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A message about AVEN's values


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Anthracite_Impreza
6 minutes ago, Snow Cone said:

The Adamant Vitriol and Egregiousness Network

 

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Seconded.

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Clumsy Fairy
7 minutes ago, Snow Cone said:

The Adamant Vitriol and Egregiousness Network

 

I was thinking of 

PWRFWIAPADTKWTPMATTGON.

 

People Who Read Four Words In A Post And Decide They Know What The Poster Means, And Then They Get Offended Network.

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Anthracite_Impreza
3 minutes ago, Lord Grep said:

 

I was thinking of 

PWRFWIAPADTKWTPMATTGON.

 

People Who Read Four Words In A Post And Decide They Know What The Poster Means, And Then They Get Offended Network.

Am I the only one who went through the whole anagram just to check? :P

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just an owl
21 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

@Mystic Maya; I get that ultimately we can't tell people how to identify, I mean, literally, we can't, but if we don't have a core definition we can all agree on how the hell can we ever be taken seriously? Would gay people ever have been if their definition was 'you can be gay if you say so!'?

...I agree, but implying gay people are taken seriously? :P 

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chair jockey
2 minutes ago, Gay Owl said:

...I agree, but implying gay people are taken seriously? :P 

 

Move here to Toronto. Or to 1980s San Francisco as a second choice. I keep having this conversation with people who tell me they live in 19th-century communities so often that this has been a recording.

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Asexuality might not need a strict definition if it would be used as an umbrella term. And that's fine for me.

 

 

P.S: Oh, maybe I should have worded better. I mean the debate between "desirists" and "attractionists" and other minor parties in that debate. So I meant that asexuality would be an umbrella term for people who have an ABSOLUTE lack of one "normal trait for sexuals".

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2 minutes ago, Gay Owl said:

...I agree, but implying gay people are taken seriously? :P 

Been a long while since I've heard anyone sincerely profess the idea that gay people and homosexuality as a whole do not exist... so, yeah. As an existant phenomenon, gay people could hardly be taken any more seriously than they already are. They're taken just about equally as seriously as straight people; on that area, there is no such stigma against being gay vs. being straight anywhere I know, and there hasn't been for decades.

 

(Bi/pan and trans* folks still lag way behind, though.)

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Guest And Peggy
46 minutes ago, Lord Grep said:

 

T2Bpdcc.png

 

{EDIT] There is a prize for who ever works this joke out BTW.

that's just Maya's post reversed

 

i don't understand 

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just an owl
4 minutes ago, Togee said:

Asexuality might not need a strict definition if it would be used as an umbrella term. And that's fine for me.

A problem I personally have with this is that the way some people define it, even as an umbrella term, it can apply to the majority of the population, and separating between aces and non aces comes down to "this person labels themself as ace and this person doesn't", as opposed to any "noticeable" difference.

 

4 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

Been a long while since I've heard anyone sincerely profess the idea that gay people and homosexuality as a whole do not exist... so, yeah. As an existant phenomenon, gay people could hardly be taken any more seriously than they already are. They're taken just about equally as seriously as straight people; on that area, there is no such stigma against being gay vs. being straight anywhere I know, and there hasn't been for decades.

 

(Bi/pan and trans* folks still lag way behind, though.)

My post was just kind of an off hand comment, but I wasn't talking about people saying gay doesn't exist, but more like https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/ so that "no stigma" is kinda .. bullcrap

And I'm not going to derail this thread anymore or talk anymore about this

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There's a wee bit of hostility and vitriol going on here, so if you've got nothing constructive to add, take it elsewhere.

 

Tal Shi'ar

Mod for Announcements.

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1 minute ago, Gay Owl said:

A problem I personally have with this is that the way some people define it, even as an umbrella term, it can apply to the majority of the population, and separating between aces and non aces comes down to "this person labels themself as ace and this person doesn't", as opposed to any "noticeable" difference.

 

My post was just kind of an off hand comment, but I wasn't talking about people saying gay doesn't exist, but more like https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/ so that "no stigma" is kinda .. bullcrap

And I'm not going to derail this thread anymore or talk anymore about this

To be illegal, it has to be acknowledged to exist. So, yeah, there is zero existential stigma against gay people anywhere I know; so, no, not bullcrap. Fact.

 

Aces, Bi/pan and trans* folks still do face that stigma, which gay people have been very consistently free from in many decades.

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1 minute ago, Gay Owl said:

A problem I personally have with this is that the way some people define it, even as an umbrella term, it can apply to the majority of the population, and separating between aces and non aces comes down to "this person labels themself as ace and this person doesn't", as opposed to any "noticeable" difference.

2

Oh, maybe I should have worded better. I mean the debate between "desirists" and "attractionists" and other minor parties in that debate. So I meant that asexuality would be an umbrella term for people who have an ABSOLUTE lack of one "normal trait for sexuals".

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8 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

To be illegal, it has to be acknowledged to exist. So, yeah, there is zero existential stigma against gay people anywhere I know; so, no, not bullcrap. Fact.

I gotta agree with Owl in the fact that your facts are a little too naive. My best friend was kicked out of the house for being gay. When I went to my dad because I was upset by this fact his reaction was, "Well, it's her fault for coming out." When I try to talk to my dad about homosexuality, he compares them to pedophiles.

 

The difference between the labels that get recognition and those that don't is the fact that those that get recognition get more hate. People accept trans and gay people exist, and they will ostracize them for it. People don't accept asexuality exists, so the worse I have to deal with when I come out is, "That doesn't exist." Ignorant? Yes. Annoyingly stupid? Yes. As bad as what my gay friend went throguh when she came out of the closet? Far from it.

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Not existential =/= not serious. Did your friend face more serious consequences for being gay than most aces will face in their lifetime? Hell yes.

 

Did she face the existential stigma aces face? No, not even close, Unless the reason she was kicked out by her family, and then blamed for it by your father, was for "making silly shit up as everyone knows that she was straight, because that's the only actually real orientation there is in the world".

 

I know of no actually real gay person who has faced that stigma in decades.

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Clumsy Fairy
1 minute ago, faeriefate said:

The difference between the labels that get recognition and those that don't is the fact that those that get recognition get more hate.

 

Nah.... 

 

Look, people have a habit of not understanding other people. All most all the so-called "hate", and "phobias", are just down to people thinking something one person finds normal to be repugnant in some way. The whole idea of tolerance in general is to break down that divide and understand something that is a "natural" human reaction. By that I mean that repulsion at unfamiliar activity or ideas is something that seems to be built in to people. 

 

Asexuality is in a different league, as we don't do something that people think is a normal thing. There is not really anything to be repulsed by, and that is the thing that spawns a lack of belief. 

 

People in general just tend to underestimate other people propensity to be different.

 

I mean I have seen it here on AVEN. People openly talking about those who are sexual as being "strange", "wrong", or "disliked". It's got nothing to do with if you can lable something.

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Soo, are we allowed to debate identies and labels? Or is that against the core values? 

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1 hour ago, faeriefate said:

I gotta agree with Owl in the fact that your facts are a little too naive. My best friend was kicked out of the house for being gay. When I went to my dad because I was upset by this fact his reaction was, "Well, it's her fault for coming out." When I try to talk to my dad about homosexuality, he compares them to pedophiles.

 

The difference between the labels that get recognition and those that don't is the fact that those that get recognition get more hate. People accept trans and gay people exist, and they will ostracize them for it. People don't accept asexuality exists, so the worse I have to deal with when I come out is, "That doesn't exist." Ignorant? Yes. Annoyingly stupid? Yes. As bad as what my gay friend went throguh when she came out of the closet? Far from it.

But no one goes and says "oh gay, meaning you like to wear pink, right?" Or, "oh you're a lesbian, that means you only like to give men oral sex right?".. With asexuality, it can literally mean anything depending on how you personally define it. With homosexuality, everyone knows that means you want to bang people of the same gender as yourself. No matter how homophobic or ignorant someone is, they at least know what homosexuality is; they don't say "er, what does that mean?" because these days everyone, even many kids, know exactly what it means. It's not "whatever you want it to be depending on how you want to define it", which is what asexuality is at this point in time.

 

Regarding the overall issue of asexuality being anything you want it to be depending in how you define sexual attraction: Yes the official definition for homosexuality in English is "sexually attracted to people of the same gender" but every single person automatically translates that to "desires sex with people of the same gender" "sexual relationships with people of the same gender" etc.  No one is picking it apart going "oh that means they can desire sex with anyone but only like the look of people wearing skirts" Or "that means a woman who only desires sex with men who wear lipstick".. it means a woman who wants sex with women, a man who wants sex with men. That's it. And everyone knows that. This same definition doesn't apply to asexuality though, asexuality is anything you want it to be depending on how you want to define sexual attraction. That doesn't apply to other orientations, only to asexuality. And asexuality certainly won't be taken seriously by the rest of the world as long as this failure to accurately define it continues. If even the team that helps AVEN function accurately can't agree on what any of this means, what hope is there? *sigh*

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Okay, I'm going to try my very best to word this carefully and make sure I cover everything, preferably briefly. I speak on behalf of no-one but myself.

 

I am one of the staff members who may have different views of asexuality's definition and what constitutes as asexual or not. I don't express my personal views too much, if at all, because I try to be very careful not crossing the line for "labeling" someone, or more accurately to say "invalidate" someone. That, and I don't and can't have my views be representative of the entire staff or even AVEN's community when I handle our social media, they are my own. If I do, I could get in some trouble... I do want to point out that it's not like anyone is "forcing" me to abide by AVEN's default definition, but my own decision to try to be careful with this.

 

I really do see people's different points of views with this, and some that I actually agree and I am not the only one on the staff who may agree. My concern is how hard it is to draw a line... People used to think (and some probably still do) that "true" asexuals don't have a libido. "True" asexuals don't masturbate. "True" asexuals don't watch porn, don't have sex (for any reason whatsoever, including simply wanting to have a child or pleasing a partner). And... many people disagree. Some people who identify as asexual do have a libido, some do masturbate, some do have sex to have children or please a partner.

 

And personally, I do agree that if someone desired sex and actually seek it out for personal pleasure... that they're not asexual. However, I don't force my opinion on anyone. And I want to point out how this could be argued to be the same as how some people may think that asexuals can't have a libido, masturbate, or have sex at all (regardless of the reason). Which I will say that I personally disagree with, and a lot of people on AVEN can agree with me there. To the point where it has shifted how a "true" asexual doesn't have a libido or masturbate is actually a "non-libidoist".

 

I'm your stereotypical ace; I am also a non-libidoist. Though, I will admit that I never actually felt like I was broken, and a few asexuals have felt the same way. Just because I never felt broken, doesn't mean that I am not asexual. I just had the misconception that everyone was actually like myself, but was pretending or going along with peer pressure with sex and stuff just to be "cool" or "grown-up". And I also personally believe that there are some people who mis-identify as asexual, or there are some people who are asexual and not know it because they never heard of it before.

 

I feel like the whole situation here is more complicated than it needs to be, to be honest. For example, some people would see a person by how they look or any activities that they would do (hobbies, sports for example) and judge saying "there's no way he's gay, he dresses masculine and plays football", or "she must be gay, she dresses masculine and is buff". All stereotypes that aren't relevant for someone's sexuality. I personally think that it is similar with asexuality. As a person who does not feel sexual attraction (and I define sexual attraction as desire for sex with someone for personal pleasure) at all. And there are some stereotypes with asexuals that people do think that a "true" asexual must abide by those stereotypes.

 

And another thing that I forgot to bring up is with communicating. It can be very difficult and also hard to draw the line with that as well. A lot of people have such high expectations with how something is said on AVEN that it is nearly impossible to meet. I mean, there are some things that are clearly not aloud, but my point is for those who are trying super hard to be careful with their words... and yet some people would think that they're not careful enough. Yes, there should be effort, but like I said, some expectations are impossible to meet because nobody is perfect and sometimes only in hindsight would it be said or recognized "that could have been worded better". I'm not saying that it's an excuse, but something that I think should be acknowledged.

 

Okay, that was way longer than I wanted it to be, but I really wanted to make sure I was not only careful by what I say, but also making my words very clear to avoid misunderstandings.

 

TL;DR - I can see from both sides and it's really hard to draw that line. I think some things are more complicated than it should...

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1 hour ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

Not existential =/= not serious. Did your friend face more serious consequences for being gay than most aces will face in their lifetime? Hell yes.

 

Did she face the existential stigma aces face? No, not even close, Unless the reason she was kicked out by her family, and then blamed for it by your father, was for "making silly shit up as everyone knows that she was straight, because that's the only actually real orientation there is in the world".

 

I know of no actually real gay person who has faced that stigma in decades.

The only reason why I'm not going to reply to this is because it's off topic and Tal's already told this thread once to be constructive about the topic OP has brought up. I'd like to remind you to do the same.

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Please let's bring the definition debate to one of the several definition debates threads. I can't believe I had to read through several pages of "what do we define as asexual". I'll reply to the non-definition posts later.

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@SkyWorld I can't even imagine having to do the "eggshell dance" as one of the colored-names. God knows it's bad enough for footfolk like us. :cake:

 

I think that you're definitely on to something there... the shit the "Nonlibidoist Society" pulled back in the days (before I was around on AVEN, but I know the stories) surely still plays a huge part in this mess. AVEN was correct in distancing itself from their raging elitism, but IMO it went completely overboardinto the opposite extreme, and has become just as bad as them.

 

Only allowing nonlibs to ID as asexual is not a worse idea than validating every little snowflake who says the magic words. Those two ideas are equally bad. AVEN has become equally damaging to the asexual community as a whole as the NLS was, because the sane and constructive spot lies in between - clear, concise definitions, and yes that means healthy amounts of exclusion/"gatekeeping". You cannot have education about asexuality without it; you only serve to make "asexuality" a joke that no sane person could, or would, take seriously.

 

There have to be reasonable limits to inclusivity. There has to be clear exclusion of those who do not fit the definition, and that means telling people who clearly misidentify as aces "no, you are not". Doing that is AVEN's job. Otherwise, this site isn't worth shit in regards to its stated mission... a mission which, looking at this thread, the BoD has chosen to betray and abandon, plain and simple. (Which, as said before, they are free to do, but not ever with my voice.)

 

Total inclusivity "asexuality", as AVEN wants to sell in its misguided reactionary answer to the NLS, is NOT a legitimate orientation - it never was, and it never will be; it does not deserve visibility, and it sure as hell does not deserve inclusion within LGBT+. 

 

 

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Clumsy Fairy

@Mysticus Insanus Well that explains a lot... I wondered why people were so keen not to describe me as asexual, as I am utterly devoid of libido.. Great post BTW I won't quote it, as it's just above this...

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My problem is not with labeling people (or not labeling them) per se. It's more that I think some people are basing their asexual identity on false perceptions of sexual people... and I fear that the default response of "of course you can be asexual, it's all up to you" might be making people feel validated in their initial problematic assumptions (and thus reinforcing them). I don't feel a purely sexual attraction based definition is helping much with this either, but others have covered this issue in this thread already, so I won't get into that here.

 

If AVEN is not going to do anything official to address the fundamental misunderstandings about sexual people floating around here (some of which are linked to flawed notions of "sexual attraction"), then I think we should at least be able to voice our disagreement with these perceptions when we encounter them. There are ways to do that without directly telling someone they're not asexual... but it feels like you really have to walk on eggshells to prevent someone from perceiving it that way, and even then, it's still possible to run into problems. Even with all the careful wording in the world, some people still claim they're being "invalidated" upon hearing someone tell them that they might be basing their definition of asexuality on flawed ideas about sexual people. This happens even when the explanation comes from sexual people themselves.

 

I don't know how sexual people are supposed to feel in this situation, but "validated" is certainly not one of the words to come to mind... and while I know this website isn't really for sexual people in the same sense that it's for asexual people, I think having sexual allies is still important to the goals of asexual visibility and education.

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3 hours ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

@Mystic Maya; I get that ultimately we can't tell people how to identify, I mean, literally, we can't, but if we don't have a core definition we can all agree on how the hell can we ever be taken seriously? Would gay people ever have been if their definition was 'you can be gay if you say so!'?

I don't see anyone people arguing strongly to define gay, and did they ever really?

males who are attracted to males identify with it, but also females who are attracted to females, and lately I've seen non binaries identifying as "gay" no matter what gender they are attracted to...

I've also seen people who are "bi" or "pan" identify as "gay", (sometimes because they lean stronger toward same gender, but then might even be in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender but still identify as "gay"... I've seen all of these things)

 

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If a person says they're homosexual (aka gay), but doesn't desire to boink people of the same sex - then no, they aren't gay, they are confused. And education should lead to them overcoming the idea that they were gay, to help them clear up their sexual confusion.

 

If someone incorrectly claims they were gay, you better contradict their misconception ASAP, because such "invalidation" is both in their best interest, and in the best interest of actually real gay people, too. The sooner they realize their actual, non-gay orientation, the better for everybody.

 

"No you're not" is a valid and neccessary form of education.  (A shitload of people here could do well to make a Bart Simpson and write that sentence a hundred times, by hand, until it sinks in.) 

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8 minutes ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

If a person says they're homosexual (aka gay), but doesn't desire to boink people of the same sex - then no, they aren't gay, they are confused. And education should lead to them overcoming the idea that they were gay, to help them clear up their sexual confusion.

so ignoring your other stuff,  you're saying that even homo romantics are not gay?

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I'm trying to imagine what an AVEN that embraces "education" over inclusiveness looks like and I really don't see it as a utopia. The only realistic way to stop people identifying as asexual with whatever definition of asexual they want is to make it against the rules. So you're going to have an AVEN where there is an official definition and if you do not meet the requirements of this definition, but say "I am asexual" you will be warned and eventually banned. That's insane. 

 

The other way is to allow people to label others, but then you still need a singular dogmatic definition that cannot be questioned or the antisexuals and non-libidoists are going to start spouting nonsense about people not being asexual. Given that the definition wars have been waging for years without any clear conclusion, I doubt there will ever be s definition that won't cause a large chunk of the community to become isolated.

 

Neither are good for building a strong community if you ask me. 

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Tal has clearly stated that we need constructive criticism on here. By continuing after this posts, users are breaking Part 6a of the TOS. I'm locking this thread for cooldown.

 

Faeriefate, Moderator

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Given the fact that I tried giving a gentle shove and then a greenie, and the thread kept getting derailed with people's opinions, this can stay locked for 48 hours so people can chill out a bit. If you want to keep going with the definitions debate, take it to a thread that's actually for that, instead of spamming this thread with it. Also, there's no need for finger pointing.

 

Tal Shi'ar

Mod for Announcements.

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I'm unlocking this now. If people would like to keep the definitions debate, please take it to this thread. I'd also like to remind people to please keep calm and not to start finger point or start calling out other people, or insinuate it. This is rather unconstructive and leaves nothing but a toxic atmosphere.

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