Since telling my Mum that I considered myself ace, I already noticed that she was a bit… too interested, if you want to say it like that. Asking for “signs”, or how being ace feels like… I tried to answer her to the best of my ability, giving her links to websites that would explain better as I ever could.
Today she said, very quietly, “Do you think I could be ace, too?”
And I said very carefully “If you think it suits you, I don’t see why not”
And my Mum, my strong, self-confident Mum, who never once has ever felt uncomfortable in her own skin as far as I know, beamed in relief. Relief.
Because she never knew. Because getting married young and bearing children for her husband (meaning sex) was expected of her. Because everyone gave her the feeling as if something would be wrong or broken about her if she didn’t want, didn’t do that.
Because her whole life long, she thought there was something wrong with her.
I’m honestly torn between feeling happy and relieved for her, and angry that humanity has such trouble with showing some understanding to those who don’t fit in the boxes society has designed for all of us.
Update: My
Mum was getting ready for bed when I noticed her humming loudly around her
toothbrush and I asked her what the good mood was about.
She beamed
around a mouth-full of toothpaste and said, very proudly and deliberately, “I
think I like that, being ace.”
And continued
on with her brushing, humming a bit louder.
(Or in
other words, I’m more than a little bit teary eyed.)
I had almost the exact same conversation with my Mom. We were talking about the LGBT acronym and explained that it’s LGBTQ and that some people add the PIA at the end as well. And she asked me “What’s the a?” So when I explained it she said immediately “Me. That’s like me.”
This is why I get so mad at people who think this is all just trendy bs, people just don’t have the vocabulary or permission to describe their lived experience.
This is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever read, bless this post 🙌🏼
This is the greatest progression of events I have ever read, where’s my historical gay romance novel about this
KING JAMES, CAN YOU CHILL?
Local King Cannot Stop Promoting His Boyfriend
where’s the lush period drama about this series of events?
fun thing about king James, this guy was fairly public about his bf (more public than what was acceptable). He threw lots of extravagant parties with his man on his arm. It pissed off the church obviously so to get them off his back, he’s the one that ordered the third translation of the Bible from Hebrew to English (the King James Version aka the Authorized Version) so the Bible every hot blooded all American Christian reads today was literally just written so a very gay king could fuck his boyfriend in peace.
oh my god this is hilarious
“guys, guys. I know this looks kinda gay, and i promise i have a good explanation for all this, but have you considered… that jesus… is also gay? checkmate, heteros.”
Aromanticism is often more difficult for me to discuss because it is less tangible for me than my asexuality, and yet more emotionally intense than any other part of my identity. Romance is a very abstract concept, but in order to justify myself as aromantic I am often asked to examine what romance is or isn’t.
Romance is so much an accepted part of every day life for a large number of people, that they probably don’t spend hours of their day trying to quantify it or qualify it. It is already done for them by our romance obsessed culture. When this is challenged by aromantic people, we’re asked to defend ourselves.
Romance is something that I’m equally hyper-aware of and emotionally distant from. I am both extremely familiar with the culture of romance and extremely unfamiliar with romantic feelings. I know romance without knowing romance, because I’m often required to just to exist.
The great irony is that while I am often asked to quantify and qualify romance in order to prove that I am aromantic, my familiarity with it as a concept can call into question the validity of my aromanticism to those adamant about disproving it. This can certainly be frustrating.
However, what people who are not aromantic don’t seem to realize is that being aromantic in a largely romantic culture can be very challenging mentally and emotionally outside of these identity debates. My aromanticism comes with a lot of paranoia and a preoccupation with analyzing my social interactions.
My inability to understand and feel romantic feelings firsthand not only leads to awkward uncomfortable interactions with peers, but it can also cause a strain in my working relationships and it can actually impede my ability to succeed in a work environment.
For me, a paranoia over how my own feelings and behavior will be read by my peers has led to an identifiable strain or distance between myself and my peers. I am emotionally distant from many people, and it is very difficult for people to truly know and understand me without knowing my aromanticism.
My peers often don’t know about my aromanticism, because 1) we live in a culture where aromanticism “shouldn’t” exist, 2) I spent the majority of my child and teenage years fighting against my peers forcibly misinterpreting my feelings, and 3) my lack of romantic feelings has been treated as a threat.
I have been set up and pushed into relationships that I did not want and/or that I refused, with resentment and blame shifted onto me because of an inability on my part to return romantic feelings. My awkwardness re: romance can be misinterpreted as attraction or jealousy, straining professional relationships.
This isn’t the way with all aromantic people, but my feelings towards romance as directed at me is literally met with a panicked stress response in which my social interactions will play on loop in my head and every word and every action I make will be analyzed to ensure that I am safe.
I have been put into romantic situations where I do not feel safe, because they have involved me feeling as if I need to change who I am for the happiness of other people or else receive negative consequences in the way of abandonment, isolation, humiliation, guilt-tripping, and even physical violence.
This is what it means to be aromantic, for me, in a romantic culture. It means stress, obsession, paranoia, panic, frustration, anger, and an incredible amount of sadness that I cannot be who I am and be accepted for who I am without others insisting they have control of me emotionally or physically.
“protect heteroromantic aces” lmao from what? the sharknado?
from corrective rape? from mothers who are open and accepting of gay, bi, pan, etc people and still unknowingly tell their asexual children that people who don’t want sex are sick need help? from their closest friends at birthday parties starting conversations about how weird and fake asexuality is? from the fear of being alone forever because no one could want to be with someone like them? from going against sexual and relationship norms in a society that tells them they’re broken and wrong?? from people like you who delegitimize their struggles in the eyes of much of lgbt+ community, some of the only people who you’d think might understand
I had to reblog this twice bc you just got 100% fucking destroyed my dude
Just a reminder that a psychologist literally had me tested for psychopathy when I told him what asexuality was.
i just found a text file from early 2016, the same day i created this blog, called “growing up aro.txt” that had some of my early ideas for posts here. here’s what was in it!
(with some commentary in italics cuz these were just my own notes and some of it makes no sense. also a self-reflection at the bottom that ended up way longer than i intended ahh sorry)
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 