hey there LGBTQ kids who are also Christian/Jewish! If you feel like you’re disobeying God, questioning your faith, or feel wrong and dirty for loving who you love, there’s this fantastic site I found today called hoperemains that accurately and thoroughly combs through scripture and its (many) mistranslations, validates your orientation, and basically let’s you know that you’re not pissing off God. It’s insanely thorough and after reading through every page on the entire site it’s super helpful. Go check it out!
hoperemains is completely from a Christian perspective, and not pluralistic or interfaith at all.
If you reblogged the first post from me please reblog this amendment so the Jewish peeps can access this resource too!
Trans Jewish kids, you can go to TransTorah as well!
Muslim LGBTQ kids, you can go to iamnotharaam! It’s run by a mod squad of different genders and orientations, and they take submissions from everybody!
–BB
MAY ANYONE WHO REBLOGS THIS BE ELEVATED TO THE EQUIVALENT OF SAINTHOOD IN THEIR RELIGION BLESS ALL OF YOU OH MY GOD.
REBLOGGING THIS AGAIN BECAUSE IT’S SO FREAKING IMPORTANT TO ME AND ALL MY FOLLOWERS TO READ THAT DEAL WITH GRIEF AND GUILT WHILE BEING LGBTQ AND RELIGIOUS
Sexual attraction: Sexual attraction is the desire to partake in sexual activities with a person. Basically, sexual attraction is when you want to develop a sexual relationship.
Romantic attraction: Romantic attraction is the desire to partake in romantical activities with a person. What those romantical activities entail depends on the person. Whatever activities, thoughts, and feelings you think of when you consider what is “romantic,” those are what you’d think about, feel toward, and want to do with someone you are romantically attracted to. Basically, romantic attraction is when you want to develop a romantic relationship.
Sensual attraction: Having a desire to engage in sensual acts with a certain individual (kissing, cuddling, hugging, hand holding, etc).
Aesthetic attraction: An appreciation of the appearance or beauty of another person(s), disconnected from sexual or romantic attraction.
Platonic: A strong desire to get to know and spend time with someone in a non-romantic and non-sexual way.
Alterous attraction: An attraction best described as wanting emotional closeness without necessarily being (at all or entirely) platonic and/or romantic. An attraction that is neither (entirely/completely) platonic or romantic.
there’s a definite lingering feeling of brokenness and loss I still have from when I realized I was aroace? I spent such a long time being like “…wait…maybe I have a romantic orientation…it’ll show up…someday…” but at least for now that hasn’t happened, and might never, and even though I have literally zero interest in any kind of sexual or romantic relationship in practice, the culture of love stories still makes me feel like I’m giving up The Most Important Thing Ever In My Life simply by realizing I don’t want it.
When I tell people I’ve never had a crush on anyone and probably never will, they are usually like, “Well…you’re not missing much, actually. Crushes suck. Relationships suck.” And yet everything is built on love and crushes and attraction and sex. Movies, books, people shipping characters together, tumblr posts starting with “imagine your crush…”, plays, every song ever – give me something, please, that shows me that I can experience all the sweetness and tragedy life has to offer without ever kissing anyone once, without “gentle caresses” or staring deep into someone’s dark eyes. Give me something that shows me I can live a full life without love or sex – that I’ll be an old lady one day with three cats and zero regrets. Give me something that shows me I’m not broken.
So for my child development/psychology class, we basically write a journal each week or so about key topics in our life starting from infancy and going to (and past) our deaths. This week’s topic was “Me In Love” about our romantic relationships past, present, future and how they define us or whatever.
I basically just wrote two pages lecturing about aromanticism and how I couldn’t answer any of the questions provided because they held no context for me but that my orientation and I were still valid.
Might not get any points for it because I didn’t complete the assignment as provided, but what can you do? 🤷♀️
Oh, I also spoke about asexuality as well.
Ok so if this happens to anyone else here’s what you do:
* write an essay like above, giving zero fucks about grade or what the teacher might think
* give sources to everything. Sources for the definition of aromantic, sources for lgbtq+ communities that support aspec identities, sources for the demographics of the aro community, source everything and mark them clearly.
* sit back and watch as your teacher is forced to give you good marks unless they can dismiss your sources, which they most likely can’t and definitely don’t feel like wasting time doing.
There are plenty of research on sexuality but unfortunately research on aromanticism is still hard to find. A good place to look for asexual research is this database (x). Other sources you might want to use are the various lgbtq+ communities’ informational pages, AVEN’s sources for what aspec identities are and demographics on aspec community, DSM-V (and ICD-10 if you want to be through-out) to show how asexuality is recognized (and not recognized in the case of ICD-10) as a sexual orientation.
Good luck to all of you dealing with essays and school work where you are forced to choose to either lie to conform to what’s expected or to tell the truth and being forced to out yourself and having to defend your identity at the same time. These things suck but if you decide to be open about your identity there are ways to make it less likely for the teachers to be able to punish you for your identity.
“Asexual characters are boring” I have traveled across eleven countries and ten states When I was thirteen I had hydrochloric acid dumped down my back and I walked away without a scratch When I was twenty-one I broke into castle ruins with a professor and found out afterwards that they were probably haunted
I once got stranded on a mountain while I was searching for the Cave of Zeus and got rescued by a little old lady who didn’t speak a word of English and the local village’s schoolteacher who did
I’ve learned how to surf on water, to dance with fire, and to bungee jump through the air I’ve walked up mountains, down beaches and through forests
My friends tell me I have the weirdest luck of anyone they’ve ever met and laugh about what mysterious forces must conspire to keep me alive
And yet, according to you a story about my life would be dull and uninteresting simply because I have no interest in sex
I wasn’t aware that that was the sum total of my value That no one cared about what I’d done only who
That every man must get a girl and every girl must be gotten and that to do otherwise is to be banished into obscurity
And yet I’m still here, still writing, still telling stories, and while I have been described as many things boring has yet to be one of them
Asexual characters are boring I pity your imagination
i don’t want love – the antlers //doomed – moses sumney //cut my hair (this is home remix) – mounika //hello – martin solveig ft. dragonette // don’t ask me to explain – of montreal // a diamond and a tether – death cab for cutie //overrated – less than jake //don’t wanna fall in love – green day //solitaire – marina and the diamonds // so-so – baek a yeon // never been in love – will jay // for me – dearlie
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 