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(Because I promised myself any future long replies to reblogs would go here and not tumblr)
http://planettes.tumblr.com/post/146807918775/planettes-imo-the-split-attraction-model-is
No.
I do think the way some asexuals discuss split attraction can be gross for non-asexual lgb people, and that needs to be addressed. And there are definitely some lgb people on the asexual spectrum who don’t consider their asexuality to be a significant part of their identity and that’s fine. There are also some who identify as just “asexual” and consider the lgb-ness less important! For many people, myself included, being asexual-and-also-lgb is NOT the same as being lgb, and well beyond the bedroom. Maybe we’ll come up with a better model one day, but until then I’m going to use the best terms I have to describe myself and not erase my sexuality for other people’s convenience. I do understand that queer people have historically been hypersexualised, and I think it’s really important for asexuals to bear that in mind when we discuss the relationship of asexuality and queerness. But we can’t help existing, and the solution isn’t for us to hide but for all of us to work together against the broader harmful attitudes.
Times being grey asexual affects my life outside my relationships:
And afaict this is all just as much of a thing for aromantic people regardless of sexual orientation. Not experiencing romantic love is going to have HUGE effect on how you feel about romantic relationships, and society LOVES talking about romance, and assuming it is central in everyone’s life. I absolutely feel a commonality with aromantic bisexual people, and SOME of our experiences are similar, but they’re not interchangeable.
This reminds me a lot of the arguments 20 years ago that bi women should just identify as lesbians. Again: solidarity is important! There are many similarities! Some technically bi women DO choose to identify as lesbians. But they’re not interchangeable terms. (Alas if history is any guide, this means that in 20 years asexuals will be more included...with a more level playing field for everyone to snipe at each other and erase each other’s experiences, hooray)
EDIT: On a reread I feel like their whole argument is just building up to excluding heteromantic asexuals/aromantic heterosexuals (which I have argued against elsewhere), and the stuff about lgb aces etc is a cover. But here's my rebuttal anyway.
http://planettes.tumblr.com/post/146807918775/planettes-imo-the-split-attraction-model-is
Imo the split attraction model is ultimately useless and homophobic when you can still just say that youre lgb in any situation and will be regarded exactly the same in society with 100% less confusion.
No.
I do think the way some asexuals discuss split attraction can be gross for non-asexual lgb people, and that needs to be addressed. And there are definitely some lgb people on the asexual spectrum who don’t consider their asexuality to be a significant part of their identity and that’s fine. There are also some who identify as just “asexual” and consider the lgb-ness less important! For many people, myself included, being asexual-and-also-lgb is NOT the same as being lgb, and well beyond the bedroom. Maybe we’ll come up with a better model one day, but until then I’m going to use the best terms I have to describe myself and not erase my sexuality for other people’s convenience. I do understand that queer people have historically been hypersexualised, and I think it’s really important for asexuals to bear that in mind when we discuss the relationship of asexuality and queerness. But we can’t help existing, and the solution isn’t for us to hide but for all of us to work together against the broader harmful attitudes.
Times being grey asexual affects my life outside my relationships:
- Discussing relationships and dating: giving advice, discussing social dynamics and sexism, talking about my past personal history etc.
- what characters and stories I enjoy and relate to, and my discussions of this with others. Considering I write dating sims and am in the heavily romance-and-porn focused parts of fandom, this is a LOT of my day.
- discussions of queerness, which usually default to assuming everyone is into sex. Until I discovered asexuality I thought I couldn’t be bi, because people always defined it in terms of sexual attraction. If biSEXUAL wasn’t so much the default, I wouldn’t need so much to clarify “bi” to “biromantic grey asexual”.
- asking people to accommodate my sex aversion, which extends to things like nudity and sexual metaphors (this comes up a lot in fandom too)
- understanding and explaining how I feel about the world! Sexuality is a big part of a person! It's useful to have terms for it!
And afaict this is all just as much of a thing for aromantic people regardless of sexual orientation. Not experiencing romantic love is going to have HUGE effect on how you feel about romantic relationships, and society LOVES talking about romance, and assuming it is central in everyone’s life. I absolutely feel a commonality with aromantic bisexual people, and SOME of our experiences are similar, but they’re not interchangeable.
This reminds me a lot of the arguments 20 years ago that bi women should just identify as lesbians. Again: solidarity is important! There are many similarities! Some technically bi women DO choose to identify as lesbians. But they’re not interchangeable terms. (Alas if history is any guide, this means that in 20 years asexuals will be more included...with a more level playing field for everyone to snipe at each other and erase each other’s experiences, hooray)
EDIT: On a reread I feel like their whole argument is just building up to excluding heteromantic asexuals/aromantic heterosexuals (which I have argued against elsewhere), and the stuff about lgb aces etc is a cover. But here's my rebuttal anyway.
Tags:
Re: cw sex talk
nods
I mean I don't think prudishness is quite the word: I have found that the people who were in favour of me being, to all appearances, a prude, don't neatly overlap with the people who are cool with with me asexual/having sexual trauma etc. And I think part of the problem is people interpreting "I personally don't like [sexual thing]" as the more prudish "I dissaprove of [sexual thing] in principle for everyone on moral grounds". But maybe we're just defining "prude" differently.
Anyway I agree that it's generally very acceptable to discuss all sorts of specific details of ones sexuality in many queer spaces, and that there's no logical argument for why it should be unacceptable to simply state ones asexuality in that context.