in the best case scenario my asexuality is a ticking time bomb that will have to be dealt with family-wise sooner or later. In today’s society it’s just not a normal accepted thing to simply be by yourself your whole life. Especially as people start breaking off into the family structure and friends who were once your community and support system become a smaller presence in your life because spouses and kids take precedence— I don’t know any ace people who haven’t worried at some point about dying alone. You don’t simply ‘have a housemate friend’ you live with where e.g. there is someone there for you if you have a sudden emergency. What if you can’t move? What if you’re ill and can’t get out of bed? I’m glad our worlds are better connected today, but the chances that you’ll be with someone safe and known if that happens are smaller than if you’ve got your own family, right? Or is the bleak best case scenario that an ace person has an emergency while at work?
Aces are a pretty small % of the population in general. To say you’ll find another ace person and cohabit is a really small chance. As most people start to move in with their partners, single people, ace people kind of find themselves either priced out of housing options unless rich, or being forced to find other strangers in unusual living circumstances.
I don’t know. I just feel like you are left more on your own in a societal structure that prioritises two-parent-and-children households. Or more generally, that sets you up for marital and couples living rather than necessarily community living, at least in the west.
So what I’m saying is that maybe ‘oppression’ isn’t the word to bring to the advocacy table. It is saying that maybe the thing to remember is that ‘oppression’ won’t look the same for everyone. It’s a reminder that comparing the weight of apples and watermelons doesn’t even make sense.
(This isn’t even aimed at the shortsighted people that think pride is all about labels and being ‘in’ the club. This post is aimed at people that remember pride is a political struggle to improve the lives of people left behind by our current norms. It’s why e.g. disability activists also calling their advocacy disability pride is instantly understood by most.)
It’s why ‘[x] queer group is so not oppressed’ is the emptiest and most wasteful statement you could make in the context of queer rights advocacy.