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vampire-meta-knight · 1 year

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Aces are queer BECAUSE they’re ace

It never ceases to piss me off that some ace exclusionists will claim you aren’t queer because you’re ace, but you are queer because you’re also homoromantic/biromantic/[insert any non-hetero and non-aro romantic attraction here].

I’m a sapphic ace. I am grayromantic, but the part of me that does feel romantic attraction feels it towards women, so I do identify with being a lesbian. However, I am far more of an asexual than a lesbian. I have more in common with asexuals, I am more impacted by my asexuality, and overall, it’s just a larger part of my identity and always has been. I knew I was ace long before I knew I liked girls.

I don’t fit in with allo lesbians--not all the way. There’s still that barrier there. I like women romantically and aesthetically, but not sexually. I can’t relate to a lot of lesbian experiences because of my lack of attraction and my sex-aversity, so although I still feel comfortable calling myself a lesbian, it doesn’t always feel like home in the same way “asexual” does.

Because I can relate to ace experiences. I do feel what aces feel. I feel the frustration of not being able to understand what allosexuals and alloromantics feel. I feel the anger at being the only one in a room who’s grossed out by sex and gets made fun of and infantilized for it. I feel the irritation at not being understood by those around you, how they just don’t understand that you aren’t interested in dating, don’t want to have sex, don’t find people attractive. I feel the internal pain of questioning yourself over and over, of feelings changing and wondering if you’ve been wrong about yourself all along, or feeling like you can’t change because you fear it would just prove everyone else right--that it was a “phase” and you did just need to “grow up” or “meet the right person” or “try it once to see if you like it” and denying your own complexity and fluidity to fit in the narrow box of what society thinks asexual is, all so they can’t invalidate you. I feel the despair at feeling broken, at fearing you’re missing out on something wonderful, at wishing you were something you weren’t just so you could fit in with everyone else and finally know what’s so great about being allo.

I am queer because I am ace. I am queer because I am grayromantic. I am queer because I’m sapphic. I am queer because I don’t belong with the alloromantic straights. I am queer because they way I view romance and sexuality is different from the mainstream.

My identity is shaped by many parts. I am queer because of all of them together, not by only one on its own.

#asexual #asexual positivity #queer #ace experience #sapphic ace #asexual lesbian #fuck exclusionists #ace #homoromantic #grayromantic #my thoughts #mine

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converse-and-mnms · 7 months

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i think a cannon ace experience should be not understanding why u would ever not “wait until marriage”

#there were so many signs that i was ace #asexual #i’d rather eat cake #ace #lgbtqia+#ace pride #acespec #ace experience #social construct #social standards #lgbtq

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aroace-cat-lady · 1 year

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One of the funniest things about the ace experience is fandom being like Oh nooo he's hot!! while I'm like is he???

#ace experience #asexual experience #ace humor #ace jokes #asexual humor #asexual spectrum #asexuality

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acey-lacey · 10 months

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Did anyone else have a really hard time reading loveless? And not for any of the reasons you might be thinking

I struggled through it because for some reason Georgia’s experiences were so so similar to mine when I was realizing I was ace. And it felt like my own thoughts were being directly projected at me

Liiiike her realizing during her transition from high school to university? Check

Figuring it out right when a friend is starting to like her and just hoping she’ll start devoting feelings? Check

The sadness for realizing the life you imagined really wasn’t gonna happen for you? Yep

And I know a lot of other aces found peace with relating to her but her life experiences reflected mine scarily closely

I had to take breaks like every chapter lol I related too hard people

#loveless #georgia #georgia warr #asexual #ace #aro #reading #osemanverse #alice oseman #ace experience #ace pride #aromantic

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starringrayasherself · 2 years

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Looking for interview participants for my graduate thesis! If you're interested in doing an interview, please fill out the screening form here!

(Posted 27 May 2022. Text ID below the cut)

[Text ID: Calling all aces and aros!

Participants are needed for a University of Kentucky graduate study about the portrayals of romance, sex, and identity in media, and the effects on asexual and aromantic audiences.

I’m looking to interview ace and aro media viewers about how film and television has impacted them in their ace/aro journey - whether through influencing their self-perception, views toward relationships, sense of belonging or community, or even just enjoyment of the stories on our screens.

If you feel that the media has impacted your experience as an ace and/or aro, I want to hear from you!

Sixty-minute interviews will take place on Zoom.

Open to United States residents aged 18 and older.

Thank you for your participation!

Researcher contact information: Rachel Franke Graduate Program College of Communication and Information University of Kentucky e-mail: [email protected] Advisor: Kyra Hunting, PhD e-mail: [email protected]

Univeristy of Kentucky: An Equal Opportunity University

End Text ID]

#asexual #aromantic #aroace #asexuality #aromanticism #aspec #acespec #arospec #ace #aro #research project #interview #graduate research #amatonormativity #ace representation #aro representation #ace experience #aro experience

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shayberri789 · 2 years

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In honour of Ace Week, I'd like to talk about my experience with growing up ace.

Many, many of my fellow aspecs talk about growing up feeling broken, to the point where I almost felt "fake" because I didn't share this apparently universal experience. (No slander to them by the way, I can recognise myself for being the oddball that I am, and the reason I escaped the self-hatred and broken feeling is. Actually kind of funny)

(Also sorry this is very long and rambly, editing is a bitch on mobile.)

I've always known I was aromantic and asexual. Not the terms, but I know I have been like this since before I can remember. The most important aroace memory I have is the one that saved me over a decade of grief, one I made when I was seven.

I was in grade one, and in a tiny, tiny school with literally only 4 people in my grade. My best friend, Jess, had just broken up with our classmates Thomas (they had been dating the way all 7yos do, and Jess has always been boy crazy). She was ranting to me about him, and I was a bit bored with it, playing about on the patio wall. I distinctly remember saying to her: "I'm never gonna get a crush! Dating is too much drama." And that was that. I promised myself never to get a crush.

And for years, I thought I was fantastic at keeping promises to myself. I was a pretty child, and I've always been kind, and many of my guy friends developed crushes on me, or felt pressured to have a crush and decided I was the best option. I don't know. I turned every one of them down, and said I wasn't going to date because I'd made myself a promise not to. I never developed a crush on anyone myself, and I thought it was because of a promise I made when I was seven. I never felt pressured to have a crush because of that promise, and all my girl friends accepted it too as an answer when they asked if I had a crush. We were like, ten, we didn't know better. None of us even knew what the lgbtqa+ was. Same-sex marriage was only legalised in 2006 in South Africa, and I didn't have a phone or access to the internet until I was 13. We also weren't as steeped in the amatonormative bullshit that comes with growing up, or fandom, or the internet.

When I was around 11-12 years old, we went to the coast to celebrate one of my childhood friend's mom getting married. Both his parents (his mom and later adoptive father) were close family friends, and while we were there I met up with an old friend I'd lost contact with.

I found out Dune, the lost friend, had had a crush on me since pre-primary school. He'd put a ring on his finger and declared that he was going to marry me when we grew up. I think He'd given up the notion by the time we reunited, but it made me feel weird. I started actually thinking about crushes, and my promise, and I worried that maybe I'd been repressing feelings. Did I accidentally close my heart to love because of my promise? But... not having to deal with crushes made my life so much easier, I wasn't sure if I wanted a crush. But I was worried I'd broken myself. It didn't help that when I brought this up to my mom (who is, by the way, an amazing woman and completely supportive of me now and my very queer brother and is bi herself) she said that closing your heart to love was unhealthy, and I should let myself feel things.

In retrospect, that's solid advice. I wish I'd listened to it more before I developed repression of emotions and memories as a coping mechanism to deal with immigration and a new country. But at the time I took it as confirmation I'd broken myself because again, I was eleven, and while I've always been mature for my age I still was lacking a lot of knowledge and growth.

Fortunately, I've always been a stubborn, genuine thing. I only changed parts of myself I didn't like, or thought hurt others, and no one else was allowed to decide that for Me. And I liked the peace not having crushes gave me, and I saved myself many years of grief and worry with that decision. It was three days of worrying about having broken myself, compared to an almost lifetime of many other aspecs.

That conviction was admittedly hard to hold onto though. I had several squishes in my childhood and the following yesrs, or maybe they were actual crushes but I doubt it; and I started becoming vaguely aware that saying I'd made a promise to stay single and unattracted to anyone was a weird reason for turning someone down when you're like 13/14yo. I stopped talking about my promise, but I never got a crush, never wanted one, and never wanted to date. I just kept living my life, even when I immigrated and said family friend's child from earlier, a boy I had been friends with since I was literally three years old, told me he'd been in love with me for five years the day I landed in my nee country. Thanks Vin, that's totally something to drop on your childhood friend when she is busy feeling like she'd lost everything. I spent a week analysing the last couple years of our friendship to figure out if he even cared about me the way I did about him. We're not very close anymore.

A year later, in Year 10/Grade 9, my new best friend invited me around to her house to tell me "something important". When I got there, I found our other friend we'd been growing closer too over the last couple months there already, and they were holding hands. Tess said to me, very gingerly, "Shay, I just wanted to let you know that I'm pan, and Saph and I are dating."

Three things you should know: I was barely aware that "gay" and "lesbian" was a thing at this point, I had no gaydar or ability to predict romance, and had quite frankly forgotten that crushes were a thing. I wasn't even looking for chemistry in my friends. I was caught completely off guard. I had no fucking clue was pansexual was. I'd only just started learning about the queer community and did not know how to react to this, and was suddenly, horribly reminded that my friends were at the stage where they cared more about finding someone to date than plodding on happily with the friendships we had. Tess later told me I "was a bit homophobic because of the way I recoiled with a slightly disguisted look on my face."

Honestly, I think it's because I was disgusted by romance in general and was unprepared for the confession, and was suddenly re-evaluating the entire friend group dynamics. I'm gonna forgive myself if I reacted badly, but I honestly wasn't aware enough of heteronormative culture, had forgotten amatonormativity existed, and didn't know enough about gay people to even be homophobic.

That night, I spent four hours researching the lgbt community to understand as much as I could, to find out how to support my friends and be a good ally. I still thought I was straight, back then. It got to the point where I knew a good deal about the queer community and experiences, enough to help my brother figure out he was pan and trans, and yet I still did not come across any aspec identity. Not in Tumblr screenshots, not on the wiki pages I read, not from word of mouth from the queer people I met irl.

I even went through about a month or so where I thought I was bi. I had enough common sense long before then to realize that a promise made when you're seven should not affect who you crush on, just what you do with those feelings, but it was the only explanation I had, so I quietly stuck with it. When I found out more about the queer community I thought to myself "... am I gay?" And critically evaluated myself, and came to the conclusion I felt the same about guys as I did about girls, and I must be bi, surely? But that didn't feel right, and It honestly made me feel uncomfortable to label myself as that, so I never mentioned it.

Fortunately soon after that, I was talking to one of Tess's old South African friends, who told me he was "asexual" (in hindsight, and seeing how he grew, I think he was actually aromantic. But, it's not my place to tell people how to identify). I didn't know what that meant so googled it, and realized... hey, this covers a lot of how I feel (or rather, what I don't feel). It wasn't quite right, I didn't really understand sexual attraction either (I still don't, really, but I do on a rational level), but it fit me better and explained a hell of a lot more than bisexual did, so I claimed it. Plus, pretty flag.

I tried to come out that pride month. I made an ace flag-coloured version of my profile picture, looked up the pride days for June, and decided I would change my pfp and bio on ace day to come out. Which I did! And many people congratulated me on figuring myself out, even more were confused as to what it was, and the rest didn't notice. But before all that, I'd accidentally come out on aromantic's day, first, much to my fear and embarrassment. I didn't realise I could be both aromantic and asexual. I didn't want it to seem like I was trying to be 'special' to fit in with my friends (I value genuineness greatly, and never wanted to appear like I was presenting myself falsely, especially for something like a trend or peer pressure). I quickly changed my pfp and bio before anyone noticed, and did it on the correct day at the end of the month.

Fortunately, it did make me look up aromanticism, and realize this identity fitted the rest of my experiences. But, I still didn't know I could have two identities, because I didn't know about the SAM model. I decided to stick with asexual, because I liked the flag more.

I still felt a bit like an imposter, though, like I wasn't really welcome in the queer community, and I always knew I didn't fit in the cishetallo one. I didn't know any other ace people except for the guy who told me about the term, and he was far too interested in sex and hot people for my comfort. I dedicated myself to learning more about the queer community as a whole, the lived experiences and politics, so that I could continue to support and be with my friends (who had, one by one over the year or so, come out as queer in some way, as one friend group does after the first one bites the bullet) even if I "didn't really belong".

It took me a while to feel fully comfortable as asexual, and to internalise I could be aromantic too and accept that (I called myself Grayromantic for a time because I thought the squishes had been crushes, and I almost wanted to hope I wasn't completely locked from love. I've since learned better and honestly, I'm really happy as plain aroace). I went through a period of trying on all kinds of micro labels to explain my experiences, but I've come to settle on the plain old aroace label. I'm happy, and I'm happy with myself. I also found the sunset aroace flag last year and fell in love with that, too 😂

I'd like to give a huge thank you to @fuckyeahasexual for all the information and support their blog gives, and the experiences and constant acceptance and reassurance that we are all ace, and for the info they give on aromanticism too. It played a huge role in my coming out and being proud, and then being loud and proud for the remaining years of high school. It's allowed me to meet so many more aspec people, and help people figure out their own aspec identities in my real-life community.

So yeah, I am, very extremely aroace. I swing wildly between sex and romance neutral to outright repulsed, and I have no interest in a qpr or any other relationship beyond family and friendship. (Shout out to my brother for getting into a qpr and then telling his actually aroace sister about it last out of everyone!).

I've been aroace my entire life, and I've never wanted to be anything different. I've dealt with my fair share of both microaggressive and straight-up aphobia from strangers, loved ones, fandom and society in general.

And I've never related to those posts about people growing up feeling broken, and for every single aspec out there like me who skated on through life and to their identities without that trauma as well, I tip my hat to you. We are valid, we are no less aspec than those with different traumas to us, and we are no less important or alone or isolated than they are. We're all in this together, and we should all take pride and care in one another. For our similarities and shared experiences, and for our differences. Happy ace week.

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titenoute · 8 months

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Demi is within the ace spectrum, so yes, you do count as LGBT+, anything that's not Hetero+Cis is LGBT+, you don't have to worry about not counting

Thank you for your kind words anon but here's the thing. I have only realized I was on the ace spectrum last year. (And what an adventure it was...) And if we follow your definition then I don't exactly count ? Bc I *am* a cis woman** and the only relationship I have ever been in (and still am in) is hetero***. If I follow your definition I am pretty much on thin ice. So I don't think I count.

**I actually have been misgendered as a dude a few times. Mind you, it never felt wrong ? Then again, people always immediately apologize whenever it happens but it just feels ....Irrelevant. Unimportant. Go on call me dude bro, I do not care. And tbh, I think the whole gender thing is a big scam. Buuut....I do refer myself and present as a woman and I like my boobs sooo. Seems pretty cis to me ? Idk.

*** I did have a few crushes on friends who happened to be girls when I was younger. But it's only last year that I realized that they were crushes by pretty much going '....Hold on wait a minute...That's wasn't very straight of me was it ???....Not very straight of her either.......uuuuuuuh.........' So yeah... Would I go out with a woman if I was not in a relationship right now ? Fuck if I know. I know would stay with my current partner (a cis guy) if he suddenly went 'honey I am actually a trans woman'( which I don't see this ever happening with him). Idk if that counts ?

#...this is a bit scary to answer #I am pretty sure I don't fit in ? And I rather avoid being a prick by assuming that I am.#34 and still trying to figure stuff out I guess #it's complicated #and I am confusion #but hey thanks !#ace experience #gpoy #not really but so I can find this in my tags either #...cause I'll need this

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mysteriouslystarstruckcolor · 10 months

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Asking as an asexual with somewhat average (or so I assume) sex drive... Does anyone else's brain sometimes confuse being horny for being hungry??

Like, my body wants some but my mind doesn't recognise it for what it is and offers alternatives like that meme with the butterfly

#asexual spectrum #asexuality #the ace spectrum #ace culture #ace experience

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aroace-cat-lady · 1 year

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This is your reminder that you don't decide other's boundaries. You set you own, let the other person set theirs and then respect them. As an ace person, there's nothing that bothers me more than others taking the decision of what I can or can not do. If you are sharing a picture with everyone in the room but me, it's gonna bother me. So. Fucking. Much. Instead of making me feel like a freak, tell me what it is about and let me decide if I want to see it or now. I might regret it. It might make me more uncomfortable than I thought. But it was my decition. I got to choose. Everyone should have that. Don't take that away from others.

#ace struggles #boundaries #asexual experience #ace experience #asexual stuff #asexual struggles #ace problems #ace thoughts #ace things #ace stuff #asexual community #asexual culture

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frogofshadyorigin · 6 months

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I recently had a moment with my qpp that to me was really funny, so I want to share it.

First of, we are in a queer platonic relationship and since I'm a sex repulsed ace and they are totally fine with it, we have literally no intention to pursue this sort of activity/change in our relationship anytime soon.

Anyways. So we were recently sitting on my bed, having a big emotional moment (positive) and it was really nice.

But then my brain, which can literally not give me one minute of silence a day, was directly going on about this whole societal thing.

I don't want to go into too much detail about what happened but my brain was right when it told me that in a highschool series (or any kind of entertainment) this would have been the moment where we would have opened up to each other and finally realized there was more that connected us, which we would have, of course, shown through sex.

But the whole irony of it was funny. Because we were just sitting there, drinking mulled wine with literally no intention of doing anything, except for leaning against each other and drinking mulled wine.

I don't even know what's so funny about it, but the whole thing, the way we stood against what would have been seen as the thing to happen just was funny to me. Genuinely funny, which is rare for me.

Well that's the story. I don't know if it is really funny, but to me it was.

#ace experience #my partner is awesome #and societal standarts suck #anyway I'm tired and cone from a six hour work shift after university #oh and this post will have a follow up on something mote general that I realized #asexuality

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lillyexe · 1 year

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I'm asexual, but instead of me thinking I was bi first, I was raised by Christian parents and lowkey didn't even know sexual attraction was a thing until I was 15. This was most likely due to purity culture and me probably thinking that being turned on by someone was the devil temping you. And man was I being a saint.

Then when I figured out sexual attraction was a thing, I was basically like, "Well shit, I don't feel that. I might just be ace." somehow for going any confusion of being bi.

#It probably helped that I had an ace friend #and was already familiar with the term #as well as the fact I found out after getting out of a relationship #ace stuff #asexual #ace #asexuality #acespec #ace pride #asexual positivity #ace experience #ace positivity

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acey-lacey · 9 months

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Being asexual is realizing that “love at first sight” in movies is actually attraction at first sight and not some deep bond they inherently share because they are meant to be together

#asexual #ace experience #ace #it’s embarrassing how long it took for me to realize this #and I honestly wish I hadn’t

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devilrosola · 1 year

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Existentially pondering if I’m asexual as a defense mechanism of nobody ever loving me or did nobody ever love me because I’m asexual?

#asexuality #ace experience #international asexuality day #my post

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