Jump to content

On gatekeeping and LGBTQIA


MoraDollie

Recommended Posts

8 minutes ago, TheAP said:

The answer to that depends on whether one defines asexuality of "lack of sexual attraction" or "lack of desire for sex". Which is a debate that has been going on for a long time on here, with no clear resolution.

It's very unclear to me how someone could claim a desire for partnered sex is not "sexual attraction" or "sexual". And @FictoCannibal. isn't sounding reassuring that these identities, when conversations are had, are based on a mainstream sense of what the spectrum of sexual behavior entails.

Which means there may be unusual interpretations of sexuality that are liable to confuse people that are trying to understand asexuality.

So I think these conversations about labels and spectrums matter, and I think it would be nice if we could balance respect for people wanting to feel belonging and community with how much confusion this causes people trying to understand asexuality, and, I hope, our shared interest in promoting understanding and education about asexuality.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Anthracite_Impreza

If we continue to allow asexual to mean "may or may not want sex with anyone for any reason or lack of reasons", no one will have a clue what being ace means in the real world and we will have utterly failed the education part of AVEN. That's the point isn't it? To be understood and accepted by people outside Tumblr? No one will take "I'm asexual and I desire sex with whoever. No, I'm not sexual, I have special reasons for wanting sex, not like everyone else" seriously, and we'll all look like elitist snobs. And those of us who don't ever want sex? We're gonna feel like strangers in our own community.

Link to post
Share on other sites

@Anthracite_Impreza YES. Thank you. More folks who identify as ace need to be saying that stuff. It always sounds like it's us sexuals attempting to police how people identify, and that's so not the point. It's about clarity of communication, accuracy, understanding what's within the realm of being a sexual person. It's about making sure that asexuality has a clear definition so that the rest of humanity can actually begin to understand it. It is a real thing and asexuals deserve recognition. It's also about making people who are sexual but have a lower or more limited level of interest realise they're still normal and you don't have to be 24/7 horny and ready to shag everything that moves in order to be a sexual person. If everyone can be anything, what's the point in having any words at all? It's kind of funny how AVEN seems fixated on micro-terminology to describe every little preference someone has whilst at the same time opening up the tent so wide that almost anyone can fit inside in one way or another.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Gosh I love autocorrect. :lol: That post just sat there for a few minutes reading "a lower or more limited level of internet". Thank you, phone.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The issue is that sexuality has never been coherent.  Some may even deliberately go against their identity under the logic off sex is just sex,  and then there are those threshold.  I could very well be considered a dormant heterosexual even almost 10 years after my sexuality has died,  but in practice I'm asexual as I lack the ability to have that spark and will likely never feel it again. So,  some say I'm gray because I have felt sexuality,  others say I'm heterosexual as it was my primary orientation and the fact I still have emotional attraction,  and others say I'm asexual because I am functionally no different than other asexuals.

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, R_1 said:

The issue is that sexuality has never been coherent.  Some may even deliberately go against their identity under the logic off sex is just sex,  and then there are those threshold.  I could very well be considered a dormant heterosexual even almost 10 years after my sexuality has died,  but in practice I'm asexual as I lack the ability to have that spark and will likely never feel it again. So,  some say I'm gray because I have felt sexuality,  others say I'm heterosexual as it was my primary orientation and the fact I still have emotional attraction,  and others say I'm asexual because I am functionally no different than other asexuals.

I'd say you're functionally asexual at least based on the things we've discussed in the few years I've known you. Haven't seen you around for ages!! (though just last week I saw someone new with the yellow snake face you used to have in your ava and I thought they were you with a new name for a while! hah) :cake: 

Link to post
Share on other sites
letusdeleteouraccounts

@asshole @Anthracite_Impreza @anisotropic

Guys, sexual attraction is to desire sex from a person where that desire is aimed at someone. It’s possible for an asexual to want sex but not desire it from anybody. They just know that sex requires 2 or more people and some would probably rather have sex and get another person involved than to just masturbate. Some asexuals don’t go out looking for sex but like the feeling of sex and/or the idea of it. That doesn’t mean they desire it from any specific person

Link to post
Share on other sites

How is wanting sex but not with anyone different to not wanting sex? Sex - as distinct from masturbation - requires more than one person. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

It’s possible for an asexual to want sex but not desire it from anybody. They just know that sex requires 2 or more people

You kinda need to desire it from somebody in order to desire sex.  Sex doesn't happen unless there's a second person.

Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Philip027 said:

You kinda need to desire it from somebody in order to desire sex.  Sex doesn't happen unless there's a second person.

Yeah...

 

I desire sex means you desire an activity with another person. Sex by default is with someone. Doesnt have to be a specific person. A lot of sexuals go out to bars and stuff for hookups cause they dont care what person, as long as the person is willing and attractive enough to not be repulsive. 

 

But if you dont want to actually do it with another person, you arent desiring sex, since that requires another person. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Anthracite_Impreza
5 hours ago, Star Lion said:

It’s possible for an asexual to want sexual relief but not desire it from anybody.

Emphasis mine. As soon as you start wanting other people (or objects, or animals, yes I'm covering all bases here) involved then that's literally no different to any other sexual person. Being non-picky doesn't mean ace, it's kinda the exact opposite!

 

We aren't gatekeeping, it's just that we need a definition that makes sense and is understandable to society at large. Someone may be annoyed when I tell them what they thought was a jaguar is a leopard, but that's not gatekeeping is it? A leopard is a leopard, a jaguar is a jaguar, Panthera pardus vs Panthera onca. Should I just allow that sort of misinformation to spread too? Can leopard now mean any furry carnivore with spots? Since I care about scientific accuracy, no, it can't, and since I care about asexuality I can't let go of that either.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Either you are something, or you're not.

 

You may be Grey, but that doesn't make you a literal asexual....and it doesn't make you fully sexual... that's the whole point.

 

If people stop defining things by what they literally mean for the sake of sparing some poor unfortunate confused soul, then we're all going to end up confused. These definitions exist for a reason.

 

Grey may not be asexual (therefore not ace, but grace), but you're still valid in the terms you identify yourself by.

 

Either you're something or you're not.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay here’s the deal. There’s a lot wrong with this initial post. First of all, you do not have the right to reclaim the word queer as and ace/aro person. It is a slur and it was never used against people like you. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I wanna talk about the harm in micro labels. I know one big argument against gatekeeping is that it’s “harmful”, but why? Gatekeeping protects us from just anyone entering the LGBT community. Micro labeling within the community just makes us excessively divided and it encourages a lot of negative splitting. Instead of one collaborative community, we become a hot mess of tumblr identity playing the oppression game. As “cupioromantic” there is NO ONE who you need a safe space from. Who’s gonna threaten you for that? Literally no one cares. Personally, I don’t think labels like cupioromantic are real things or necessary. However if you wanna use them I won’t stop you, just don’t act like it makes you LGBT.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

I gotta say, I kind of hate that I found this thread.  It's kind of convinced me that AVEN (which I was hoping could be my community) isn't.  There's a lot of hate toward people just trying to figure themselves out, and I swear, I've never felt more unwelcome than I have reading Ficto's posts.  If this is what AVEN is, I sure as hell hope there's somewhere else to go.  I've never been big on tumblr, but if people who talk this way to folks just trying to figure their shit out hate it that much, maybe I SHOULD give it a try.  Gotta be better than this.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Anthracite_Impreza
1 hour ago, rodoco said:

I gotta say, I kind of hate that I found this thread.  It's kind of convinced me that AVEN (which I was hoping could be my community) isn't.  There's a lot of hate toward people just trying to figure themselves out, and I swear, I've never felt more unwelcome than I have reading Ficto's posts.  If this is what AVEN is, I sure as hell hope there's somewhere else to go.  I've never been big on tumblr, but if people who talk this way to folks just trying to figure their shit out hate it that much, maybe I SHOULD give it a try.  Gotta be better than this.

Education isn't hating or gatekeeping. Education is in the AVEN anagram. @Ficto. is one of the most educationally valuable people here because she's been on all sides of the fence and has more experience than most sexuals (she's pretty open about it, so I hope she doesn't mind me saying that).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Someone who I respected—someone who I trusted—was suddenly telling me that an identity that I might be was bullshit

 

An identity does not need a label to exist. Labels are useful to find like-minded communities, but they aren't the reason someone is what they are. This person is not being told that they are a terrible person. They've encountered an opinion - perhaps blunt, staunch, and harshly worded, but an opinion nonetheless - that this label is unwieldy, not that their personhood is baseless.

 

It felt like finding out that a blogger who I frequently read was sexist or anti-atheist.

 

Somebody who has a different opinion is not a bad person for holding that opinion. If it took just one post to suddenly turn The Thinking Asexual from a respectable individual into a literal sexist, I worry for the resilience of this person to encounter/deal with/grow from any sort of opposition.

 

w

e don’t have a right to gatekeep.

 

Yes we do. If a community is defined by a certain ideal and it lets in anyone who holds any ideal, it is no longer defined by that ideal. It is perfectly okay to tell people whose values differ from the core values of a community that they may not belong there as a member, but that their support as an ally is valuable and cherished.

 

In the context of asexuality, this is an issue because people in the community have trouble enough deciding what asexuality even is. If you were to leave AVEN for a second and introduce yourself to society at large as an asexual person who desires a sexual relationship but only in certain circumstances and only a certain way and only with a particular personwell, to be honest, most people won't care because most people don't give a crap about what others do in the bedroom. But they'll also understand, because that's how most people are. This trend of dissecting out every possible way someone may or may not be attracted to/engaged in a sexual or non-sexual relationship with somebody(ies) is harmful for the AVEN community, in my humble opinion, because it impedes the ability to reasonably communicate how or why the ace community is different from the rest of society. Agree with @Ficto. on the negative implications this has for sexuals, but also the broader implications for the ace community. When someone who wants no sex, ever, period, starts dating someone who has previously dated an "ace" person who did want sex on a regular basis, their partner is gonna think "well, she'll want it sometimes." And then what? You have a sexual partner who has a complete misunderstanding of what it means to be ace, who feels insecure because his former ace partner did love him enough to have sex with him* but this one doesn't, and what could he possibly be doing wrong, and had it turned out he had terribly mistreated his ex-ace partner? And you'll have an ace partner who can't understand why this man - who has dated aces before - doesn't grasp the concept of being ace, and is she going to be enough of a partner to make this relationship last, or is she going to have to compromise? - And the hundred other wrought situations that pop up in the mixed relationships section forum weekly.

 

*Important note - I'm not saying this is the right way to think about sex, but it is a common way for sexual people to think about sex.

 

Also I second Coby on the use of "queer." (Sorry Coby, the tag is acting funny so it's going to show up at the end of this post) @Coby Asola

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Chimeric said:

Yes we do. If a community is defined by a certain ideal and it lets in anyone who holds any ideal, it is no longer defined by that ideal. It is perfectly okay to tell people whose values differ from the core values of a community that they may not belong there as a member, but that their support as an ally is valuable and cherished.

 

In the context of asexuality, this is an issue because people in the community have trouble enough deciding what asexuality even is. If you were to leave AVEN for a second and introduce yourself to society at large as an asexual person who desires a sexual relationship but only in certain circumstances and only a certain way and only with a particular personwell, to be honest, most people won't care because most people don't give a crap about what others do in the bedroom. But they'll also understand, because that's how most people are. This trend of dissecting out every possible way someone may or may not be attracted to/engaged in a sexual or non-sexual relationship with somebody(ies) is harmful for the AVEN community, in my humble opinion, because it impedes the ability to reasonably communicate how or why the ace community is different from the rest of society.

Gods, this.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I get the anxious desire for security. its honestly something that is mirrored in a lot of places. this is very much not an asexuality problem.

 

I don't know if this is a growing problem, if it is fueled by globalization, or notions of scarcity. when i was young I don't think I saw all of this addiction to exclusion, but my memories want to remember how I imagined the tv remote was a spaceship, so maybe we have always been so easy to say this is an issue of us and them whenever they complicate things by suggesting that they are not thoes other guys.

 

huh. english really doesn't have a good way of parsing more than one group outside of ourselves. there's only one them.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...