worst thing people did was turn the incredibly personal experience of being lgbt into strict definitions and rules and then ridicule and harass others who don't fit into their neat boxes, as if that isn't what we were trying to run away from this whole time.

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 they're 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 aspect 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.

One of the biggest messages I (and most other sex⁠ educators I know) wish everyone would receive and embrace is that when it comes to how you express yourself sexually with things like this, there is no “supposed to.” All there is, and should be, is what feels true and real for you, what you find feels good for you and what you find doesn’t.

It’s hard for people to really create and nurture a sexuality and sexual⁠ life that feels like their own – like an expression of who they are, rather than who someone else is, looks or seems like – and they enjoy if and when they’re trying to follow someone else’s script or somebody else’s idea of how to be or respond sexually. If we were making a list of the top⁠ ten things that tend to keep people from having sex lives they really enjoy, focusing on responding to sex in ways they feel they should, rather than going with how they are really, truly, feeling and responding would be right up at the top.

Human sexuality and sex are so diverse because people are so diverse. No one sex life, way of having sex or way of responding to sex fits all. The trick is to explore and experiment to find out⁠ who we are sexually, how we feel, what we want, what we like and what feels right for us, very individually. If anyone expects sex with one partner⁠ to be just like sex with another, or thinks that the way they watched one person responding to sex is how everyone else is going to respond, they’re going to need to adjust those expectations.

Heather Corinna, The Rules of Ooohs and Ahhhs (Hint: there aren't any)

Happy Ace weekend folks. We exist, and today we are a threat.

💜You can get those cards here!!!💜

There is so little visibility and acceptance for aromantics that no matter what we do, no matter how we experience and express our aromanticism, we end up punished and isolated for it. Often, even within our own community, it can start to feel like we are fighting each other for the tiniest fragment of a sliver of recognition.

Aromantic people who don’t want to date or kiss or cuddle or do any other traditionally romantic acts feel out of place in society. We are treated as broken, experience singleism, and are made to feel like we cannot be happy without a partner. But if you’re aromantic and want a romantic relationship or a QPR or otherwise enjoy forms of romance-associated physical affection like kissing or holding hands? You get treated as “not aro enough.” People ask “how can you be aromantic if you date, if you kiss people, and so on?” Or they invalidate your relationship altogether, calling you selfish for dating someone who you aren’t attracted to, or going “What’s a QPR? Isn’t that just friendship?”

Even within the aro community, so many people have no idea that being a partnering aro is even an option. So then the aro community pushes for more visibility for romance favorable aros, for aros in QPRs, and for other partnering aros. And then those who are nonpartnering, romance repulsed, aqueerplatonic, and/or asensual start to feel out of place because there’s so much focus on QPRs and “aros can still date” that they feel like they’re supposed to feel that way too.

And then, non-romantic love isn’t treated as “real” love in the way that romantic love is. So then the aro community pushes back against that, and starts trying to elevate non romantic love and especially platonic love—which is often simultaneously devalued when compared to romance and elevated above aplatonicism—to the same level as romantic love. But then platonic love starts to feel like the golden standard for how aromantics should find our purpose in the world, and aplatonics begin to feel left behind by our own community.

Society simultaneously treats sex as impure and shameful AND as mandatory.

So, aros who have sex get treated like dirt. If you have sex, especially outside of a committed romantic relationship, you’re seen as a dirty slut or as a heartless player who objectifies, uses, and discards women. You’re ostracized from religious spaces, especially if you have sex that isn’t vanilla heterosexual sex within a monogamous marriage. You are treated as something for the rest of the queer community to try to distance itself from. And if you have nontraditional sexual relationships or have done sex work, then your livelihood could be placed at risk if your employer manages to find out about it.

But, if you don’t have sex, you’re seen as a frigid bitch, or you’re compared to an incel, or people ask if you have ASPD or NPD or hormonal problems or trauma or a fucking brain tumor (and these questions often come with underlying negative assumptions about your value and your morals, because we live in a deeply ableist society). You’re seen as a problem to be fixed, through either sexual assault or conversion therapy. You’re pressured into sexual relationships that you don’t want, and if you’re an aro who dates, you’re treated as abusive for not catering to your partner’s assumed sexual desires (because surely your partner can’t ACTUALLY be happy without sex!).

Nothing that we do as aromantic people is ever treated as good enough. Dating or not dating, sex or no sex, QPRs or no QPRs, love or lovelessness. The only widely accepted way to express our aromanticism is through silence. This is why we cannot be silent. We have to be ourselves and uplift each other’s voices until every last one of us is heard.

it's not just about love

As someone who has worked in the queer community for a long time, you need to be careful of the people who stretch the reality of scarcity in our community to fit their agendas of making money off of our community.

A major sign of snake oil salesmen is someone saying they are not just the best, but the only option. This is made more believable in marginalized communities, where we are genuinely seeing a lack in resources, but a lack is not the same as an emptiness. As someone who studies queer history, let me say this: queer people (and other marginalized groups) have been fighting to provide for each other and their future for much longer than you'd expect.

There are resources. They aren't always spread equally or easily accessible, but there are more resources than some people want you to believe.

Don't let less get mistranslated into absence. Generation after generation of queer people have fought to make sure there was something for us. Do not let someone disrespect this work by claiming they are the first and only queer person to do something. If someone claims to be a first or only, fact check that. While firsts deserve celebration, we should be grateful to live in a world where they are more rare than they used to be.

happy international asexuality day to those of us in non-anglophone countries who took longer to find the words or had to create their own words or could never find resources or made the effort to translate what they could find in hope that someone else who didn't speak english could maybe stumble on them and feel that amazing feeling of finding a place that fit.

and to those of us who still don't know if there's anyone else out there with a similar experience that would make things make a little more sense and feel a little less alienating.

i hope you find it, in yourself or in others, i hope we all find it.

Attention asexuals

Whether you are aromantic, are alloromantic, enjoy sex physically, do not enjoy sex physically, enjoy sex only in regards to feeling closer to someone, masturbate, don’t masturbate, experience sexual or erotic attraction, don’t experience sexual or erotic attraction, experience sexual or erotic attraction sometimes, rarely, or only under specific conditions, experience changes or fluctuations in your sexuality, are questioning where you fall on the ace spectrum, knew you were ace from the time you were a teenager, discovered or are discovering you are asexual later in life, are sex-averse, are sex-favorable, have had sex, have never had sex, are asexual due to trauma, are asexual not due to trauma, OR LITERALLY ANYTHING FROM THE VAST DIVERSITY OF THE ASEXUAL EXPERIENCE

Then you are valid. You are seen. Standards like the gold star only serve to establish a hierarchy of asexuality that further ostracizes aces who are already struggling with a sense of belonging.

Someone having a different asexual experience than you isn’t an attack on or invalidation of your experience. It’s just a different experience.

Let’s spread the love and put an end to asexual infighting. The beauty of queerness is the rejection of being sorted into rigid categories and being allowed to live as who you truly are.

So for all my fellow aces out there, know that you are not alone, and that whatever experience you have of asexuality is true to you. It doesn’t have to be true to anyone else. But it is to me.

Happy ace day my loves, and be good to yourselves 🖤🩶🤍💜

Help AceinGrace (IG) in changing the meaning of the white stripe meaning on the Asexual flag! Personally I like the idea of it representing Intersectionality and diversity in the Ace Community and Sex Neutral and Sex Positive/Negative alignments.

They’re currently at 800 surveys and want to get to 1,000 before April 6, or International Ace Day, so share share share!!!!! I got my friends to take it so get yours in on this too!

Also follow Ace in Grace in supporting Black Ace Therapists have more exposure!!!

3 days left to fill this in!

By Ace Dad Advice (fb)

Did you know today is International Asexual Day?

Here's some Pride art I made back in 2018; I still think it's one of my best:

This is doubly true (I think) if you're also growing up disabled (*stage whisper*: Especially in the 1980s), because Society at Large erases your existence from any discussion of sexual or romantic relationships.

Guys how do you know if you feel sexual or romantic attraction to people if you have trust issues

Well, having feelings is different than deciding to act on them. Or do you mean you have a hard time trusting yourself and tend to constantly doubt what/how you feel?