Sites that confront issues within the Ace community, and between Aces and the rest of GSM

[Aisling]

Many of these could be interpreted as trolling communities; much of what gets posted on them can be triggering and may get viewed as insulting or offensive.
I am not responsible for what is found on them, but I do feel it is constructive to post them here as they enter my awareness.

http://aceslutshamers.tumblr.com/
Ace Slut Shamers on Tumblr - run by an ace, includes images rejected by Queer Secrets; confronts the issues of slut-shaming, oppression olympics, and identity appropriation

http://privilegedenyingasexuals.tumblr.com/
Privilege Denying Asexuals - confronts oppression olympics and privilege denial; WARNING, frequently denies and erases demisexuality

http://homophobic-ace.tumblr.com/
Homophobic Ace - addresses appropriation of 'queer culture' and homophobia in the ace communities (thanks for the link, Mel!)


Worth noting about these two Tumblogs: I actually do personally agree with some of the points they address.
I'm not going to police anything DG members say in commentary on these sites, but if you decide to start a cross-site flamewar, words will be had. Capisce?

[mel]

If "Ace Slut Shamers" just kept to what was on the tin, I might not have as big a problem with them, but stuff like this kinda annoys me (there are many more, and I didn't even pick the most egregious examples). Their general attitude just shows a huge disdain for the asexual community pretty much in its entirety, and not all of that is justified. They also have a particularly sneaky way of avoiding making definitive statements when they're saying something controversial, instead just kinda throwing in a disclaimer and then going on to say-without-saying "I agree with you these people are all stupid and I don't like them". I won't even start on privilege-denying-asexuals yet, but it should be known that while they were active, they would often simply ignore submissions that made arguments that were too good for them to respond to, choosing instead only to engage with angry, uncareful people. It's almost strawmanning, except by selectively choosing to respond only to the people with poor arguments rather than making up poor arguments. I might do a second post to call them out more specifically, but it's harder to prove "not responding to good arguments" besides giving my word that I sent them several submissions that they completely ignored while continuing to respond to other, weaker arguments (including one that I sent afterwards to be sure that there weren't just such a high volume of submissions that mine had yet to be reached), and others reported the same. Anyway, here's a few examples and commentary:

Question:
Why even differentiate between homosexual/homoromantic, heterosexual/heteroromantic, etc.? The "sexual" in those terms means "sex" as in male/female/other, not "sex" as in having sex. Homosexual only means "attracted to the same sex" -- not specifically attracted sexually, just attracted somehow, full stop. Same goes for heterosexual/bisexual/etc. - Anonymous
Answer:
You know, you’re right. I think I knew that at some point, but when I noticed the asexual community getting up in arms about splitting up romantic and sexual orientations I forgot it.
You’re right.

I'm not really sure if somebody who is aromantic and somebody of an unclear orientation (though contextually I'm assuming verisexual) gets to decide that romantic orientation is a pointless concept for the entire asexual community.

Question:
It seems that a lot of tumblr aces are not only young and need to fit into a group, but have been affected by media hype esp. in regards to demisexuality, as western at least media culture is extremely sexualised especially in regards to women. So people WHO FEEL SEXUAL ATTRACTION don't act like people in ads and in movies think there's something different with THEM. It's usual. - Anonymous
Answer:
I think demisexuality could be a valid concept; I’m neither sexual nor demisexual so I can’t speak as to the difference between the two or whether or not there is one. But I think you are right in a lot of ways. People seem to think that sexual people are always going around humping everything that moves, and go “I’m not like that! I only want to have sex sometimes, or not very much! I must be different!”

EMPHASIS MINE

I'm not totally buying the little disclaimer that "I think demisexuality could be a valid concept" here, given the bolded bit.

It would be just terrible to be sexual.
Just. Horrible.

This sarcasm is, I think, unwarranted and inappropriate. The secret-maker is obviously conflicted and a little upset that something they considered a core part of their identity has been seemingly totally invalidated, buying into a common stereotype that asexuals just "haven't met the right person yet". The idea that this is slut-shaming is laughable and based solely on, I guess, feeling "perverted" for suddenly experiencing completely foreign sexual urges that they had potentially even been repulsed by before.

This is me, completely.
So many aces here on Tumblr always talk about how ACES CAN HAVE RELATIONSHIPS TOO and ACES HAVE SEX ALSO and so a lot of people get pissy whenever sexuals assume that asexuals never have romantic or sexual relationships. A lot of asexuals not only do that, they also post pictures of men who are apparently “hot” (I wouldn’t know) and talk about how they want to do them. That part of the asexual “experience” is completely lost on me.

This might not be obvious, but there is legitimately only ONE ace activist blog on tumblr where anything like this occurs (ONE) and that specific person has been specifically targeted over and over and over again by people, by people who literally refused to engage with ANY other tumblr ace blog, even when SPECIFICALLY being told by any number of other high-profile ace blogs that they were willing to engage them on these issues that were causing the "targeted" blogger a GREAT deal of emotional distress...

And "post[ing] pictures of men who are apparently 'hot' and talk[ing] about how they want to do them" is a total misrepresentation of their content. The blogger in question talked entirely seperately about the attractiveness of the people being posted (which in context was understood to be aesthetic, if anything) and about wanting to have sex, but the latter was VERY specifically NOT related to any experience of sexual attraction. I don't want to divulge too many details here, because they changed their blog URL several times in an attempt to avoid trolls (which includes but is not limited to anyone who specifically targets an individual and refuses to engage with the rest of the community) and I don't want to "out" them or their personal business.

Ace Slut Shamers makes repeated reference to the SO MANY ACE BLOGS that do this, but I follow the asexuality tag closely and have NEVER encountered anybody else engaging in any behavior that even remotely resembles this complaint.

Demisexual Pie Chart

You can say this isn’t slut-shaming all you want, but no amount of mincing words will change the fact that it is passing judgment on those dirty sexysexuals who’ll drop trou for anyone who walks by.

And the image that started it all, with a commentary that makes it abundantly clear that Ace Slut Shamers doesn't understand that "People I am attracted to" and "People I will have sex with" are not the same thing even a little bit and that it makes absolutely no moral commentary whatsoever, not even implicitly, unless you assume wrongdoing on the part of the creator beforehand.


ADMIN EDIT: Quotes tags on this board are a little funny; adding "=(name)" inside the tags just breaks the tag. I've reformatted so it shows who it credits, but I've edited nothing else about this post.

PERSONAL EDIT: Reverted ADMIN EDIT because I fixed the quote tags in a way I prefer.

[Aisling]

Thanks so much for your feedback, Mel.

I do welcome analyses and commentary about any links I post in the OP, of course.
My disclaimer was entirely about avoiding cross-site harassment, which I believe is understandable.

I agree with your views on this matter, and there are also points on these sites that garner my agreement.

I hope you don't mind me fixing your quotes tags.

[mel]

i had actually fixed my own quotes tag but I guess not quickly enough, you had already started editing afterwards. I forgot to add the quote marks, which fix it.

[Aisling]

*laugh* Sorry for typing too fast?

Anyway, this topic is officially BACK on-topic.

aaaand Go.

[mel]

Here's another meme-based one:

http://homophobic-ace.tumblr.com/

[Aisling]

Thank you much, Mel.

[mel]

The only one of those I don't think is a strawman is the one about the triangle, which we've already discussed, but even then, I rarely if ever see the triangle used by the ace community on tumblr. It's strictly an AVEN thing.

[Aisling]

*nod* I agree, and of course, anybody is entitled to view this thread, as much as anything, as a collection of sites that address the ace community negatively and specifically... whether or not the negativity is always earned. If nothing else, it's a good barometer for how the internet is receiving aces &c., in places like Tumblr.

[mel]

Yeah, I mean, these are honestly barely even worth responding to. I have never once seen a single ace person claim that ace erasure is worse than LGBT oppression.

As for the one about "straightsplaining", I feel like most of the most vocal people on the ace spectrum trying to argue for aces to be able to use the term have been bi/pan-romantic aces and trans* or otherwise nonbinary aces who are arguing on the behalf of heteroromantic aces.

Not to mention that it doesn't even specify heteroromantic aces, so that particular meme blankets that ALL asexuals are straight. I feel my level of tolerance for this sort of thing running more thin

[mel]

So, at the time I posted the link initially, the site only had three memes.

It has since exploded and any generalizations I had made about the content are no longer necessarily accurate, I haven't read every meme that is now there, and don't have the energy to process it to be honest. It's emotionally exhausting.

Just, for the record, for people who are now visiting it and seeing more stuff posted than I had made reference to.

[Aisling]

Wholly chao. O_O;


Also, here is a nice nasty example of what led to another thread in this board:

[mel]

this is a direct quote

seriously

and nobody took issue with it

seriously

This is a direct quote, but not a direct quote from an asexual, but a direct quote from a gay man. I don't honestly see how, if people are willing to stoop to this level, we can expect to have any kind of reasonable discourse.

[mel]

I don't even really know what to say about this one, besides that it seems to be saying that it's totally cool to pathologize asexuality because some people want theirs "cured". I mean, WTF?

There have been a few made that haven't been posted too. The page on memegenerator has those:

http://memegenerator.net/Homophobic-Ace

I'm fond of this one:

Which appears to be invalidating demi/grey identities while accusing the same of being inherently slut-shaming.

I guess, to the blog's credit, it has not been accepted or posted as a submission, but the memegenerator page is still good for seeing what the opinion of us is, and I have to say it seems negative across the board right now.

[ratherdrinktea]

Urg the last one

I had to deal with that in the grey thread (omg, you're a slut shamer because you rarely experience attraction, stop hating on sexuals, blah blah blah)

-_-

But yea I kinda got into the whole thing, tried to have intelligent discourse and remind them that trans people were once kicked out of queer spaces, then got accused of revisionist history.

Now I'm just picardpalming it.

[Aisling]

Yet another that addresses another thread in this subforum... so as much as many of these annoy me, it's nice to know that the threads don't exist for 'nothing'; I'm not imagining things. :-/
Just kinda' wishing those weren't issues.

[mel]

Thoughts on this? I don't want ace inclusion to make LGBT spaces unsafe for LGBT people. On the other hand, pragmatically, excluding aces from LGBT spaces means there are no safe spaces for aces, period. Our numbers are too small and we're too geographically dispersed to form our own groups and create our own spaces for the most part.

[mel]

WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE OBJECTIFIED MEN? STOP WRECKING MY INTELLIGENT SHIPPING WITH DIRTY SEX!

http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/10230136381/so-i-finally-watched-x-men-first-class-and-i-cannot

So, valid concerns about the constant sexualization of all relationships ever in fandom is homophobia too? I understand that a lot of the time opposition to slash is homophobic, but there is a valid concern articulated in the author's previous posts about slash and fandom:

http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/3555519631/pro-nonsexual-love-or-why-im-opposed-to-slash-in
http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/7684982341/attitudes-contributing-to-slash-in-fandom-a-theory

It has nothing to do with "elitist shipping" or "dirty sex", but with pervasive attitudes regarding what they have termed a " Romantic-Sex Based Relationship Hierarchy" (something that outlawroad talks about very frequently, a couple links provided below)

http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/7530491394/the-difference-between-romantic-and-platonic-love-why
http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/6540363154/the-culture-of-hypersexuality-and-the-erasure-of
http://outlawroad.tumblr.com/post/6100009195/the-crisis-of-intimacy

Misrepresenting statements taken out of context, that their followers would understand, that aren't even actually homophobic, and using them to call the author a homophobe? Blah.

[ratherdrinktea]

Thoughts on this? I don't want ace inclusion to make LGBT spaces unsafe for LGBT people. On the other hand, pragmatically, excluding aces from LGBT spaces means there are no safe spaces for aces, period. Our numbers are too small and we're too geographically dispersed to form our own groups and create our own spaces for the most part.

To me, LGBT safe-spaces should never be LGBT only. They exist to be a safe space for GSM communities and everyone who wants to help support them. So whether or not aces are queer is a moot point when it comes to that.

But even if I didn't hold that opinion, I still don't think that having an asexual would alienate somebody who is LGBT as long as they aren't being intentionally homophobic or transphobic.

[mel]

Heterosexuality is romantic and/or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender.

Thank you for self-servingly redefining terms to entirely erase the existence of an entire sexual orientation. Did you hear that aces? "Heterosexual", "Homosexual", and the rest now include romantic attraction, so we can stop whining and carrying on.

[OwlSaint]

Wow. Just.... just wow. Identity policing, invalidation, and oppression Olympics all in one site. Just.... arg.

Because making the queer community as exclusive as possible is exactly the way to forward the cause of acceptance.

And this is why I prefer the term GSM to LGBT. It's more inclusive.

And in my book, virtually everyone is a minority in some aspect of their sexuality - making 'normal' people a minority too. So maybe one day GSM will just mean queer-positive.

[mel]

Aaaaand the fun doesn't end. I don't even have words for this one.

If they have a point, it's been long since buried in the pile of absurd bullshit and complete and utter lack of understanding about what asexuality is and/or complete denial of its existence.

[ratherdrinktea]

Found another lovely one *note the sarcasm*

*spoiled for triggers*:

Spoiler:

*facepalms*

[mel]

So, a particular variety of bad sex-education (only supported by roughly 15% of the American population, according to this article) focusing on temporary celibacy is somehow evidence that there are no social forces that could possibly be negatively effecting people who do not experience sexual attraction? Glad to see that everybody understands that asexuality and celibacy are not the same thing.

[mel]

ALKJFLS:KDJFS:LDKJFSD:LKJFDLKSJFDLKJ

That is all >_>

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