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#like i am sex repulsed but it’s very hard to discern if it’s because i’m asexual or if it’s the trauma. either way i deserve to have those
gayvampyr · 2 years
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“queer spaces should be inclusive of people who don’t enjoy sex and who have “strange”, negative or repulsed relationships with sex” and “sex is an important aspect of lgbt community, history, and activism and queer people should be allowed and able to talk freely about sex without stigma or shame” are ideas that can and should coexist.
#‘queer people were banned from and shamed for having sex and that’s where a lot of our activism stemmed from’ and#‘not liking or having sex is considered abnormal and a mental illness and also needs to be destigmatized’ are concepts that not only can but#often do coalign#it’s esp important to consider that a lot of lgbt ppl who have a tricky and strained relationship with sex are like that because of trauma#which is very common for queer folks#it’s really not an ace-only thing#like i am sex repulsed but it’s very hard to discern if it’s because i’m asexual or if it’s the trauma. either way i deserve to have those#feelings and be included in lgbt spaces and discussions about sex and treated as just another queer person with a different experience#instead of being alienated because my feelings about sex don’t directly line up with yours#im so sick of people in this community trying to pit us against each other. as an ace lesbian that shit is so toxic and harmful#my relationship with sex is fluid. im sex-positive always‚ but i often find myself sex repulsed. im otherwise neutral about it but im sick#of people acting like it’s either you enjoy sex and have it frequently or you hate it and you shame everyone who has it like youre a puritan#and it’s often aphobes who bought into that ‘aces are puritanical celibate straights who want ppl who have gay sex to die or think they’re#‘dirty’ or some shit. and it was literally 90% crypto-aphobes pretending to be aces to get people to adopt that into their belief system#the same way crypto-t/rfs pretend to be trans women who want to prey on the ‘innocent women’#and y’all will use those posts/screenshots as ‘evidence’ that whatever scapegoat you’ve selected is actually inherently bad/homophobic/#misogynistic/etc and not even#acknowledge the giant hole in your logic cuz you’re too busy trying to find a scapegoat#it’s the same tactics and y’all fall for it every time#text post#like. lesbians are CONSTANTLY getting hounded and told that we’re broken or mentally i’ll for not showing interest in (having sex with) men#for the same reason asexuality is considered bad or wrong or weird#not showing interest in heterosexual relationships or sex is why this is so important#anyone that falls outside the scope of heterosexuality is part of this community whether you like it or not
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aroaceconfessions · 1 year
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being a romance-favourable aromantic is so confusing — and while i know that this isn’t intentional, it’s also hard not to feel alienated from the aro community. it was so much more difficult for me to admit and realise that i’m aro, simply because all of the aro posts and memes i saw were centred around romance repulsed aros.
which isn’t a bad thing, it’s great that many romance repulsed aros have found their way to the community because of that, and i think there are definitely more romance repulsed aros than favourable, and i also think that the world being built around heteronormativity and amanormativity and monogamy is exclusive and i’m glad that people who don’t want those kinds of relationships have a place to talk about it — but i feel so conflicted over it, not being able to relate.
i’m a sex repulsed ace and it’s why i spend much more time in the ace community— because, unintentionally, it’s also very centred around sex repulsed aces (which— to sex indifferent and favourable aces, i promise that we see you — and i’d love suggestions on how to be more inclusive), which i can relate to. i just wish i had a little corner of the aro community that i could do the same w/. i’m romance favourable and also what i think is called a partnering aro (would like a romantic relationship or qpr) and also poly. i just… it’s just, all of those posts that ask ‘how to know if you’re aro? a guide’ and none of them that i’ve seen say anything like ‘you don’t get crushes and you want to be in a romantic relationship’. which definitely isn’t a fault of those posts or anything — i know that most of them are trying to help questioning aros with like, discerning what attraction even is, you know?
i just. i guess that i just feel lovely sometimes. i’m so happy that i’ve found labels and identities that i’m comfortable w/ and they feel like they fit me. it’s just… i don’t think i’ve heard of romance favourable and partnering aros (by that, i’m excluding posts w/ passing mentions or those that simply list the term — this is not a criticism of those kinds of posts, btw), even less have i heard of said aros in romantic relationships and happy. i mean, we definitely need to talk more about romance favourable and indifferent aros and or aces more, but i guess the point of this confession is… i know what i want, but i’m scared that no one will want me, no one will want me as i am.
it’s just— are there any other aros like me out there? who want romantic relationships and can see themselves in them, despite not experiencing romantic attraction? who are in romantic relationships and happy? i’m honestly scared to even ask this, because honestly, it’s scary knowing that you want a traditional sort of ‘happiness’ (a romantic relationship) when you don’t have the feelings that are supposed to accompany that, you know?
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wibble-wobbegong · 1 year
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honestly I've been trying to stay away from all this "sexualisation" controversy. I'm a sex-repulsed ace minor, so I find it really hard to discern "is this actually problematic or am I just asexual", and I don't really know what to think about this whole situation tbh.
like, yes I find it kinda really weird, but is it actually weird or am I just asexual??
this is just the sexualisation bit btw - anyone of any age can ship byler, and being an adult shipper isn't weird or morally wrong or anything, it's completely fine. if some minors don't like it, okay?? just don't interact with adults on here?? that's your personal comfort levels, not a moral law or anything, and you have to be at least a little responsible for who you interact with on here.
personally, I found the hose controversy a very uncomfortable topic and just skimmed or skipped most of it, but again I think that might just be me being asexual?
when it comes to fanfics I think that writing smut is :/ no matter your age, but writing smut about two underage characters when you're an adult just kinda feels very iffy. when I say this I'm talking about like, hardcore explicit nasty shit. kissing in a fic is 100% allowed and I don't understand people who say it's not??
again, these are just my thoughts/opinions on the matter, and they are heavily influenced by my own asexuality.
hope you're having a good day <3
it’s nice to hear the perspective of an ace person, especially someone who’s sex repulsed!! thank you for sharing
also, same, i don’t like the smut either but i’m talking about what we could see in the show. there’s always tag filters for stuff like that and nobody is forced to engage with it. that’s some very explicitly sexual stuff which is not what i think we’ll witness from mike and will because we have literally never had an explicit sex scene in the show. i’d hate it just as much if they were the only ones to be explicit as i hate the idea of them being the only ones to not get to be passionate. i want them to be treated like every other couple and not othered
hope you’re having a good day too :)
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thewolfofthestars · 4 years
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Questions to Ask When You’re Questioning Your Gender
So I'm trans myself and I've spent a lot of time thinking on this subject and talking to other trans people, as well as people who are questioning their genders. I've learned a lot over the past couple of years about what gender is, what it means to me, what it means to others, what it means to society, and most relevant to this post--how to figure out what your gender actuallly is. Cuz this shit ain't always easy. In fact, most of the time it's pretty hard. So I'm putting together a list of questions you can ask yourself if you're questioning your gender.
Please keep in mind: you probably won't relate to everything on this list! There are trans people who don't relate to this stuff and there are cis people that do relate to this stuff. Not every single thing on this list is a 100% surefire sign you're definitely trans, and you don't need to agree with every single point on the list in order to be trans. I am merely making this list in order to get you thinking in a more helpful and productive way to figure out your gender. Additionally: You do not have to figure out your gender if you don't want to! If you're perfectly content just to call yourself by a big umbrella term like "nonbinary" or "genderqueer", or if you just don't want to put a label to your gender at all, that is absolutely fine. This list doesn't need to be for you.
Highly reccommended reading, btw: The Null HypotheCis--https://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/04/17/the-null-hypothecis/
-Do you ever find yourself wishing that you were another gender? How often? How intense are these feelings when they arise?
-Do you ever find yourself wondering what your life would be like if you were born as a different gender? How often? How do you feel when you think about it?
-Do you find yourself looking at or admiring people of another gender very often? Is this admiration not really the same as romantic/sexual attraction--it feels different, somehow? Do these people just look really good or cool to you, in a special way that you can't really explain?
-Do you find yourself feeling jealous of other genders at all? Why do you think you feel this jealousy?
-If you are not otherwise LGBTQ+, do you find yourself feeling connected to or attracted to the LGBTQ+ community in a way you can't really explain? Do you feel attracted to the trans community in particular?
-Do you feel more comfortable or happier around trans/nonbinary people? Do you feel as though you can relate to trans/nonbinary people better than you can relate to cis people?
-If you are attracted to people of the same gender as your AGAB (Assigned Gender At Birth), does "gay" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?
-If you are attracted to people of the opposite gender as your AGAB, does "straight" feel like the right word for that attraction or not?
-Do you have trouble understanding your sexual/romantic orientation? Have you changed your labels several times, or perhaps never put a label on your attraction at all? Have you just kinda slapped a label on at random until further notice?
-Do you feel very uncomfortable engaging with your sexuality at all? Do you identify as asexual or sex-repulsed, because of this discomfort?
-Do you experience distress or discomfort when in sexual situations, for no otherwise discernable reason (i.e. nonconsensual situations or dealing with past sexual trauma)? Do you find yourself dissociating during or after a sexual situation? What about anxiety or panic? Do you find yourself becoming depressed after sex or masturbation?
-Do you find that you need to "get into a different headspace" in order to have sex or masturbate?
-When you wear clothes commonly associated with your AGAB, how does it make you feel? Happy? Sad? Do the clothes feel like you, or does it feel more like a costume, like you're cosplaying or performing in a play? How does it feel when you wear clothes more commonly associated with other genders?
-How do you feel when you imagine yourself far into the future, living as an elderly person? Do you find it hard to imagine yourself in old age as your AGAB? How does it make you feel? What about as other genders?
-Do you find yourself coming up with excuses for reasons that you aren't trans that, when held up to scrutiny, don't actually work? Phrases such as "Well, I didn't know when I was little, I didn't start questioning until I was X age (people of any age can question their gender and figure out they're trans)", or "I don't have genital dysphoria, so I can't be trans (trans people can have all sorts of feelings about their genders--no particular kind of dysphoria is required to be trans, or even any dysphoria at all)".
-Do you find yourself thinking things like "Well, statistically, trans people are so rare, there's no way I'm trans"? What about "I'm already (other marginalized identity(ies)), I can't possibly also be trans"? What about "I have a friend/family member/someone else in my life that's trans, I'd just be copying them"? (None of these things need to mean that you're not trans!)
-Do you have a very "mind over matter" mentality? Were you more of a smarts or arts kid than you were a sporty kid in school? Are you the kind of person who wishes your consciousness could be uploaded to the cloud or something like that, so you can leave this fleshy body of yours behind?
-Do you find yourself frustrated with society's emphasis on gender and gender roles? Do you ever feel that gender doesn't even matter at all, and you're confused as to why everyone cares about it so much?
-Do you feel constrained or trapped by being your AGAB? Do you feel like you would be so much freer and happier as a different gender?
-If you could press a button right now and wake up tomorrow as a cis member of the opposite gender, as if you'd always been that way, with a body of a cis person and with everyone referring to you like that, would you press it?
-Do you believe that everyone of your your AGAB probably wants to be a different gender, at least a little bit? Are you baffled when people of your AGAB don't agree with this sentiment?
-Did you ever wonder if or secretly hope that you were intersex? Did you ever get tested by medical professionals for an intersex condition? If so, how did the results make you feel? Were you happy to learn that you're intersex, or dissappointed to learn that you aren't?
-Does it seem difficult for you to be your AGAB, like it doesn't really come naturally to you, and you have to learn how to do it and actively try to be it? Have you felt like you've needed to construct and maintain an identity for yourself as your AGAB? Do you think being a different gender would feel more natural to you, and you wouldn't have to work at it?
-Do you find yourself thinking thoughts like "Well, I don't hate being my AGAB, but I would prefer to be a different gender/would be happier as a different gender"? (I'll give you a hint--you don't need to hate being your AGAB in order to justify being a different gender! You can just be a different gender if that makes you happier.)
-Do your genitals or reproductive organs upset you? Do you wish you didn't have them? Do you think you'd be happier having the opposite set of genitals/reproductive organs? What about having no genitals/reproductive organs? What about having a mix between the two?
-Do your genitals or reproductive organs not really feel like they're a part of you? Do they feel like a seperate entity that's just attached to you or inside of you, but they aren't really you? Do you dissociate when you look at or think about your genitals/reproductive organs? Do you try to avoid looking at or thinking about them?
-Regarding the above two points--ask yourself these same questions about your secondary sex characteristics (i.e. breasts, body hair, hips, the pitch of your voice, etc.)
-Do you only feel these feelings sometimes? If so, when you don't feel these feelings, do you actually feel good about these aspects of yourself, or do you just feel less bad?
-What if I told you right now that you are absolutely, definitely, 100% a cis person, and that you're not trans at all? How does that make you feel? What if I told you that you're definitely, 100% for-sure a trans person? How does that make you feel?
-Were you a particularly androgynous child or present yourself in a gender non-conforming way when you were younger? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?
-Alternatively, did you ever present yourself as a very gender conforming person when you were younger (i.e. hyperfeminine if AFAB or hypermasculine if AMAB)? Did you ever have a "phase" of presenting in this way?
-According to the last two points--did you ever alternate between these two modes of presentation? How did these types of presentation make you feel?
-Are you afraid of the idea of this "trans phase" or "questioning phase" being over? Are you afraid of going back to identifying as the gender you were born as?
-Do you like the idea of being a crossdressing or GNC person of the gender you were assigned at birth, or does the thought of being a different gender make you feel happier? (i.e. if you're AMAB, are you happiest when you think of yourself as a crossdressing boy/drag queen, or do you think you would be happier if you were a girl instead? Or perhaps some other gender?)
-Have you ever taken a "guess your gender/am I trans" quiz online, even just for fun? What were the results? How did the results make you feel? Did you intentionally try to skew your answers toward or away from a particular result? Did you go back and take the quiz again, wanting to get a different result?
-What sorts of gendered terms are you happiest and most comfortable being called by? Do you like the idea of being "mom" or "dad" better? What about "brother" or "sister"? "Girlfriend" or "boyfriend"? Or do you dislike both gendered options, and prefer gender-neutral terms like "parent" or "sibling" or "partner"?
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floodinginthegarden · 3 years
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INCEST'S WEIRD MAINSTAY IN OPERAS - RARE OPERA CLUB, VOL. 14 - FRANK MARTIN'S LE VIN HERBE
I’m not going to talk too much about this piece specifically. It was hard to really discern it’s function and meaning from the version I watched. This version staged the piece like an opera, even though it’s an oratorio, with instructions from Frank Martin for it not to be staged. The english translation also gave it a very stagnant and obvious feeling about it. The chorus spent the whole time describing the action, which in an oratorio is fine but in this staged context was not successful.
Okay, I said I wasn’t going to write about the performance so NOW I WILL NOT.
The piece is a telling of the Tristan and Isolde myth. Made famous by the Wagner opera (funnily enough, this weeks video essay is about the legacy and work of Wagner) this tale of star-crossed, accidental incestual love is one that has been kind of creepily obsessed over by composers over the years. Wagner not only portrays it in Tristan and Isolde but this unsuspecting sibling love also forms the relationship of Siglinde and Sigmund in Act I of Die Walkure in the Ring Cycle. Olivier Messiaen talked about the myth being influential on his early large scale work Turangalila Symphony, along with other early large works forming an interconnected trilogy. Hans Werner Henze wrote in the 1970s a large work for piano and orchestra called Tristan. And of course Debussy’s opera Pellease and Melisande is a retelling of the French version of the myth. Now that I list these composers and works, some of my favourites, I realise this myth has also creeped into many pop and art pop songs too, including a song by Patrick Wolf called Tristan, an artist I wrote my honours thesis on. It has been popularised and pretty much fetishised by Game of Thrones and other medieval knock-offs. It’s an easy taboo to tap into - it generates extreme reactions, yet still step-parent and step-brother/sister porn is often rated as the most searched on the internet.
What is the appeal of this myth (and incest in general)? In this myth the couple meet and have an immediate connection and sexual tension. These feelings are strangely familiar and welcoming. They twist and turn throughout each version, usually resulting in an eruption of physical love. It’s then usually revealed, or discovered they are brother and sister and madness ensues. This depiction of physical love isn’t something that is unusual in music, and the added mystery of the unknown origins of these familiar feelings paint the  differing interpretations with intriguing feelings of lust, longing and guilt. Many of these works capture this feeling and essence, and I think that is what the composers are probably most drawn to - trying to describe in music the mysterious attraction between these two.
However, a major taboo is still explored by major composers in major works, often on stage and often produced in times more conservative to our own. Perhaps there is a weird, twisted, almost Freudian working out of these sorts of sexual feelings by composers, especially with many of these works coming in before or on the cusp of women’s suffrage and the eventual sexual revolution.  I explore sex a lot in my work, it’s one of the main motivators of my work. I am especially interested in finding humane and genuine depictions of homosexual and non-binary love and sex in my music, to try and broaden and diversify the depictions of sex in media. However, these school-boyish obsessions of incest and confused, guilt laden medieval bonking have always felt unauthentic to me. Pelleas and Melsande for instance - I adore this opera. I find the music intoxicating, and when done properly Melisande has this mystery and grace about her that’s really intriguing. However the sort of feminine ambivalence of her, the way she’s depicted by Debussy as a sort of forlorn, distant, mysterious femme fatale has more often than not got me wanting to yell at the singers on stage in frustration. “JUST MAKE A DECISION” or “JUST ASK HER WHAT SHE WANTS” or “JUST ASK WHO SHE IS. AND WHERE HAS SHE COME FROM” Often the women in these works are passive, and are usually won over by swash-buckling male bravado - he pulls a sword from a stone or a tree, or he kills his brothers, or finds a ring, or slays a bear and other such masculine, middle ages fare princes would get up to.
The inherent awkwardness of the love interest between these character always has me unconvinced. They always seem to be in love because of physical attraction and this “sense” of destiny. I think it would actually be more interesting to explore the political nature of men’s power over women in these times, rather then the old love at first site gag. One could argue it’s just an older style of story telling, and that this might be too revisionist and could end badly, but surely when Wagner or Debussy or Messiaen thought of reaching for these myths they would have in the back of their mind the fact these stories are kind of gross. Even for their time, they’re kind of yucky. Lindsay Ellis has some similar thought and discussions around the remake of Disney’s Beauty and Beast in this video, where she explores this idea of letting the myth be the myth, rather then to update the myth for our times.
Another  example is Siglinde in Die Walkure - the tension of the first act is excellently done, but it’s always struct me as kind of awkward that she is literally living as a prisoner in this weird love triangle that somehow results in the phallic release of the sword from the tree and her running off with her brother. I can understand this sort of incest adoration in the 16th and 17th centuries, such as under the reign of Charles II, last Habsburg King of Spain. If you don’t know his story look it up now. One of my favourite party tricks is explaining that his mother is also his first cousin, his maternal grandmother is also his paternal aunty, his paternal grandmother is also his maternal great-aunt etc (see his family tree below). But these works are written in more modern times, and so for me, the incest side of things feels a little suss. They’re also often written in countries that were really conservative with laws, morals and religious beliefs that would have gone against depictions of incest. Clara Schumann said that Tristan was repulsive. Is old mate Dicky Wagner just vying for cheap reactions and scandal?
“Indeed some of the quotations from writers such as critic and later first Yale Professor of Music Gustave Stoeckel (who finds himself intoxicated by the Siegmund-Sieglinde duet while the music plays, only to feel guilty for that enjoyment of incest when the music ends). ”
What I’m getting at is that I can see why big artistic projects would want to depict and enshrine the political nature of incest in the middle ages and the renaissance - to show these highly inbred regents it is okay to be so genetically deformed - but in the works we’re talking about are far more modern.  These characters are often depicted it in a way that is superhuman (in these depictions a Übermensch, chosen one type is born from the union of bro and sis), mystical and that there is some destiny at play with these two meeting and bonking. Sometimes it is something that is against the laws of natural, but often the lines are either blurred and it isn’t explicitly called out or it’s fantasised. There is always heavy helpings of destiny and magic to justify these relationships, and they’re always kings and queens, or hero’s or princes and have political influence.
But, how many dark ages royals do you know who accidentally lost a daughter and a son and they ended up being brought up by other factions, only one day to marry? I’m sorry I know these are myths, but they’re just implausible for me. I think it would make sense if these works came from an earlier time, where the political system enshrined incest more often, but many of these pieces are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, very much in the modern time. Perhaps this resurgence of incest came from Queen Victoria and her system of marrying off her many children to various crown heads, causing a resurgence of incest among monarchs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? And perhaps these works are an attempt to appease these political forces and give them reassurance that it’s okay, its right for the political stability and perhaps will give the Kaiser some super human powers? However Wagner’s opera pre-dates German unification and so this reappearance of wide spread incest at the highest levels of the political class.. Though, it was obviously more prevalent in society, presumably in conversation and had a very important geo-political ramifications on the growing Nation States, and so maybe were in the minds of people more then in the past?
Who thought incest could be so interesting?
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shmeiliarockie · 4 years
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Back in my middle school and early high school years, long before I realized I was a sex-repulsed aroace, I went through quite a het phase. Okay, so this was the mid-to-late 90s, when being anything other than straight meant you weren’t safe. 
I got beat up in elementary school because my class decided (for no discernible reason) that I was a lesbian. My reaction was a) I’m like eight years old where are you even getting this idea? b) why do you care? c) why is that even a big deal? d) please don’t kick me in the ribs again I didn’t do anything.
My elementary school days SUCKED because nearly every in that class was either a bigoted asshole or too afraid of the bigoted assholes to try to stand up for anyone else. Kids are cruel.
Anyway, that’s not the point (I just felt like sharing). The point is that I had Straightness beat into me by bullies at a very young age so by the time I was out of that hellhole I had convinced myself that I had A CRUSH ON ALL THE FAMOUS BOYS!!!1!
HUGE crush on Taylor Hanson, holy shit. I mean just ask @adibkhorram​ and he’ll tell you. I was one of those fangirls who just go full tilt into it. Like, if I’d had the internet access then that I do now, I would have probably cyberstalked like a young creeper because I was RABID.
The benefit of being 36 is perspective. Time and reflection has granted me several insights into my own preteen/teen psyche. I started figuring out that I wasn’t straight when the idea of dancing close enough  to a boy to be touching gave me the skin-crawlies. My first reaction was to lean really hard into Rabid Fangirl. But by the end of high school I was starting to wonder if maybe I was a lesbian. 
But that wasn’t right either because I had a female friend who was very physically affectionate and that also didn’t feel right. 
I didn’t even know what asexuality was until I think after college, and I certainly didn’t know anything about sex-repulsion until pretty recently. I thought I was broken for a while, that my anxiety had fucked me up in that way.
I have come to accept myself the way I am, but it’s taken decades. The only thing that still really bugs the hell out of me is that I’m grey asexual, meaning I DO feel sexual attraction out of the blue like twice a year. But the sex-repulsion never goes away, so try to imagine what THAT feels like. (If you want an idea, read chapter 8 of K.A. Applegate’s Everworld: Realm of the Reaper.)
My brain: You are a schrödinger's cat of conflicting sexual drives right now. Enjoy.
Me: Gee thanks. You shouldn’t have. Really.
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