“Aces are homophobic” is one of the most inane arguments I have ever seen for excluding aces from the LGBT+ community. My guy have you seen the racism and transphobia from white cis gays and lesbians? If “they have bigoted people” were an argument for excluding any letter the community we’d be calling it the 0 community because NOTHING WOULD BE LEFT. And if you think bigotry is inherent in any sexual orientation you can stfu and gtfo.
Because there are no ace ppl of color and, let me guess, discussing aphobia takes away from some mysterious “community resources,” right? In addition, let me register my disappointment that @diversehighfantasy and other Finnrey fans who have spoken against racism in fandom were secretly white and led me on 😦 @jewishcomeradebot is suuuuuuper white I guess, like all Jewish people. (Edit: By which I don’t mean they are inherently poc, I’m just sick of people saying they’re inherently white.) Damn, this really throws off my Wokeducation.
Also this just in, no one can enjoy Finnrey unless it serves a social justice purpose, because it cannot possibly be enjoyable or engrossing on its own and what’s more, no one is allowed to have fandom interests. Thank you so much for the enlightenment, anon.
there is no healthy explanation for an extremely low sex drive or asexuality. to be disconnected from your sexuality is a result of trauma that is in need of deep healing. to be disconnected from sex is to be disconnected from life itself. you cant walk around with trauma on that level and expect to ever experience true authenticity love and happiness
you know asexual inclusionists might be irritatingly cringeworthy at best and violently homophobic at worst but saying blatantly wrong things like this isn’t the way to deal with that lol… “to be disconnected from sex is to be disconnected from life itself” like you do realize that this is an extremely harmful thing to say right? to imply that not enjoying sex is inherently a trauma or a pathology? to claim that you can’t experience joy or happiness or authenticity without being sexual? i thought we learned in feminism 101 that people don’t need to be sexual to be true to themselves lol
I think that what @succubarbie is referring to here is the fact that modern psycho-social theories observe that sex is of the basest physiological needs for humans, within the same category as food and sleep. I’m not sure what “disconnected from life” means but people can of course be alive and experience love without sex. Though, it is very psychologically and physically detrimental. In the arbitrary cases of abuse or unhealthy relationships however, celibacy can have more positive benefits than sex.
Imagine thinking sex is a need. This is the rhetoric of cheaters, rapists, and incels. Aphobes are really out there perpetuating relationship abuse and rape culture huh?
Hey op, go step on a whole floor full of spilled legos. Thanks for furthering ace people’s sense of brokenness and wrongness with this baseless bullshit.
For the record I disagree with @cuntybisexual’s exclusionism too, though at least they have the decency not to be out-and-out aphobic. If anything the thought process in the op is a good reason why aces are part of the LGBTQIA community.
if you don’t experience same gender attraction & you’re cis i want you to think long & hard about why you feel like you belong in the lgbt community & what you can get from that community that you can’t get somewhere else.
getting real tired of this transphobia & biphobia sprinkled in with aphobia
luv how NB people suddenly cease to exist in order to make a point against ace/aro people
Yeah, go on OP, go on @fairyling , explain to my nb ass about “same gender attraction”
You sure did erase nb people pretty damn quick because you hate ace people so much
can y’all really not comprehend that you’re not cis so you are lgbt anyway?
Can *you* really not comprehend that’s not what the point of my response was? Here’s what I mean: if a cis woman likes men and NB people, but not dating other women, she has no same-gender attraction. Has that helped you now in realizing how you erased nonbinary people?
Also, OP, I’m frankly not convinced you want an actual answer to your question. I don’t think you would accept the most logical response in the world, or the most emotional please, or anything else. But that’s presumptuous of me, so I’ll ask you outright, @fairyling:
Do you want an actual answer as to why ace people belong in this community, or are you just looking for agreement and/or an excuse to harass others?
cis ppl saying they’re attracted to nv genders is fetishizing. if ur nb & you say you’re attracted to nb genders then it’s up to you if you identify as gay/bi/straight/etc. if a cis person dies not experience same gender attraction they’re not lgbt. it’s rlly that simple.
i know they don’t belong in the community. cis het people who are aro or ace & cis aroace people benefit from homophobia & transphobia therefore they are oppressors to the community. my post is asking y’all to do some self reflection & really think about why you’re entitled to our spaces. but i know it’s hard for y’all to use critical thinking 😦
“cis people saying they’re attracted to nb genders is fetishising”
that’s a neat way to explain away your biphobia & transphobia i guess. again, you’re implying that if you’re not ‘same-gender attracted’ then you’re ‘straight’, which is a huge problem when you move outside of a binary gender model
the only way you can make it ‘that simple’ is with cisnormativity
using ‘het’ as a catch-all default for everyone who doesn’t have ‘same-gender attraction’ is, conversely, upholding heteronormativity
also real sly how you’re implying that the multiple trans people correcting you on this don’t belong in the community. bc yeah, we’re entitled to OUR spaces no matter what way you look at it
In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.
And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;
Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers
“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”
“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”
“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”
“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”
First Few Days Of Dating
“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)
“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)
“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”
“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”
Long-Term Relationships
“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”
“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”
“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish – which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”
Self-Care And Self Development
“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”
“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”
“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”
“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”
“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”
“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”
Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day – this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash.
‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.
This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.
Reblogging this again, for obvious reasons
Ace ppl are not INSTITUTIONALLY OR SYSTEMATICALLY OPPRESSED BECAUSE OF THE DEGREE THAT YOU FEEL SEXUAL ATTRACTION. If ur trans ur lgbtq. If ur aro but ur gay, bi, pan ur lgbtq. If ur ace but homo, biromantic etc ur lgbt. Being ace doesnt make u lgbt by default. Does the interpersonal lack of understanding suck and should change? Yeah. But society doesnt want u dead so cishet aces stay tf out our business.
Someone read this, all this stuff about struggles of people coming out as ace, people abusing them and telling them that their identity isn’t real or is a problem to be fixed, making people feel worthless and feeling that they’re in the wrong about their own goddamn identity, and said “nah they ain’t oppressed™ enough to be in a community of people who face the same issues”
U mad huh?
Anyway….aces can’t be systematically opressed. None of those things are examples of systematic oppression
Also nice how they called it “asexual exclusionary radicalism” as if it wasn’t a cheap tactic to compare ace exclusionist to twerfs
Asexuality was listed in the DSM as HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) until 2013, making it officially a mental illness that would be treated with therapy and medication. It is still in the DSM, except that you can ‘opt out’ if you self-identify as asexual, which is great except that asexuality is still so unknown that there undoubtedly many people who are asexual but don’t know that it’s “a thing”. This means that who knows how many asexuals have been sent to therapy and told they’re sick, then been “treated” for their orientation to try and force them to experience sexuality “correctly”.
Posts of people describing the hardship they’ve faced for their asexuality:x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x
The blog @acephobia-is-real has so many submissions and examples of hatred, harassment, hostility, and abuse, of aces who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted in an attempt to ‘fix’ them, and made suicidal due to aphobia and/or their own perceived brokenness, that it would be pointless for me to try and link any. Just go and start reading. Try their suicide tag.
There may be dissatisfyingly little research done on asexuality, but there has been enough done to prove that they do face discrimination, no matter how hard some may find that to believe. But guess what? You, an allosexual person, do not get to say shit like “aces don’t get kicked out” or “aces don’t _____” any more than I as a white person get to say that things I don’t experience must not happen to black people either. Just because you haven’t experienced it personally or witnessed it with your own eyes doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You haven’t walked in an ace’s shoes, you don’t know what they deal with. Period.
Not even other aces can tell asexuals that their experiences aren’t real or aren’t valid. Different people can deal with different amounts of oppression, that doesn’t mean the lack of oppression is the default “truth”.
Nobody is trying to say that asexuals have it “as bad” or worse than gay or trans people, but we don’t HAVE to “have it worse” to beincluded and for our experiences to have merit without being compared to anyone else’s. Let me say that again: our experiences have merit without being compared to anyone else’s.
Told asexuals to die: x, x, x, x, x (tbh this is only a tiny sample and I don’t have the heart to go digging for more)
Are all aphobes this vile? Maybe not, but this is still the disgusting, hateful attitude festering in the gatekeeping community, and it stinks like shit. The examples I have provided above are only a fraction of the harassment and abuse that is perpetrated on a regular basis.
“Het aces/aroaces are straight”
Some het aces identify as straight. Some het aces don’t identify as straight, they identify as asexual, and it’s not your place to label them against their will. There is no world in which aroaces, people who experience no attraction to anyone, are straight.
“We accept SGA (same-gender attracted) and trans aces”
Firstly, SGA (same-gender attraction) is a term that was used and is still used in Mormon conversion therapy, so as one can understand,a lot of people are very uncomfortable being labeled with this description. Secondly, it enforces a gender binary of “same” and “opposite” gender that leaves a large number of nonbinary people out in the cold. Is a genderfluid person only “same-gender attracted” if they’re attracted to other genderfluid people who are genderfluid in exactly the same way? How about agender, intergender, demigirl/boy people? And before the argument “well they’re included as trans” is made, there are plenty of nonbinary people who do not identify as trans. I’m one of them.
The standard of “SGA and trans” as requirement for entry to the LGBTQ community is used nowhere outside of aphobic tumblr, and it seems crafted specifically for the purpose of excluding aces, aros, NBs, intersex people, and others not deemed “gay enough”.
The modern American movement was first known as the “gay community” when cis gay men refused to even accept lesbians, then the “gay and lesbian community”. (Good reading on the subject.)
“After the elation of change following group action in the Stonewall riots in New York, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people. Critics said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity. Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day.” (source)
“From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States. Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people gain equal respect.” (ibid)
Insisting that LG people have always been accepting of bi and trans people is incredibly revisionist and does a great deal of injustice to those who have been excluded.
Despite the fact that bisexual and transgender people have always been around, and have done great things for the community, they have faced a great deal of lateral oppression from the LG part of the group that did not want to see them get an equal share of attention, support, or legitimacy. This post is not about proving LG transphobia and biphobia, but it’s so rampant that I don’t feel like I need to provide sources whatsoever. Nevertheless, here’s a collection of biphobia, and the blog@terf-calloutdocuments some of the violent transphobia on this site, particularly in the lesbian community. This post is an example.
“The A stands for Ally so that closeted people can be the community without being outed”
No one is saying that we don’t care about closeted people, but a) even if you’re a closeted L, G, B, or T, you are still a L, G, B, or T. Allies do not need to be part of the acronym to be intrinsically welcomed. As someone said, this is like saying the ‘B’ in BLT stands for ‘bread’. We can pretty much safely assume that a sandwich is going to include bread, we don’t have to go of our way to give it a letter. Either you are outing every “ally” as a closeted queer person, or you are giving 100% cis straight people an LGBTQ member card, the very thing you are arguing against by trying to exclude asexuals.
Furthermore, this puts forth the argument “I’m willing to let cishet straight people into the community for the sake of a few closeted people” while at the same time stating “I’m not willing to let the A stand for asexuals because I don’t think letting cis heteroromantic asexuals into the community is worth giving all asexuals representation and support”. Which says that you consider asexuals less valuable and more of a threat than cis straight people.
“I have proof of an asexual being homophobic/transphobic/racist/a terrible person”
Of course there are asexuals who are terrible people. There are legions of gays and lesbians who are racist and transphobic. Does that make them not gay/lesbian? Does their bigotry invalidate their sexual orientation, or remove the L and G from the acronym? No, I don’t think so. Some asexuals being bad people doesn’t justify you trying to invalidate all of us.
“’Allosexual’ is a bad word because ____”
I actually have an ‘allosexual’ tag just for posts about why ‘allosexual’ is a perfectly fine word: x, x, x, x, x. x
“The split-attraction model is homophobic”
What we call the split-attraction model was first described by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a gay advocate from the 1800s, as “disjunctive uranodioning”. (source) (credit to this post)
“The term ‘corrective rape’ was coined by South African lesbians and should only be used by lesbians”
No one means any disrespect to lesbians or other victims of corrective rape, but this is not a correct statement.
“We’ll Show You You’re a Woman” describes the violence directed towards LGBT people in South Africa, stating, “Negative public attitudes towards homosexuality go hand in hand with a broader pattern of discrimination, violence, hatred, and extreme prejudice against people known or assumed to be lesbian, gay, and transgender, or those who violate gender and sexual norms in appearance or conduct (such as women playing soccer, dressing in a masculine manner, and refusing to date men).” It goes on to say, “Much of the recent media coverage of violence against lesbians and transgender men has been characterized by a focus on “corrective rape,” a phenomenon in which men rape people they presume or know to be lesbians in order to “convert” them to heterosexuality.”
The Wikipedia article on corrective rape in South Africa states that, “A study conducted by OUT LGBT Well-being and the University of South Africa Centre for Applied Psychology (UCAP) showed that “the percentage of black gay men who said they have experienced corrective rape matched that of the black lesbians who partook in the study”.”
It is not only lesbians, but also bisexual women, transgender men, gay men, and gender non-conforming people in South Africa who experience corrective rape. This is not in any way meant to minimize the horror of the epidemic or shift attention away from lesbians, but other victims, including asexuals, deserve attention as well. Do not silence or speak over victims of rape by policing their language.
“Aces are valid, they’re just not queer/LGBTQ”
You cannot in one breath say “Asexuals are valid” and in the next deny their experiences. Spend five minutes in the community and you will see testimony after testimony from aces describing their abuse, their sexual assault(s), the countless times people have called them confused, broken, wrong, mentally ill, inhuman, sinful, and how these experiences have left them feeling hopeless, alone, alienated, subhuman, depressed, and suicidal. Almost every asexual out there will tell you a story of how their orientation has caused them pain and struggle, and you can’t call them valid while at the same time calling these experiences invalid and nonexistent.
“Aces take resources from other LGBTQ who need them”
I’ve seen some pretty wild claims about this one, insisting that asexuals “steal” things such as scholarships, beds at homeless shelters, food and space at pride events, suicide hotlines, and so on, yet I have never seen any actual proof that any “stealing” has ever taken place. For one thing, I thought “you’ll never get kicked out or fired for being ace”, “no one is suicidal because they’re asexual”, so why would you think aces need these resources? Either we don’t need them or we don’t use them, you can’t have it both ways.
For another, how heartless do you have to be to tell asexuals that they can’t use suicide hotlines? Do you realize that you’re saying that asexuals should be denied life-saving services? That, in essence, asexuals are suicidal due to their orientation, but you think they’re not “queer enough” so they deserve to die? Because that is the logical progression of refusing someone suicide prevention, and that’s the message aces receive when you tell them they are “stealing” suicide prevention.
Lastly, do you not realize we are alsoPROVIDING resources? We are bringing bodies and minds to the community, we are here to be voices, to volunteer, to bring encouragement, information, and support. We earn our keep. You just have to admit that you don’t WANT us here.
(Thanks to @livebloggingmydescentintomadness for these)
My own contribution:
Living in a world where the media is overflowing with sexual imagery and where society constantly puts value on sexual intercourse, virginity, and related topics – who can forget the phrase ‘sex sells’? – men and women who do not experience sexual attraction (the definition of asexuality) and who are sex-repulsed or masturbation-repulsed (as many asexuals, myself included, are) feel alienated and ‘broken’. We also face erasure in terms of representation, being either grossly underrepresented or represented as cold, harsh, and ‘synonymous with celibate’ people. Let’s not forget erasure from LGBT spaces – I have many times been told that asexuals do not belong in the acronym or in “our spaces”, even though asexuals have the capacity to be homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, etc, as well as transgender or nonbinary. And, if we don’t belong in LGBT spaces, and we clearly aren’t heterosexual, what do we belong? Nowhere, it seems. Of course, the argument also drifts to “asexuals don’t experience oppression”, which is false.
what i said: ace people are valid and go through their own struggles, but they’re not systematically or historically oppressed because of their sexuality. also: you can be gay and ace, but being ace doesnt make you gay.
what yall think i said: i hate ace people
what you said: I refuse to actually read my history to understand that asexuals have always been in the lgbt+ community (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) either as Group X or identifying as bisexual because there was no other word for our identity (x)
I won’t acknowledge that outside of tumblr, asexual people are widely accepted in the lgbt+ community (x)
and that asexual people are still oppressed and discriminated against, as documented by both personal accounts of discrimination faced DIRECTLY because of acephobia (x) (x) (x) (x) and acephobia documented in scientific studies (x) (x) (x) (x)
also I’m not going to acknowledge that asexuality is listed as a mental illness in the DSM (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) (x)
I would rather believe that straight people are OK with some people experiencing sexuality differently than them and fully accept these people as exactly the same as them and give them the full benefits and privilege of inclusion and support–because straight people are historically so good and understanding like that–than accept any of the above that shows the revolutionary concept that the only people straight people accept as straight are ……… OTHER STRAIGHT PEOPLE (x) (x) (x)
that have the exact same experiences as them!!! cis men and cis women who feel romantic and sexual attraction exclusively to cis women and cis men, respectively, AND NOTHING ELSE, it’s almost like this is the founding principle of heteronormativity (x) (x) (x)
and that assuming if someone isn’t “gay enough” for my standards that automatically makes them straight because straight is the good wholesome default (x) and I like the way my rhetoric directly echoes biphobia (x) (x) (x) / panphobia (x) (x) (x) / transphobia (x) (x) (x) (x)
Man that’s super valid. I’ve been approaching sexuality and romanticism as separate because I do think humans are that complex, and I think it’s completely legit to be romantically attracted to your same gender but not sexually attracted to anyone. I mean, that’s why ace and aro exist, you know? We make the labels we need for ourselves and if those are your labels, that’s valid. They’re certainly not mutually exclusive.
There’s this lie going around that identifying as both gay/lesbian and ace is somehow inherently homophobic and stigmatizes gay sex. This is because some exclusionists evidently choose to interpret asexuality as a judgment on themselves like what kind of puerile it’s-all-about-me egocentrism… Yes some individual aces are judgmental assholes who interpret their sexuality as moral superiority. I’ve gone through that phase myself. So? Is that the standard for protecting and including a group now? That everyone in it needs to be a nice person? In that case I have some bad news about every single letter in the community alphabet soup.
It’s also really cruel to call aces and aros straight and exclude them from the LGBT+ community because aspec people, once they are out or outed, are NOT treated as straight. They’re told they’re missing some vital component of being human, that they’re sick, that they just need some good sex* (read: assault) to be fixed.
And now it’s gotten to the point where aces are scared or hesitant to identify as such–I’ve gotten a similar ask, too. Mission fucking accomplished, aphobic exclusionists. I hope you know you’re pulling some of the same bullshit homophobes pulled on you, making people question their experiences and identities. I hope it makes you proud.
You really didn’t have to make this about the discourse, you know. You really didn’t.
someone: sometimes I feel awkward saying I’m ace in the gay community because people make me feel invalid
y’all fucking weirdos: can you believe the STIGMA against aces in the LGBT community aces are out here getting SEXUALLY ASSAULTED* (NB: this has literally never happened) for being ace you GAYS are just as bad as homophobes
Did you read the op where the anon is being told they’re straight even though aces do not have access to straightness? And yes, shit like asexuality being inherently homophobic IS something that’s going around in exclusionist circles and it is an unfair stigma against aces.
I also recommend reading my actual post, where I said “aphobic exclusionists” (which is by no means inherent in being gay no matter what you’d like to believe) pull “some” of the same shit homophobes pull. Nice job trying to blow that up to gays being as bad as homophobes, lmao. If it’s not okay for homophobes to tell gay ppl that they don’t know their own experiences and identities, how is it okay for gay people to say the same to asexual people? Is it because you’re a hypocrite who thinks sexuality gives people moral immunity? Sure seems like it.
Also nice job calling ace people who have experienced sexual assault for their orientation liars, asshole. Because you were obviously there, and are the expert on their lives and traumas. Why do you feel like it’s okay to call this particular class of rape victims liars when you hopefully don’t believe the same of, say, lesbians who were raped for their orientation? It’s almost like there’s a stigma or something! Imagine that. 🤔
Man that’s super valid. I’ve been approaching sexuality and romanticism as separate because I do think humans are that complex, and I think it’s completely legit to be romantically attracted to your same gender but not sexually attracted to anyone. I mean, that’s why ace and aro exist, you know? We make the labels we need for ourselves and if those are your labels, that’s valid. They’re certainly not mutually exclusive.
There’s this lie going around that identifying as both gay/lesbian and ace is somehow inherently homophobic and stigmatizes gay sex. This is because some exclusionists evidently choose to interpret asexuality as a judgment on themselves like what kind of puerile it’s-all-about-me egocentrism… Yes some individual aces are judgmental assholes who interpret their sexuality as moral superiority. I’ve gone through that phase myself. So? Is that the standard for protecting and including a group now? That everyone in it needs to be a nice person? In that case I have some bad news about every single letter in the community alphabet soup.
It’s also really cruel to call aces and aros straight and exclude them from the LGBT+ community because aspec people, once they are out or outed, are NOT treated as straight. They’re told they’re missing some vital component of being human, that they’re sick, that they just need some good sex* (read: assault) to be fixed.
And now it’s gotten to the point where aces are scared or hesitant to identify as such–I’ve gotten a similar ask, too. Mission fucking accomplished, aphobic exclusionists. I hope you know you’re pulling some of the same bullshit homophobes pulled on you, making people question their experiences and identities. I hope it makes you proud.
You know what, it’s fine if you don’t want Finn and Rey to end up together and Rey to not have a romantic partner. You want your aro representation, your ace representation, your badass male-female platonic friendship representation. That’s your prerogative, go to town with it and have fun!
What you can’t do is pretend that the relative unpopularity of finnrey as a ship in the fandom as a whole is for the sake of this progressive, girl-power, ace-positive representation. You know what’s an actual, canon representation of a platonic male-female friendship? Mad Max: Fury Road. Max and Furiosa, two strangers and enemies, learning to love and care for each other without a flirtatious glance in sight. Now that was a great, non-romantic friendship between a man and a woman.
And guess what the most popular pairing in the MM fandom is by a large margin? Max x Furiosa. Where’s all the ace-positivity and boys and girls can be friends rah-rah feminism there? Nah, fandom is a highly sexualized space that interprets any intense interaction (at least between people that fit the Aesthetic) as sexual/romantic, and it is not predominantly platonic/ace friendly. No matter what you personally want in terms of representing male-female friendship, it does not explain why Finnrey gets so little attention in the fandom as a whole.
So keep your “but platonic friendship!” comments out of posts about Finnrey and fandom racism. Don’t try to make a discussion about fandom biases about you and how good a person you are. We heard it all before, it doesn’t add up, and we don’t give a shit about your virtue signaling and look-at-me-I’m-so-good-ism.
And why do you get so defensive when Finnrey comes up anyway? No one’s saying you personally need to ship Finnrey. We’re talking about fandom in the aggregate, and don’t have the power to make you ship or stop shipping anything. So why do you care enough to derail posts that are not about you in any way?
I suspect you do it because it stings on some level. I think these discussions make you wonder if you, too, might share fandom’s biases. That these large-scale trends might also explain something about you. I suspect you go out of your way to derail, deflect, and defend because you’re uncomfortable.
That’s good. Be uncomfortable. Question your assumptions. (Which is not the same thing as questioning your self-worth and feelings, lmao. You people who try to conflate all personal discomfort with abuse are ugly.) Explore your discomfort instead of running from it, though by all means take whatever space and time you need–there’s no hurry. That’s how you grow. That’s how you learn.
But for God’s sake, learn on your own time without barging into conversations that don’t concern you. Just… stop derailing Finnrey threads. We’re tired of it.
As someone that identifies as a gray ace (maybe aromantic, not quite sure on that part yet), I’ve been really disappointed with how asexuality has been represented in the fandom. Many asexual!Rey fanfic writers/stans don’t identify as asexual themselves and I wonder what they think actually being asexual is like. I can only think of two decent fics where ace!Rey is written in a realistic and positive manner. Most asexuals crave companionship of some kind, and about 2/3 of asexuals will say that they experience some sort of romantic attraction. So doing the “Rey is ace and don’t need no man” thing gets old pretty quickly and seems to fit the “forever alone/hates men/women” stereotypes that many asexuals are trying to combat. Then there are those that use the sexuality to make finnpoe happen, which really isn’t cool either, depending on how the story is written.
But yes, as an asexual that will go down with the finnrey ship, it’s really annoying to see people try to derail the ship because something about it makes them uncomfortable. Usually, the discomfort stems from racism or het-is-ew.
The canon doesn’t do any better a job of ace representation either, when you consider that apparently the only clear canon asexual character in the sequel timeline is Captain Phasma, and her never having sex is presented in her novel as part and parcel of her enigma and cruel selfishness. Aces being dehumanized? Must be Tuesday!
Ace Rey and/or ace Finn dating would be a really awesome premise for a fanfic, come to think of it. (And it is kind of telling that ace Rey is a far more common headcanon than ace Finn–I have biases, too.) The two of them having fun, fighting evil, saving the universe side-by-side, enjoying awesome cooking, having long and heartfelt conversations, cuddling into the night and falling asleep with nice dreams because they are by each other’s side. Media, both professional and fan-generated, are sorely lacking in positive representations of nonsexual intimate relationships and we need more of that, damn it.
Some of the ways in which TLJ is a baldly, blatantly, aggressively Christian movie, in stark contrast to the very Jewish TFA:
Pain,
suffering, abject failure and loss, including the deaths of many good
people, are held up to be ultimately positive lessons. In Jewish thought, in contrast, while good can come of suffering pain is not good or holy in of itself. The point in Judaism is to lessen pain and improve life, not to join in suffering.
TLJ shows borderline obsession with “sin” and “sinners” as
salacious and fascinating, hence the focus on Kylo Ren. (I use quote
marks here because he is not just a “sinner,” he’s a criminal and
abuser.) In Judaism, sin is not nearly as big a deal so far as I can tell. It is not a subject of fixation to the point of romanticization.
The doctrine that everyone is a sinner is simplified
down to moral equivalence between good and evil people and
organizations. Of course Luke also had darkness in him because he too is
a sinner, etc.
Self-sacrifice is the ultimate virtue and
washes away any mistakes one might have made, e.g. Luke and Holdo. It’s basically martyrdom in space. In Jewish thought, while martyrdom can be necessary, it is not something to be sought out and should be avoided if possible.
TLJ’s emphasis on forgiveness, redemption, and patience is also very Christian. Rey is suddenly and
uncharacteristically devoted to the idea of saving Kylo Ren, Rose gives
Finn the speech about not fighting what they hate, which doesn’t even
make sense on its face in the midst of a struggle against a genocidal force. In contrast, anger against oppression is an important theme in Judaism and you can see this in Finn and Rey’s anger in TFA. This is one of the ways TLJ marks a sharp tonal departure from TFA.
On a related note, redemption for Kylo Ren as presented in this movie looks a lot like cheap grace, which German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as “preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance.” Significantly, Bonhoeffer was resisting the Nazi influence on the German Lutheran church with his opposition to cheap grace. Cheap grace is an alien and repugnant concept to Judaism–forgiveness is not an obligation even if the wrongdoer has repented and made amends.
Yoda performs a classic smashing of the idols scene with a bait-and-switch book burning. By contrast I am told that book burning
is unthinkable for Jewish people due to the great respect for scholarly
traditions in Judaism. This is especially true for foundational texts like the ones Yoda pretended he was destroying: People have run into burning synagogues to save the Torah, which is a matter of not only scholarship but identity. The scene becomes all the more jarring when juxtaposed against the many purges and massacres the Jedi Order and their followers suffered, including in TFA.
Crait has a very distinct
red-on-white look reminiscent of the Crusaders/Knights Templar. In Jewish imagery blue is the color of supreme importance, and it is even more strongly associated with the good guys in TFA than in the previous movies.
In TLJ lawful authority is
not to be questioned, even if they are violent, seem untrustworthy, and look like they will lead to outright ruin. This is a rather un-Star Wars
message, making it stick out all the more. On the other hand, unquestioning obedience to authority is anathema to Jewish people. They argue with everyone, including God. Especially God.
(via kyberfox) “Godspeed, Rebels.” First of all it’s the Resistance, but… excuse me, God?? What? God??!!? Also, Kylo Ren asks Luke if he came to save his soul, another blatant and aggressive insertion of Christian concepts into Star Wars.
(I am so deeply indebted to @kyberfox and @attackfish for this list that giving individual credit for the ideas would be distracting. Suffice it to say substantially all the perspectives on Judaism and many of the points on Christianity are theirs.)
Note: Below is a submission that I was asked to add anonymously to this post. TW for sexual assault, aphobia, gaslighting, abuse.
I was raised Catholic, and a small branch of my family is Jewish. I
probably know more than the average goy about Judaism, but not by a lot.
I am the survivor of a lot of sexual assault and harassment that took
place at Catholic school. I was 13, and the other kids wanted to know
who in the class I thought was hot, I said I didn’t think anyone was
(turns out I’m aroace, and yes, even the Catholics recognize that as not
being straight), and they took that as something that could be
corrected by force. They groped me, destroyed my possessions, scraped me
across a brick wall, and held me down to put makeup on me. In
hindsight, the worst part was that the teacher’s son would come over
from the high school on his lunch break, sit on my desk, and sexually
assault me during class while his mother taught and pretended nothing
was wrong. Then she would gaslight me about what he, and the other
students had done. The teachers knew what was happening, it happened in
front of them, and obviously the one I previously mentioned knew about
enough of it to gossip to her son so he would come join in. They didn’t
care because they knew I was queer before I knew I was queer, and this
is what happens to queer kids at bad Catholic schools. The teachers let
it happen, because they think it’ll turn you straight. And if not and
you kill yourself, no loss. You’re going to hell anyway.
They
would make me say that I forgave the boys who assaulted me. Because that
is a big part of being a good Christian, forgiveness. It took me a
long time to realize that the only people who deserve forgiveness are
the ones who are actually sorry, and aren’t going to do it again. The
rest can piss off. That’s what TLJ missed, and what is so Christian
about it. Your abuser doesn’t deserve your sympathy. Turns out that the
teacher’s son who abused me was the product of rape himself, and other
adults in the community tell me that I should feel bad for her and him
because of that. I was supposed to feel sympathy for her, but she stood
by and did nothing while her son assaulted me. I am sorry that she was
raped and that’s why he exists, but that doesn’t absolve her of standing
by and watching him hurt me. She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, and
neither does he. Kylo doesn’t deserve Rey’s forgiveness either. He has
done nothing but hurt her and the people she loves, and while he may be
feeling some regret, he would absolutely do it again (i.e. not wanting
to save the Resistance fleet), and therefore she owes him nothing. Not a
single bit of sympathy, and definitely not forgiveness. Sure, he has a
tragic past, but he’s still making choices as an adult to hurt people,
and be skeevy to a teenager a full decade younger than him. Rey has no
reason to feel like she owes him anything, unless she’s being subjected
to shitty Christianity. (I saw shitty Christianity because I know that
not all of Christianity is like this, but tbh a lot of it is shitty and
is exactly like this)
It took me years to realize this for myself,
and to realize that the only people responsible for my abuse were my
abusers and it wasn’t my fault. I’m seeing a therapist now, and was
diagnosed with PTSD, and things got better once I was able to talk about
it in a more reasonable setting than Catholic school. TLJ threw me for a
fucking loop though. Kylo is so much like the people who abused me. In
TFA it was empowering to see Rey interact with him because it was
obvious that there was this angry feral part of her that wanted to tear
out his throat. That anger was good. That anger was something I hadn’t
been allowed to have in Catholic school. I had to be meek and forgiving.
I had to be like Rey in TLJ where she says “Ben,” so quietly when she’s
trying to turn him to the light. What I loved about Rey in TFA was her
anger, and from what I read in the Old Testament and what I hear my
cousins talk about in the Torah, TFA Rey absolutely acts like a Jewish
girl from those stories. Her anger would have been a so much better
direction for the story line to pursue in TLJ, if her temptation to the
Dark Side was due to her (justifiable) anger at Kylo. But that’s not
what happened, because exactly as you said, the narrative took on a
distinctly Christian slant of forgiveness, even when that forgiveness
isn’t justified.
I am so glad that this movie didn’t come out
while I was still in Catholic school. Star Wars was my escape from that,
and if I’d seen a Star Wars movie where the heroine is forced into a
narrative of forgiveness towards her abuser, and Luke Skywalker is
depressed and hopeless and sacrifices himself in what really seems to me
like a suicide, I would not have gotten through those years because it
would have been the wrong message from one more source and I don’t think
I could have taken it.
Being able to pinpoint that there was a
Christian shift to TLJ helped me a lot in understanding why that movie
was so upsetting to me, so I’m sharing this in hopes that it helps other
survivors, and also maybe helps people who haven’t been through this
sort of abusive shit understand why the narrative of forgiveness in TLJ
is so nauseating.
L.J.'s Obsessions 