#serophobia

[heartless-aro]

To HIV+ AlloAros:

A lot of alloaros on here have talked a lot about how they face a lot of stigma for wanting to be sexually active while lacking romantic feelings, and how people often stereotype them as uncaring, promiscuous, careless, or irresponsible. I was thinking about this, and it reminded me of some of the sentiments that I’ve heard directed towards people who are HIV+. As such, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge HIV+ alloaros.

To all those allosexual aromantics out there living with HIV, just wanted to say that you are wonderful. You don’t deserve to be stereotyped as reckless or careless or promiscuous or irresponsible, whether you contracted HIV from your first and only sexual partner, from your 30th sexual partner, from IV drug use, or by any other means. You are not wrong or bad or dirty if you have had and enjoyed sex outside of a romantic relationship, even if you are someone who contracted HIV through casual sex. You aren’t “perpetuating stereotypes” (either of alloaro people or HIV+ people) by existing as an HIV+ alloaro. Your sexual feelings are beautiful and natural, and you should never feel ashamed of yourself for having them. You add rich and meaningful perspectives and experiences to the LGBTQ+ community, and we are lucky to have you as part of this community.

I hope that ART works well for you and enables you to live a long, happy life, and enjoy a healthy and active sex life (should you so choose). If you choose to have a zucchini, foveo, FWB, spouse, romantic partner, soft romo partner, or any other sort of partner (or partners!) I hope that they are accepting of your HIV status and that they are able to take PrEP (if needed) with minimal side effects. If sexual intimacy is something that you want, I hope that you and your partner(s) have sex that makes you feel beautiful and sexy and desirable and happy.

I hope that you are able to have children if you so choose, and that your friends and family are accepting of your HIV status.

If you have any symptoms, I hope that they are manageable and that you’re able to continue enjoying the things that make you happy. If you’re struggling with medical trauma due to your HIV treatment experiences, I hope someday you’re able to feel safe seeking medical help again. If you struggle with addiction and contracted HIV due to drug use, then I hope addiction and/or mental health recovery go well for you, should you choose to seek it out.

I hope you’re having a wonderful day, and I hope you have a wonderful life.

(For anyone who has read this far, I’ve added a link below to a list of HIV/AIDS research and relief organizations. Consider donating to one of them if you can!)

[thekillingvote]

A Death in the Family, or: How DC Comics Let a Phone Vote Kill Robin

[reposted from r/HobbyDrama on Reddit]

DC Comics has published literally thousands of Batman comics in the character's eighty-odd years of existence, but few are more infamous than A Death in the Family, when DC let fans decide whether Jason Todd, the second character to use the identity of Robin, lived or died.

An apology in advance: many primary sources for this drama have been lost to the annals of history: this was the 1980s, the Internet wasn't really a thing yet, so fan discussion around comics mostly took place in Usenet newsgroups and comic book letter columns, both of which are very difficult to find archives of today. I've reconstructed the story as best as I can, but I wish I could find more quotes from fans at the time.

Also, SPOILER WARNING. There are unmarked spoilers for Batman comics from the 1980s below. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Who was Jason Todd?

Jason Todd was a character introduced in 1983's Batman #357 by writer Gerry Conway and artist Don Newton and under the auspices of editor Len Wein, as a replacement for Dick Grayson as Robin. Grayson had outgrown the pixie boots and scaly shorts of the Robin identity, and graduated to his own identity as Nightwing, over in The New Teen Titans. But Conway felt that Batman still needed a Robin, so Todd was born:

Gerry Conway (writer, Batman and Detective Comics, 1981-1983): I always felt that Batman worked really well with a sidekick like Robin. My interest in the character was the version of Batman as a detective, the version of Batman as a guardian of Gotham. This was prior, I believe, to the deep-dive into the “dark knight” kind of concept of Batman, so, for that end, the idea of a younger sidekick who could bring out a little more levity in the character seemed useful. But Dick Grayson as a character had grown into a young adult and was integral to the Teen Titans series, and had his own life and his own storylines that were developing separately from Batman, and [he] couldn’t really play that secondary role that I was interested in exploring. [1]

Todd was introduced as the son of two acrobats who had been murdered by Batman's enemy Killer Croc, in a striking similarity to Dick Grayson's origin written forty years prior. Todd would officially become the new Robin in Batman #368, published February 1984, and would continue to go on adventures (written by Conway and then by Doug Moench) with Batman until 1986's Batman #400. During this period, he's probably best remembered for a. being involved in a custody battle between Batman and a vampire, and b. getting the drop on Mongul in the classic Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything" by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.

But then the Crisis happened, and everything changed for Jason.

The Crisis

You don't have a comic book company for almost fifty years without running into some hurdles along the way, especially where characters and continuity are concerned. In 1954, psychologist Frederick Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book asserting that comic books were harming the children of the day, causing them to turn into delinquents. As a result, the bustling superhero genre of comics at the time slowed to a crawl, with most of DC's (then known as National Periodical Publications) characters, such as the Green Lantern and the Flash, ceasing publication and being replaced with comics about talking animals, romance stories, and giant alien monsters.

Just a few short years later, in October 1956, creators Robert Kangher and Carmine Infantino would introduce a new version of the Flash in Showcase #4, and the Silver Age of comics had begun. Eventually, the Golden Age Flash was reintroduced, and it was established that the Silver Age characters resided on Earth-One, while the Golden Age characters were from Earth-Two. Everything was fine and dandy, until DC decided things had become too confusing and that they needed to kill their multiverse.

In 1986, DC published one of the very first comic crossover events - Crisis on Infinite Earths, an earth-shattering story that pitted almost every hero in company history against the threat of the Anti-Monitor. The outcome was that all the characters and stories from Earth-One, Earth-Two, and several other alternate Earths that had appeared over the years were consolidated into a single, streamlined universe, and with that came changes for several other characters, Jason Todd among them.

The New Jason Todd

After Crisis, new blood was in the Batman editorial offices. Former Batman writer Denny O'Neil had taken over as editor of the Batman family of titles, and he had a different opinion on Robin than that of Wein and Conway before him.

O’Neil: There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him. [1]

In keeping with the desire for a darker, edgier Dark Knight (it was the 1980s, after all), this version of Batman debuted without a Robin by his side. Dick Grayson was still Nightwing, but Jason Todd was nowhere to be seen. This darker interpretation of Batman was only solidified once Frank Miller put his touch on the franchise with "Batman: Year One" in Batman #404-407, and the standalone graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, the impact of which cannot be understated.

The Dark Knight Returns was a pivotal moment in the formation of what we would consider a recognizably “modern” incarnation of Batman, someone who is brooding and dark, a loner who isolates himself from society to obsessively carry out his one man crusade by any brutally violent means necessary. It was also an important milestone for comics a medium when it landed on top of the Young Adult Hardcover New York Times bestsellers list—a feat it only qualified for thanks to its release as a trade paperback in bookstores. For the first time, mainstream audiences were zeroing in on Batman, and not because of a popular TV show or serialized movies, but because of a comic book. 2

Immediately following "Year One," O'Neil asked writer Max Allan Collins to reintroduce Jason Todd as Robin into the continuity, in a storyline titled "Batman: The New Adventures" starting in Batman #408. The new Todd was a delinquent orphan, caught by Batman when he tried to steal the tires from the Batmobile and taken in and trained to be the new Robin.

At first, the change was controversial among the fandom, especially given the wildly contrasting takes between Mike W. Barr's softer portrayal of the Dynamic Duo in Detective Comics and the harsher portrayal from creators such as Collins, Jim Aparo, and Jim Starlin (best known now as the creator of Thanos) in Batman. But nobody was clamoring for his death yet, and the intensity of debates around the new Jason Todd, fought out through comic book letter columns, were milder in comparison to those around whether there should be a yellow oval on the Batsuit or not. [3]

Over the next few years, fan hatred for Jason began to grow, as the new incarnation of the character was not only a replacement for a highly beloved character, but also had a lot of anger issues to sort through. But then came the boiling point - Batman #424, written by Starlin and pencilled by Mark Bright, released October 1988. In that story, Todd confronts Felipe, son of a South American diplomat who was heavily involved in the cocaine trade. Batman reasons that, because Felipe has diplomatic immunity, there's nothing he can do to stop him, but Todd thinks otherwise. Felipe falls from a skyscraper to his death, leaving Batman to wonder: "did Felipe fall... Or was he pushed?"

(Starlin, for what it was worth, hated Todd from the get-go, and specifically wrote this story to play to the controversy:

Starlin: In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [1]

He had also tried to have Todd killed beforehand, of AIDS:

Well, I always thought that the whole idea of a kid side-kick was sheer insanity. So when I started writing Batman, I immediately started lobbying to kill off Robin. At one point DC had this AIDS book they wanted to do. They sent around memos to everybody saying “What character do you think we should, you know, have him get AIDS and do this dramatic thing” and they never ended up doing this project. I kept sending them things saying “Oh, do Robin! Do Robin!” <laughs> And Denny O’Neill said “We can’t kill Robin off”. [4]

A Death in the Family

By 1988, though, O'Neil had changed his tune. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke had left longtime supporting character Batgirl brutally paralyzed, to major praise from fans and critics alike, and there was blood in the water. Sales for Batman were at levels not seen for over a decade thanks to the works of Miller and Moore, Tim Burton's Batman feature film was on the horizon, far removed from the camp aesthetic of Adam West and Burt Ward and entirely Robin-free, and fan hatred for Todd was at an all-time high.

Jenette Kahn (publisher, DC Comics, 1976-1989; president, 1981-2003; editor-in-chief, 1989-2003) : Many of our readers were unhappy with Jason Todd. We weren’t certain why or how widespread the discontent was, but we wanted to address it. Rather than autocratically write Jason out of the comics and bring in a new Robin, we thought we’d let our readers weigh in. [1]

O'Neil and his team of editors brainstormed how they could remove Jason from the story, and the answer was clear: kill him, just as Starlin had suggested time and time again. Recalling the success of a 1982 Saturday Night Live sketch in which Eddie Murphy let viewers vote via phone on whether he would cook or spare a live lobester, O'Neil proposed a similar system to Kahn, who loved the idea.

So, A Death in the Family began in Batman #426, written by Starlin and illustrated by Jim Aparo. When Jason receives word that his missing mother is alive, he follows a set of leads across the world to find her, only to discover that she was being blackmailed by the Joker. Jason's mother hands him over to the Clown Prince of Crime, and that's how Batman #427 ends. On the back cover of that issue, DC ran a full-page ad, proclaiming: "Robin Will Die Because the Joker Wants Revenge, But You Can Prevent It With a Telephone Call" and giving two 1-900 numbers: one to call to save Jason, and one to kill him.

Two versions of issue #428 were written and drawn. One where Jason lived, and another, where he died. Both went into a drawer in O'Neil's desk, and the fans would choose which one would ever see the light of day.

The fans went rabid. One letter, published in Batman #428, read as follows:

"Dear Denny, I heard some of what you are planning for "A Death In the Family" story line, including the phone-in number wrinkle, and I don't want to take any chances whatsoever. Kill him. Your pal, Rich Kreiner."

From 9:00 in the morning on Thursday, September 15, 1988 until 8:00 in the evening on Friday, September 16, fans could call in to either of the two numbers for fifty cents a call and cast their vote. In the end, the votes were tallied: 5,271 voted for Todd to survive, and 5,343 voted for him to die. By a margin of 72 votes, Robin died in the pages of Batman #428, beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker. The image of Batman cradling Robin's dead body became immediately iconic.

The Reaction

Fan reaction to the story was mixed, despite the seeming fervor for Todd's death and the blood that was on their hands. The letters pages for Batman #430 (1, 2) show a mixture of celebration over Jason's death, remorse over individuals' decisions to vote for death, and hope that Robin's absence would lead to more mature Batman stories in the future. However, every issue of A Death in the Family was a best-seller, and a collected edition was rushed out in early December of 1988, only a week after the final issue in the arc was released to stores.

But now that the fan feeding frenzy was (mostly) over, the media feeding frenzy had begun. You don't just kill Robin and get away with it without media attention. USA Today and Reuters ran articles on the story, and DC was besieged with interview requests from radio and TV stations.

O’Neil: I spent three days doing nothing but talking on the radio. I thought it would get us some ink here and there and maybe a couple of radio interviews. I had no idea—nor did anyone else—it would have the effect it did. Peggy [May], our publicity person, finally just said, “Stop, no more, we can’t do anymore,” or I would probably still be talking. She also nixed any television appearances. At the time, I wondered about that but now I am very glad she did, because there was a nasty backlash and I came to be very grateful that people could not associate my face with the guy who killed Robin. [1]

Internally at DC, there were suspicions that the vote had been rigged in some fashion.

O'Neil: "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference." [5]

But regardless of whether it was or not, Jason Todd was dead, and he would remain dead for as long as O'Neil stayed at DC - long enough for the phrase to be coined: "nobody in comics stays dead except for Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd." But he wouldn't remain dead forever.

Legacy

Jason would be succeeded by a new Robin, less than a year after his death. In a crossover storyline between Batman and New Titans written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Perez and Jim Aparo, entitled "A Lonely Place of Dying", the character of Tim Drake would be introduced. Unlike Todd and Grayson before him, Drake would challenge the assumptions made about the character of Robin - he figured out Batman's secret identity on his own, and deduced that Batman needed a Robin by his side, to ensure he wouldn't take unneeded risks.

Gone were the short pants of yesteryear - Drake wore a full-body suit with an armored cape, and was more of a detective than a fighter. He debuted to mixed reactions, although fans soon grew to love him under the pen of Chuck Dixon, who would be one of the major architects of Batman in the 1990s.

Todd would get a second chance at life seventeen years later. In 2005, writer Judd Winick wrote the storyline "Under the Hood," published in Batman #635-641, 645-650, and Annual #25. There, it's revealed that Todd returned to life thanks to an alternate version of Superboy punching reality (it's comics, don't ask) and the aid of R'as al Ghul's Lazarus Pits, and donned the identity of the crime lord the Red Hood in his quest for revenge against the Joker.

Todd, as the Red Hood, persists as a popular character today, a lasting symbol of Batman's failure, as he operates as a pragmatic vigilante, willing to take risks Batman isn't.

[lonelyasawhisper]

The more I think about how the press and the majority of the public in general love to clutch their pearls and act so scandalised by Queen and specifically Freddie's “overindulgence in excess and hedonism” and how WiLd and DeCaDeNt their parties were, largely bc of the fact that

1) Freddie was gay and thus

2) lots of people in his social circle frequenting their parties were “social deviants” and “freaks” (as the press at the time loved to emphasise) aka queer people, in comparison to most other classic rock bands and

3) the serophobic narrative that Freddie “had it coming and drove himself to a painful death bc of his out-of-control homosexual promiscuity, drug use and partying”;

even though there has been no story suggesting anything shady or unethical or non-consensual as far as the band’s involved regarding these WiLd PaRTIeS, other than excess in terms of sex, drugs and alcohol

while other “straight” bands who did not have a gay lead singer or drag artists, cross dressers and queer people at their parties did far more decadent, degenerate things, like literal violent crimes and depraved acts that directly hurt actual vulnerable people, and managed to skate by unscathed with relatively less scrutiny and judgement from the press and the public,

the angrier and more disgusted I get.

[queerbauten]

Tumblr losing its mind over an American Girl book discussing HIV/AIDS... truly bizarre

[bi-sapphics]

honestly smth that just makes me really angry (thinking abt that anon again) is the “you owe your thriving lifestyle to xyz group who is either more oppressed than you or is somehow more valuable and liked and worthy than you” bullshit. this goes for ANYONE.

and, yes, to some degree i think we owe different groups of people our gratitude and respect. like that’s just true, i’m not out here trying to say it’s all about me me me and i don’t owe anyone anything at all.

what upsets me is this derogatory “you’re helpless and weak and you wouldn’t have any rights if not for our kindness in allowing you to be a part of our community conditionally, so stop complaining that you had your own culture stolen and gatekept from you.” there’s a difference between getting rightfully angry at a minority with privilege via axis of oppression (i.e. white bisexuals, cis lesbians, black men, etc.) for being selfish & unruly (which is not whom i’m talking about) and bullying a minority group you personally see as lesser and/or more privileged than you (regardless of the truth) and gaslighting them into believing “the bad unjust thing we did to hurt you that you’re complaining so much about could have been worse, so you should be grateful that you aren’t being treated even worse nowadays” (i.e. lesbian separatism).

and this doesn’t even just go for angry and hurt bisexual women vs. selfish lesbian separatists, it also goes for gay men vs lesbians in a specific way as well. lesbians (and i’m assuming bi women who were considered lesbians at the time, but for the sake of convenience we’ll say lesbians) played a huge part in aiding gay & bi men during the time when the government was killing the LGBT community with its serophobia. gay men will always owe lesbians a great debt of gratitude, but that doesn’t mean lesbians get a pass in speaking over gay men and dismissing their issues. i myself am not gay nor a man so i will not be speaking over them, but what i do know is that many of them are tired of being silenced for the sake of it being “their duty” or whatever. gay men oppress lesbians on the basis of misogyny, sure, that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, but both groups face homophobia and erasure within their own communities. this post explains it a lot better than i could and gets the point across much better without sounding silly, but be warned that there are lots of radfems arguing against op in the thread. that should tell you that it actually carries some weight if it makes radfems mad. misandry isn’t real but bigotry is not the same as oppression and it doesn’t give us the right to ignore mlm when they speak about being mlm.

i didn’t put as much effort into this post as i did with the original that i mentioned above so feel free to correct me on and/or inform me of anything. hopefully i came across the right way and the correct audience reading this post will actually understand what i’m trying to say and not purposefully twist the message to start an argument. don’t do that. please lmao. just read the post i linked above about the aids crisis before you do.

[official-stardustboy]

Love how homophobes screeching about monkeypox to bring up their homophobic rhetoric just reawakened a wave of serophobic millennials and gen xers

[fluxphage]

dsmpers on tiktok are possibly the most annoying dsmpers. just had some teen try to say ive never been affected by aids when ive had friends and family literally die from it

[enfreakment]

Eddie Munson + “Sex and the Devil” by Nicky Falkof (3/4)

[image description: a screenshot from Stranger Things overlaid with a quote from an academic article on Satanism and homophobia. Jason Carver speaks to Lucas, agitated about D&D and accusing Eddie of criminality, with the basketball team in the background. the caption reads: “Been happening all over the country. It’s an epidemic.” the quote reads: “[equated] the activities of homosexuals with a kind of sodomitical and sacrificial Black Mass.” end image description.]

[bulldogblues]

The amount of ignorance and hatred there still is towards people with HIV is outright sickening.

A few facts to consider:

* If someone with HIV is receiving treatment and has an undetectable viral load, there is zero chance of them transmitting it to someone else. Undetectable = untransmissable.

* Similarly, if an HIV positive woman takes HIV treatment during pregnancy and the baby receives treatment for a number of weeks after the birth, the chances of HIV being passed from mother to baby is very low (estimated below 1%)

* Although frequently associated most with gay and bisexual men, women make up roughly one-third of all HIV positive people, and these days, more heterosexual women are diagnosed with HIV each year than any other demographic

* Black people are substantially more likely to be HIV positive. In the UK, for example, 4% of the population is Black but over one-third of HIV positive people are Black. Black women in particular are especially at risk.

HIV/AIDS is most well known for how many gay men died from it in the 80s and 90s, and there are much better treatments for it now than there were back then. But millions of people across the world, especially in countries without reliable HIV healthcare, are still at risk, and hatred and discrimination and ignorance against HIV positive people is still a huge issue to this very day.

[coccolithophore]

i refuse to interact with this post but if you uncritically put this shit on my dash without commentary i will unfollow you

[matoitech]

if im thinking abt stuff like 'preference' w bisexuality and how that can come off to other ppl particularly someplace like online where its kind of a viewable catalogue of at least some aspect of urself or what ur interested in, at the end of the day i think there’s just a lot more stuff catering to me as a man who fucks men regardless of the specifics of whether the dude interacting w or making it is gay or bi that it’s just easier to indulge that aspect of myself (also, my being in a relationship w another man) vs my attraction to women which can just be a lot harder to find things that feel like they actually interest me or resonate with me bcuz i’m a bisexual man and my relationships with women aren’t rly typically the dynamic or experience of two straight people in a relationship or their sexual dynamics. not like i Cant resonate w things intended to be made that way ofc just its typically harder for bi ppl to find things we like. thisis like a well known and discussed thing in bi community spaces

like i don’t personally relate to the ‘my dif gender attraction is still gay’ bi jokes bcuz im not nonbinary and i don’t have a ‘weird gender’ in any way im just male so my attraction to and relationships w women is just as a man, but me being a BISEXUAL man specifically DOES impact and alter that in a way. it’s not inherently better or worse than how a straight man may like women it’s just different. if there was as much bisexual m/f in media or whatever as weird biphobes online pretend there is then my experiences would be more represented (gotta make it ourselves)

bi men also tend to be aware of how our attraction towards women As men is read and viewed and treated both in general and in lgbt spaces, which a lot of the time dont look very kindly on any of our attraction anyway (‘predatory cheating bi man whose probably gonna give u stds’) so that’s also a factor in us maybe coming off like we prefer men in lgbt spaces when we don’t actually have a preference or any interest in discussing our 'types' w strangers online. shrugs

[lacefuneral]

Murray Hewitt scenepack for S2E6. In this episode, Murray encourages the band to write some new material. Trying to impress a woman they met in the park, Brabra, Bret and Jemaine decide to host a benefit concert for epileptic dogs. 

This is part of my ongoing project “Just Murray” - where I extract just Murray’s scenes from FOTC and edit them together. You can find this episode, and others, in this google drive folder as I upload them.

[thekillingvote]

This new Robin was a street kid named Jason Todd, who Batman discovered when he caught the kid stealing a tire off the Batmobile. Todd was petulant, moody, and prone to outbursts of violence. I was 12 at the time and I loved him. A lot of fans, however, did not, which was reflected in the monthly letters to the editor. Then came A Death in the Family, a monthly four-part miniseries which ended in Robin's death at the hands of the Joker. The penultimate issue was a cliffhanger for sure, but running opposite the last panel was an advertisement featuring a pay telephone number where we the fans could vote whether he would live or die.   [...] The final tally was 5,343 votes for Jason to die over 5,271 for him to live. I personally voted for him to live a 100 times, and my mom flipped when she saw the phone bill.

Savas Abadsidis in "Did the Idea to Kill Robin Stem from the HIV Epidemic?", Plus magazine (November 21, 2016)

[butch-bakugo]

Not to be an ass but yeah...

This lesbian was assaulted.... This trans woman was found dead.... Bi women get beat up on trains and are more likely to be hurt by their male partners than straight women..... This trans man died defending lesbians in germany.... These gay men are in camps in russia... This nonbinary person was killed.....

Amazing how you hear about violence aginest gay and trans people but i litterally cant find a single vetted article that shows violence aginest aro/ace pple for "aphobia". Like its always these excuses;

Aroaces face corrective rape! the "corrective rape" was not corrective and happend because the aroace person said no to sex and it was just mysogny because the aro/ace person was afab n would you look at that, the rapist was a cis man. Thats mysogny. Not to mention 80% of aro/ace people are cis women, trans men and afab nonbinary people aka the people raised litterally taught from birth that sex is not something for them to enjoy and they exist to please.

Doctors consider lack of sexual/romantic attraction to be a symptom instead of an orientation! Because lacking the desire for sex and relationships is a hallmark sign of trauma, abuse and mental illness. Its litterally symptom #1 to struggle with sex and commitment when your traumatized and ive litterally never met a not-traumatized aro/ace. I know this because im a traumatized aro/ace and no, "aphobia" isnt traumatic. Honestly, even if your aro/ace as a result of trauma, thats valid, just make sure your healing and that your honest about it.

Well, when i wore my ace pin, someone called me a queer! Thats a sign that me, being cisgender and heteroromantic asexual, am really queer! Experiencing misplaced oppression at the hands of homophobic and transphobic people dosent suddenly make you gay or trans. Also, they dont know what any of the flags mean so why tf would they care that you dont fuck unless its Tuesday? They just assume all little pins with a bunch of colored stripes mean child groomer gay pedo tranny, not demiaroace or wtf ever. They litterally only hate you because they assume you fuck the same gender or dont identify as ur brith sex. Thats it. It also dosent help that you go running around saying "im SOOO gay" and "im such a dirty little queer." When you are neither. When you say ur gay, they are gonna think ur gay. If they know ur cis and het and dont have sex, they dont give a fuck.

Well, your theory falls apart that aro/aceness is mostly brought on by trauma and mysogny when trans women, amab enbies and cis man aro/aces exist! Ok, you still havent disproven my point because 1. transfems and amab enbies usually have gender dysphoria which, speaking from my own experiences, complicates sex and makes it harder. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness and unless you bring to me 5 examples of cis het men who identify as aroace, you dont get to use them as a gotcha. Ive been gay for almost 10 years and ive still never met one, online or irl.

I also never stated that aro/aceness was purely brought on by trauma/mental illness and mysogny, its something that can just naturally happen. Ive just never seen it genuinely happen. Usually the person has trauma/mental illness or is afab or is trans or all three. All of these things, according to proven psychology, can affect the sex drive, attraction and desire for committed relationships.

Thats why every aro/ace you see is either really young and in pain, still healing from trauma or is older and admits to holding on out of spite or admit that its trauma related. There are always gonna be exceptions but unless those excepts make up more than 25% of a thing, im not considering it something totally stand alone. Its also why every ex-aro/ace carries the same story: they identified with it when they were younger and healing from some traumatic shit, they got older and got help, they healed and magically they werent adverse to sex and relationships. That dosent happen with gay pple or trans pple usually. Like 70% of today's aro/ace people are allo 5 years later. If not 5, then 90% by 10 yrs. If not 10, then 99% by 20 yrs.

Its not a coincidence. Adversity towards sex and relationships usually has a foot in the graves of social oppression, trauma/abuse and mental illness. Usually once someone feels empowered by their minority status, heals from their trauma and copes with their mental illnesses, they arnt aro/ace anymore. I speak from experience watching pple i knew when i was 13 go from traumatized and a "romance and sex repulsed" aroace transmasc nonbinary kid who hates allos and gags at sex scenes to being 20 and seeing them all just be ur average bisexual transmasc nonbinary person who kisses and fucks like everybody else. They might throw an arospec or acespec label in their like demi- or -flux but its usally just labels that mean that they are normal person who dosent fuck on sight or isnt always thinking about sex.

Im not saying that every incident of aro/aceness is a result of trauma/abuse, mental illness and bigotry but i am saying that coming to terms with that shit usually makes someone less aro/ace. Im also mentioning how many times ive seen aro/ace people throw out excuse after excuse and label after label that all boil down to telling someone to stop getting therapy and just identify as this because "all labels are vaild and inate to you. You'll always be this." Then they mob you when you get help and openly say your not aroace anymore and ur labled a "traitor" who "wasnt an actual aroace and is just a troll" cause you dare to talk about rhw toxicity and fandomization the aroace communities suffer from. I know this cause im aroace and i dont touch those communities with a 10ft pole. Aint happening. I see a person with a demigreyromantic pin and i turn the other way hopeing to got they didnt see my aro one cause i refuse to talk to pple like that.

The definitions of romance and sex are fluid for a reason and just because you think you dont fit the societal definition of a "average amount of sexual and romantic attraction" dosent mean ur right about society and dosent make you akiocupioangleddemiaroacefluxspike, i promise. All these bajillion labels fall apart the moment you mention that its completely natural for a human's desire for sex and romantic partnership is supposed to fluxuate over the course of your life and multiple things influence it. Im not opposed to microlabels and sexuality modifiers and other things people do in an attempt to find community with others who have the same experiences as them and i never have but what i am saying is that little shit like that dosent oppress you on a societal scale and never has and to think critically about yourself and others to understand that what your feeling isnt always the truth and emotions can betray you.

You arent always a trustworthy person and its always best to make long term decisions on a full stomache, a mid mood, in clean clothes and plenty of energy with enough time to be sure. Quick decisions can fuck you up and the amount of spite and toxicity coming from the aroace communities when you even so much as glance critically at them is worth a few months of deliberation before you go in full speed. Just dont come crying to the normal aroaces when you hit a brick wall 5 ft in and get bombarded with cishet sob stories of people who lost their partner cause they didnt disclose their aroace status, cupcakes and dragons, the gay dads kicked me out copypasta and a bajillion people claiming that their oppressed with their only sources being "trust me bro" and " how dare you question my experiences". If you arnt 100% informed, ur on a hundred blocklists just for mentioning that you dont like the ace flag or some meaningless shit like that.

Trust me, dont bother.

[rthko]

Answer me this: are you calling COVID "airborne AIDS" because you want people to take COVID seriously, or because you want to tap into serophobia and the blaming and moralizing of people with HIV to make yourself look superior?

[2goldensnitches]

If nothing else, it’s darkly funny to see that among the chief clowns in the shit circus include a man who accuses everyone of hating him because of serophobia and not because of, say, stalking people and sending them extremely graphic rape threats, a poor poor anxious girl and totally not a grown ass woman who deleted and remade because of a tumblr poll calling her annoying, a usamerican who pretends he didn’t cheer on putin’s invasion since 2022 and thinks a few uni courses makes him the expert on global affairs, and conspiracists who think instagram posts are a cut above mainstream news media