Rejection of our over-sexualised culture is being sold as a politically useful sexual orientation which disarms activists of their analysis of the effects of pornography and abuse on young people.
ah yes the “hot and new” sexual orientation… because I skip all of the sex scenes in movies just to be trendy, throw up after kissing just to be cool, feel like an outsider due to my lack of interest in sex just to be hip, and stay up all night wondering if I’ll ever be in a loving relationship just for funsies. y’all think we CHOOSE to be ostracized?? bffr
>This is a whole new ideological lexicon from queer theorists to label and define the minutiae of human experience; intense friendships have now been given the new nomenclature “Queerplatonic”, the act of overthinking your friendships and relationships described as “Split Attraction Model (SAM)”. Their glossary of terms for the ever subdivided scales of levels of attraction continually increases, the asexual movement has its own development of semiotics and philosophy.
Platonic life partnerships... Have always existed? They've always deviated from the norm lol. A QPR isn't just an intense friendship - people don't plan their lives around their friends...
The vast majority of are and ace people would be queer regardless of being aro/ace... It just gives them a language to find the relationship that works best for them.
Okay, so I’ll preface this by saying that I identify as a heteroromantic asexual. So naturally my gut reaction to my orientation being described in this manner was initially very defensive however, this was quite well written. There are just some aspects I find to be incorrect from what I have known and experienced after being a part of this community.
First of all, the assertion that asexual people having sex and masturbating is “a mess of contradictions” is one I find deeply insulting. Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. Sex and sexual attraction are not a package deal. Some aces have sex for their partner’s sake or in an effort to have children. And even if the ace person engaging in the act is getting something from it, that is also not disqualifying. You literally quote the exact reason why. “Sexual desire is different to sexual attraction.”
Furthermore, the quote from Yasmin regarding pornography is used in a way that I feel is misleading. Aesthetic attraction is enjoying the appearance of something in a similar way as a person would enjoy a painting. If I’m aesthetically attracted to someone it means I don’t want to have sex or a relationship with them, I just appreciate how they look. That is likely what is being described. However it is framed as evidence that ace people are still just like allo people in regards to their relationship towards sex which is not the case by any means.
Also, the claim at the end that the asexual movement prevents discussions about how over-sexualized society is does not seem to be correct from my experiences. We also do not like how sexual everything is and we also want it to change. Just because we know we are different does not mean we want that to stay the same. We just want it to change for some slightly different reasons. To avoid damaging children and adults but also because we want some diversity in what is being shown. In a similar fashion to gay people thinking heterosexual relationships have been too common for too long. We want the same thing!
Additionally, just as an aside, if young people think they are asexual and then realize they are not at a later point, that is nothing new. People change and their identities with them. There is an lgbt meme subreddit and a significant amount of them are people thinking they figured out what they were only to realize that they were something else. It is not an irregular occurrence and if it happens to aces, that should be treated as it would be if someone thought they were bi before realizing they were not for instance.
To finish I just want to say that I sincerely hope that the ace people claiming to be oppressed in a comparable way to gay and trans people are a minority. Those are very different levels of subjugation that we should not be claiming for ourselves. Even if I find the idea that comparing the abuse a certain identity has faced is useless, they are not the same. Our orientation is very easy to hide and we don’t risk much but I don’t think that means we aren’t valid.
Speaking as someone who is happy to identify as aro/ace, what the label means for me is an acknowledgment that it's perfectly okay not to engage in sexual or romantic relationships. I appreciate the level of research you've put into the article, and understand the fear you present that some in the asexual community are over-inflating their issues at the cost of distracting from issues you consider graver within the LGBT community. Indeed I would probably agree that these issues are graver, and also that a conversation needs to be had about the place of asexuality within the LGBT+ scene. Just because one might have bigger issues than another, however, does not mean that the latter is invalid. You could perhaps reflect further on what the orientation means, as a validation of different experience within a world that is often intolerant of divergence.
this is a bad take that only got worse the further i read. asexuality isn’t a trend created by people who want to be part of the lgbt community, it’s a historically recognised sexuality which has been around for over 100 years. why does it matter what statistics of asexual people have been subjected to conversion therapy or correctional rape? the lgbt community isn’t the oppression olympics unlike what you seem to portray it as being by bringing up statistics for fucking conversion therapy.
I used to think I was against all the LGBT attention grabbing. But this whole article was clutching and trash. It reeked of impotent rage
ah yes the “hot and new” sexual orientation… because I skip all of the sex scenes in movies just to be trendy, throw up after kissing just to be cool, feel like an outsider due to my lack of interest in sex just to be hip, and stay up all night wondering if I’ll ever be in a loving relationship just for funsies. y’all think we CHOOSE to be ostracized?? bffr
>This is a whole new ideological lexicon from queer theorists to label and define the minutiae of human experience; intense friendships have now been given the new nomenclature “Queerplatonic”, the act of overthinking your friendships and relationships described as “Split Attraction Model (SAM)”. Their glossary of terms for the ever subdivided scales of levels of attraction continually increases, the asexual movement has its own development of semiotics and philosophy.
Platonic life partnerships... Have always existed? They've always deviated from the norm lol. A QPR isn't just an intense friendship - people don't plan their lives around their friends...
The vast majority of are and ace people would be queer regardless of being aro/ace... It just gives them a language to find the relationship that works best for them.
I was sexually assaulted for being asexual...
Okay, so I’ll preface this by saying that I identify as a heteroromantic asexual. So naturally my gut reaction to my orientation being described in this manner was initially very defensive however, this was quite well written. There are just some aspects I find to be incorrect from what I have known and experienced after being a part of this community.
First of all, the assertion that asexual people having sex and masturbating is “a mess of contradictions” is one I find deeply insulting. Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. Sex and sexual attraction are not a package deal. Some aces have sex for their partner’s sake or in an effort to have children. And even if the ace person engaging in the act is getting something from it, that is also not disqualifying. You literally quote the exact reason why. “Sexual desire is different to sexual attraction.”
Furthermore, the quote from Yasmin regarding pornography is used in a way that I feel is misleading. Aesthetic attraction is enjoying the appearance of something in a similar way as a person would enjoy a painting. If I’m aesthetically attracted to someone it means I don’t want to have sex or a relationship with them, I just appreciate how they look. That is likely what is being described. However it is framed as evidence that ace people are still just like allo people in regards to their relationship towards sex which is not the case by any means.
Also, the claim at the end that the asexual movement prevents discussions about how over-sexualized society is does not seem to be correct from my experiences. We also do not like how sexual everything is and we also want it to change. Just because we know we are different does not mean we want that to stay the same. We just want it to change for some slightly different reasons. To avoid damaging children and adults but also because we want some diversity in what is being shown. In a similar fashion to gay people thinking heterosexual relationships have been too common for too long. We want the same thing!
Additionally, just as an aside, if young people think they are asexual and then realize they are not at a later point, that is nothing new. People change and their identities with them. There is an lgbt meme subreddit and a significant amount of them are people thinking they figured out what they were only to realize that they were something else. It is not an irregular occurrence and if it happens to aces, that should be treated as it would be if someone thought they were bi before realizing they were not for instance.
To finish I just want to say that I sincerely hope that the ace people claiming to be oppressed in a comparable way to gay and trans people are a minority. Those are very different levels of subjugation that we should not be claiming for ourselves. Even if I find the idea that comparing the abuse a certain identity has faced is useless, they are not the same. Our orientation is very easy to hide and we don’t risk much but I don’t think that means we aren’t valid.
Speaking as someone who is happy to identify as aro/ace, what the label means for me is an acknowledgment that it's perfectly okay not to engage in sexual or romantic relationships. I appreciate the level of research you've put into the article, and understand the fear you present that some in the asexual community are over-inflating their issues at the cost of distracting from issues you consider graver within the LGBT community. Indeed I would probably agree that these issues are graver, and also that a conversation needs to be had about the place of asexuality within the LGBT+ scene. Just because one might have bigger issues than another, however, does not mean that the latter is invalid. You could perhaps reflect further on what the orientation means, as a validation of different experience within a world that is often intolerant of divergence.
this is a bad take that only got worse the further i read. asexuality isn’t a trend created by people who want to be part of the lgbt community, it’s a historically recognised sexuality which has been around for over 100 years. why does it matter what statistics of asexual people have been subjected to conversion therapy or correctional rape? the lgbt community isn’t the oppression olympics unlike what you seem to portray it as being by bringing up statistics for fucking conversion therapy.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/asexuality-history-internet-identity-queer-archive.amp