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

[OwlSaint]

ALKJFLS:KDJFS:LDKJFSD:LKJFDLKSJFDLKJ

That is all >_>

What the FUH?

That doesn't even remotely make sense.

Yes, many people do not *have* sex without getting to know their partner(s), and with most people personality and how well you know the person play a role in attraction, and emotions in desire. But to experience sexual attraction based on feelings for the other person only is uncommon. Uncommon enough to have its own identity. I hardly think that is unfair to anyone else. Unless saying that people have attraction of any other sort is inherently slut-shaming.

[Aisling]

Unless saying that people have attraction of any other sort is inherently slut-shaming.

I won't speak for the person who made the image, but... I think that was the point they attempted to make, yeah. It could be argued, however, that THAT point is inherently slut-shaming. XD

[Faelights]

Looking at the variations of this meme hurts my head. My rational thinking processes can't seem to assimilate them into my world view in any form or fashion as, well, expressions of rational and reasonable perspectives/opinions. I honestly have to wonder sometimes if they've thought these things through before posting them.

[mel]

This is the basic subtext of every single of every single response to anyone suggesting that aces, gray-a’s, and demis might be needlessly complicating their lives with all these labels.

I mean, yeah, straight people may sometimes clarify that they’re “heteroflexible”, bis/pans debate which one is more accurate and whether or not “bi” is transphobic, and everyone’s got their “exceptions”— but non-asexual people* don’t seem to feel the need to write 10 page essays on some Greco-Latin word salad they just threw together to define their sexual orientation/preference** and why it’s “omg oppresshun!! and erasure!!1!” to call them anything else.

*and of course, plenty of ace-spectrum people don’t do this either

**In many, many cases “preference” would really be the more accurate word. LOL “sapiosexuals” anyone?

Oh, I'm just needlessly complicating my life? Damn. I wish someone had told me that sooner, I just would have not felt alienated by my lack of experience of sexual attraction and turned out as a normal well-adjusted heterosexual!

[epochryphal]

Hahahaha that last one. I have little patience for anyone telling me I should give up my labels because all they do is make me more angry and isolated and also I am a special snowflake (UGH that phrase). And that is a massive "subtext" misreading as well. Plus, intentionally ignoring or renaming any part of someone's (clearly-important-to-them) identity is just busted and, hey yeah, erasing/oppressive.

Repulsed/indifferent is a super valuable distinction to a lot of people. And I really enjoy separating out different kinds of attraction, because it alerts me to and focuses on different feelings and aspects of existence; it's invigorating and sense-making. I like our remodeling of the world, and we are fully entitled to expound upon what pieces feel important to us. Also guess what, ace community folks experience the world differently from 99%ers! Thus banding together to form a community and talk about that!

/preach-to-choir-because-ranting-to-friendly-audience-is-cathartic

[Aisling]

*We interrupt this thread to bring you a special bulletin*
It occurs to me that I loathe 'special snowflake'.
I don't particularly mind cussing, so right now we don't have much in the way of a profanity filter.

Anybody in favour of the flakey phrase getting filtered or swapped?
I'm so damn tempted to have every instance of it in the forum changed to 'a brilliant example of how good it is for a person to have a sense of individuality', or something similarly saccharine and purpose-defeating for using the term as a slur.

Also, laptops still fritzing; my activity will resume when that is resolved, hopefully by start of next week. ^_^

Epochryphal, rant all you need. Catharsis for the winning.

[Teamocil]

Ugh, I'm so sick of "special snowflake" too, especially the dismissive way it's hurled at demis and grays in particular. I actually had to just stop tracking the asexuality tag on Tumblr for this reason. It's so frustrating because it's like, look, there isn't language to clearly express our experiences and the kind of relationships we may want, so we have to create it. That's kind of how language works. But at least on some areas of Tumblr, that isn't met with understanding or civil discussion. Instead we get people reducing and universalizing our experiences (i.e. "demisexuality isn't real/everyone feels that way"). We get memes like homophobic-ace and the whole queerplatonic debacle ("you're appropriating queer"/"that's just normal friendship, it doesn't need a special name"- but also note that if you say "zucchini" then people make fun of that too. Argh, you just can't win for losing).

But yeah, I think I would be happy to never hear the phrase "special snowflake" again. I don't know what to swap it out for though...

[Aisling]

Hmn...

perhaps 'delightful person'?

[Nia Onyx]

I think that my biggest issue with these sort of things is there really isn't a good way to universally define something. If you think about it, many _____-sexual definitions rely on an assumed permanency from childhood to adulthood and what "gender" those who are effected by it are.

Growing up is a major chemical process. Many people develop allergies or changes in metabolism as they reach adulthood and there are still some who develop those same things later in life. There is no true permanency to any form of sexuality, only a strong preference.

Also, I don't agree with the defining of one's sexual preferences based simply of the "gender" of said preference. I feel that that is a very limiting way of doing it and falls under the same error as calling a dieing star a nova (meaning "new"). It's a little Bass Ackwards.

I am also more then a little frustrated with the contradictory nature of who "suffered more/first", saying it's belittling those before them while using an assumed wrong as means to justify another wrong. That is like saying that because I broke my leg five years ago, it doesn't matter that your arm is broken now.

Unfortunately, because of those two things, I tend to avoid most of the blogs/tumbler/sites that seem overrun that way. As for the whole "special snowflake" thing... it's been scientifically proven that two snowflakes can be the same and that at that size there are only so many patterns you can make via ice crystals.

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