asexual pride movement

yeah i think the hostility toward asexuality shown in this thread is justification enough for their wanting a pride movement. "persecution" happens in subtle as well as overt ways and people should be allowed to be concerned with the former if they feel it affects them. i really cannot see the downside of an asexual pride movement and think it is gross for people who are ostensibly not part of that community saying it is "weird". sorry aimless, i generally really love your posts, but your views on this issue are off the mark.

The thing is -- in the case of people who (lgbtq or not) are subject to e.g. homophobia, there's a continuum from violent gaybashing (and premeditated murder) to everyday casual homophobic slurs that leave people feeling like they'll never be accepted, and when people experience homophobic treatment along that continuum it evokes the rest of the continuum, there's always the sense that the escalation is there in potentia. In the case of people who are subject to "acephobia", that continuum would be much shorter: sure, people who deviate from the social-romantic norm can get treated like they are weird and wrong, and can feel that they'll never be accepted. I get that people can live in social worlds where there is a lot of pressure to partner up, and to be romantically and sexually active, and that it feels like social support is withdrawn if you don't do this. But no-one's going to see you walking down the street not holding hands with someone who you're not sleeping with and solely on the basis of that decide to kick your head in.

The society that we presently live in really overemphasises the primacy of the romantic-sexual couple, and it seems like people have looked back into their own family pasts and interpreted every maiden aunt and every confirmed bachelor and every dissatisfied spouse, and decided to code them all as people who were frustrated in their sexual desires. It's very likely that for many of them the presence/absence of sex wasn't the problem -- the things that concerned them in life could have been material, economic, spiritual. But we are a culture that thinks in terms of two-person households and love marriages, of nuclear families rather than multi-generational, of sexual self-discovery as a form of personal fulfilment, that the sex one has reflects and forms the self that one is. It's a corrective against previous generations' attitudes, and in a few generations people will understand the world (not just the present, but historically) through a different lens.

so of course people feel put-upon by society at large! it is a sad irony that we live in a world where people are expected to preemptively define themselves by sexuality so 'not being interested in sexuality' becomes itself a sexuality! but... no-one is nailbombing a pub because they think you are a moral degenerate.

Treeship, I can endure your disapproval, so long as you understand that I was not saying that asexuality itself was weird, but rather that asexuals encouraging one another to join together in a social movement to assert communal pride in their asexuality struck me as weird, basically for the reasons c sharp major articulates so well in his post. I can see that asexuality might be ill understood in society, and asexuals might feel somewhat unaccepted, but by taking on the trappings of earlier movements such as black pride and gay pride they implicitly claim to be in a similar situation. They aren't.

It seems to me that an asexual pride movement falls closer in the social spectrum to a theoretical movement for freckle pride than to, for example, gay pride. While I, too, can see no downside to this theoretical movement of the freckled to assert their right not to be ostracized for their freckles and I cannot claim to be a member of this group, and while freckled people might certainly feel that their freckles mark them out in society and the presence of freckles affects them (all the criteria you specified) I would persist on thinking it weird if some freckled people started agitating for freckle pride as societywide movement. Gross of me, I know, but I'd still feel that way.

basically for the reasons c sharp major articulates so well in his post

insert your own 'cisgender assumption' joke heeeere

proud of yourself, are ya

why yes, I am, slightly

*disapproving glare*

*whimper*

no autosex for me tonight

Aimless i knew what you were saying and sorry if I wasn't clear. I think that asexuality, being a sexual identity that forces one to make nonstandard (non-heteronormative) lifestyle choices seems different than something superficial like freckles, especially bc terms like "sexless" are used disparagingly sometimes and "virility" is something society seems to value, but whatever, agree to disagree.

in his post

I paused a while over that phrasing.

My first inclination was to say "in the post above this one", but realized how often other posts show up during the composition of a long post. So then I thought, "in the post above", but I wasn't sure how many posts c sharp major had already made "above" mine, making this potentially ambiguous. Then I considered inserting a quotation from c sharp major, but couldn't decide how to do this that wasn't awkward. So I finally said to hell with it and used "in his post", knowing it might not be appropriate either, but at least it was brief and simple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

terms like "sexless" are used disparagingly sometimes

As the current bullying thread should remind us, almost anything can be made the pretext for disparagement. Nose hair. Wattles. A wandering eye. Long fingers. A prominent adam's apple. Oddly placed whorls in the hair on your head. Cruelty finds its own reasons.

lol imago

good thread

as a freckled dude in remission can i just say freckles are hawt, would take them back in a second, especially if my hairline reverted to the position it occupied at the time in question

Nose hair. Wattles. A wandering eye. Long fingers. A prominent adam's apple. Oddly placed whorls in the hair on your head.

also hawt imo

previous ms mac had an adams apple, never found any supporting evidence o trouble me

previous ms mac had an adams apple, never found any supporting evidence to troublearouse me

copyedited that for u, 1st one's free of charge

(imagine there is a bolded apostrophe in "adams" otherwise that gag doesn't work)

when this fey mood takes you, you really ought to post as `loses`

aw man cmon man

not my fault you entered stage left with a target for a dn tbf

Oh, there's a spectrum now!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/asexual-relationships_n_3362206.html?1371648830&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/2013_05_SexualRomanticSpectrumWIDE.png

Sort of dig the idea of being "homoromantic," regardless of which dot in the right column my dotted line connects to.

these folks really test my ideological commitment to respect of others' subjectivities

They really ought to come up with other ways to say "fuck you" at moments like this.

everyone wants to be a special snowflake. too bad no matter who you're attracted to (or not, or "demiattracted to", whatever the fuck that is), you're still the same slab of crap we all are.

last 3 posts super otm

https://twitter.com/TumblrTXT/status/371245275190681600

https://twitter.com/TumblrTXT/status/370265314443157504

I think the spectrum is v v interesting, and I identify with a lot of what ppl say about intimacy and the incredible complexity of desire. But it's hard to report on srs aspects when the ppl you interview say things like "One woman Brotto studied said she masturbates to mythical fairies."

I also think a lot of this is pathologizing things on the spectrum of normal human variation, but I can basically get that when you are NEVER represented in depictions or the public space, putting a concrete name on how you're different is profoundly validating.

human sexuality's really fluid and multidimensional; what i find annoying is artificially carving out identities for these normal fluctuations. "you just don't get it, you're just a sexual typical." unless heterodemisexuals have been dragged to death from trucks, fired from their jobs, and denied equal rights under the law without much press about it.

like any ye ole issue this is complex. what if people are finding homes in an identity that actually masks a mental health issue? the only self-avowed asexual I knew was actually a gay guy who was completely out of touch with his sexuality. would being part of a special club really help, or would it reinforce unhealthy attitudes? who knows. who cares. be a 1/2 demisexual 1/2 asexual binormal heterotype if that floats yer boat.

My big problem is figuring out how to more strenuously oppress my clearly out-of-character sexual desires so that I don't continue on in my path of being an unmitigated tease.

Real talk: I'm mad sympathetic to this movement, but both they and myself need to swallow that bitter pill and scheduled an appointment to see a therapist and/or sex therapist.

chaotic neutral demisexual

I am still pretty reluctant to accept "demisexual" - is it implying that people who are not "demisexual" are just horny all the time and will fuck anybody on the first date? are people who only have sex after forming a strong emotional relationship actually maligned in our culture???

If neither person's willing to make the first move, are they both presumed demi?

Well ime with dating, if you "like" someone you are expected to put out by around the THIRD date, at least. Which is still hardly any time, if what you want is a complex understanding of someone. Outside of religious communities and their celibacy/chastity, there's little to no discussion or portrayal of other ways of doing intimacy.

hemidemisexualquaver

"aromantic" lol

lol I was just thinking about hemidemisemi quavers a few days ago--actually I was trying to remember what order those are supposed to go in, and then I gave up and paid more attention to my bike ride.

Well ime with dating, if you "like" someone you are expected to put out by around the THIRD date, at least. Which is still hardly any time, if what you want is a complex understanding of someone.

man I'm naive b/c I thought this was a thing only taken seriously in like TV and the movies. I guess I am sort of demisexual! not always though.

xp yep, I've never managed to get beyond the second or third date without a) acquiescing to sexual contact I didn't want to have and said contact was terrible for me and (consequently) them and that ends it all, or b) successfully staving off sexual contact but alienating the other person and that ends it

Grass is always greener, but man, would I trade whatever I've got for being an aromantic dynamo.

idk, things can definitely seem to be going nowhere if there's no physical intimacy for some time, but I don't think physical intimacy or social/intellectual engagement are the whole picture on their own, unless you're genuinely asexual

Maybe the third date thing is just me, but I don't think I'm making up the general cloud of expectation that hovers somewhere around 3rd date territory. And as Eric says, the outcome is frequently not that pretty (also it makes sober dating m/l impossible because I can't get through the flirtation/attraction part).

That makes me sound pathetic, so I amend: the outcome is often "pretty" but not personally satisfying because it wasn't really for me, it was for them anyway.

ANYWAY. Therapy, you say?

it's criminal that they didn't leave room on that infographic for freak-a-holics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aATSUKu0jI

my anxiety and/or hatred of small talk makes it difficult to dig in without drinking, sure

As this is not ILTMI, I guess this is not really the appropriate path to go down.