beranyth:

heroicleap:

honestly @ asexual + aromantic people please be careful how you word your posts abt your negative experiences interacting w non-ace/aro people Especially if youre comparing yourself to other marginalized groups and Really Especially if youre cis/het and ace or aro.. because that can get really homophobic really fast

this is very very important and something I’ve seen a lot of; there has been so much needless conflict back and forth and it can get really frustrating but it’s no excuse for anyone to stop watching their words

Like a good rule of thumb is if you’re discussing the way people act that harm you, instead of making it a blanket allosexual/alloromantic (or whatever term you’re using), pause and actually consider if you’re talking about that or really just about straight people.  For example when I talk about how allosexual and alloromantic people frequently pathologize aromanticism and asexuallity, it’s because yes, I’ve seen it countless times even from people who aren’t straight–when I first started researching wtf I was if not straight years ago, I went straight to LGBT resource sites–and the only thing I could find was that it’s a mental/physiological illness, or gay people too internalized-homophobic to admit they like having sex, etc etc etc.  Recently I saw a few popular bloggers going on about how aromanticism is just being “mentally incapable of love” and that we should try to get treatment.  It’s possible for me to talk about how aromanticism and asexuality shouldn’t be pathologized with this framework and aim it at anyone who isn’t aro or ace.  

But if I start going off about, say, society glorifying sex/romance or whatever, it becomes outright false to say it’s anything other than glorifying heterosexuality, and I’m promoting a victim complex that acts like we’re the only ones facing marginalization.  It’s just flat-out wrong and ignorant and homophobic to act like allosexual/alloromantic LGB+ people are somehow included in this glorification–it ignores the struggles and suffering and deaths they’ve suffered and still suffer because of society’s treatment.  Which leads to another rule of thumb–to just completely drop the 

“you wouldn’t say that to a [other orientation]” bc guess what PEOPLE DO SAY THAT TO THEM (unless it’s straight, how come we never use that as an example lol)

also I know this is the internet and we use memes and mockery instead of actual discussion half the time but for this just?? not??  there’s no reason to and you’re dealing with people who have suffered a lot and even if they’re in the wrong on something there’s ways to bring it up without being awful (worst case scenarios you end up with shit like that “zombie apolocalpse for people who have sex” fiasco from a while back)  (I lost the link sorry)

idk I feel like I do nothing other than compile lists of what not to do instead of actually writing anything useful these days but if we can rein in the stuff we do that hurts people it’s still a good thing??

**this applies to a lot more than sexual orientation too because there’s a lot of other factors re: race, disability, mental illness that come into play too bu I don’t wanna highjack this post more than I already am

***use of ‘straight’ in this post meaning specifically cis + hetrom + heterosexual bc let’s be real society doesn’t glorify ace m/f relationships or aro m/f sexuality or any form of trans sexuality etc etc