Just a gentle reminder on this first day of pride month that calling an aspec “cishet” without their permission is aphobic since this erases their aspec ID(s) and reinforces heteronormativity not to mention it’s cissexist if they’re actually trans/nb/agender/etc 💜
^still relevant^
Authors:
Angel L. Miles, Ph.D.University of Illinois at Chicago
Akemi Nishida, Ph.D.University of Illinois at Chicago
Anjali J. Forber-Pratt, Ph.D.Vanderbilt University
Just a gentle reminder on this first day of pride month that calling an aspec “cishet” without their permission is aphobic since this erases their aspec ID(s) and reinforces heteronormativity not to mention it’s cissexist if they’re actually trans/nb/agender/etc 💜
I really hope this is sarcasm because otherwise… yikes 😫
Wow it’s only the first day of pride month and already the aphobes are crawling out of the woodworks to make sure we know aces don’t matter and shouldn’t be included in pride. I am so disgusted and am taking this as an opportunity to block each and every one of them.
literally no aphobe has said that aces dont matter, just that being ace or aro doesnt inherently make u lgbt
i’m not sure if you’re aware but saying ^that^ in the context of pride means “aces don’t matter” in the context of pride, which is what i was literally talking about but sure, whatever, carry on….
also, stop pretending there is anything “inherent” about the lgbt+ bc… no.
Also, when a good number of exclusionists/aphobes are suicide baiting and wishing death and rape on a-spec people regardless of if they are cishet or not, I think it’s safe to say that many of y'all do think we don’t matter. Y'all don’t want us to even exist. So that person responding to the OP must be living under a discourse rock or something if they really think no aphobe has said or implied that we don’t matter.
For real, and I def have the receipts to prove it:
And here’s ppl saying we shouldn’t be a part of lgbt+ pride or pride month:
Pls signal boost so ppl not involved in the “””discourse””” can see how real this actually is? And feel free to search my receipts tag to see more aphobia/allosexism both on and offline!!!!
I used to run an ace info sideblog. shit like this is why I quit. I dive back into the asexual tagss once in a while and always regret it quickly.
I am a proud Ace,
being panromantic should not be the only reason I’m in the LGBT spectrum.
My Aro Ace friend is no less lgbt.
Her sister and two brothers had to fight to make her parents keep her in the house because they wanted to kick her out. They told her that she “needed help” and that “she was wrong”. Her own fucking parents told her that her own existance was wrong and she is one of millions who could be going through even worse. Shes lucky she had a good support system. I know other Aces, ones who have had people try to beat the Ace out of them. Or worse, attempt to grope and rape them to see if something would change. I have held my friends close as they cried after the GSA meeting because they tried to kick us out because in our own home, we didn’t belong.
For you to say “earn your oppression” through all of this maybe, just maybe, it’s you turning a blind eye this time.
I would say “So fuck you.” but even if I wasn’t a (self) sex repulsed Ace, I wouldn’t.
#BoostAceVoices | #BoostAroVoices | #AspecsOfColor
Many people who say that aces don’t deserve safe spaces are also the ones saying that they belong in concentration camps, deserve to be beaten, deserve to die, etc. If anything, aphobes are proving that aces face just as much – if not more – shit as other people on the LGBT+ spectrum. Being hated and called “unnatural” happens to ace and aro people. Getting kicked out of the family happens to ace and aro people. “Corrective rape” happens to ace and aro people. Hell, I can even guarantee there have been ace and aro people who have been murdered for their preferences.
Here’s the thing. The LGBT+ community is for those who are not cis and/or not straight: the latter of which, by definition, marks being both heteroromantic and heterosexual. Even if someone on the ace portion of the spectrum has “straight tendencies” – like being an aromantic heterosexual or a heteroromantic asexual – they are not straight. They don’t fit the simultaneous requirements of both romantic and sexual attraction to the preferred gender to be called straight. And since they’re not straight, they’re LGBT+.
I’m not personally ace/aro, but I’ll proudly stand by my ace/aro cousins in the LGBT+ community. Aphobes can fuck off. <3
Just a gentle reminder on this first day of pride month that calling an aspec “cishet” without their permission is aphobic since this erases their aspec ID(s) and reinforces heteronormativity not to mention it’s cissexist if they’re actually trans/nb/agender/etc 💜
Just a gentle reminder on this first day of pride month that calling an aspec “cishet” without their permission is aphobic since this erases their aspec ID(s) and reinforces heteronormativity not to mention it’s cissexist if they’re actually trans/nb/agender/etc 💜
igirisudoitsu-deactivated201705 asked:
forevrdreamingofbetterthings answered:
Despite my pain and fogginess, I’m going to try to say something that’s hard to say but really important so pls bare with me and I apologize if I muck this up….
This ask makes me so so sad. It is absolutely 1000000% UP TO YOU and how you feel to decide what your orientation(s) are and how they affect you. How you relate or not to the ace/aro-spectrums is up to you and it does not in any way invalidate anyone else so please don’t worry, friend. You do not in any way invalidate my orientation and others for whom their aspec orientations aren’t modifiers.
No aro/ace spec is responsible for validating or invalidating other aro/ace specs by relating to their orientation(s) in the same ways. We are allowed to have various experiences because we are human beings and we’re talking about sexual orientations here folks!
What I specifically object to - the common exclusionist argument I think that makes a LOT of us ask ourselves the similar questions to this ask - is the notion that the a-spectrums should be experienced in a singular way and that if not, it’s not valid (and often specifically insisting that aspecs are modifiers so they’re not even real orientations on their own anyway, and such ppl even mysteriously argue that aroaces =/= a valid orientation and actually somehow = straight?!?!?!?).
Please friends, don’t let these ignorant clowns deceive you with their bullshit. Just because for some people (like yourself) the a-specs are a modifier, it doesn’t mean that it’s a modifier for everyone. And they’re speaking over us actual aspecs when they suggest otherwise.
You have EVERY right to live your life true to your heart and I am truly sorry that their bile has made you worry about this.
YOU are not responsible for countering their hate and bigotry.
They just need to STFU.
anyone else notice that ace exclusionists work super hard to help society foist heteronormativity on us aspecs (even though ace/aros are intrinsically NOT “het” orientations), and then they blame us for heteronormativity to better exclude us?? this is not an accident… :/
I just discovered this hellhole of a tag and have a few questions…
So from what I am seeing here is that people feel like heteroromantic aces shouldn’t be in the LGBT+ community.
The most common reason why that I see is “They benefit from straight privilage” and yeah, I can see how that would be generally speaking. Many hetero trans people would also benefit from straight privilage would they not?
Another rebuttal I see is “They don’t face the same level of violence for who they are” which is oppression olympics but okay. I would argue that people who are ace face repression more so than oppression. Which is still caused by society being shitty and is totally valid.
Also this societal thinking can lead people to have sex when they don’t want to, which is just awful. And obviously bullying and teasing for not conforming to societies expectations sexually. Not to mention asexuality having been pathologized as a disorder forever and being perceived as LGB for not partaking in hetero sex.
The last one I believe is important because I think it is why people who are heteroromantic ace are in the LGBT+ in the first place. You can argue that it’s just a perception so why are they here but perceptions are powerful. The LGBT+ comunity wouldn’t exist without other peoples incorrect perceptions.
For example, LGBT+ people in general are perceived as evil creatures by a lot of religious groups. They are perceived as broken and wrong and in need of fixing (ace people experiance this too). They are perceived as a danger to children. They are perceived as deserving of death. Their existance is debated in wether or not it’s evolutionairly logical/helpful to the human race (ace people experiance this too). This is why the community came together in the first place is it not? To combat these toxic perceptions?
Many people in this tag do not understand why ace people belong in the lgbt community simply because they don’t understand the more nuanced and repressive struggle that ace people face in their daily lives. Even though a lot of LGBT people who live in more accepting countries are already in a similar nuanced and repressive struggle.
I really don’t get why there is a debate besides misguided distain at people you… perceive as “straight”
igirisudoitsu-deactivated201705 asked:
forevrdreamingofbetterthings answered:
Despite my pain and fogginess, I’m going to try to say something that’s hard to say but really important so pls bare with me and I apologize if I muck this up….
This ask makes me so so sad. It is absolutely 1000000% UP TO YOU and how you feel to decide what your orientation(s) are and how they affect you. How you relate or not to the ace/aro-spectrums is up to you and it does not in any way invalidate anyone else so please don’t worry, friend. You do not in any way invalidate my orientation and others for whom their aspec orientations aren’t modifiers.
No aro/ace spec is responsible for validating or invalidating other aro/ace specs by relating to their orientation(s) in the same ways. We are allowed to have various experiences because we are human beings and we’re talking about sexual orientations here folks!
What I specifically object to - the common exclusionist argument I think that makes a LOT of us ask ourselves the similar questions to this ask - is the notion that the a-spectrums should be experienced in a singular way and that if not, it’s not valid (and often specifically insisting that aspecs are modifiers so they’re not even real orientations on their own anyway, and such ppl even mysteriously argue that aroaces =/= a valid orientation and actually somehow = straight?!?!?!?).
Please friends, don’t let these ignorant clowns deceive you with their bullshit. Just because for some people (like yourself) the a-specs are a modifier, it doesn’t mean that it’s a modifier for everyone. And they’re speaking over us actual aspecs when they suggest otherwise.
You have EVERY right to live your life true to your heart and I am truly sorry that their bile has made you worry about this.
YOU are not responsible for countering their hate and bigotry.
They just need to STFU.
anyone else notice that ace exclusionists work super hard to help society foist heteronormativity on us aspecs (even though ace/aros are intrinsically NOT “het” orientations), and then they blame us for heteronormativity to better exclude us?? this is not an accident… :/
kunaiman asked:
Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.
Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture’s existence.
Rape culture is rape being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is rape being used as a corrective to “cure” queer women. Rape culture is a militarized culture and “the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms.”
Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men’s prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.
Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women’s daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.
Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape.
Rape culture is judges banning the use of the word rape in the courtroom. Rape culture is the media using euphemisms for sexual assault. Rape culture is stories about rape being featured in the Odd News.
Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.
Rape culture is “nothing” being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape.
Rape culture is boys under 10 years old knowing how to rape.
Rape culture is the idea that only certain people rape—and only certain people get raped. Rape culture is ignoring that the thing about rapists is that they rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance.
Rape culture is the narrative that sex workers can’t be raped. Rape culture is the assertion that wives can’t be raped. Rape culture is the contention that only nice girls can be raped.
Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Rape culture is avoiding talking about what an absurdly unreasonable expectation that is, since rapists don’t announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple.
Rape culture is people meant to protect you raping you instead—like parents, teachers, doctors, ministers, cops, soldiers, self-defense instructors.
Rape culture is a serial rapist being appointed to a federal panel that makes decisions regarding women’s health.
Rape culture is a ruling that says women cannot withdraw consent once sex commences.
Rape culture is a collective understanding about classifications of rapists: The “normal” rapist (whose crime is most likely to be dismissed with a “boys will be boys” sort of jocular apologia) is the man who forces himself on attractive women, women his age in fine health and form, whose crime is disturbingly understandable to his male defenders. The “real sickos” are the men who go after children, old ladies, the disabled, accident victims languishing in comas—the sort of people who can’t fight back, whose rape is difficult to imagine as titillating, unlike the rape of “pretty girls,” so easily cast in a fight-fuck fantasy of squealing and squirming and eventual relenting to the “flattery” of being raped.
Rape culture is the insistence on trying to distinguish between different kinds of rape via the use of terms like “gray rape” or “date rape.”
Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as “date rape” by far the most prevalent type of rape. Rape culture is pervasive insistence that false reports are common, although they are less common (1.6%) than false reports of auto theft (2.6%). Rape culture is pervasive claims that women make rape accusations willy-nilly, when 61% of rapes remain unreported.
Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that there is a “typical” way to behave after being raped, instead of the acknowledgment that responses to rape are as varied as its victims, that, immediately following a rape, some women go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don’t; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.
Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that a rape victim who reports hir rape is readily believed and well-supported, instead of acknowledging that reporting a rape is a huge personal investment, a difficult process that can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Rape culture is ignoring that there is very little incentive to report a rape; it’s a terrible experience with a small likelihood of seeing justice served.
Rape culture is hospitals that won’t do rape kits, disbelieving law enforcement, unmotivated prosecutors, hostile judges, victim-blaming juries, and paltry sentencing.
Rape culture is the fact that higher incidents of rape tend to correlate with lower conviction rates.
Rape culture is silence around rape in the national discourse, and in rape victims’ homes. Rape culture is treating surviving rape as something of which to be ashamed. Rape culture is families torn apart because of rape allegations that are disbelieved or ignored or sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark sea in an iron vault of secrecy and silence.
Rape culture is the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process that renders consent irrelevant. Rape culture is treating women’s bodies like public property. Rape culture is street harassment and groping on public transportation and equating raped women’s bodies to a man walking around with valuables hanging out of his pockets. Rape culture is most men being so far removed from the threat of rape that invoking property theft is evidently the closest thing many of them can imagine to being forcibly subjected to a sexual assault.
Rape culture is treating 13-year-old girls like trophies for men regarded as great artists.
Rape culture is ignoring the way in which professional environments that treat sexual access to female subordinates as entitlements of successful men can be coercive and compromise enthusiastic consent.
Rape culture is a convicted rapist getting a standing ovation at Cannes, a cameo in a hit movie, and a career resurgence in which he can joke about how he hates seeing people get hurt.
Rape culture is when running dogfights is said to elicit more outrage than raping a woman would.
Rape culture is blurred lines between persistence and coercion. Rape culture is treating diminished capacity to consent as the natural path to sexual activity.
Rape culture is pretending that non-physical sexual assaults, like peeping tomming, is totally unrelated to brutal and physical sexual assaults, rather than viewing them on a continuum of sexual assault.
Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.
Rape culture is using the word “rape” to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like “That ATM raped me with a huge fee” or “The IRS raped me on my taxes.”
Rape culture is rape being used as entertainment, in movies and television shows and books and in video games.
Rape culture is television shows and movies leaving rape out of situations where it would be a present and significant threat in real life.
Rape culture is Amazon offering to locate “rape” products for you.
Rape culture is rape jokes. Rape culture is rape jokes on t-shirts, rape jokes in college newspapers, rape jokes in soldiers’ home videos, rape jokes on the radio, rape jokes on news broadcasts, rape jokes in magazines, rape jokes in viral videos, rape jokes in promotions for children’s movies, rape jokes on Page Six (and again!), rape jokes on the funny pages, rape jokes on TV shows, rape jokes on the campaign trail, rape jokes on Halloween, rape jokes in online content by famous people, rape jokes in online content by non-famous people, rape jokes in headlines, rape jokes onstage at clubs, rape jokes in politics, rape jokes in one-woman shows, rape jokes in print campaigns, rape jokes in movies, rape jokes in cartoons, rape jokes in nightclubs, rape jokes on MTV, rape jokes on late-night chat shows, rape jokes in tattoos, rape jokes in stand-upcomedy, rape jokes on websites, rape jokes at awards shows, rape jokes in online contests, rape jokes in movie trailers, rape jokes on the sides of buses, rape jokes on cultural institutions…
Rape culture is people objecting to the detritus of the rape culture being called oversensitive, rather than people who perpetuate the rape culture being regarded as not sensitive enough.
Rape culture is the myriad ways in which rape is tacitly and overtly abetted and encouraged having saturated every corner of our culture so thoroughly that people can’t easily wrap their heads around what the rape culture actually is.
That’s hardly everything. It’s merely the tip of an unfathomable iceberg.
By Melissa McEwan in “Rape Culture 101″
p.s., I (feministingforchange) am actually a PhD student studying Rape Culture from a critical criminological, intersectional feminist, and cultural studies perspective and let me assure you that rape culture exists in America, Canada, and as far as I’m aware, every other country on this small blue marble. But nice try ;)
igirisudoitsu-deactivated201705 asked:
Despite my pain and fogginess, I’m going to try to say something that’s hard to say but really important so pls bare with me and I apologize if I muck this up….
This ask makes me so so sad. It is absolutely 1000000% UP TO YOU and how you feel to decide what your orientation(s) are and how they affect you. How you relate or not to the ace/aro-spectrums is up to you and it does not in any way invalidate anyone else so please don’t worry, friend. You do not in any way invalidate my orientation and others for whom their aspec orientations aren’t modifiers.
No aro/ace spec is responsible for validating or invalidating other aro/ace specs by relating to their orientation(s) in the same ways. We are allowed to have various experiences because we are human beings and we’re talking about sexual orientations here folks!
What I specifically object to - the common exclusionist argument I think that makes a LOT of us ask ourselves the similar questions to this ask - is the notion that the a-spectrums should be experienced in a singular way and that if not, it’s not valid (and often specifically insisting that aspecs are modifiers so they’re not even real orientations on their own anyway, and such ppl even mysteriously argue that aroaces =/= a valid orientation and actually somehow = straight?!?!?!?).
Please friends, don’t let these ignorant clowns deceive you with their bullshit. Just because for some people (like yourself) the a-specs are a modifier, it doesn’t mean that it’s a modifier for everyone. And they’re speaking over us actual aspecs when they suggest otherwise.
You have EVERY right to live your life true to your heart and I am truly sorry that their bile has made you worry about this.
YOU are not responsible for countering their hate and bigotry.
They just need to STFU.
