tealovingace

[tealovingace]

Ace culture is wanting to look pretty, beautiful and attractive for yourself, but not wanting anyone else to find you hot/sexy and then panicking when they do.

[tealovingace]

Some Thoughts On Aphobia

As a disclaimer, this entire post obviously comes from an allosexual queer and these experiences are only second-hand from my view of all of this. This blog is usually a fandom blog, but I felt like talking about this because it’s personal to me, and I think that with the exclusionism of aros and aces rampant in the LGBTQ+ community, I could shed some light on some things with this personal story.

So, I have three sisters. My oldest sister is as hetero as they come (but, a huge ally ofc) but my other older sister is bisexual and I am queer/sapphic. My little sister, well, I’ve personally had theories of her being AroAce for awhile, but I didn’t want to push labels onto her or tell her how to feel. In the end, no matter her sexuality, it’s no one’s place to make assumptions. It doesn’t affect me, as long as she’s happy. 

Recently though, my little sister kept asking me more and more questions about asexuality and aromanticism. She asked about the definitions, the flag colours, all of it. And more recently, she admitted to me that she thought she was AroAce.  I gave her my full support and I was proud of her and all that. I’m a protective big sister, what can I say. (and as an aside, I am aware of the statistical unlikelihood that 3 out of the 4 of my sisters are LGBTQ+ and we all find it hilarious tbh)

Now, here’s the thing. My entire family, though this story will particularly be about my mom, knows I’m queer. They know my older sister is bi. We’ve received nothing but support and acceptance. We went to Pride this year, they helped me get into an LGBTQ+ support group, all of the things. 

So imagine my surprise when my little sister comes out to my parents and my mom immediately shuts her down. She says my sister is too young and immature to make that decision, -mind you, I was 14 when I came out, she’s 16- she said my sister hasn’t found the right person and just doesn’t socialise with people enough to know, and best of all, my mother said that my little sister will get married someday and give her grandchildren.

Now, children having to give their parents grandchildren is a rant on its’ own, but we don’t need to get into it because it’s ridiculous to think that my mother, with four children, the oldest of whom is ENGAGED and has picked out names with her fiance for kids, won’t get grandchildren. But all that aside. 

But aphobia isn’t real, right? To reiterate, my mother supports me to death. But when my little sister comes out as AroAce, suddenly it’s an entirely different matter. I even pointed out the hypocrisy of it to my mother, because it would’ve been horrible of her to say to me I’ll get married to a man someday so she shouldn’t say it to my sister. Do you know what my mom’s response was?

“I just want her to be happy.”

Because that’s the thing with aphobia. We exist in a society where happiness is derived from being in a relationship. We talk about soulmates and other halves and the people that complete us. It’s a different brand of homophobia but derived from the same ideas. Rather than it being that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, it’s that marriage between two people is required for happiness. Sex is required for love, and romantic love is required for a happy life.

To be clear, I don’t hate my mom for this, and I do think she’ll come around. I understand it’s a lot to process, but that’s because we refuse to normalise it. There are LGBTQ+ people who won’t even accept Aros and Aces into the community and act like aphobia isn’t real or that it doesn’t hurt people. They act like I didn’t have to go from comforting my baby sister to screaming at my mother for making my sister come to me, devastated. And trust me when I say my sister was lucky. I know there are Aces and Aros who’ve had it so much worse.

I took my sister to my LGBTQ+ support group. It was nice and we both enjoyed ourselves. When we got back home the first thing she said to me was “You know, it was really nice to tell people I was AroAce and not have to explain what it means.”

My point in all of this to point out that aphobia is very real, and that Aros and Aces need to be accepted into the community. It’s the same thing, the same struggle. People like my sister deserve to feel at home somewhere, and they deserve to have the rest of the community rallying behind them and giving them the platform to help explain to cishets their sexuality so that my sister and others can be left the fuck alone. She doesn’t need sex or an “other half” to be a normal, happy person. No one does. 

So TLDR: if you say Aros and Aces aren’t a part of this community, you will die by my queer sword.  And obviously, my views and opinions on all of this are very limited, as I’m not Aro/Ace. So if any Aros and/or Aces want to add on with their personal experience/opinions. I’d love to hear them and I’ll read them all.

[tealovingace]

Being an Aromantic Asexual is Weird

Being an aromantic asexual is weird. We defy not one, not two, but three societal norms; heteronormativity, compulsory sexuality, and amatonormativity. It gets even weirder when you’re indifferent (even favourable!) when it comes to sex and romance because you think your experience is universal, that everyone feels the way you do. It’s not feeling wrong and broken and out of place. It’s feeling normal, and then realizing that you aren’t.

Thinking (read: assuming) that you’re straight for most of your life and then finding out you’re not is weird. Mostly because once you realize you’re not straight, it dawns on you that you feel the same way about boys that you do about girls and non-binary people. And then you wonder if you’re pansexual because they’re attracted to all genders, and you have to be attracted to someone, right? And then that thought is immediately dismissed because you don’t feel attraction, at all. But it doesn’t stop you from contemplating every other sexuality and romantic orientation, because you’ve been taught that everyone wants sex and romance.

And then you remember: you like sex and romance in fiction. You like seeing your friends in happy, healthy, consenting relationships, and you’d always assumed that one day, you’d be in one too. But you’ve never pursued one. You never had more than a fleeting interest in boys, and lingering but still platonic affection for your female and non-binary friends. Those “crushes” that you had in elementary school? Maybe not crushes after all, because God knows you haven’t had one in nearly eight years. The most powerful feelings you’ve had for another person have been squishes so intense that you had to look back and question if it was actually romantic attraction (spoiler: it wasn’t).

And then there’s that epiphanic moment when things start to fall into place. Why you were always so vehement that soulmates could be platonic too. Why the idea of loving someone more than your best friend is incomprehensible (because romantic love is always shown as being more. Hello amatonormativity). Why when you ship fictional pairings, there are people you want to get together romantically, people you want to be friends so bad, and the ships that you like the most are the ones that could go either way. Why you desire emotional closeness and intimacy with the people in your life, but that had always been conflated with sex and romance so you wondered if what you wanted was more than friendship. Why you want to take the expression “more than friends”and burn it to the ground because there is no vocabulary for friendship that exceeds “best friend” without crossing over into romantic and/or sexual territory.

You realize that your ideal relationship isn’t necessarily romantic. It’s best friends who cohabitate and snuggle and hold hands and go on adventures to the library together. Kissing and sex? Well, that’s more of an afterthought. A “yeah, that’ll probably happen somewhere in there.” An assumption, because you’ve been taught that primary, monogamous relationships are always romantic and sexual. You reflect and see that there are very few things that you see and inherently romantic, and that there is a lot of cross-over between things you consider platonic, sensual, and romantic. A grey area that you can’t define.

Being an aromantic asexual is weird, because while I’ve always said that you don’t need romance and sex to be happy, I now realize that it applies to me too.

______________________

Note from mod fitz: This has to be one of the most moving descriptions of this I have ever read. This exactly describes how I felt coming to the realization that I was not straight, and I think had I read this when I first began questioning it would have made things go a lot smoother for me. Thanks so much for submitting!

[tealovingace]

Why identifying as aromantic is important to me (as a 36-year-old woman)

I identify as aromantic asexual (aro/ace). Both parts of that identity are important to me, but the aro one particularly so. Why? Because at 36 years old, society’s amatonormativity has more of an effect on me than its allonormativity.

In your teens and twenties, sex is a huge deal. There’s a lot of pressure to have sex and to be sexually desirable. But by the time you reach your mid-30s, this eases off. Your allosexual peers’ obsession with sex starts to wane, and you find less conversations about it taking place in your everyday life. In fact, if I were to admit to a 30/40/50-something allosexual person that I’m just not that interested in sex, I reckon there’s a good chance I’d receive a nod of recognition.

However, if I were to say that I’m not interested in having a relationship? That I intend to be ‘forever alone’? Well, that would raise eyebrows.  For in amatonormative society, partnering up and settling down with someone, in the form of a mutually exclusive, ‘romantic’ relationship, is deemed inevitable; essential; the natural order of things. As you get older, society can (just about) countenance you not wanting sex. But it can’t comprehend you wanting to remain single.

When younger, aro people can get away with saying things like, ‘oh, I’m not looking for a relationship’, or, ‘I’m not interested in getting married’, in response to those seemingly innocuous, everyday questions we all get asked such as, ‘have you got a partner?’ and ‘are you married?’ Why? Because people assume that’s just your age talking, not your orientation. However, as you get closer to 40, being asked these kinds of questions can fill aro people with trepidation. How to explain that you’re just not that way inclined, when the overriding message from society is that you should be?

I remember a work lunch a few years ago, at which the conversation amongst my colleagues turned to talk about their husbands; how they met them; how they popped the question. Obviously, I had nothing to share on this topic, but that was okay; in my colleagues’ eyes, I was still young, with plenty of time to find My Man. I do wonder though, had I stayed in that job, how my colleagues’ attitudes towards me might have changed as the years went by and I continued to stay single. How would they have accounted for my singleness? With open-mindedness or prejudice?

For this is another issue aro people face as they get older. As the years go by, you become more conscious of what your family and any long-standing friends/co-workers might be making of your perma-singleness. Do they think me socially inept? Emotionally under-developed? Frigid? Pitiful? Just… not normal? Such is the stronghold amatonormativity has over our lives, that to lead a single life leaves you open to being perceived in all sorts of narrow-minded and unkind ways.

This is why claiming an aromantic identity is so important to me at this stage of my life. Whilst I’m still not really ‘out’ as aro, just coming out to myself has made all the difference. Now I know who/what I am, people can make whatever assumptions they like about me; that I’m a socially inept loner, whatever; it doesn’t matter. Knowing I’m aro, I feel the sting of the prejudicial attitudes our hetero/amatonormative society has towards single women a lot less, and am a lot more secure in myself.

Knowing I’m aro also helps when it comes to just being able to deal with everyday adult conversation; so much of which is centred around people’s dating lives, their married lives, their coupled-up nuclear family lives.  For alloromantics – i.e. the majority of people – their ‘romantic’ relationship, and the family they create around that, is the very foundation of their lives. So, of course this ends up being the subject of a lot of everyday chit-chat, whether at the family dinner table or round the office water cooler. But for those of us who are aro/arospec, these most ‘normal’ and mundane of conversations can be awkward at best and alienating at worst.

My aro identity provides a much-needed bulwark against this. Before I discovered aromanticism, when I found myself in conversations about marriage and dating and settling down, I would often end up feeling insecure and embarrassed because my lack of relationship experience meant I had no similar anecdotes or stories to share. And even though I knew I didn’t actually want a relationship, and felt on some innate level that I was destined to stay single, this didn’t stop me from wondering whether the fact I’d made it all the way to 30 without ever having been in a relationship, or gone a date, meant there was something wrong with me.  If I hadn’t discovered aromanticism, I can imagine these feelings of shame and embarrassment would only have intensified as I got older.

But now I know I am aromantic, I understand my non-existent relationship history to be a sign of my aromanticism, rather than of there being something ‘wrong’ with me, whether socially, emotionally, or physiologically. Again, this doesn’t mean I’m at the stage where I feel comfortable being all ‘I’m aro!’ when talking to people. But it does mean I can hold my head a bit higher when I find myself caught up in conversations in which everyone’s going on about their love lives.

As I get older, it’s my aromanticism that makes me feel queer in the world. My peers, siblings and cousins are coupling up and settling down, and here I remain, steadfastly single. As a result, I become more conscious of how my lack of romantic attraction sets me apart from others more than my lack of sexual attraction. No one’s quizzing me on the details of my sex life, or asking me who I ‘fancy’, anymore. But people do enquire about my relationship status. And people are likely to make all sorts of not-very-nice assumptions about that 30/40/50-something woman in their midst who continues to stay single. This is why, now I’m in my mid-30s, I have more of a need to give a name to, and to understand, my lack of interest in romantic relationships, than I do my lack of interest in sex. Claiming an aromantic identity helps me to navigate the amatonormativity which is all-pervasive in everyday adult life; and to navigate it with pride.

[tealovingace]

made a comic about some thoughts! small ways you can empower people, choosing who to empower, and why “don’t make your orientation your whole personality” misses the depth of the issue.

stay cute, stay proud, and love your friends

[tealovingace]

the number one surefire way to make people remember something is to annoy them so here’s an annoying announcement that some of the douchebags i keep seeing are gonna get mad at and then remember because it made them mad

[sidenote: gay/bi/pan/etc, trans, and ace are not mutually exclusive identities and this comic does not imply that. just in case anyone tries to get picky. you can be het-ace-trans and acephobic/biphobic, aro-gay-trans and homophobic, etc etc. endless possibilities exist for being a shitty person.]

[tealovingace]

I think a huge part of the ignorance about aromanticism is that people fundamentally misunderstand aro relationships because they simply do not have any frame of reference for what it would be like to live without romantic feelings. Non-aro people completely miss the point when they imagine their life as exactly the same, but with the romantic feelings and relationships removed, and extrapolate that that’s what aro people’s lives are like, because for a lot of people… it’s not.

It’s the same misunderstanding when cis people try to imagine what it would be like to be trans by thinking “what if I wanted to be a boy?” and straight people imagine their partner and their relationship as exactly the same, just another gender.

That’s why we get all this bullshit where allo people act as though all relationships must fit neatly and obviously into either ‘romantic’ or ‘platonic’ categories, because… their relationships do. That’s why we hear stuff like “lol what you are describing is a friendship!” when aro people talk about QPRs, because for them, any relationship that lacks romantic affection is a friendship. Because they are not imagining their life without a relationship that is committed, incredibly intimate, exclusive, and prioritised above all others.

Aro people can still desire a level of intimacy and commitment with somebody that everybody else gets from romantic relationships, without wanting a romance: sharing everything - space, money, belongings, time - having a level of emotional and even physical intimacy that is not common in friendships, being committed to one another, making that relationship a priority above other things in your life, basing major life decisions around that relationship… these are all things that most people fulfil through romantic relationships, and aro people can desire that kind of intimacy without feeling or wanting romance.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand QPRs or the aro experience. You don’t have to understand it to respect it. At some point you have to acknowledge that you don’t understand because you have not experienced it, you have no frame of reference for it, and you will never really know what it’s like because those are not one of those people. The validity of aro people’s experiences does not hinge on whether or not non-aro people understand or accept them.

[tealovingace]

Let’s bust some asexual and aromantic myths with alice oseman (@chronicintrovert)!

[tealovingace]

Eindrücke zu “Loveless” von Alice Oseman

Ich muss dem regnerischen Sommerwetter hier echt danken. Ohne den verregneten Nachmittag gestern, hätte es wohl noch ein bisschen gedauert bis ich das Buch gelesen hätte. So allerdings... hab ich es glatt am Tag der Veröffentlichung (wie ich gerade erst bemerkt habe) förmlich durchgesuchtet. Ich denke, diese Tatsache spricht für sich. ;-)

Worum geht es? 

Georgia erlebt am Ende ihrer Schulzeit auf einer Party, dass sie sich ihren Crush auf einen Mitschüler wohl die ganze Zeit nur eingebildet hat. Allein der Gedanke, dass er sie küssen könnte, löst ihr extremes Unbehagen aus. Sie beginnt ihr Studium an der Uni mit dem vorherrschenden Gedanken, dass sie etwas verpasst haben muss. Sex spielte bis dahin in ihrem Leben quasi keine Rolle. Also glaubt sie, dass sie etwas Fundamentales verpasst hätte und jetzt das “Beste” aus ihrer Zeit an der Uni herausholen müsste. Dazu versucht sie gegen alle ihre Instinkte sich zu verlieben, einen alten Freund zu daten und ihre sexuelle Orientierung zu erforschen. Sie ist dabei verzweifelt, planlos und unabsichtlich verletzend. Das liegt vor allem daran, dass sie zunächst keine Ahnung hat, dass es Asexualität und Aromantik überhaupt gibt. Ihr inneres Coming Out ist geprägt von einigen Rückschlägen und Verwicklungen. Dabei müssen die Beziehungen zu ihren Freund*innen einiges aushalten.

Wie liest sich “Loveless”?

Man merkt, dass Alice Oseman weiß wovon sie schreibt. Georgias innere Stimme und ihre Konflikte sind sehr gut nachvollziehbar. Besonders merkt man das, wenn Georgia keine Ahnung hat, was mit ihr los ist und der Druck “normal” zu sein immer mehr ansteigt. Dabei ist es Alice Oseman gelungen, auch noch eine interessante Dynamik unter den Freund*innen aufrecht zu erhalten und den Plot rund um die Theatergruppe spannend in Szene zu setzen. Definitiv ein Buch, dass man in einer Sitzung lesen kann.

Asexualität und Aromantik

Wow, dieser Roman war einerseits ein Augenöffner für mich und andererseits so nah dran an meinen eigenen Gefühlen und Gedanken während meiner Coming-Out-Phase, dass es schon etwas unheimlich ist. Vieles, dass Georgia denkt, kommt mir schmerzhaft bekannt vor. Gerade das innere Ringen, um mit den Gefühlen zum Thema Aromantik klarzukommen, konnte ich bislang nie so gut getroffen nachlesen. Die Angst, dass man ohne einen romantischen Partner irgendwann einsam und allein sterben könnte, wird besonders in Georgias Gespräch mit ihrer Cousine und in einigen Szenen mit ihrem Freundeskreis deutlich. Obwohl diese schwierigen Themen schonungslos offen angegangen werden, bleibt der Ton des Buches doch insgesamt eher humorvoll und es überwiegt am Ende die positive Botschaft der Geschichte. Man fühlt sich am Ende fast ein bisschen, wie ein Teil dieser genialen Gruppe von Freund*innen.

Lieblingszitate/Textstellen

Fazit: absolute Leseempfehlung! Nicht nur wegen der guten Repräsentation, die auf Klischees verzichtet.

“Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.” She glanced to one side at me. “There. Was that sage-like enough for you?” (from a conversation with Geogia’s cousin)

“Oh, that’s way better. That sounds like a character from Star Wars.” She made a dramatic gesture with one hand. “Aro Ace. Defender of the universe.” (on the topic that aromantic asexual is quite the mouthful)

[tealovingace]

[tealovingace]

Let’s talk about the fabulous aromantics out there

[tealovingace]

Reblog if you are ASEXUAL, SUPPORT ASEXUALS, or really really want to WEAR A REALLY FANCY BLACK CAPE

[tealovingace]

Das war wirklich ein großartiger Moment. Schön erklärt!

sex education season 2, episode 4

[tealovingace]

Gorgeous thread this morning on Twitter by @jeffreymarsh!

[tealovingace]

That's exactly why we need asexual awareness. Unless people know more about what it means to be ace, there will always be these awkward, uniformed reactions.

When anybody comes out and tells you they’re asexual, please believe them. Being told that you just haven’t found the right person, or that things will change in a few years is just as bad as telling someone who’s gay that’s it’s only a phase.

Asexuality is just as real as homosexuality. It’s just as real as heterosexuality. It’s real just like being bi, or pan. Asexuality is not abstinence. It’s a lack of sexual attraction or desire.

You can still have a healthy, romantic, relationship with a person without sex being involved. 

I am a proud asexual and everything in this comic has been said to me. Other asexuals have had it worse than me. They’ve been told worse things, been asked worse questions and some think there’s something wrong with them because they don’t want to have sex. This lovely lady did a post on A standing for Asexual and not Ally, and it describes what I mean by worse excruciatingly well.

So please, believe a person when they tell you their asexual, because it’s very real and not something to be ignored.

[tealovingace]

Lol, ace much?! I can definitely relate to this.

animeirl

[tealovingace]

Ich bin kein Einhorn! (Coming Out Post)

Ok, damit wäre das geklärt... Tschüß!

Na gut, ganz so leicht sollte ich es mir dann doch nicht machen. Stellt sich trotzdem die Frage: wo anfangen? 

Vielleicht am besten mit der Kurzversion:

Nach gefühlt 20 Jahren des Herumrätselns habe ich im April den Entschluss gefasst mich als asexuell zu outen. 20 Jahre, weil ich erst Ende 2017 das erste Mal auf den Begriff Demisexualität in einem Roman gestoßen bin. Irgendwie schien der Begriff zu passen und ein paar der Fragen zu beantworten, die ich jahrelang mit mir herumgeschleppt hatte. Warum zur Hölle sind quasi alle so verrückt nach Sex? Wieso fühle ich die Schmetterlinge im Bauch, aber mehr nicht? Bin ich lesbisch? Nein,... bin ich bi? Die typischen Fragen, die sich wohl jeder der ace ist schon gestellt hat.

Nach der ersten Euphorie wollte ich aber für ein paar Wochen nichts mehr davon wissen. Es fiel mir ziemlich schwer mich von meinem ganz “normalen” Selbstbild zu verabschieden. Ich schreibe bewusst “normal” und nicht cis und heterosexuell. Denn mir war gleichzeitig klar, dass dieses Eingeständnis noch weitreichendere Kreise ziehen würde. Trotzdem dauerte es bis ich die innere Acephobie, Homophobie und generelle Angst vor Veränderungen überwinden konnte.

Das Internet (besonders die englische Seite von AVEN, diverse eBooks und Youtube) lieferte glücklicherweise genug Futter für meine Recherchen. Jetzt wollte ich ja auch genau wissen, wie das asexuelle Spektrum funktioniert und welche Labels zu mir passen. *Nerdalarm* Das große Feld des aromantischen Spektrums ließ ich dabei erst mal außer Acht... Nur um später zu merken, dass es nichts bringt sich was vorzumachen.

Mittlerweile bin ich glücklich mit meinen Labels (asexuell, bi- und demiromantisch) und einige Schritte weiter gekommen im Coming Out Prozess. 

Endlich ist klar: ich bin kein Einhorn. 

Das meine ich ganz wörtlich. Ich bin kein mythisches Wesen, das man quasi nie zu Gesicht bekommt.

Es gibt andere Aces, die ähnliche Erfahrungen gemacht haben. Ich bin also nicht allein und habe großartige Menschen in meinem Umfeld, die mir geduldig und aufgeschlossen zugehört haben. 

Ich bin außerdem nicht so “unschuldig” wie es diesem Fabelwesen häufig zugesprochen wird. Asexualität ist ein Spektrum und jeder Mensch verschieden. Es gibt keine Vorschriften. Ich habe nichts dagegen, wenn jemand über Sex reden möchte. Jeder soll so viel oder so wenig Sex haben, wie gewünscht. 

Einhörner mag ich trotzdem weiterhin. Immerhin sind sie DAS Symbol von Queerness.