“I did it for you” has gotta be my favorite form of betrayal. You gave me a gift I never asked for, and now I have to look around at the world you destroyed with the knowledge that it was gift wrapped and addressed to me.
tbh I really dislike how aphobia tends to be discussed whenever there’s some kind of incident that makes it visible to general society. The most common response seems to be some variation of “why would anyone hate asexual/aromantic people, they aren’t even doing anything” and it just always sits wrong with me. It paints such a passive picture of our existence and feels like a comment influenced by the level of invisibility that aspec people have in society. Why would you be annoyed by someone who is practically invisible? Just go back to ignoring their existence, it’s easy!
But despite the invisibility, aspec people are actually doing quite a lot of things that will piss off queerphobic, right-wing and religious people (and hell, even left-wing people). And the most obvious point is that we are actively not performing heterosexuality the way they want us to. People who’s entire world view is “cis men and women should be in monogamous, heterosexual marriage and have (white) babies” are not going to lean back and say “oh but those asexuals and aromantics are fine”. They will also hate our guts, and they will come up with all sorts of reasons, including insinuating we’re all secretly into bestiality, or mentally ill, or not human, or attention seeking children. It’s just plain old queerphobia, and like all queerphobia, there’s no inherent logic to it which you can worm your way out of by “not doing anything”.
And like, there’s a lot more that aspec people do which people hate. Raising awareness about amatonormativity? People feel attacked, they hate it. Asexual people having sex? Or not having sex? People hate it! Aromantic people being in (seemingly) romantic relationships? People fucking hate it! Aromantic people having sex? Ohh people hate that!!
I guess the existence of aphobia can be confusing when you haven’t spent much time thinking about asexuality and aromanticism, but in the end, these are identities that aren’t heteronormative and they will be hit with the same or similar bigotry as any other queer identity. I just get tired of this response after seeing it recycled for 10 years without ever seeming to go any further.
The other edge to this kind of “but they’re not doing anything!” argument is that it implies that other people who are targeted and discriminated against are “doing something” that makes them targets, and that the default state of things is ‘everybody minding their own business’ until someone does something to anger them.
A member of a discriminated against group doesn’t have to do anything to anger bigots. Bigotry is not passive. It’s always quite active in searching for an excuse.
Heard an interview on NPR of a ‘small mother-daughter hair accessories company, working from the dining room table at home…’ thats business will be affected by the tariffs because 'we manufacture in China!’!!! And if one good thing comes of these horrible stupid tariffs I hope it stops all these American 'small business owners 🥺’ from obfuscating their participation in imperial exploration. And I hope everyone finally processes that all the fanart acrylic keychains and plushies of niche microcelebrities ocs that are just 'supporting small artists!!’ are manufactured in the same way everything else is thats consumed by this ugly country is.
I think people often fail to understand that all production within the core–of any kind and for any purpose–is only able to exist as it does because such endeavors are the beneficiaries of systems of exploitation and unequal exchange.
For example: I am an independent craftsman in the US. I have no employees and I make everything I sell by hand, 'by myself.’ But without Mexican workers raising cattle and tanning their hides, I would have no leather to work with. Without Chinese workers manufacturing the hardware and without the miners who mined the iron, nickel, copper, zinc, etc, I would have no rivets or dee rings or square snaps. I do not steal the surplus value of those under my employ because I have no one under my employ, and yet without the exploitation of hundreds or thousands of people, I can produce nothing at all. And this is true whether I am producing for the purposes of making money or for the joy of creating or for any other reason.
