so i see a lot of talk about how ace identities are inherently homophobic and harmful to young lgbpq kids? which like. is pretty obviously untrue, except apparently that’s not obvious to a lot of people? and what i think it boils down to is:
stop blaming aces for Straight societal problems?
I see aces get told that we’re “hypersexualizing” people by saying that we don’t experience sexual attraction. No. That’s not what’s happening. If your world includes no grey area to the point that you look at “this person doesn’t feel sexual attraction” and assume that the ONLY other alternative is “other people therefore feel sexual attraction literally all the time”, that’s your problem.
I see a lot of flack get thrown at aces for hypersexualizing wlw relationships specifically, and at the same time I see aces get shit for desexualizing wlw relationships. Now I’m not an expert on this, as a Baby Bi (I first called myself bi, like, yesterday. but I’ve been Wondering for like ten years so it doesn’t feel that new lol), even though I’m sure that if an acephobe wanders across it they’ll screenshot things out of context and what the fuck ever. but like.
I think the problem is that the world at large (read: the Straight World) both hypersexualizes and desexualizes wlw. And aces are just trying to navigate this fucked up world the same as anyone else, so blaming us for the problem, when we’re also affected by it, is shitty.
Personally? The reason that it took me ten years to work out that I’m romantically into girls is because of that shit. Because I’ve never felt sexual attraction for a girl, so according to the Hypersexualized Idea, I couldn’t be into girls at all. And because according to the Desexualized Idea, any non-sexual feelings I had couldn’t be romantic, and must be platonic, because all girls are super close with each other.
It was super confusing to me because while maybe like 80% of my feelings towards boys were romantic and asexual, before I knew I was ace, I assumed I must be feeling sexual attraction to them as well, because The World was like, girls feel sexually attracted to boys, so I just assumed that was what I was feeling. It wasn’t until my grey ace ass stumbled into a couple of instances of sexual attraction that I realized I’d never felt it before. So Young Me assumed that I was romantically and sexually interested in boys, which like, I am, albeit not often (I think I’m also grey-aro, since I don’t get crushes anywhere near as often as any allo-ro folks I know). But Young Me was actually only feeling romantic attraction for boys, which was similar to what I felt for girls, but didn’t recognize it as such, thanks to the previously-discussed simultaneous hypersexualization and desexualization.
So basically, I didn’t realize that I felt romantic attraction for girls until I worked out that I was ace. Because realizing I was ace made me realize, oh, I almost never experience sexual attraction, but I’ve experienced a fair amount of romantic attraction, and this is what that looks like, and oh, I can be romantically into girls as well without having been sexually into them, just like I have been with boys, and that’s still attraction.
I wouldn’t have worked out that I felt romantic attraction to girls without knowing about asexuality. So shitting all over asexuality because some wlw have found it to be a hiding place from internalized homo/biphobia doesn’t really make sense – it’s not asexuality that’s the problem, it’s The Straights. If “asexual” was a label that you used for a time because you had a hard time recognizing or admitting your sexual attraction to women, that’s because the world is fucked up, not because aces exist. I definitely agree that it’s harmful for wlw to be both hyper- and de- sexualized, it’s just not the fault of asexuality.
And blaming asexuality for all of this totally ignores that it can actually be really helpful as well – like for me, if I hadn’t known about it, I’d just have carried on thinking I was a Straight. And I know plenty of aces have had similar experiences.
@biacesolidarity @queerghostt I follow both of you guys and you’re both also bi aces, so I was wondering if either of y’all have any thoughts? I’m just working through mine, but discussion is Good, so, you know.
Yeah.
i hope it’s ok if i tack on as well?
i too am an aroace spectrum bi person! and when i was 14 or so, i finally admitted to myself that i was into girls- the problem of course was that i was mostly romantically into people in general, but i had had years to learn how to imitate sexual attraction to boys, and so i constantly felt i was faking my sexual attraction to girls (i was actually faking most of my sexual attraction to… everyone lol)
i didn’t learn about asexuality until i was 16 and it was so eye opening for me! it finally relieved me if the majority of my self-doubt and irrational guilt. it allowed me to feel better about being bi (although at the time i think i ID’d as pan, for similar reasons i.e. i didn’t really feel sexual attraction so i assumed i felt the same amount of it to everyone)
tl;dr the issue were having is an old and tired one. people used to blame the bisexual label for gay kids staying “halfway in the closet” and/or mislabeling due to internalized homophobia, and that was no more fair than blaming asexuality for existing
it’s the same shit and we shouldn’t tolerate it any more so than we have tolerated the former in recent years
bi/ace rambles
Monsters' Queen 