Sally Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 2 hours ago, Dreamsexual said: Wouldn't this count as systematic prejudice, thus a form of oppression (albeit rather minor)? No. Oppression means a specific group being oppressed by being forbidden from doing something, and the fact that there are some advantages to being married as opposed to being unmarried has no relationship to any specific orientation. Link to post Share on other sites
Galactic Turtle Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 3 hours ago, Dreamsexual said: Wouldn't this count as systematic prejudice, thus a form of oppression (albeit rather minor)? This is not about being asexual or aromantic specifically. I mentioned it because it is the reality asexual or aromantic often choose or are more likely to be forced into. And... yeah, pretty much what @Sally said lol. Link to post Share on other sites
Joe the Stoic Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 @Dreamsexual, I am teetotaler. That doesn't mean I'm oppressed just because living in a culture where most people are okay with alcohol inevitably leads to inconvenience. Sometimes life sucks, and nobody is oppressed for it. Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 On 1/28/2019 at 11:52 PM, Sally said: Oppression means a specific group being oppressed by being forbidden from doing something, . Link to post Share on other sites
Sally Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 2 hours ago, Dreamsexual said: So, to continue to play devil's advocate here, this statement would imply gays weren't oppressed prior to gay marriage because they could have got married if they wanted to, and implies murderers are oppressed because they're forbidden from murderring. If you're going to play devil's advocate, you've gotta do it logically. So no, gays were oppressed in many other ways before gay marriage was available to them. Murderers, however, are not oppressed, because since they're murderers, they already DID what was not legal to do, and now they're in prison because of it, which is not oppression, it's the penalty for their crime. Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 On 1/29/2019 at 10:26 AM, Sally said: If you're going to play devil's advocate, you've gotta do it logically. So no, gays were oppressed in many other ways before gay marriage was available to them. Murderers, however, are not oppressed, because since they're murderers, they already DID what was not legal to do, and now they're in prison because of it, which is not oppression, it's the penalty for their crime. . Link to post Share on other sites
thylacine Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 It's oppressive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled "mentally ill" or "sick" or risk being told that you "just need a good rape," etc. So, yes, asexuals are oppressed. Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 On 1/30/2019 at 2:08 AM, thylacine said: It's oppressive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled "mentally ill" or "sick" or risk being told that you "just need a good rape," etc. So, yes, asexuals are oppressed. . Link to post Share on other sites
thylacine Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 14 hours ago, Dreamsexual said: So you think oppression can cover cultural oppression, and doesn't have to be systematic/legal to count as oppression? Well, basically, yes. Link to post Share on other sites
Homer Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 On 1/30/2019 at 1:03 PM, Dreamsexual said: cultural oppression ????? Link to post Share on other sites
Joe the Stoic Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 What is cultural oppression? Link to post Share on other sites
Sally Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Until about 15-20 years ago, gays were discriminated against in the following ways: not being hired for/being fired from jobs, not being able to rent or buy housing, not being able to use privately-owned businesses, not being able to marry each other, etc. That discrimination led to oppression because they were not able to partake of activities that non-gays could. Under Trump in the US, the administration is lifting some of the anti-discrimination laws that have been put in place over the last several decades. Asexuals don't face discrimination in society in any of those ways, and any oppression they feel is self-induced. Link to post Share on other sites
firewallflower Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 1 hour ago, Homer said: ????? 37 minutes ago, Rob Boss said: What is cultural oppression? A quick web search turns up (https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/dictionary-of-multicultural-psychology/n58.xml): Quote According to Kernohan (1998), cultural oppression is “the social transmission of false beliefs, values, and ideals about how to live, and the attitudes, motivations, behavior patterns, and institutions that depend on them” (p. 13). Similarly, cultural oppression is known as “the imposition of a world of meaning on others in such a way that they cannot think about it or question it” (Warren, 1992, p. 6). Kernohan notes that cultural oppression can be both personal and social. A person can easily be culturally oppressed by everything that is expressed in our culture, from what one sees on television, and from society's expectations (Kernohan, 1998). Cultural oppression is a kind of social control that affects every aspect of a minority group... (Semmes, 1996)... Link to post Share on other sites
JohnTDeck Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 I feel like we are, but it might just be me overanalyzing everything lol. I'm in the closet everywhere but here, and I don't feel like I can change that. Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On 1 February 2019 at 12:09 AM, Rob Boss said: What is cultural oppression Link to post Share on other sites
Sally Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Thylacine said she felt it was oppresive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled various things. That was all that Thy said. But obviously, from the experience of many asexuals on AVEN, you CAN tell people you're asexual and not get labeled. I've done so. So where's the oppression? Link to post Share on other sites
Homer Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 50 minutes ago, Sally said: Thylacine said she felt it was oppresive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled various things. Wait, I thought "labels" are a good thing and helpful and all that. Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On 30 January 2019 at 2:08 AM, thylacine said: It's oppressive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled "mentally ill" or "sick" or risk being told that you "just need a good rape," On 1 February 2019 at 7:25 AM, Sally said: Thylacine said she felt it was oppresive to live in a society where you can't tell anyone you're asexual without being labeled various things Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On 1 February 2019 at 10:28 AM, Ceebs. said: Are we reading the same things? Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On 1 February 2019 at 10:42 AM, Ceebs. said: Being told you need to be raped is still making a declaration about who someone is; it's labelling them Link to post Share on other sites
Joe the Stoic Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Is not fitting in really oppression, though? Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On 1 February 2019 at 3:18 PM, Rob Boss said: Is not fitting in really oppression, though? Link to post Share on other sites
Lonemathsytoothbrushthief Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 A friend is kind of posting anti ace stuff again and I ended up looking at sites focused on asexual survivors or sexual abuse victims. Because I had a lot of strong feelings from my own life despite usually not feeling much attachment to the ace identity, I wrote a massive post to friends about it. Just thought I'd post here because I really feel like a lot of people can be hurt by the projection of others' experiences onto their own. TW: child sexual abuse, I was a bit graphic. Spoiler While dealing with conflicting thoughts on the online discourse about the asexual community, I ran into a site for asexual survivors of sexual abuse. Some of the articles on there are just so powerful for me, dealing with my own thoughts of what should actually "count" as sexual abuse, but this one on how people sometimes get the relationship between peoples' trauma and sex repulsion completely wrong is something I wanted to share. The idea that I was already asexual and at the very least, not interested in sex before my brief encounter with sexual trauma should be obvious, considering I was 10. It's not normal for children to think of sex to that extent so far as I'm aware and should be a warning to others that they may have had some trauma themselves, although some mental illnesses can give you fucked up thoughts in cycles which should also mean, don't shame the child and get them to a (good) therapist to help them. So to some extent I don't believe my trauma actually changed anything about my asexuality and sex aversion. I am an avoidant person by nature - it's not that I hate sex, but I want to avoid any unnecessary mention of it in my life if possible and I resent the ways in which society excessively sexualises things like secondary sex characteristics, or relates certain types of body language and impulsive personalities to flirting and sexual desire. But there's one big exemption to this: my feelings about sex did get a whole lot more complicated after what happened. Considering that even now I struggle to interpret what happened in a way which doesn't assign the blame to myself, I don't expect the 10 year old me to have interpreted being bullied by the step son of my mum's then-partner for a year and then asked by him to put my mouth on his dick before doing so in any healthy way. It just felt stupid: when so many people have gone through much worse, why should I feel bad about something I agreed to do? And the feeling that I was complicit definitely added to future mental health problems, and thinking I was actually much more interested in sex while also feeling like all sexual thoughts and feelings were something I had to hide. In all of my romantic and sexual relationships since then there were two things which they had in common: guilt for a partner I was with, and denial of my asexuality/sex repulsion. I also know that whenever I tried dating I was chasing after a feeling of normalcy which I knew others had and I just didn't, and the end-point of this was my (for me) very sexual relationship a few years ago. At that point, I had regular sexual intrusive thoughts and used actual sex/masturbation to get them to stop, which made the cycle worse. People want to think that asexuality can't affect how we think of our experiences the same way that other non-hetero sexualities can, but I know that having experienced a kind of sexual trauma led me to repress a lot of my feelings about my own sexuality. Being ace can mean living oblivious to the sexual experiences of others your own age, but can also lead you to underestimate the way that sexual experiences without proper consent could harm you, and dismiss your experiences in an attempt to feel "normal" about something which was never normal to you in the first place. For me, I have difficulty judging whether I am attracted to someone romantically, sexually or not at all because sometimes my brain will just insert a sexual image or idea. Basically, despite not being in any dating scene, with men or otherwise, my brain gives me unwanted dick pics anyway, though only very occasionally since I don't have the same distress over thoughts or compulsions which I had when I was in my last relationship. It's also an intersectional thing since I have dysphoria around my genitalia and wish they could just stop announcing their existence, and being bullied by people I was friends with during primary and secondary school meant I was used to being in friendships with people who clearly didn't have the same respect for me as I did for them, which itself is related to being autistic because we are massive targets. To me, living in a society which, regardless of what others may think, is pretty sexual in a way which goes beyond human nature to set up expectations which hurt many different groups, means a constant blurring of boundaries. I want people to be judged by their actions, and to know that our thoughts should never be held against us, to know that flirting isn't always actually flirting, that not all of us have the same sexual and romantic agendas as is sometimes assumed by our words, that it's okay to feel traumatised or affected by something which others don't recognise or accept, that it's normal to have confused feelings for people who abused you or were otherwise involved in your abuse and even feel sorry for them, and the list goes on. But gaps in understanding of our society around a whole range of issues will always be taken advantage of. Whether that's in the confusion surrounding how you should address consent in sex with asexual people, the way that autistic and other disabled people can easily be bullied because they misunderstand social cues and make themselves easy targets, while also having a lack of proper accommodation and often going un/misdiagnosed, the way that trans people with gender dysphoria can be abused by people because of the lack of understanding among others in how gender dysphoria affects them, or any of the myriad ways in which similar blindspots are abused which I haven't experienced. This was a bit of a disorganised rant because, ya know, talking about trauma. I've spent too long feeling fake about it, and this felt like a good time to broach the topic. The article which got me thinking is here, same TW for it: https://asexualsurvivors.org/2015/08/on-sexual-abuse-repulsion-and-aversion-in-the-asexual-community/?fbclid=IwAR17Mc64auWqDE21Q0t2IhIc3h1vS2KWwfq2sz3hCKodX3OAMq7IeDhBZug Link to post Share on other sites
Lonemathsytoothbrushthief Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 On the site I was reading from there were also accounts of many ace survivors who talked about accepting asexuality as a part of them which may or may not be connected to trauma, but then going to therapists who would consistently want to "cure" them or get them interested in sex again. Aces with fundamentalist religious upbringings in many christian and otherwise religions have also experienced abuse because of their sexuality, and aces in countries and environments where forced marriage is a thing would experience problems because of their sexuality I expect too. I think all of us aces need to remember that just because we are part of the minority with the language to describe who we are in a way which is more acknowledged by research and the wider communities we're in, doesn't mean our experiences of oppression as aces are representative of all aces. Link to post Share on other sites
Homer Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 7 hours ago, Rob Boss said: Is not fitting in really oppression, though? nope Link to post Share on other sites
thylacine Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 15 hours ago, Ceebs. said: Don't they match up perfectly? Are we reading the same things? They sort of match up. Sounds about right to me. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Jetsun Milarepa Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 Not in today's Sky news app for my phone! There's a giant article about Ace lifestyle! Link to post Share on other sites
Howard Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I'd say that asexuals are oppressed, but not to the point that they would need to be covered by bill of rights. Education could eliviate us from the forms of uncomfortable situations that I consider oppressive, namely labeling that was before mentionned but also being denied services from gay movements because 'asexuality is not a sexual orientation, it's a lack of sexual orientation' and jokes and slurs from colleagues and acquaintances. I don't see how the law could help asexuals come out of it, but certainly education, like what is done on this site is beneficial. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Yes, I'm so oppressed, my life is miserable. I live in fear of the sex gestapo coming for me at any moment. Really? Is this a thing? I'm sure that some people have issues with family members who operate from a traditional perspective that believe marriage and sex are natural but until the police come and bust up an asexual get together with clubs, tear gas, and trained attack dogs then let's just get over ourselves a bit. 😈 Link to post Share on other sites
Dreamsexual Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 On 2/6/2019 at 1:05 PM, MiseryTriumphant said: Yes, I'm so oppressed, my life is miserable. I live in fear of the sex gestapo coming for me at any moment. Really? Is this a thing? I'm sure that some people have issues with family members who operate from a traditional perspective that believe marriage and sex are natural but until the police come and bust up an asexual get together with clubs, tear gas, and trained attack dogs then let's just get over ourselves a bit. 😈 Link to post Share on other sites
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