I'm seeing folks on Twitter cite the existence of intersex people in response to JKR's claims that women are "the sex class that produce large gametes"--specifically those with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome. And then I check their feeds, and they have never mentioned intersex people before.

Cool. So you only recognize intersex people exist when you want to weaponize them against transphobes. Good job. Good allyship.

"Headcanoning characters in [marginalized group] as asexual is infantializing them!!!! So you shouldn't do it because it's inherently bigoted!!!!"

Oh my GOD shut up and just say you don't see asexual people as adults. You're doing the infantialization here. Not the autistic aces or whatever other asexuals in another marginalized group relate to characters like them.

If you're not asexual stay in your fucking lane.

Attraction is About Context

I wonder how much easier a time folks would have understanding Ace/Aro experiences if things were framed in terms of context. Sexual and romantic attraction are in part about context. We become into someone based on witnessing/engaging with them in the right contexts that make our brains go "Ohhoohohoo, very nice, yes" whether that is in an "I would like to kiss/do rolling around naked things with you" or a "allow me to compose poetry of varying skill and taste about the light in your eyes and smell of your hair" way. In thinking about contexts, Allo folks who either have a high level of sexual attraction (ie, "One good moment of eye contact/casual bump into each other and a few words and I can suss out if we're gonna bone") or romantic attraction (ie "Oh damn, you have nice dimples and were really funny as we were waiting for coffee, it's crush o'clock") have a larger pool of contexts in which they can be sexually or romantically into someone.

By contrast, someone who's a hard aro/ace has no contexts that would make them into someone sexually/romantically.

But there are a million different points between "I have an ocean of attraction contexts" and "I have no contexts that spark attraction." Attraction, just like gender expression, is not set in binary poles, but a three-dimensional galaxy we can float around in. Two people can have highly overlapping experiences around what contexts evoke attraction, but one person may consider themselves on the Ace spectrum and the other person might consider themselves Allo. And neither of them are wrong, because identity is about the personal understanding of ourselves. I reflect on this a lot because as someone who considers themselves grey ace and aromantic, a lot of people have fought with me for using those labels over the years because 1) I've had quite a few romantic partnerships, 2) I like having sex and have been into specific people 3) I love writing erotica and drawing smut. These fights have led to a lot of self-doubt and anxiety about whether I'm a poor choice in romantic/sexual partnership, or if I'm lying to myself about my identities. But when I think about context of attraction, ace and aro resonate for me as identity labels, because my context Venn diagram of "friend crush/romantic crush" is damn near a circle, while my context pool for "oh, yes, right, the sex type things, those are good" is more like a bunch of little tidepools connected by narrow underground water systems. Yet, I still feel the need to defend my choices and my sexuality. Which sucks and is horseshit. You don't need to define your sexuality for someone else's satisfaction or comfort.

numerative orientation (attraction/affinity/interest/etc)

a term to describe how many genders someone is oriented towards, goes together with amative orientation (how often/under which circumstances someone experiences attraction/affinity/interest/etc) and affinitive orientation (which genders someone is oriented towards).

people might think this is the same as affinitive orientation, but it's not. "lesbian", meaning queerness for women, is an affinitive label, describing which gender one is oriented towards. but it doesn't specify how many genders, be it different fiaspec genders or other genders besides women. most people just assume that lesbians are oriented towards one gender, because monosexism tells us that mono-orientation is the norm.

similarly, "bi" specifies orientation to more than one gender, making it a numerative orientation, while it doesn't specify which genders one is oriented towards. people just tend to assume that it's men and women.

of course there are labels that are both numerative and affinitive, such as pan ("which genders?" - all genders. "how many? - all of them) or aromantic ("which genders?" - none. "how many?" - zero.) (and aromanticism is amative too - "how often?" - never.)

so, someone who only uses bi as a label only has a numerative label, but not an amative or affinitive one (people just assume that bi is inherently allo), someone who only uses veldian only has an affinitive label and not an amative or numerative one (people just assume that veldian means allo and mono) and someone who only uses demi as a label only has an amative label, but not an affinitive or numerative one.

i coined this because it's an axis of orientation that, similarly to aspecness, often gets ignored, because people assume "mono" when someone doesn't specify how many genders they're oriented towards. in the same way that "amative" exists to combat allosexism and the idea of "allo until proven otherwise", i coined "numerative" to combat monosexism and the idea of "mono until proven otherwise".

a personal example:

my amative orientations are greyalterous and asexual. these describe how often and/or under which circumstances i feel affinity (/attraction/interest/etc.) (rarely (alterous), never (sexual).

my affinitive orientations are pansensual, asexual, lesbian, veldian, cypric, trixic and toric. these describe which genders i am oriented towards. (all genders in a queer/gay way (sensual) and none (sexual).

my numerative orientations are bi, pan, mspec and pluralian. these describe how many genders i am oriented towards (more than one, multiple, all).

everyone keeps complainin about ace & aro ppl bein excluded from the lgbtq2sia+ spectrum and im like….

“?????”

is it really that honorable an achievement to be part of the queer person acronym??? whos gatekeeping the ace & aro ppl from this??? theyre just non-sex-likers and non-cuddle-likers, theyre not scary beasts!!!

i mean, i barely understand the difference between “grey” and “demi” but i dont see a reason to villify ace & aro ppl.

maybe i just dont understand what’s at stake cuz im a disabled transbian who’s never had a partner

Excluding aros and aces, don't people want to be in a relationship. Like I like a guy, and obviously I'd like to be in a relationship with him. But I'd also just like to have a boyfriend yk.

Alt. Allosexual / Allosex / Allosexspec flag

( id: a flag with five stripes, all equally sized. in order they are white, grey, black, brown-red, and light orange-red. /end id. )

A flag made on request for anon (which I shelved back in April due to a lack of inspiration) to match my Alt. Alloromantic / Alloro / Allorospec flag. The meanings and colors parallel that flag, with the bottom two stripes flipped to make the colors blend better.

White for those who experience full Sexual attraction and are Sex-positive.

Grey for those who experience Sexual attraction but are not solely Sex-positive or Sex-repulsed (those who are Sex-ambivalent/Sex-Oscillating/etc.)

Black for those who experience Sexual attraction but are Sex-repulsed.

Brown-red for for Sexual attraction itself

Light orange-red for for Orchidsexuals /Orchidspecs (those that experience sexual attraction but do not desire sexual relationships) who consider themselves as (or closer) to being Allospec than Arospec or who simply wish to be included. Color taken directly from the Orchidspec flag.

Since "Allosex" is something I haven’t seen used as frequently as “Allo” and “Alloro”, I do want to note that it is a term I was introduced to via AVEN! Not my own abbreviation/coining.

I wanted to quickly note that I got my inspiration to finish and post this draft from seeing the general Allospec (Allo spectrum) flag by @neopronouns! Seeing such a cool flag based off of my Alloro one gave me a lot of motivation!

Taglist - @conformant-archive, @radiomogai

yes, I read all of the iterations of the doctor as aroace in one way or another, but also yes the doctor has incredible sexual tension with every version of the master, yes, including crispy!master

it's evil sexual tension of course, that's why it works

Aroallo Manatee - art of a little manatee hanging out underwater, themed to the colors of the aroallo (aromantic/aro-spectrum allosexual/non-asexual) flag. 

[Image description: light pours down from above the surface of the water, the little waves gently visible in light and dark greens and white, illuminating the green water below. The water disappears into dark green in the distance. A white-ish little manatee floats just above the grassy bottom below, the grass bright yellows and oranges lit through the water by the light above. The image is themed to the light green, dark green, white, yellow, and dark yellow/light orange of the aroallo flag.]

i literally swore to God to never have a boyfriend in front of my mom and my parents STILL talk as if i will get married one day

Peace be upon you, Jewish Tumblr

It's me, the annoying Muslim with all the annoying questions.

I was just wondering

Besides, like, the Torah, does anyone have any, like, Jewish stories they'd recommend?

I'll take anything 🤷 whether it's a nonfiction story about Jewish people, or even just a short story fic about some Jewish characters with Jewish themes and such. Just like.... yknow, some Jewish stories!

I'm reading a lot of nonfiction lately, my current fiction read I'm kind of burnt out from (the third in a trilogy) and idk I'd just like to read about something new!

Definitely trying to branch out of the "white European background perisex cishet alloro/allosex" lead!

I don't think I've ever read a Jewish themed story, which when I think of it makes me sad.

So I'll take all the recommendations!

Funny how exclusionists identified as sexhavers and then said asexuals were sexualizing gay people by acknowledging that most gay people feel sexual attraction.

And then they called asexuals asexys to sexualize people who are practically inherently uncomfortable with being sexualized. 🤔

I wish non-straight allosex folks would realize that when I, a sex-adverse asexual, celebrate and am proud of my own celibacy, I’m not just another victim of purity culture. I’m just celebrating and being proud of the way in which my sexuality differs from the heterosexual norm, the same way they are when they celebrate and are proud of their sex lives.

Like, I get that our experiences have been used by our allocishetronormative society as weapons to hurt each other, but could they please work on their own trauma enough to realize that celibacy isn’t inherently a bad thing, and them shaming people who don’t have sex for whatever reason is still a version of policing other people’s sex lives and doesn’t make them as sex positive as they think they are.

We’re all being hurt by allocishetetronormativity! Don’t punish me because the freedom I found from it is different than yours!

hahaha I just realized that I have a distinct mental category for (the vast majority of) smut scenes in fic. They're usually so disconnected from the plot that they're commercial breaks. And now a word from our sponsor, Allosex! Use my code BOREDACEJO to get 20% off--

can i though-dump (spew random thoughts out)? if so... man. i just realized.. i just really want to stop being aroace. the reason is because.. honestly since i can't feel sexual or romantic attraction my mind is a free space for self-hate and impulsive thoughts so form. there are no feelings that can just snap them out of my mind. i kinda hate it. this isn't about allosexism or amatonormativity anymore; this is about my own problems. amsterdamn i wish i was just a lesbain not an aroace lesbian

Honestly anon, this is so common to feel, and a lot of ace and aro people fall into these thoughts at some point. I had a hard time with it this year, even. I managed to work through some of my stuff, but I still have days when I feel resentful about being ace and lonely about being aro, and I've felt pretty hopeless about things which is probably related to my external life if I'm being honest with myself, but whatever your feelings are and whatever your reasons, know that you aren't alone.

It's always helpful to take a look at your life and how you're living right now when you feel like this, because ultimately, you can't just stop being aroace, you have to learn to live with it somehow. I know I feel worse when I'm lonely because I can recognise that the worst of my feelings come when I'm very isolated from my friends, especially irls, and so I know that at some point I'm going to have to change something about how I'm living. Sometimes the root problem isn't about being aroace, it's about having something that you can't change that you know or think would make your life easier if you *could*.

I hope this helps you anon, and I hope things get better for you soon. Take care <3

~ mod key