBT+ youth the resources they need to avoid being manipulated, given misinformation, or made to feel lesser and letting them know that who they are, however they eventually identify, is valid. Personally, I find the parents/adults who reject explanations of being asexual are the same parents/adults who ironically perpetuate sexual-normativity charged ideas in their household such as insisting on telling their 13 year old daughter to give them grandchildren, which for those of you who don’t know, usually requires sex. The same sex they don’t want their kids knowing anything about when someone talks about asexuality or being gay. Weird, right? It’s almost like they think anything other than being straight is “dirty” and should not be taught to their children or something. Also, I should note, Stonewall even flies the asexual pride flag (the purple, grey, black, and white). So for those acephobes trying to say asexuals are “fake”, just know the literal Stonewall officially acknowledges asexuality

And for me personally, I am gay, but I’m also asexual. So how does this work? Well, asexual people only have issues with the “sex” part. There’s nothing in it that outlines romantic attraction. I love men and doing romantic things with men, but have no sexual desire/attraction to them. There are asexual individuals who identify as aromantic-asexual. Meaning, in addition to not being interested in sex, they may also not be interested in being romantic. Since I’m gay and ace, I could technically also be referred to as homoromantic-asexual (having romantic feelings for another person of the same gender and ALSO having no sexual feelings towards another). But for ease of wording, I say gay and ace :P But you can say whatever you want! You can be biromantic-asexual! Or Pan and ace!

I should also note that, if you feel you are ace yourself, even though things might seem hopeless or scary with the amount of people spreading lies and hatred, you will find a partner who loves you, if that is something you wish to pursue and are worried will never be a reality. You will find friends who understand you or who are ace or aro as well. You will find people who support you. Your asexuality is not a burden or a disappointment. You are not “boring” or “selfish”. And you deserve every bit of happiness. 

There are more than a few websites and sources about asexuality, but I feel this one provides some short but concise insight into if you would like to know a little more!

Thanks for the ask!

[chasingshhadows]

I probably shouldn’t jump in on this but it’s bugging me so I’m just gonna say this and then be done with it.

There’s a lot of talk in the Roswell fandom right now about biphobia, specifically around characters (Michael) being made to “prove” their bisexuality, and perpetuating negative stereotypes (promiscuity).

And I really, really don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings because if that’s what you’re seeing in this show, that’s valid and it’s hurtful and I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m not writing this post as a way to brush your feelings under the rug and say your experiences and trauma are negligible- I’m writing this because I’m seeing a lot of people that I’ve come to care about hurting and maybe, just maybe, I can show a perspective that doesn’t hurt.

(and also before I say any of this - I am an unrepentant Michael stan and an endgame, soulmates, nothing-will-ever-compare Malex shipper, so, context is key.)

Because I just... don’t agree that what we’re seeing is hurtful to the bisexual community. 

The first part, regarding characters needing to “prove” their bisexuality in order to be seen as “true” bisexuals is in fact a massive problem in the bisexual community - every day, we’re told we’re not really bisexual unless we’ve “done both” - the moment we end up in a relationship where our partner is the same gender as our most recent partner, we’re suddenly “no longer” bisexual, because we’ve finally “picked one.” If we don’t literally keep a 1:1 ratio and jump back and forth like hopscotch, our identity is erased.

I’ve experienced this and it’s damaging. My father literally told me that I needed to sleep with multiple people of both genders for him to see me as valid - I was 18. He also told me once I “settled” (read: married) - I would either be lesbian or straight depending on the gender of my partner. My best friend, who is gay, told me “hmm I just feel like you’re gonna end up with a guy, in the end.” And that’s just the beginning. So when I say what I say next, I hope you know that I do it from a place of experience and solidarity.

Michael sleeping with, and catching feelings for, two people of differing genders on the show is not the show making him prove his bisexuality - it’s the show letting him express it. Your best friend telling you she won’t believe you’re bi until you’ve slept with “both” and a show portraying a character that sleeps with people from different genders are two very different things. 

I have watched a lot of queer television. There’s a queer character on a show? especially a bisexual one? Holy shit I am so there. It is the one and sole reason I started watching Roswell. I chase representation, hard. There is nothing more enticing in a new show than the idea that I might get to see myself in it.

That said, it is still incredibly rare to see bisexual characters on television, especially bisexual men. And I’m not talking about in the last 5 years, because in just five years I have witnessed a rapid shift in television to include more queer characters. 

But I didn’t grow up in the last 5 years, I grew up in the last 20. So I can count on one hand the number of bisexual characters I have ever seen that have been with (romantically or sexually) people of differing genders in any meaningful way, and I don’t know, probably never that those people weren’t just side characters.

So this is new, for us. Having a character canonically attracted to multiple people, regardless of gender, is a new thing we’re getting to see on television. And of course Michael shouldn’t have to sleep with people of different genders for people to believe that he’s bi, but no one whose opinion mattered ever doubted that he was bi when he said he was bi. So for me, this representation of him being with different people is representation of me. And I am Here For It.

More than that, there’s this idea that if a bisexual character enters a differing-gender relationship after leaving a same-gender one, that a show is abandoning queer representation because that relationship is “basically het.” 

I’m not het. I’m not straight, none of my experiences are straight. I am queer (of the bisexual variety) and any relationship I enter into will by default not be straight because I’m not straight. There is more to the queer experience than the way that people look at you on the street and there is abso-fucking-lutely more to the bisexual experience than the way you’re treated when you’re in a same-gender relationship. 

No this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a difference in experience (and oppression) between same-gender and differing-gender relationships from the perspective of the bi person - there absolutely is. But in both cases, a bisexual person will always always always feel unseen. So that difference is one of content, not quantity. 

So - I don’t think that Michael dating/sleeping with/whatever he’s doing with Maria is invalidating to the bisexual experience. I think it’s a chance for us to finally see the bisexual experience. Finally see that it can just be that easy, to find a connection with anyone and see that gender just doesn’t really come into play at all because it’s not relevant to bisexual people - at least, not to me. 

Now, the second part, the part where people are feeling... insulted, I think, that Michael sleeping with Maria after sleeping with Alex is perpetuating this very damaging stereotype of promiscuous, incapable-of-committing bisexuals.

I’m gonna take those one at a time (promiscuous/commitment issues) because I think they’re two different things.

I think a character, bisexual or not, being portrayed as promiscuous (by definition:  having or characterized by many transient sexual relationships) is 100% a non-issue. 

The real issue is that promiscuity is seen as a negative stereotype at all. The real issue is that being sexually expressive or sexually active is seen as morally reprehensible, as something that damages their character as a person.

And unfortunately this is a two-sided coin, the other side being that asexual, sexually shy, or sexually non-expressive is also seen as negative, but while I deeply feel it’s important enough to mention, it’s not the issue on Roswell right now.

The argument here is that the show is portraying Michael as promiscuous, which feeds into this stereotype that bisexual people can’t make up their minds and just go around sleeping with anyone and everyone without reservation or caring about anyone’s feelings and that not only is that the norm, it’s basically expected (see: my father). 

And if Michael were the only character on the show displaying these behaviors, I could understand why people thought that the show were actively trying to push said stereotype - even if I don’t see that stereotype as a bad thing anyway. 

But he’s not - not even close. Max and Cameron and Liz and Kyle - all of them have engaged in casual sex and both Max and Liz have hopped beds during this season. Casual sex (while again, not a universal experience by any means, nor should it be) is normal for adults of this age, and the show is portraying it as normal.

And by normal I don’t mean that like, it’s not messy - of course it’s messy and people get hurt and people do and say shitty things because they’re human. But the fact of engaging in casual sex, or sex with multiple partners within a short(ish) time frame, is not in and of itself problematic. 

Now, to the part about the commitment issues - there’s this notion that the show is trying to portray Michael as having abandoned his feelings for Alex to hop on Maria... and here I’m kinda just.....confused. 

“Where I stand, nothing’s changed.” “I never look away, not really.” 

The show has made clear, intentional, explicit attempts to show that Michael is ass over teakettle in love with Alex and has been since he was a kid. But they’ve also made it clear that Michael hasn’t been celibate since Alex left - casual sex is a part of his life, he said it episode one.  

And Michael tried with Alex - and Alex turned him down (honestly, for good fucking reasons, even if they break my heart). He tried and gave Alex everything he had and Alex walked away. 

And Michael ... has no choice but to try and move on. And he doesn’t even do it right away, it’s not like it’s the next day or even the next week. His bed has been cold for weeks, months, before he even looks at Maria like that. And him looking at Maria like that? Caring about her and finding her attractive and wanting to touch her and be touched? Does not in any way negate the way he feels about Alex even if he’s trying to make everyone, including himself, believe that it does. 

Is sleeping with his ex’s friend a shitty thing to do? Sure. I personally have very nuanced feelings about that whole thing and its place in media, but I won’t deny that what they’re doing is not just hurtful to Alex, it’s knowingly hurtful - Michael knows that what they’re doing will hurt him and he does it anyway.

But them making choices that are hurtful doesn’t make Michael a poor representation of bisexuality - not every underrepresented character needs to be a paragon of the moral high ground for them to be subversive to their stereotypes. In fact, I really believe that forcing underrepresented identities to always be perfect and do the right thing and make no mistakes and subvert every stereotype is far more problematic because it makes a statement that that identity is only worthy of respect and love when they behave.

So - let Michael misbehave. Let him sleep around. Let him try to drown his heartache in another person. Why should he have to be perfect when everyone else gets to be flawed?

No one is harder on queer representation and queer media than queer people - and I get it. We’ve had so much bad representation and we’re sick of it and that’s understandable. But it’s turned into this thing where every slice of representation has to be Perfect or it’s Garbage, and it’s leading creators to not want to try because they’re so harshly run off every time they do. And when they don’t try, they don’t learn, and when they don’t learn, they don’t do better.

And even if the show decides to ignore literally every precedent they’ve set thus far (would not be a first, believe me) and call it quits on Malex for good, Malex isn’t theirs anymore anyway. The instant the first fanfic posted to AO3, the millisecond that first AU gifset hit Tumblr - Malex became ours. We have enough on screen and off screen content to play around in for years to come and I really hope to see all of you on that journey with me. 

If even after reading this, you still feel hurt and misrepresented and insulted by Michael’s relationship with Maria, come pop into my chat or my inbox and let me weave you tales of how that never happened, let me erase that reality from your whiteboard and replace it with something you love. Canon is just a craft store of materials - if you don’t want to use the red beads, then don’t. There’s a whole aisle of blue ones just down the way.

[treehugginglibrarian]

Social Justice Bedroom Warriors

Social Justice Warriors need to stay out of people’s intimate lives, unless they’re personally invited in, because they’re starting to sound a bit like incels.  

Recently, a member of one of my childfree on-line forums posed a question regarding dating and mental health, being unsure whether it was acceptable for her to bow out of a potential relationship because the gentleman in question suffered from depression and anxiety. While most people, including those with one or both of those health issues, were quick to reassure her that she never has to date anyone she doesn’t want to, and she owes no one an explanation, others were less supportive. One entire sub-thread of this mess ended up dedicated to the notion that, if she did not date this man, she was an “ableist cunt.” That’s not how this works. THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. This also isn’t the first time I’ve seen this argument made.

As a population, we’ve gotten pretty good at reminding straight, white, men (and black men, on occasion) that women do not owe them anything. We don’t owe them our time, our phone number, a date, or sex. We do not owe them anything simply because they were born with a dick and took a fancy to us. It’s becoming increasingly clear, however, that the only people who don’t appear to be owed sex or relationships are straight, white, men. 

On multiple occasions during the course of my adult life, I have been called a “racist” by a black man who wanted my phone number and to whom I did not want to give it. Sometimes I didn’t want to give it to him because it was obvious he wasn’t my type. Sometimes I was just disinterested. Sometimes I was taken. In all instances, my rejection was not met merely with annoyance, but with a charge of “racism.” As though their blackness entitled them to my time, even if their maleness left me disinterested. As though a failure to be interested on my part could only be attributed to an aversion to brown skin, rather than an aversion to them, as an individual. I never thought much of these instances because I have, in fact, dated men of color before. As a child, my first Hollywood crush was on a black man. As an adult, about the only human I would consider leaving my wife for is a black woman (I jest. I would never leave my wife. But if I did it would be for Jessica Williams). My disinterest in these men was not because I am incapable of attraction to black bodies. I just wasn’t interested in those men; a fact they were quite offended by and quite willing to project over.  

Shortly after coming off of active duty, I got called “fat phobic” for the first time. It wouldn’t be the last time and, despite the general definition of oppressive hatred, at no time has this name been lobbed at me because I’ve been treating those who are overweight as though they are “less than.” I’m not scared of fat people. I don’t hate fat people. In fact, unless you are an overweight person with whom I am personally acquainted, I probably have effectively zero feeling about you or your excess weight. If you’re a fat person with whom I’m personally acquainted, my feelings towards you will have little to do with your weight and significantly more to do with your personality and your work ethic. You do you, boo, just don’t be a mean person or a shitty coworker along the way. That said, I acknowledge a lack of physical attraction on my part when it comes to overweight people. Part of it is that I’m just not attracted to the body type. Part of it is that I am an insanely active person, and I do make certain assumptions about other people’s lives and activity levels based upon their body types. I am going to assume that someone who is 150 pounds overweight is not going to be compatible with who I am as a person. My unwillingness to date people who fit this criteria, my disinterest in having sex with a body type that does not appeal to me, is apparently rooted in a deep and unacknowledged phobia of fat people. I got told by multiple women that unless I’m willing to force an attraction to fat people, I am fat phobic. How I treat these people out of the sheets is completely irrelevant. 

A little research showed that fatphobia was hardly the only politically correct pile of shite making its way into bedrooms. White people who won’t date outside their race are, with some level of regularity, told they’re racist. Refusing to date someone from another country, culture, or religious sect is now deemed xenophobic. Even refusing to date someone who had children or wildly different political views than your own was, somehow, deemed inappropriate. Even as society has been trying to drill into people’s heads that no one, NO ONE, is owed a relationship, that same society is doing an excellent job of telling us that we’re not allowed to say “no” to certain people. Saying “no” to marginalized or “othered” individuals is no longer a simple declination of sex, and is now an act of discrimination. Their marginalization, apparently, entitles them to both my time and my body. 

Through it all, sexism is a charge that has largely gone underutilized amongst most groups. Gay men are never called sexist for refusing to fuck women, and straight people are never called sexist or homophobic for not being queer. Lesbians, however, haven’t been granted this same dignity. (As usual, bisexuality is ignored. For once, the bi’s of the world are pleased about this). Probably because the idea that sexual pleasure can exist outside the scope of a penis is, for many, wildly inconceivable.     

For as long as lesbianism has been a thing, people with penises attempting to convince lesbians that said lesbians do, in fact, enjoy dicks have been a thing. For most of history, those people have been humans presenting as straight men, who apparently can’t conceive of a woman not wanting any dick at all, let alone their dick. In more recent years however, a vocal cohort of trans women, many pre-operative and still possessing intact penises, have taken to outing lesbians who refuse to date them as “transphobic.” As though one’s bedroom is an arena in which our efforts at establishing equality for all can be adequately assessed. 

Here’s the thing, a lack of attraction to a particular characteristic or a disinterest in having a particular characteristic in your bed or yourself, is not a form of discrimination. Why? Because absolutely no one, no matter how disenfranchised they may be by the rest of society, is ever owed personal time, relationships, or sexual intimacy from or by anyone else. They’re just not. Lesbians don’t owe transwomen sex or relationships, and they don’t owe them an explanation for why they’re not interested in these things. They are not suffering from a case of discriminatory genital preferences, because sexual proclivities are not preferences- they are ingrained parts of our beings. 

Do you really think straight women wouldn’t make the transition to vaginas if it was as simple as changing their genital preferences? The existence of straight women is proof positive that basically everything about our sexual attractions are beyond the scope of our control. 

While we can control whether or not we act on these attractions, control over what we are attracted to is pretty fucking limited. Do you really think pedophiles enjoy being pedophiles? If you do, I’d recommend reading an interview with one. It’s pretty eye-opening, if you can get past the part where you’re reading an interview with a pedophile. And all of them make quite clear that acting on their attraction to children is within their control, but the attraction itself is not. A fact that tends to leave them shunned by society whether they act on them or not, and pretty fucking miserable for obvious reasons. The list of things I’m not attracted to is relatively long and, while the list itself is mutable because additions have been made over the years, I have never found myself attracted to something that had once previously repulsed me. 

You will not change someone’s attractions simply by couching their sexual disinterest in social justice warrior language and attempting to shame them into being attracted to you. 

All you’ll do is piss them off and lose an ally. If you don’t want to date someone who is black, white, or purple, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to date someone with a particular set of genitalia, you don’t have, no matter what their external presentation is. If you don’t want to date a particular gender, you don’t have to. You don’t have to date people with mental illness, with food restrictions, with terminal cancer, or with webbed feet. You don’t have to date fat people, skinny people, or exercise obsessed people. You don’t have to date rich people or poor people, the fashion forward or the fashion oblivious. You don’t have to let anything other than your attraction to that particular person, or lack thereof, determine whether you date another person. And if you don’t want to date anybody, at all, you don’t have to. And you never, ever, ever owe them any explanation for why you are not interested. In fact, an argument could be made that you’re better off not giving them a reason.  

Get your shamey social justice warrior bullshit out of our bedrooms. NOW. 

No one owes you anything. 

[watermelinoe]

Can you share your thoughts on this common response to whether biphobia exists, that it isn’t ‘structural’? I.e. individuals might feel negatively about us, but that isn’t actually oppression, and the only actual oppression we experience is homophobia.

i don't see how it makes sense to describe our experience as homophobia when we aren't exclusively same-sex attracted. for me, it makes the most sense to describe oppression based on class, not perception. reading invisible women really cemented this idea for me, when she was describing how tools aren't designed for us, how medicine ignores our bodies, how car crashes are more deadly for us. when we're reminded of gender expectations, we perform worse. these things aren't based on someone perceiving us as female and reacting. this is woven into our world.

example: we can all agree that trans men who pass are still oppressed for being female, because oppression is class-based and not perception-based. our social class impacts how we interact with the world, and that's just as important as how the world perceives us. you wouldn't say that transwomen experience misogyny even in situations where they may pass as women, because they aren't female.

we navigate the world as bisexuals, not homosexuals. i've seen arguments that biphobia is a subset of homophobia, and i can rationalize that. but the exclusive same-sex attraction is an important difference, and our being attracted to both sexes isn't insignificant. people insist on dividing our sexuality into two parts, heterosexual and homosexual, but would you really argue that a bi woman who spends her whole life married to another woman without ever being with a man is "living as a lesbian?" just because she's seen as a lesbian? it just doesn't work like that. we don't shut off our bisexuality when it's "not in use" and live identical lives to whatever sexuality we "chose."

i'm not arguing that we experience biphobia AND homophobia, i'm saying that there's overlap - and other people can war over the exact borders if they want - but that there's more to oppression than how other individuals feel about us, situationally. when you look at studies on our quality of life, you can see higher instances of poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, and domestic violence. this is despite the fact that many bisexuals are in other-sex relationships. you could argue that it's homophobia, but i think it's important to distinguish between the experience of being exclusively same-sex attracted and being attracted to both sexes. the bisexual experience is a mixture of being same-sex attracted, but, importantly, being attracted to both sexes. that shapes how we experience the world. we internalize, the same way we internalize being female, and that affects our minds and our health and our overall quality of life (women have higher rates of depression and anxiety and chronic pain disorders and autoimmune disorders).

people think of oppression as someone saying slurs to you based on how you look to them and i think that makes it difficult to conceptualize it being any deeper than that, but our sense of self, as shaped by the world around us, has material consequences.

[pfs-peridot]

Acephobia, Allosexuality, and what it means to be Queer

I’ve been meaning to provide a comprehensive overview of the so-called “ace discourse” that seems to course through the internet every few years, like a UTI that’s survived 3 half-hearted trials of antibiotics, only ever fading- never dying. As an asexual individual that has been out in this world since the Year of our Lord 2010, there have been wild misconceptions surrounding this issue for as long as I can remember. Let’s start with some basics, just for fun.

Disclaimer: As an alloromantic person, I will not be speaking in regard to aromantics. Most of this stuff can be generalized, sure, but I don’t want to act like I know what it’s like to be aromantic when I truly don’t. Write your own analyses! Speak out! Smash the cishetallopatriarchy!

Asexual? Like a plant?

No, I do not experience a sexual attraction to myself. No, not all asexuals masturbate, nor do all asexuals not masturbate. I have never once woken up with a clone of myself nestled beside me, having reproduced as a microorganism would. These may seem silly things to think in this year, but this was the majority of conversation when I first began to come out. Figured I might as well get them out of the way early on.

Asexuality is defined as a non-normative lack of sexual attraction to anyone regardless of gender. “Normative” is a handy little word that means “outside of the spectrum which is considered “normal” by society”. For example, the construct of cisnormativity implies that being cisgender is the “normative” state for an individual to be. Thus, in the definition, you can hopefully begin to see what’s so queer about asexuality. Here are some more terms the community has!

Sex-positive Ace: An asexual individual who does not mind having sex

Sex-negative Ace: An asexual individual who would prefer to have no sex at all

Sex-repulsed Ace: An asexual individual who abhors all forms of sexual contact- for some, this includes activities like visiting a gynecologist.

Demi-asexual/Demisexual: An asexual that can experience sexual attraction once they have reached a level of closeness with an individual.

Grey-asexual: An asexual that experiences some level of sexual attraction, though not nearly enough to be considered within the “normative” range

Allosexual: A person that experiences a normative level of sexual attraction. Consider this term to be much like the terms “white”, “cisgender”, “abled”, “heterosexual”, and the like. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad to be this way, it’s just that being this way protects you from the discrimination that asexuals experience. Some dislike the term because “it groups me in with heterosexuals!”, but truly any adjective does that. I don’t see people saying “don’t call me white, it groups me in with heterosexuals!”.

It is truly not up to a bystander to determine whether or not someone is asexual. Personally, I knew that I was the moment I saw the term. Many said things along the lines of “Oh, you’re 15, you just haven’t bloomed yet”. However, I wouldn’t say that the analysis that you must be “of age” to identify as anything is necessarily true- Part of the reason I identified so heavily with the term was that I could feel how abnormal I was. 

My friends would talk about topics around sex, and I felt incredibly unengaged. I felt like the only person within my age group that felt the way I did. The sense of being an outsider was what caused me to gravitate to understanding myself as an asexual individual. Regardless of the sex-positive education I sought, despite having a friend group that adamantly put down any slut shaming, I could never find it within me to be sexually attracted to anyone. Many told me I was broken. I certainly felt that way. Finding a proper way to define myself helped me to embrace my difference instead.

Queer Enough To Ride

I would first like to reach out to those of you that believe that asexuality is not “queer” enough to be part of the LGBTQIA+ community- I understand why you want to gatekeep, that is- to staff the entrance to the community, deciding who is and who is not allowed within. Many of you are bisexual, nonbinary, and other queer folks that were once the subject of the “are you queer enough to ride” argument. 

I myself gatekept like you did. I quantified how trans a person needed to be to be considered part of the umbrella. I attempted to divide the bisexual community between “fake” and “real” bisexuals. I did this largely for one reason- I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt that, by providing a baseline, I could place myself squarely into a place of validity. If I could say where “not queer” began, I could say that I was surely queer! In my desperation to prove myself, I denounced the experiences of others. What I’ve now realized is an amazing concept: if we were to define all folks that felt ostracized for their presentations of gender and orientation (and wish to identify with the word itself, which not everyone does) as queer, that automatically does include us! As for using the word “queer”? I’ll turn to a very good friend of mine for this one -  @neurostorm​

Oh goodie, another fight over the operational definition of the word ‘queer.’ If you are taking the reclaimed slur approach, then NBs (which were largely unknown when the slur was at its apex and was strategically reclaimed), transmasculine people (whom the oppressor barely knows exist), and arguably even cis lesbians (who often had different slurs hurled toward them exclusively) don’t have a right to use it either; because the slur was disproportionately applied to gay men and transfeminine people (since the oppressor believed they were one and the same). However, it was agreed that by extension of a general oppression that all gay people and all trans people could “have” it. It was this same idea of general oppression that started the LGBT+ coalition, since on a 10,000 foot level, the oppressor saw them all as just different manifestations of the same thing. The redefinition of the slur to become synonymous with the political coalition was part of its reclamation. The strategy was twofold. First- use its deliberate fuzziness to capture all the edge cases, as gender and sexuality are highly individualized. Second - use this re-branding to neutralize the slur’s power further by completely transforming it to mean something else entirely in the hearts and minds of the cis-hetero world. Regardless of how one defines that term, there is one very basic truth. It has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on who gets to be considered a part of the greater LGBT+ coalition, whether or not the term is used to define it! So with that said, how SHOULD we define those who are included? Opinions vary, but strictly for the “sexuality” part of the equation of things, my personal definition I tend to fall back to is that it meets 3 basic categories. 1. Its a significant departure from standard sexuality. 2. It’s a significant departure from expectations placed upon you by society’s sexual defaults. 3. It has a major impact on ones life in how they relate to society’s sexual expectations. This doesn’t imply oppression a priori, and this is deliberate. Oppression is a byproduct of greater society being shitty to certain groups based on their identity, not a part of their identity itself (if it was, then that identity ceases to exist if the oppression against it stops, and I don’t stop being autistic just because I wake up in a paradise where abelism doesn’t exist). Oppression would be that there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group for their deviance from the imagined normal. So then, about the aces. Where do they fall in in regards to this criteria. 1. Asexuality is a significant departure from standard sexuality, as standard sexuality assumes a moderate-to-high level of libido and desire by default (less so for female perceived people, but less is not none). 2. Asexuality is a significant departure from expectations placed upon one because they are expected to perform sexuality and have a certain level of desire in order to be seen as good partners (and in the case of male-identified people, have their gender validated). 3. This has a major impact on ones life because the expectation and desire of sexuality (or at least the performance thereof for the sake of another) is seen as a default part of romantic relationships to the point where it is implicitly believed by some that it is the sole reason they exist. It has a major impact in that it is always assumed to be childhood trauma, shyness, and “not meeting the right person” (and you know what, even when that is the case it doesn’t invalidate the asexuality they have).

I’ll return to their infodump in just a bit, as they did have more to say. No, they are neither cis nor het, if you’re intent in devaluing their opinion. In fact, they’re not ace! So I will add some of my experience to the meat of their argument. I currently identify as GenderVague (being on the autism spectrum, I don’t necessarily have the best grasp of structures like “gender”), bi/panromantic, and asexual. I did not come out as any form of nonbinary until 2014, as I didn’t have the terms to describe myself, and I did not come out as non-heteroromantic until I forced myself into a state of inebriation (read: became absolutely plastered) and, well, slept with a girl to prove myself. 

I knew that I liked girls, don’t get me wrong! It’s just incredibly hard to prove that, you see, when you’re asexual. I could say that I crushed on girls since the 3rd grade all I liked, but I was forever a “fake bisexual” until I could say that I had sex with a woman. That community mindset (and a desire to not disappoint my allosexual gf) led to me doing what I did, all in the effort to validate myself.

I guess I’m bringing all of this up to say this- whenever I hear people talking about those “cishet aces” always “trying to invade” yadda yadda, I see myself in 2012. To the majority of queer folks, I absolutely appeared straight, being closeted. I’m certain asexual aromantics also are devalued as “straight” for the same reasons. I don’t think any of us are any less queer, forcing ourselves to have sex or not. I also really don’t think anyone whose m.o. is not being interested in sex will get much of anything besides community from being recognized as queer. And for those that identify as heteroromantic in full spirit? I’m going to echo what asexual people of all orientations have been saying- if you say that they’re not welcome, but you say that I’m welcome, you’re specifically stating that my experiences as an asexual person are nothing. Since I personally received far more discrimination for being asexual than for being bi (I emphasize personally, as everyone has different experiences), I feel invalidated when people say I wouldn’t be queer without being bi. You can’t consider my asexuality queer while at the same time stating that asexuality as a whole is not queer.  Let’s go onto the second half of @neurostorm ‘s rant-

As for oppression, there is a systemic pattern of mistreatment and marginalization against asexual people that favors the power structure. The Asexual community can probably answer this in more detail, but off the top of my head, one example of systemic oppression is that society sees a low-libido as a kind of arrested development of maturation (which plays in to abelism in some ways too). Society will pressure asexuals to perform sexuality and force-spark development through things such as corrective rape. Society will flat out erase the existence of asexual people (I know many an evangelical who believe that there is no such thing as an asexual person, and that anybody who says so is just trying to virtue signal and hasn’t admitted their “sins of the heart” to themselves). All of these examples and more are promoted, encouraged, and tacitly accepted by greater society at large. All of these examples are born from and promoted by minor and major biases saturated in the consciousness of the majority of the population, and favoring the power structure that currently exists. That effectively MAKES it oppression using the definition I provided earlier. It is a “…systemic pattern of mistreatment and bias that conforms to and is promoted by the power structures that be, disempowering and marginalizing the other group [in this case, asexuals] for their deviance from the imagined normal.” So to recap. My argument is as follows. 1. The strategy to re-brand “queer” as a coalition name is deliberate and decided upon by the greater LGBT+ community in roughly the 1990s-2000s. If someone personally doesn’t want to be referred to that way, that’s all well and good, but it’s not their place to tell another how they should refer to themselves. This applies to any reclaimed slur, term, or identity phrasing (i.e. the argument of identity-first language vs person-first language in the greater disabled community [other disabled folks can refer to themselves however they want, but they don’t get to tell me I HAVE to use person-first language when I greatly prefer identity-first language to describe myself]). 2. Regardless of how 'queer’ is operationally defined, that has no bearing on whether or not asexuals can be part of the greater political coalition. 3. Going by what I feel is a reasonable set of basic criteria, Asexuals ARE qualified to be a part of the greater political coalition. 4. It can be demonstrably proven that asexuals are systemically oppressed by virtue of their asexuality.

There’s certainly folks that are attempting at this very moment to argue that allowing asexuals into pride will mean that ace voices will take over “more important ones”. I would like to introduce you to a concept that every pride I’ve been involved in fails to implement- prioritizing intersectional voices. Giving the mic to trans lesbians of color instead of white cis gay men. For the love of Marsha P. 

Hell, as a disabled, trans, bi, asexual, autistic immigrant I’m 10 times as intersectional as Tyler Oakley, so can we stop making him our first choice for a speaker? I’ll get off this tangent, but my point is that I am actively dreaming of a world where people that are only one letter of the whole acronym don't speak over all the rest of us. I don’t think it’s fair to be fearful of asexual folks taking up space when our community is so blatantly whitewashed and ciswashed as it stands. Speak out in favor of intersectionality for everyone, stop giving white cis gay men a pass to speak over everyone.

Acephobia

Acephobia, Acemisia, Aceantagonism- There’s a multitude of names to describe the systematic oppression and violence that asexual folks experience. I personally prefer “Acemisia” because it takes up fewer Twitter characters and doesn’t associate itself with mental ailments like agoraphobia, but I’ll call it acephobia since that’s what the kids on here are saying. Acephobia, like other forms of discrimination, is too wide to be wholly understood in a simple lesson, so forgive me if I don’t touch on some issues. In general, oppression exists on multiple levels-

Institutional violence- discrimination written into schools, churches, public offices, and other power structures that make up The State.

Social violence- discrimination carried out as an unwritten social rule through everyday language and encounters

Physical/sexual violence- murder, rape, the fun stuff! /sarcasm

I’m going to try to address each level the best that I can, so bear with me.

Institutions & Asexuality

Many queer folks will use religious texts and fundamentalist Christian views to outline why their oppression in society is legitimate, and this is because The Church is an institution that entwines itself in a lot of issues of morality and law, especially in regards to marriage and love. A common argument that I hear is that asexual folks face no such oppression in that system. However, as an asexual who has discussed this issue for the better part of 7 years at this point, I have discovered this- fundamentalist Christian people do hate asexuality, specifically because it throws a wrench in the idea that one has to consummate a marriage. For those unfamiliar, consummation of a marriage is the act of having sex after a wedding in order to prove the marriage legitimate. 

“But isn’t asexuality the same thing as chastity??” you ask, clearly illustrating that you don’t get the point that we are not experiencing any sexual attraction at all, no matter how hard we try. The problem is that asexual folks don’t “get over” this “phase”. Many of us are unable to consummate marriages, and to not consummate a marriage deems the marriage, in the eyes of the church, illegitimate. This isn’t merely a thought experiment- I do know asexual folks that legitimately were run out of their home for disclosing that they would never marry “the way God intended”. That’s actually a reason for marriage cancellation- “annulment due to a failure to consummate the marriage”. Thus, you can see that the institution of the church, which affects the institution of marriage, which we all know impacts relationships very intimately, has a very marked issue with putting its head around the idea of a sexless marriage. When the same-sex-marriage debate was still young in the early 2000s, many opponents claimed that the reason same-sex marriage was sinful was because the process of consummation would require, in their gross words, “sodomy”. I brought up that many asexual homoromantic couples were likely seeking the ability to marry, and this idea jarred them further- they were outraged that anyone could refuse to consummate a marriage, and stated that a sexless marriage was effectively more of an insult to God than a marriage that brought forth “sodomy” [blech].

There are other institutions where asexuality is actively discriminated against within- I was actually given an intervention in a liberal middle school for writing in health class that I had no plans to have sex, and I quote, “never never ever EVERRR!!!”. I know, mildly excessive, but I was completely sex-repulsed at that age. Multiple teachers were brought in to try to convince me, stating that at my age, “you really need to be thinking about sex rather than trying to avoid it”. Even though this program focused on encouraging students to abstain from sex until they’re ready, they found it problematic that I had no interest in “EVERRR!!!” performing the act. It spoke heavily to the hypocrisy that even abstinence-encouraging programs have when faced with asexual students.

Asexuality in Society

There were countless YouTubers that popped up around the year 2010 that discussed in depth the social ramifications of coming out as an asexual individual. One in particular that I followed was swankivy, who was immersed in discourse in the immensely queerphobic 2009 youtube and OkCupid community. She heard everything from “you’re clearly a lesbian in denial, come out of the closet and join us” to “you’re straight because that’s the default”. In fact, she has almost a decade’s worth of videos titled “Letters to an Asexual” that highlight the sorts of comments we receive on a daily basis. If you couldn’t already guess, many of the comments indicated that she wouldn’t be so controversial if she could pick a “real” sexuality, and stick with it. People often told her things like “it’s ok to be a lesbian” after she had already argued extensively that her asexuality was how she was made and who she was. I know that 2009 youtube videos don’t age the best, so take all of those low-quality films with a grain of salt- a lot of homophobia got launched at her in the early days, and nobody in 2009 was entirely unproblematic.

As the asexual community began to receive recognition from both queer and cis/het communities, their placement was treated like a game of hot potato. We didn’t fit in with the cis/het community, as we still got accused of being broken for not experiencing sexual attraction. The queer community hasn’t wanted us either, for largely the same reasons. We were too deviant to fit in with the mythical norm, and simultaneously too deviant to fit in with the counter-norm. Both communities had very staunch views on sex that we couldn’t fit into. 

Eventually, the A in LGBTQIA+ made space for us. By the year of 2011, I began to see space made in the queer community as a whole for asexual folks. Many empathized with our struggle to find a place of belonging, especially bisexual and trans folks that had been overshadowed by the L and the G for decades. This was a magical moment for me. I didn’t get queer theory at this point. I didn’t totally understand gender & sexuality studies at 16. There was just a piece of me that finally felt welcome. I was allowed to be myself, and everyone was expected to educate themselves on my lived experience to make that possible. I stopped being bombarded with questions and started being able to talk to asexual lesbian and bi girls, asexual trans folks, and everyone else that showed me that it just might be ok for me to be more complicated than society would like me to be. … I’m typically a person that speaks uniquely in logical & academic terms, but looking back at that moment in time is difficult for me to succinctly verbalize. It is incredible to find a place of belonging… I don’t think I would have survived had I not had a community. Being an asexual teen was only bearable the moment people said “You know what? It sucks that people are shitty to you for not being into sex. You can hang out here, we think you’re pretty cool anyways. If you wanna talk about sex we’re down but we totally respect how you were made and know what it’s like to be forced into being someone you aren’t”. I can prove to you with study upon study that unconditional love and acceptance is absolutely integral to a developing teen, but I don’t think even that would attest enough to how blessed I was to find a community who was ok with the way I was.

Asexuality, Sex, and Rape

This section contains sensitive content that details largely my personal experiences with corrective rape and coercion. If you may have a difficult time reading, give yourself a moment to prepare. I feel that this discussion isn’t nearly whole without this piece.

Firstly, we must discuss the term “corrective rape”. I hear often that it is impossible for me to have experienced corrective rape, as I do not identify as a lesbian woman. Let’s break this down as gently as possible- Firstly, if you’re going to claim that asexual corrective rape is “appropriation” of a lesbian term, I hope you also exclude white lesbians from using that term, seeing as a doctor coined it in discussing the corrective rape of black lesbian women in South Africa. Alternatively, we can understand that it’s a term that very succinctly identifies an experience in which someone is targeted for sexual assault in the attempt to “cure” them of an undesirable sexuality. We really ought to give more credit to black innovations of language in general, but I think you see the point that it’s easier to say “I was correctively raped” than “I was targeted for rape by a bisexual guy that believed that asexuality specifically needed to be raped out of someone”. Hopefully, we’re clear on this now.

In 2012, I met Eric Epperson at an anime-con sort of event. He was a bi cisgender allosexual man. He knew I was asexual, and promised that we could “go slow” if I agreed to date him. Seeing as this was my first ever experience with a relationship (and being autistic and easily manipulated), I naively agreed to date him. He, predictably, did not hold true to his promise and forced me to become sexual with him early on in the relationship by saying “well how will I know you really love me if you’re not willing to make love to me?”. He was very effective at discreetly threatening me with abandonment and slander (and more, later) were I to ever say no to his advances. 

Some months into the abusive relationship, I finally persuaded him to watch a documentary on Asexuality in the hopes that he would learn how uncomfortable I was with sex. He made multiple comments on how effectively raping the male star would make him give up asexuality (He was a “feminist”, though, so he never called what he did rape). He referred to asexuals featured as “creepy freaks”. He boasted about how he had cured me and turned me into a “normal person” by threatening me and guilting me into allowing him to do what he wanted to me. He commented on what a sad, empty life the male star must have, not knowing the joy of having Eric’s dick inside of him. He and his mother, a cisgender bisexual woman, were laughing by the end of the documentary about the “freaks who need help”. Eric later admitted that he targeted me specifically because he was interested in “curing” a “weirdo” like me. He had a phrase for it too. “I’ll turn you Epper-sexual”. He intended, from the start, to “cure” me. 

I’m lucky to have been set free from the relationship, even though it was only because he found a 13-year-old lesbian to “turn eppersexual”.

A month after being let go, I met a stunningly beautiful girl. I’ll call her M. She was incredibly effeminate and reserved and had long, brown, curly hair and freckles. I was smitten. Only being a month away from the abuse, I was in a very vulnerable position and asked her to be my girlfriend. Initially, she was okay with “taking it slow”, but eventually she confessed that she really wanted to have sex with me. Afraid that I would be discounted as a “fake bisexual”, I got incredibly drunk (I became severely alcoholic, but that’s another article) and satisfied her as best I could. It was fine at the time, but the aftermath is why seeing her on campus to this day tears my heart.

We broke up because I was way too traumatized by my abuse to hold together a relationship, and drinking and using all day forced me to drop out of college. We initially had planned to stay friends, until a mutual friend of ours broke up with their girlfriend because she was pressuring them to have sex with her, and they were asexual. They felt it better to break it off than to leave them wanting.

“If you’re asexual, you really need to give that up if you really want to satisfy your partner!” she said. “I mean, Ren did it!”

I called her out for that comment, and we haven’t spoken since.

I’m just one asexual out of millions. The fact that countless others can attest to having dated Ms and Erics should speak volumes- after all, the personal is the political. That is to say, I’m not an isolated case. What happened to me was bred from a culture that, at its core, devalues asexuality. I can only hope that M’s learned better since, but I know for a fact that Eric continues to be on the hunt for kids like who I was.

A Positive Note

That last section was totally trauma central so I’m going to end on a positive note.

To keep what happened to me from happening to others, we need a cultural shift. Rather than attempting to quantify how bad acephobia is compared to transphobia and homophobia etc, we need to realize that every human has an intersectional experience. It’s not a matter that an asexual biromantic black woman is oppressed more than a disabled autistic gay trans man- people living in intersections experience overlaps and magnifications of oppression in such complexities that to state something as over-arching as “any black person is more oppressed than any trans person” is not only devaluing but too simplistic to account for personal experiences. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that the woman and man mentioned earlier experience different disadvantages in society, not more or less.

Not one asexual person is demanding that all allosexual folks stay quiet on their experiences being involved in other intersections of oppression. All we’re asking is a place at the table and a room to feel safe in.

I hope that this article was able to provide positive insight regarding the discourse. Let me know if you have any other questions! 

As always, remember- progress > perfection. 

[facts-about-bisexuality]

"Bisexuality is defined by an attraction to two or more genders" Bi means two, though. More than two would be polysexual, while all genders or regardless of gender would be pansexual.

Everyone who tries to tell me what bisexuality means personally owes me and all of my followers $1.

***From https://robynochs.com/2015/10/11/the-definition-of-bisexuality-according-to-bi/***

Bisexual Organizations:

http://www.biresource.net/BRC_Brochure_2010.pdf (Bisexual Resource Center: USA)“The BRC uses bisexual as an umbrella term for people who recognize and honor their potential for sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender. We celebrate and affirm the diversity of identity and expression regardless of labels.”

http://bisexual.org/am-i-bi/ (American Institute of Bisexuality)“A bi person has the capacity for romantic and/or sexual attraction to more than one gender.”

http://www.bisexualindex.org.uk/index.php/AmIBisexual (Bisexual Index: UK)“This is how we define it: A bisexual is someone who is attracted to more than one gender. You might care about the gender of your partner a lot, a little, or not at all – but their gender doesn’t prevent you from being attracted to them.”

http://binetusa.blogspot.com/2014/03/binet-usa-bisexual-media-guide.html (BiNet USA)“Bisexual – A person whose enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction is to other people of various sexes and/or gender identities. Individuals may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime.”

http://www.torontobinet.org/bi-culture.html (Toronto Bisexual Network)“Bisexuality is the potential to feel attracted to and to engage in sexual and/or romantic relationships with people of any sex or gender.”

Activists:

https://robynochs.com/quotes/ (Robyn Ochs; Bisexual Activist)

“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”

Community on Tumblr:

http://bifacts.tumblr.com/faq

“Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders, not necessarily to the same extent, not necessarily in the same way, not necessarily at the same time.”

http://bi-privilege.tumblr.com/idingasbipolyorpan

“bisexuality is, broadly speaking, the attraction to two or more genders. bisexuality is not inherently or transphobic or exclusive of non binary genders—note that there are both binary and non-binary trans people who identify as bisexual. it is possible for bisexuals to be attracted to be attracted to anywhere from two to an infinite number of genders. many times, bisexuals will define their own sexuality as the attraction to both similar and different genders (which encompasses all genders). however, it is important to remember that bisexuals can be attracted to multiple genders without being attracted to people of their own gender. for example, an agender bi person may be attracted to women, bigender, and genderfluid people, or a bi woman might be attracted to men and agender people…..”

http://bi-privilege.tumblr.com/definitions

“bisexual: the (sexual) attraction to two or more genders. sometimes defined as the attraction to same + different genders; however, this is not true of all bisexuals.”

http://biphobic-bisexual.tumblr.com/faq

“bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders”

http://bisexuality-is.tumblr.com/faq

“Bisexuals have been defining bisexuality as the attraction to two or more/same and other for decades. This isn’t some made-up tumblr joke. Words change meaning. Prefixes change meanings. We didn’t even give ourselves the term bisexual to begin with, doctors did.”

http://nonmono-perspective.tumblr.com/definitions

“bisexual- sexually attracted to your same/similar gender and other gender(s), OR sexually attracted to 2 or more genders. Some bisexuals feel that they experience different kinds or degrees of attraction to different genders/gender presentations.”

http://pinkpurplebluepride.tumblr.com/faq

“Bi: attracted to two or more genders. Some people will define it as “attracted to similar and different genders,” but this is slightly less inclusive than the above definition. I’m of the mind that “similar and different” evolved to satisfy bi=2 prescriptivists, but they are insatiable and forever gross.”

http://thesunnysideofbeingbi.tumblr.com/basics

“…being bi does not reinforce the gender binary. And some bi people are only attracted to men and women–and that’s ok! However, bi is not defined as the attraction to men and women, or two genders. It can be for an individual, but not for our entire community. That definition is not only false, but harmful. (This is not to imply that bi people can’t be transphobic!)

This also means that you don’t have to be sexually attracted to people to be bi. There are so many different kinds of attraction, and to just focus on bisexuality would be excluding a lot of people (e.g. being biromantic).”

http://bisexuwhale-pride.tumblr.com/faq

“What does bisexual mean?

Attraction to:

1. Two or more genders or

2. More than one gender.”

http://themeaningofbisexuality.tumblr.com/

“Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders”

http://soloontherocks.tumblr.com/post/104877455841/nothing-extraordinary-soloontherocks-got-it

“Bisexuality is not half gay and half straight. Bisexuality is not in between gay and straight. Bisexuality is not gay when dating the same gender and straight when dating a different gender. Bisexuality is not gay-ish or straight-ish.

Bisexuality is its own fully independent self-contained complete orientation.”

http://bifaq.tumblr.com/post/124565262825/i-dont-find-bi-means-2-to-be-offensive-and-im

http://julietburgess.tumblr.com/post/17986625411/bisexual-is-not-oppressive-can-we-talk-about

Other things worth the read about the definition of bisexuality:

Bisexual Manifesto from 1990:

http://binetusa.blogspot.com/2014/01/1990-bi-manifesto.html

“We are tired of being analyzed, defined and represented by people other than ourselves, or worse yet, not considered at all. We are frustrated by the imposed isolation and invisibility that comes from being told or expected to choose either a homosexual or heterosexual identity.

Monosexuality is a heterosexist dictate used to oppress homosexuals and to negate the validity of bisexuality.

Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have “two” sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit. Do not equate promiscuity, infidelity, or unsafe sexual behavior with bisexuality. Those are human traits that cross all sexual orientations. Nothing should be assumed about anyone’s sexuality, including your own.

We are angered by those who refuse to accept our existence; our issues; our contributions; our alliances; our voice. It is time for the bisexual voice to be heard“

http://www.thisisbiscuit.co.uk/but-bi-means-two-and-others-reason-why-we-should-change-the-conversation/

https://somewhatofsomethingother.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/being-bisexual-means-that-youre-only-attracted-to-two-genders-bi-means-two-two-genders/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aj-walkley/the-bad-b-word-a-need-for-bisexual-acceptance_b_1781589.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aj-walkley/bisexual-gender-binary_b_2425081.html

”Defining bisexuality, just like defining any identity label, can be complicated and controversial. My definition of the label “bisexual” is informed by the work of The Bisexual Organizing Project. It includes people who use labels such as “bisexual,” “non-monosexual,” “persexual,” “omnisexual,” “ambisexual,” “pansexual,” “queer” or any other term that people use to identify themselves as individuals who are emotionally, romantically or physically attracted to people of more than one sex, gender or gender identity. I also recognize that not everyone chooses to adopt a label to describe their sexual orientation, and I also include non-labeling people who see themselves as part of a queer, non-monosexual or bisexual community under my definition of “bisexual.”“

Reasons why the prefix/etymology argument is not a very good one against “bi = attraction to 2 or more”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

http://bisexual-dragons.tumblr.com/post/124749476996/i-love-doing-the-october-is-not-the-8th-month-of

http://bifaq.tumblr.com/post/124565262825/i-dont-find-bi-means-2-to-be-offensive-and-im

http://www.thisisbiscuit.co.uk/but-bi-means-two-and-others-reason-why-we-should-change-the-conversation/

https://somewhatofsomethingother.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/being-bisexual-means-that-youre-only-attracted-to-two-genders-bi-means-two-two-genders/

http://bi-privilege.tumblr.com/post/88492965880/but-bi-means-two-fun-fact-did-u-know-we

http://freelgbtqpia.tumblr.com/post/112776160876/how-couldnt-but-bi-means-two-doesnt-it-its-the

http://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-very-different/

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4847343

[shiphitsthefan]

Hi! Just wanted to pop in and say hi and introduce myself. Obsessively stalk your blog (I LOVE your writing, btw) - I just recently began to consider myself ace/aro, and I was wondering if you could share a bit more about your experience? No pressure there, ofc, just wanted to give you a hug for all the hate you've been getting. :)

Hello! Welcome aboard, citizen. (And thank you so much–I’m glad my writing makes you happy!) And I’m absolutely okay with sharing my aro experience. I can’t remember if I’ve ever talked about it here or not.

For the vast majority of my life, I had no idea that there was even a word for how I felt. It never occurred to me that people didn’t feel the same way as I did when it came to love. I always heard that women and men married their best friend; since I grew up in an overwhelmingly straight community, once I started dating, I basically lost touch with all of my other friends. My real best friends. It sucked, but I thought that was how it was supposed to be.

The problem was that the people I loved most were other girls. (I thought I was a girl, too, and that, again, everyone felt the same way I did. Autism makes life very interesting.) Still, I wanted to get married–I was supposed to, after all–so I stayed focused on boys, though I did ask a girl to my junior prom, because I’d finally come out as bisexual.

People called me boy-crazy, and oversexed, and obsessive. In actuality, I was trying my best to fit into a worldview I didn’t understand. Being in love didn’t feel any more important than being a good friend; when exes got pissed off that I moved on so quickly, it hurt. I got so much shit dumped on me in high school. College was worse, though, for basically the same reasons.

I finally started realizing that something about my view of relationships was different in my sophomore/junior year of college. When I was distracting myself from being incapable of focusing on my work (undiagnosed autism, ahoy!) I would lurk on news-aggregate forums.

The rest of this is going under a cut because of sensitive subjects. Trigger warnings for child death, sexual coercion, and spousal abuse.

Someone on the forum posted an article about a husband, wife, and their toddler who were involved in a crash and wound up going over a bridge. The wife and child were knocked unconscious. It was impossible for the husband to save them both; he chose his wife. His reasoning was that he couldn’t live without her, and almost all of the commenters on both the article and the forum agreed that he made the right choice, as terrible as it was.

I was horrified, because it made no sense to me. A spouse or partner could be replaced, after all. A child couldn’t. That relationship, to me, was sacred. I couldn’t–and still can’t–imagine any love greater than that of a parent to their child.

The more I thought about it, the more sense all of my previous romantic relationships made. I considered marriage sacred, but I never thought that a partner was irreplaceable. I felt so heartless, because I wanted someone to spend my life with. But I knew, deep down, that I could never love a spouse the way they apparently deserved to be loved. The line between best friend and life partner was blurred for me; paternal love made perfect sense, but romantic love was suddenly more confusing than it had ever been before.

I thought maybe, once I found the right person, it would change. I started dating someone I’d always considered a great friend, a confidante that I’d had since high school. It never meant more than friendship to me–best friends, and I did love him, even though it wasn’t the “right” way.

Once we were engaged, however, it quickly became apparent that I was supposed to change the way I acted around him. Dividing time equally among friends suddenly wasn’t okay. He wanted me to depend on him, on his friendship, then berated me when I didn’t ask friends for help when I needed it. I was constantly confused and bewildered, anxious and scared. Soon enough, I was dependent on him, because he knew how love was supposed to work, or so I thought.

Deep down, I knew something wasn’t right. I married him, anyway.

The more emotionally abusive he became, the less sexually attracted to him I was, but he always made me feel horrible for not wanting to have sex, that I wasn’t taking care of his needs, that I didn’t really love him. And I knew my love wasn’t what it was supposed to be, so I always caved in, even when I didn’t want to. He decided we needed to have a baby, so. Well. He made sure that happened. I didn’t know what to do, because I knew that when I had that child, that my husband was going to immediately take second place in my heart, which is exactly what happened.

He became physically abusive then (though I suppose there’s an argument to be made for spousal rape also being physical abuse). I knew I deserved it, because I was failing him as a wife. (Never mind that, by this point, I’d realized I wasn’t a woman.) When he scared my baby one night, I knew we had to get out. Within a week, we’d escaped. I still haven’t gotten a divorce, but that’s definitely my intention.

So when people say that aromantics don’t experience discrimination, that they don’t suffer “enough” or even at all? I get really fucking pissed off. I tried so, so hard to make myself feel romantic love, and I was hurt irreparably in the process, exposing myself again and again to abusive people and situations, all in the name of trying to be normal. If that isn’t queer trauma, then I don’t fucking know what is.

Long story short, if you don’t feel a difference between friend love and lovefriend love, there’s nothing wrong with you. Not one goddamn thing. Your feelings are valid; your experience is valid; your journey is valid. You are queer, and don’t you dare let anyone tell you otherwise.

I still consider myself bisexual, because I still experience sexual attraction to more than one gender. (Not to all genders, which is why I’m not pan. Also because I’ve identified as bi for so long; I’m kind of fond of the label, not to mention attached.) However, I am celibate, both out of practicality and the metric fuckton of baggage that I bring with me into the bedroom. The asexual experience is never going to be one that I innately “get”, since celibacy and asexuality aren’t the same thing. I like to think that I understand it, though, or that I at least make a definitive effort.

Asexuals are exposed to the same kind of trauma as the rest of us queers. I’m not one to play oppression Olympics; it isn’t my job or business to assign one hurt as more important or greater than another. That being said, I 9000% believe that trans women get the worst kind of phobia and abuse. They’re exposed to the most adversity and danger and violence, especially trans women of color. It is our duty to protect and support trans women in all ways possible and by any means available. We must uplift their voices and make them feel accepted and safe within queer spaces.

But I think asexuals deserve protection, too, and acceptance, and understanding. I don’t think that should be a radical idea. It’s bullshit that people want to gatekeep–and yes, I am going to use the word gatekeep; it may not be the best term to explain community policing, but the concept and rationale behind it is similar. Asexual and aromantic persons are queer enough because they need to be, because they force themselves into the same kinds of molds and masks as other queer persons do to try and belong.

I’m tired of seeing y’all get shit when I understand how fucking hard it is out here, and it’s sickening that the only people who stand up for you are other acespec and arospec individuals. You matter, and I’m never going to stop saying that. You are here, you are queer, and folks need to get used to it.

Anyway. Even with all of the hate I’m getting (which doesn’t bother me, by the by), my inbox is always open to both identified asks and anons. If you need to vent or feel validated, and you don’t want to identify yourselves for painfully obvious reasons, I’ve got you covered.

This got really, really long. I hope it’s cool that I used your question to clarify my position. It was perfect impetus for me to do so. Again, thank you so much for your support. Feel free to keep lurking or to drop me a line any time. :D

[cerullos]

You don't have to answer. Reading the responses to that reblog about ace struggles made me really sad. The way you talk about the ace thing in general makes me sad. And I really like you, actually. I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. And a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist. Ad infinitum. This doesn't have to be the oppression olympics. Intersectionality is the only way out of this mess.

And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence. Is that as bad as being electrocuted? No. But is that the point here? Why say that? Why amplify that kind of divisive message? We just want to belong somewhere. You can believe this or not, but we’re dying here. The LGBT community has been the only safe place I’ve known my entire life. To figure out years later that I was labeling..

myself wrong? It was the most terrifying feeling I’ve ever experienced. It still is. It’s like we don’t exist. One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.

Straight people see us simply as gay, and treat us that way. So we’re getting electrocuted too. Sexual, gay people tell us we’re ‘cis/het’ liars trying to steal their community. So we have no safe space. We can’t find partners. Our friends, family, and fellow LGBT ppl don’t understand us or even believe in our existence. We are constantly questioning out own existence. I don’t mean to flood you. I realize that’s what I’m doing. But I’ve seen this kind of post coming from your direction a few…

times now. And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly. You’ve got a lot of followers. And being ace has made me full on suicidal in the past. So just. Think about it. Gay ace is a real thing. Can you see how you might have…

privilege over a person like that? everyone in my life sees me as gay. I fall in love with women. and yet here we are. can’t you see how I might want to be in your shoes? At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.

Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.

okay, this is long but i’m going to try to keep my answers as succinct as possible. i don’t know if this was your intention, but elements of this message feel vaguely guilt-tripping, despite the fact that none of what you’ve mentioned here presents an argument i haven’t already seen and strongly disagreed with.

“ I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist […] This doesn’t have to be the oppression olympics. ”

two things: one, you’re referring to lateral aggression in every instance but the first. what i mean by lateral aggression is that it occurs between two people–within the same community–who experience oppression along different axes (e.g. a straight trans person and a cis gay person). in contrast, a cis straight ace man who engages in homophobia and/or transphobia is not “laterally aggressing” his victim, he’s oppressing them. the reason LGBT people have become so vocal against inclusion of cis straight aces is because their oppressors are now gaining entrance to their exclusive spaces, and speaking over them. and whereas a lesbian can voice her discomfort with this on tumblr, she’s forced to stay silent at her local GSA for her own safety.

two, this isn’t an issue of a “handful” of violently homophobic people in the ace community. the founder of aven–david jay–was a homophobic white cishet man, and the platform on which he built his activism was homophobic. moreover, oppression against (straight, cis) ace people is not enforceable, because who is and isn’t ace depends entirely on the decision to identify as such! there are (as the ace community has been told many, many times) plenty of LGBT people (if not most) who have a complicated relationship with sex and sexual attraction due to abuse/assault, compulsive heterosexuality, dysmorphia, etc. none of these people can be considered “allosexual,” even if they (for perfectly valid reasons) decline to share this information publicly! these people deal with many of the same issues you’ve mentioned here (e.g. choosing between getting dumped or engaging in sexual acts when they would rather not), although they would likely attribute this to homophobia, misogyny and rape culture, not aphobia.

also: the “oppression olympics” is nonsensical and offensive and i wish y’all would stop passing that term around. yes, the LGBT community’s history is absolutely rooted in oppression of same-gender attracted and trans individuals! and yes, the community exists to actively oppose legislation that exists to oppress them, and to provide resources for those affected. the community was not founded in order to provide comfort to people who feel outcast from society for [x] reason. when you make this claim (or when you sarcastically liken the community to an exclusive “club” one gains entrance to by virtue of being oppressed) you miss the point entirely. it’s watering down the mission statement and end goal of this community, plain and simple.

“And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence.”

i find this argument (which is repeated often) to be ridiculous when the LGBT community has years of coherent history, and AVEN (and the popularization of identifying as asexual in the first place) has only gained prominence within the last decade or so. on top of that, as any oppressed individual will tell you, (and, again, something that has been repeated very often and rarely acknowledged) hypervisibility is dangerous to the oppressed! black and latinx trans women and gay men are the most endangered members of the LGBT community because it is impossible for them to “hide” themselves.

this alone should make it clear to you that what the LGBT community want and what the ace community want are two very different things–so what exactly would their shared goal in activism be? what purpose would expanding the community to include straight cis aces serve other than comforting individuals who resent being excluded? LGBT people may share the ace community’s desire for representation in media, but visibility–within the context of their everyday lives–is exactly what’s getting them killed. the pulse shooting is obviously the most recent example of this, but it’s one of many.

“One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.”

you’re introducing a very different argument here, and one i obviously don’t agree with. if you’re a gay ace, you belong in the LGBT community. i’m sorry you’ve been told otherwise. but if this entire passage (and the several paragraphs following it) are meant to convince me of this, i don’t know what to tell you? i’ve said before that–based on my history and  relationship with sex and sexual attraction–i could easily identify as an ace lesbian. i don’t, for some of the reasons listed above, and personal reasons of my own–and i don’t benefit from failing to identify as ace in any material way.

“And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly.”

i’m genuinely sorry you’re feeling this way, but again, if you think this is an experience LGBT people (ace or otherwise) don’t share, then i’m not the one turning a blind eye here.

“At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.”

you need to consider that you are making assumptions about what i want from a relationship based on the fact that i don’t publicly identify as ace. this is another thing we’ve been repeating constantly: you cannot do that, and therein lies one of the issues with asexuality as a framework for oppression. also, even on the off chance that i had a perfectly healthy relationship with and desire for sex (which–as i’ve said–very few people in the LGBT community do) none of us can just “get a girlfriend.” to suggest it’s more difficult for ace people is ridiculous when LGBT people have had to resort to dating apps and LGBT-exclusive spaces in order to find people to date in the first place. and before you say that similar spaces don’t exist for aces: they need to be built, just like ours were. the onus is on adult aces, not “allo” LGBT people.  

and, again, what an ace person would potentially want from an ace-exclusive space is not what an LGBT person (provably, historically) would want from an LGBT-exclusive space. ace condemnation of sex and sexuality is valid at the individual level, but it can be suffocating (and, yes–oppressive) to LGBT people who have fought long and hard to take pride in their sexuality. telling LGBT people that their love and “PDA” is “dirty” and “impure” is nothing new or progressive, it’s textbook homophobia, and those attitudes are damaging to us.

“Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.”

look…i hate to tell you this because i don’t think you mean any harm, and i’m not trying to attack you–but, as i think i said earlier, none of the arguments you’ve presented here are new to me. these are arguments that have been addressed and derailed by LGBT people (many of them ace themselves) multiple times, to no end. what you’ve mentioned here highlights an important point, and that’s “hurt feelings.” those are the stakes for straight cis aces–those are not the stakes for LGBT people (and i include LGBT aces in this statement). but i haven’t “learned” anything from these messages–i’ve never plugged my ears and ignored the arguments of straight cis aces, i’ve listened to them very carefully. and they’ve informed my opinion on this matter–an opinion that hasn’t changed and will not change. if that’s upsetting to you, you can unfollow–i won’t hold it against you!

[sapphic-quarian]

Bioware and wlw

(No pics since I’m on mobile..booo) So, we’ve all probably seen Cora Harper at this point. And she is pretty! She worked with asari commandos! She’s a romance option! Yay! But there’s one thing I’m wondering (besides her possible relationship to the Illusive Man). Is she just a romance just for BroRyder, or can SisRyder romance her too? Considering Bioware’s history with characters like her, she probably can’t. Now, going just by appearances and the little we know about her, Cora seems queer. She’s got that whole “shaved side” look that screams “butch” (not trying to say all wlw are butch or all girls that look like that are wlw, Cora’s appearance is just similar to stereotypical perceptions of a lesbian.) She is also connected to the asari, which are a LITERAL RACE OF BISEXUAL WOMEN. But let’s look at wlw in bioware’s past games.

I’m gonna start with Jack, cause I played ME2 recently and feelings about Jack are fresh in my mind. Jack is a badass. The galaxy’s strongest biotic, a master criminal, and also a bisexual woman. “But Kate,” you cry, “Jack was only a romance option for male Shep!” Yes, yes she was. But if you talk to Jack about her criminal past, she mentions a couple she used to “share a bed with.” So Jack has canonically had a relationship with a woman. A poly relationship with her and man, but still. And let’s take a look at Jack’s appearance. Like Cora, she has masculine look to her, with the shaved head and bound breasts. Jack would not be out of place at a gay bar. And yet, she’s still presented as exclusively heterosexual, and rebuffs a female shep’s advances.

And, going back to Bioware’s early days, their very first non-heterosexual romance, is Juhani, from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Juhani is a “romance”, but her feelings towards a female PC are only vaguely referenced in one conversation, as opposed to the fleshed-out romances male and female PCs get with Bastilla and Carth, respectively. Now, this has a simple explanation. This game was co-developed with LucasArts. George Lucas was vehemently against any queer characters in Star Wars, and had his fair share of complaints about Han/Luke fanfics back in the day (they published gay fanfic in magazines! Respect.) So Juhani’s treatment is more the best Bioware could do while still meeting LucasArt’s wishes than intentional portrayal of f/f relationships as meaningless.

And then we come to the asari! Everyone loves the asari right? It’s a race of sexy blue bisexual women! While I could write a whole other meta on the asari and femininity, right now I’ll focus on their sexuality. Liara T'Soni, in Mass Effect 1, is the only bisexual romance, being available to both genders of Shep. But the femshep version has one big difference. Liara assures Shepard that their relationship is okay, because asari are a monogendered, female-presenting race. She’s basically saying “I’m not REALLY a woman, so it’s totally not gay if we kiss each other.” When i heard that, I went back and romanced Kaidan instead. I did not need to go through this feeling like my sexuality was being invalidated. And Samara in Mass Effect 2 is no better. While both genders of Shepard are rejected when attempting to romance her, Samara serves as a weird cautionary tale-thing to asari. She was the product of a marriage between two asari, and she married another asari who also had two asari parents. Their daughters were asari afflicted with a genetic condition, known as Ardat-Yakshi, that caused them to consume their partner’s nervous systems when they mated. Two of her daughters agreed to basically become prisoners-slash-nuns, but one of them escaped. Samara’s loyalty mission involves you tracking the third daughter down, and killing her. Morinth, the third daughter, is a textbook example of the perception of wlw as predatory. She’s literally a space vampire in a leather catsuit. You find a journal from her latest victim, a girl named Nef, and she describes how Morinth seduced her, implies Morinth convinced her to take drugs, and eventually killed her. Once you find Morinth, you then have to seduce her. Then, her mother kills her, or you recruit her. If you recruit her, she flirts with Shepard and you can eventually sleep with her. Of course, your nervous system melts. The idea of the Ardat-Yakshi only being born through a union of two asari makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view. In their home world, asari are the only sapient species, therefore it makes no sense to have breeding with other species being a safer option. The only way it would make sense is if they evolved alongside another sentient species. Basically, asari are all feminine, and they are discouraged from beginning and given consequences for having a relationship with another asari. The idea that cross-species relationships are healthier kind of gives off the “a child with two moms can’t develop well argument.” Then we move to Kelly Chambers. Kelly is your yeoman in Mass Effect 2. Basically, she tells you when your squadmates want to talk to you and when you have mail. She’s also the closest thing the game has to a same-sex romance. Kelly’s pan, and she’ll take all kinds. She frequently gushes about how attractive the alien members of the crew are, and Shepard can lightly flirt with her throughout the game. At a certain point, you can invite Kelly to Shepard’s cabin for dinner. A brief scene of her dancing for Shepard and cuddling ensues, and that’s it. No achievement, no other conversations, nothing. It doesn’t even conflict with existing romances. You can be romancing someone and still invite Kelly upstairs. Her only function, besides informing you about who you need to talk to and that brief moment, is being dissolved by the Collectors if you don’t come for the crew right after they’re taken. She plays a smaller role in the third game, where you can either get her killed, convince her to change her identity, or convince her to change her identity and start a relationship, which only adds a few conversations and the inability to romance anyone else. Then, there’s Samantha Traynor. Samantha’s a lesbian and the Normandy’s comm specialist in Mass Effect 3. She serves the same purpose as Kelly in Mass Effect 3 (informing you about mail and missions) except she can be romanced only by a female Shepard, and she has a full, fleshed out romance. My only complaint about Traynor is that she should have been introduced earlier. She was a good character and I would have liked to see her in more than one game. Now, we go to Bioware’s other cash cow franchise: Dragon Age. Specifically, Dragon Age Origins. Our female love interest for a female Warden is Leliana, a spy-turned-nun. Admittedly, Leliana is a pretty good character in terms of representation. She’s not predatory or overly violent in terms of our setting. However, there’s her former mentor, Marjolaine. Marjolaine embodies the predatory, manipulative wlw stereotype, as shown when she had a relationship with the sixteen-year-old Leliana. Marjolaine’s age is not stated, but she is older than Leliana by a good amount seeing as she had been married once before meeting Leliana. She groomed Leliana into becoming a bard, which in Dragon Age is a spy who can also double as an assassin. She then betrays Leliana and frames her for treason. Later, when Leliana asks the Warden to check up on Marjolaine, Marjolaine plays the victim, and tries to convince the Warden Leliana is not to be trusted. In Dragon Age II, we have two bisexual female characters, Isabella and Merrill. Both are great characters with facets and unique flaws. Honestly, there’s nothing negative to say about them as bisexual women. In Dragon Age Inquisition, we have a trio of lesbian characters. Sera is an elf who’s part of a vigilante group called the Friends of Red Jenny. While Sera is on your side, if a female elf inquisitor tries to pursue a romance with her, it gets a little difficult. Sera berates the inquisitor for being “too elfy”, and at one point breaks off the relationship if they don’t admit the eleven gods were demons. None of the other romances have something like this, where one choice can ruin the relationship, so why does Sera’s romance get it? There’s also Celene and Briala. Celene is the empress of Orlais, which is Dragon Age’s equivalent to France. There’s no other way of putting this, so I’m just gonna say it. Celene is a racist manipulative bitch. She oppresses the elves of Orlais, hurls racist insults towards her handmaiden and lover, Briala, and actually had Briala’s parents killed to maintain her grip on the throne. So, yeah, not a nice lady. But what’s the happy ending of the segment she and Briala appear? Getting them back together! Briala had left her after she did nothing for her people, the elves, and because she couldn’t take Celene’s abuse anymore. I will give Inquisition this, it’s bisexual women, Harding and Josephine, are better written. And in Dragon Age II and Inquisition, last but not least, there’s Cassandra Pentaghast. She’s only available to a male Inquisitor in Inquisition. However, depending on how far you take it, she actually can gain approval from a female Inquisitor’s flirting. “But Kate,” you say again, “Cassandra probably just think’s the Inquisitor’s joking and rejects you when you go too far!” we see in her romance with a male Inquisitor that’s she’s a romantic at heart. Flowers, candles, poetry and all that mushy stuff. She’s probably rejecting a female Inquisitor if she flirts too much, cause she wants a fairytale romance. Also, have you seen Cassandra? For the same reasons as Jack and Cora, that’s a gay if I ever saw one. So that’s why I don’t have too much hope in Cora being a bi romance. Just related to Bioware’s track record of including wlw. We can still dream tho. (In case someone asks why I didn’t include mlm in this meta too, as they arguably receive worse treatment in Bioware games 1. I am not a man attracted to other men, so I would feel like I was talking over actual mlm, and 2. This is already long enough. This was just supposed to cover Cassandra and Jack but I got carried away.)