Obligatory Ace Valentine’s Day Post

Ah yes, another Valentine’s Day alone. Not that it bothers me, though it might bother some romantic asexuals. I love Valentine’s Day. To me, Valentine’s Day is the day when you have just one box of chocolate, while waiting for the rest to go on sale. It means that pretty soon, there are going to be boxes and boxes of cool little cards with Pokemon, The Simpsons, Transformers, Little Mermaid, etc on sale for like 25 cents. Because unlike candy, valentine’s day cards are pretty much worthless after Valentine’s.

And I like to tack the cards up on my walls.

Not to mention themed T-shirts, giant plushies, greeters, etc.

In other words, Valentine’s Day is to me what it is actually meant to be: an orgy of consumerist delight.

That said, for all those interested in my rather sad excuse for a love life, here’s a report on that.

It’s not good. Not good at all. I decided to abandon my usual approach to love/romance, I.e complete passivity, that is, waiting for my knight or knightess in shiny armor to find me, and actually go out looking.

Since I’m not particularly interested in having a million non-asexuals asking me ignorant questions about my asexuality, insist they can convert me with their peens (if you think I’m exaggerating or stereotyping, just check out Swankivy’s reports of her experiences on Okcupid), and I would much rather date someone who I know will understand my asexuality, I decided to pursue asexuals only.

If you know anything about asexuality at all, then you probably know that most of us are physically very distant; that is, a lot of us are probaby the only out asexuals in their town or area. So hoping to physically run into another asexual and date them, or meet them through work, or any of the other ways most people meet the people they will date, is pretty much a great way to die alone.

And so we turned to the internet, to the ace-dating sites that are so often advised as the means by which an ace should find a date, in all of the “I’m sick of being alone” posts out there. I went with Ace-book. People say it is dead, people say all the asexual dating sites are pretty dead.

So far, no luck. No one has messaged me first, and so I decided to take the initiative and message other people. Most people simply ceased communicating. Some ceased communicating after I explained what ‘neutrois’ meant. I am rather hoping that’s just a coincidence, rather than the timing meaning anything. To be honest, that was surprising; most asexuals on AVEN and tumblr seem fairly hip to all things queer. The crowd on Ace-book does seem to consist a lot less of typical internet nerds. There are a lot less people on there that have things like “feminism, video games, manga” etc in their profile interests, than on other ace spaces.

As for the cease in communication; that is probably typical of all dating sites; someone realizes you’re not the type that knocks their socks off, and gives up on you. It’s worth noting, however, that I originally made an ace-book account to meet more asexual friends (my potential partner interest being listed as “just pals”) but I haven’t even found one anyone for that.

It doesn’t really have me down; I am only 22 years old after all, and it wouldn’t matter if I was 32, 42, etc. There’s a lot of life left to live and find someone in. Not that I mind being Valentines-less forever, if that’s the way it turns out. I’m in good company with myself after all. I suppose the next step will by trying other ace dating sites, and perhaps the ace-dating tumblrs.

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to avoid confusion: a username update (I changed mine)

Changed my display username here to Barnacle Strumpet. Because:

1. It deeply amuses me

2. I was getting tired of my old username

3. I made a new blog,  Nihilism is Grand, for posting about non-asexual matters, and figured if I was ever going to change it, it would be before I spread my old username all over both blogs.

4. I’ll probably be writing a lot more, since I’ve gone from having two jobs, one full-time and one part-time, to just having one part-time job. And I also have my own computer now :3

You ever just want to be done with it all?

I don’t update here very often. Some of that is  because of people’s attitudes on asexuality. You can see the sort of ignorant ideas people have it about it any time there is a new article on asexuality anywhere. It just makes me pretty sad that articles on asexuality in feminist spaces actually seem to garner as bad or worse comments than those on more general sites like slate.com, or articles in mainstream news outlets like The Guardian, The Atlantic, etc.

Let’s examine some comments:

When your chief complaint about your identity is that it keeps you from really identifying with mainstream romcoms you can probably safely remove yourself from the oppressed peoples list.

I can only suppose from this comment that the writer thinks things like corrective rape, non-consensual medical treatment for one’s sexuality, and being unable to seek out medical services for fear of being judged or otherwise having one’s treatment impaired by one’s orientation, are all things that are less important worries than lacking characters on TV to identify with.

These are only two complaints, but they are real ones asexuals face. When you seek treatment for depression or anxiety or other medical problems, and instead of getting treatment for those things, you have to constantly be on the defensive against psychiatrists who are more interested in treating your other “problem” (asexuality), then yes, that is a problem and something is wrong. People’s bigoted opinions about correct human sexuality are directly affecting one’s ability to be treated for actual problems.

This is not just a problem with psychiatry, it extends to doctors of the body as well as doctors of the mind, although I have most heard about asexuals having problems with psychiatrists. It was a psychiatrist, after all, that managed to convince me that I was wrong, and that asexuality did not exist. That caused me a lot of personal suffering.

But it is somewhat irrelevant, because most asexuals could not give a hoot about being put on some list of “oppressed peoples”.  We are concerned with tackling our problems, not gaining oppression brownie points.

I asked a question in that article, which no one was apparently able to answer:

So which is it? Are we supposed to talk about our experiences in terms of oppression/inequality, in which case we are “co-opting the language of systematic oppression”. Or should we not do that, and instead focus on recognition for those identities, in which case we are making our issue”overtake a real analysis of inequality.”

The author of the article essentially said that by talking about asexuality in terms of oppression or marginalization, we were “co-opting the language of systematic oppression.” They then turned around and stated in the article that by focusing on gaining recognition for our identities, rather than possible oppression issues, we are overtaking and preventing a real analysis of inequality.

In other words, we should neither talk about possibly oppressive things nor about gaining recognition for our identities’ existence.

So I ask again here: What are we supposed to talk about? I can only surmise that we are meant to stay silent, to stay in the background, leaving the world ignorant of asexuality’s existence. I still want an answer. It’s hard to believe that of all the people that read that article, asexuals and non-asexuals alike, no one saw the disturbing implication that by talking about asexuality in any manner we are somehow harming the cause of other minority groups (which is funny, since most feminist sites make a point to say somewhere in their FAQs that tackling things like racism or sexism does not limit ones ability to care about other issues, like queer rights or world hunger. That is, that there is not a finite amount of issues that can be held as important to progress)

Sadly, I know I did not express what I meant particularly well in the comments section. I had just come off a 16-hour work shift, and do rather want to facepalm at my attempts to explain what I meant. Hopefully I have done so better here.

However, when one is dealing with comments like this:

Autosexuals. Pah. Seriously, we need a speshul identification term for “I masturbate” now? I have two very autosexual cockatiels in my house, yo.

It is pretty unlikely that one is going to gain any worthwhile conversation anyway. For the record, autosexual does not mean “I masturbate”. It is a term for someone who is primarily attracted to themself. It does not mean “I am a homosexual/heterosexual/asexual that masturbates”. It in fact does not mean that one masturbates at all. It means that one is primarily attracted to oneself as opposed to being attracted to other people. I have never seen an autosexual claiming to be oppressed, and in fact, have seen very few autosexuals at all. Unlike asexuals, they do not have an obvious internet presence or groups or blogs devoted to their identity. That is why autosexuals sometimes do turn up on AVEN or other asexual sites, seeking information. They don’t seem to have a significant group identity or presence in social justice circles. Indeed, google autosexuality, and most of what will come up is people mocking their very existence.

Mocking people for their varied sexual identities or practices. Very feminist, yes? Acting like you get to be the judge of demisexuals and demiromantics, when you don’t even know the difference between them, is also apparently a feminist thing to do.

The article is here: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/01/11/generation-fight-identity-fight/ and it is response to a NYT article on the newer GSM identities (think genderfluid, agender, asexual, etc). The feminist article, as opposed to the NYT article, choices to include otherkin, transfat, and transethnic identitities in with the gender and sexual orientation identities in the NYT article. The NYT article is about the differences between the older gender and sexual orientation identities and the new ones. Why Jill (the author of the feminist response article) chose to bring up otherkin and other things that have nothing to do with gender identity or sexual orientation I know not.

Why I No Longer Identify as a Sex-Positive Asexual

I have decided to stop identifying as a sex-positive asexual. Why? Why not? Why would anyone identify as sex-positive in the first place?

I won’t identify as sex-positive because there is no reason to. None. Having sex is an activity, like any other, and shouldn’t be seen as holding an inherent moral value or any other value.

As a moral nihilist, I have, at least in my own mind, always refused to assign moral meaning or value to anything, regardless of the effect it has had on my own life, and no matter how positive or negative others in society may view that thing.

Why should sex be a thing that I view as having an inherent meaning (a “positive” thing) when nothing else gets that special treatment?

I love writing; yet I don’t make absolute statements about it’s worth or morality or value as an activity. I hated being abused, but I refuse to assign inherent meaning to that as well; I will not define it as either a good or bad thing that happened in my life, to me it is simply something that happened.

So why did sex get this special treatment from me? Why did it get to be assigned as a positive when nothing else did? There is a pretty simple answer. That is, the stereotyping of asexuals as anti-sex, and the continued stigma applied to sex-negative asexuals in our community, creates a pressure to identify as sex-positive, because we don’t want to be seen as one of the “bad” asexuals. One of the ones that cause the stereotypes, one of the ones who think sex is icky, one of the ones who think they are morally above people who have sex…

Well, I’m sick of it. I am sex-neutral now. I know I am hardly breaking new ground here, that other asexuals before me have argued for sex-neutrality rather than sex-positivity or sex-negativity. But, better late than never.

And further, I am tired of the eternal pressure against asexual sex-negatives. Who cares if some people see sex as a bad thing, or an inherently negative thing? For instance, a person may find watching movies to be a boring, stupid, and unendurable activity. Making such statements as “Movies are boring.” “Movies are stupid.” may be considered rude, but they are also considered an opinion that we have a right to. However, were we to say “Sex is boring and stupid.” we would be jumped on for being sex-negative, shaming, and oppressive. What is the difference? Why is the other one simply a rude opinion, and the other such a big deal?

Obvious answer is obvious; sex as a recreational activity, unlike watching movies, has a history of being restricted and of people being persecuted for doing it. Therefore, to a sex-negative asexual, while they may to themselves simply be offering up a rude opinion on sex, to others it is making a statement that reinforces a belief (sex = wrong) that has centuries of history behind it, that is indelibly embedded in many cultural practices and mores, that still causes people a lot of shame and negative feelings.

But you know what? I am tired of it. I am sorry that people are sensitive to apparent criticism of what is a very important activity in their life. But at some point, you have to realize: to people who don’t have sexual feelings, or for who sex has no meaning, there is no good reason why we should see sex as a good thing, or have respect for it. There is no reason why it shouldn’t seem boring or stupid or silly to us. All those are valid opinions and feelings. They have such impact today simply because of attitudes and ideas created long before we were born by the majority population; non-asexual heterosexuals. It is not our baggage.

To a non-asexual, it can feel like a revolutionary statement simply to say that sex is a good thing, to say that it is a positive thing, to say that it feels good, and what feels good IS good. Such a statement is reclaiming one’s sexuality’s from society’s bullshit.

To an asexual, it can be a revolutionary statement to say that sex isn’t an inherently good thing, that it not necessarily a positive thing, to say that it doesn’t feel good for everyone, and for the people for whom it does not feel good, it is not good. Such a statement is reclaiming one’s sexuality’s from society’s bullshit.

Our society’s attitudes towards sex have hurt non-asexuals by shaming them for enjoying sex. And our society’s attitudes towards sex have hurt asexuals by shaming them for not enjoying sex.

There is a big difference when a non-asexual, for whom sex is a pleasurable experience, and who believes it is a pleasurable experience for most people, states that sex is a bad thing. Such a non-asexual would be condemning the pleasure as well. It is going against the innate moral sense that most people seem to follow (That what feels good is good).

An asexual making such a statement is not doing so. They are not condemning pleasure or what feels good. Sex simply does not feel good for them, so why should it be a good thing? In this they are following the innate moral sense that most people follow (what feels good is good.)

Most things that we do not enjoy we often consider boring, stupid, or bad. (“Sports is so boring, how can you watch that?” “Ugh, Harry Potter is fucking stupid. Who cares about some wizard kid?” “Country music SUCKS.”) At some point a person will usually hit a point where they realize the great truth of: different strokes for different folks, and gain a respect for the things others enjoy that they do not themselves enjoy.

A sex-negative asexual making such a statement has most likely not hit that point of respect yet. Should we see their statements as an oppressive, harmful mindset, or should we treat it as simply a rude opinion by people who have not yet learned to have respect for other interests that they do not share?

It doesn’t matter to me what people decide to do.  I am after all, a nihilist, and we are not exactly known for the amount of fucks we give about things. I usually tend to write about things with the dominant moral viewpoint in mind (what feels good IS good, and what makes the most people feel good is best, right to pursuit of happiness blahblah) but today I was inspired by meeting another of those rarities of rarities, an asexual with a respect for nihilism, and so I decided to indulge myself and write with my own ethical stance in mind.

P.S: I don’t hate sex. Sex-neutral, remember?

Why We Need to Be Asexin’ It Up Between the Pages

I have always thought that one of the most important goals for asexuals is to become proportionately represented in the media. On an average day in America, for those ages 15 and up, 2.8 hours a day will be spent watching TV. (American Time Use Survey Summary). While time spent reading varies more by ages, it is important to note that the older an age group is, the more time they spend reading, with individuals quite a bit older (75 and up) spending the most time reading.

Why is that significant? Because it means that reading about asexuality is probably one of the best ways to spread information about asexuality to the older population. Asexuality has a (incorrect) reputation as an internet-only orientation, probably because the main way most of us asexuals have found out about asexuality as an actual movement, organized group-type thing, was through the internet. That is the main way we connect with each other and exist as a community. We are few and widely-scattered around the globe.

Internet and computer use is more common among younger age groups. Although there are many tech-savvy seniors, I have also known many who absolutely do not want to make computer usage a part of their lives. Completely understandable, I think. It does, unfortunately, mean that if most of our writing and activism continue to be present only online, and is absent from more traditional means of communication such as television and novels, we will be leaving large amounts of people out of reach of knowledge of asexuality. While we have our meatspace presence in pride parades and asexy t-shirts, few of those will reach as many people as we would if we had a main character who was asexual on one of the crappy sitcoms that litter our television line-up. We will not reach as many people by walking around as living asexual billboards as we would if there had been just one named asexual student at Hogwarts.

Why is it important to reach out to people through the mainstream media? Because, as I have pointed out, we spend much of our time consuming it. We learn a lot through it, and it is a window out into the world. Probably most of the factual knowledge I have learned in my life has came from novels (and I know, that sounds terrible—novels are fiction! Fake, right? Well, most of them are chock full of research and real facts and things based in reality, even if the character’s lives and individuals stories aren’t fact.)

I have known that I was uninterested in sex for much of my life. I have known that I was neither a woman nor a man for most of my life as well. But—when I came into my teenhood, that wonderful time of struggling to find one’s identity, I rejected what I innately knew to be fact, that I was asexual and neutrois, because I did not know that those were valid things to be. When I looked at the world around me, in real space, on TV, in all the books and comics I consumed, everyone was a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, and everyone was expected to hook up one day, to get married or to date or to be interested in the opposite sex (or more rarely, the same sex). Sure, there were people who weren’t interested in finding a partner, but that would be because they were mentally ill, or misanthropic, or obsessively workaholicking, or were hideously ugly assholes who didn’t want to date anyone in their league and had bitterly given up. In other words, being uninterested in sex was a symptom of some other unfortunate state, not a valid orientation in itself.

(The internet held no contrary views to that that I could find; most of my sources of information being from LGB and feminist perspectives, which were mostly presenting the “If you’re not interested in sex, it’s not your fault, it’s just a result of being raised in a sex-negative society. Work through your issues and become a happy sex-having person, because that is vital to happiness, etc etc” type thing. I never managed to stumble upon AVEN because I did not know the key word that would have described my state: asexual).

So I think it is absolutely vital to have asexual characters represented accurately in the mainstream media, not just to increase our visibility, but to lend a desperately-needed sense of normalcy to asexuals. When most people have already encountered asexual characters on their TV screens and in their favorite novels, there will be, I think, a lot less of the complete incredulousness we asexuals face when telling someone of our orientation. I think the importance of media representation for minorities cannot be overestimated—consuming media is a huge part of most of our lives. Achieving representation in traditional media is a vital chance to spread knowledge and visibility, as well as support, to older asexuals.

Sources:

American Time Use Survey Summary: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm

Food, Sex, and Asexuality

I don’t like the food metaphors. Is it okay to say that? I know it seems like almost everyone likes to use hunger, or food, or doughnuts, or something along that line, to explain to non-asexuals what being asexual is like.

But you know, I’m sorry, but no, that doesn’t cut it for me. A non-asexual imagining what it is like to not ever be hungry just does not explain the asexual situation enough for me at all.

For one thing, even if you don’t feel hunger, if you don’t eat, you’ll die. You will probably not die if you are a non-asexual and never have sex. Using a specific food like doughnuts or cake or whatnot is a little better, in that it is not necessary in any way to eat such treats and indeed, some people do not even like or want in the slightest that treat which most of us have to hold ourselves back from overindulging in.

You know what being asexual is like? Never experiencing sexual attraction. I mean, if you, as a hungry, food-eating person, can imagine what it’s like to never feel hungry or need food, then I don’t think I’m giving you too much credit in thinking you’re creative and empathic enough to imagine what it’s like to never feel sexual attraction or want sex.

If a non-asexual can make the imaginative leap to picture what it’s like to not have the urge to eat food, they can imagine what it’s like to not want sex.

I’m not ragging on anyone here, because you know, at first I really liked seeing all the metaphors for asexuality people came up with too. But I have seen the food metaphor used to explain asexuality so many times and it is tiring. And the reason it makes me feel that way?

Because asexuality does not need to be like something, like another experience. It is something, and we can simply say what it is if we want a non-asexual to understand. I kind of feel like using these metaphors is letting non-asexuals off the hook, giving them justification for not understanding asexuality. It’s not that hard to understand. It doesn’t need other experiences to be compared to so that other people can understand. It is not as complicated as some people like to pretend.

And I know that sounds pretty harsh, saying “letting them off the hook for not understanding asexuality” when of course many haven’t heard of asexuality and don’t know anything about it. But that is the thing—once we tell non-asexuals what asexuality is, that should be enough. A non-asexual can use their brain and their creativity and empathy, to imagine what it’s like to be us, and gain some understanding of how we operate. Sitting there and saying over and over that asexuality makes no sense, that it is incomprehensible, while we struggle to come up with more and more metaphors and examples to help the non-asexual understand, seems like nothing but assholery to me.

There will be people out there that simply don’t want to understand asexuality, or accept it. That is not our fault; asexuality is not incomprehensible or especially difficult to grasp. Just because there is debate over terminology does not mean we are too ‘confusing’. There are arguments over what it means to be bisexual and pansexual all the time.

We did not invent the term “sexual attraction”. The fact that people have trouble understanding what that term means is less a testament to asexuality’s supposed inherent incomprehensibility than it is to the extreme ignorance of sexual matters that is prevalent throughout the world. Much IS vague and unknown about sexual attraction, sexual desire, why people will have sexual chemistry with some people but not others, why people have different sexual orientations, etc. You know, there are a lot of gay people that could not explain what it is that makes them gay, but that does not make their orientation any less valid.
I know a lot of non-asexual people are not coming at this from a good place to understand. Many of us, asexual and non-asexual alike, do not have a good knowledge base about sexual matters (yes, even those people who have lots of sex and are sex-positive). We have had a candidate running for the U.S Senate make a public statement that revealed that he did not even understand very well how a woman becomes pregnant. While some of us may  not be that bad off, the majority of us have had little formal education about sexuality. And sex is a huge part of human life. Like food, it is in every culture and population across the world, and our species’ survival could not be maintained without it.

Okay, I guess I actually do like the food metaphors. What I don’t like is people who refuse to try and understand asexuality, and instead want us to wear ourselves out in the search for the perfect example, metaphor, or explanation that will make us valid in their eyes. I also don’t like people who keep knowledge of  human sexuality and food production out of our education system.

See, that’s what I love about writing these posts. They’re great for helping you to understand what actually has you ticked off. This is of course a really bad way to run a blog, starting off your post criticizing one thing and then supporting it in the end. WELL. I think we know what my thoughts on consistency are…

 

Oh look, a non-ace with brand-new ideas about demisexuality. Not.

Today I had a nasty shock when I went to leave a link to my prior post on the “Shameless Self Promotion Sunday” post over at Feministe. That nasty shock was because I came across a nasty, ignorant post about demisexuals. (Don’t worry, we asexuals got plenty of mud slung at us as well) Here is a link in full to the post in it’s drivelling entire (although I suggest not clicking; the author doesn’t deserve any more hits): On the “demisexuals”. It’s full of the usual stereotypes directed at asexuals and demisexuals, and is so full of stupid I literally had to clap my hands in applause to the author.

Now I am going to quote and address her points because well, such stupid shite should not go without a rebuttal on the internets.

“Have you heard of people who have started calling themselves “demisexuals“? These are folks who claim they are being oppressed for only being able to desire sexually people whose personalities they like and with whom they want to have a romantic relationship. “

No, that’s incorrect. However, I’m not surprised you didn’t bother to do any actual research into the topic you’re discussing. That seems to be your usual modus operandi. As fas as I can tell, there are no sexual orientations who’s creation as an identity was rooted mainly in oppression. Sexual orientations are identities usually created to describe the way one is attracted to people, who you are attracted to, etc. Demisexuals are actually people who cannot experience sexual attraction toward someone unless they already know that someone closely and have forged a strong emotional connection.

To be honest, I don’t understand the difficulty people are having with understanding this identity. To me, it seems like it’s probably not an uncommon state to be in, even if many people don’t develop for themselves a specific identity in relation to it. To me, the more words we have to describe what we want from relationships, and what we are open for, the better. I cannot see how more clarity, more specificity, in regards to our sexualities can be a bad thing.

As for the claiming-oppression bit, most demisexuals do not claim to be oppressed because of their sexuality. And I cannot for the life of me understand why they get that associated with them more than any other group that has some members who think they are oppressed (like polyamorists. Some poly people think they are oppressed by society. But I have heard no one saying “Oh, polyamory? That’s that identity based on people thinking they are oppressed for having multiple partners.”)

“Everybody is now bashing such folks for daring to claim they are oppressed but I wanted to point out that, as ridiculous as the idea of society persecuting these “demisexuals” is, these are people who are suffering from a sexual problem.

That’s funny. According to your blog bio, you are not in fact a medical doctor, let alone one specializing in psychiatry and human sexuality. So yes, please tell us more about how an entire group of people is suffering from sexual problems. Or, you know, you could quit making wild assumptions about hundreds of people you don’t know, have never met, and know nothing about.

“To be a “demisexual” you have got to be a person who has interiorized the idea that sex is bad and dirty and who needs to justify his or her sexual desires as being at the service of some socially acceptable goal (e.g. finding a stable relationship.) “

Ok, you must know what you said sounds pretty stupid. I’d love to hear if you actually have anything to back up this little theory of yours, although I seriously doubt it. You know what? Some people can get it up for the hot guy they just met in the taxi. Other people can’t. Big deal. You don’t need to make baseless assumptions like “Oh, they can’t get hot for the guy in the taxi till they’ve had dinner with him a couple times? Golly, they must think sex is dirty and wrong and eviiiiiiiiil!!!!11”

Or you know, they could just be someone who needs to know taxi guy a little better before they can experience sexual attraction. But yeah, go ahead and go with the over-complicated, negative option because that’s more dramatic, right?

“The problem with treating them compassionately, however, is that such folks with stunted sexualities are extremely likely to act as an oppressive force. These are the people who have fits of hysteria when they realize that others might be having sex just for the sake of enjoyment. Anti-choicers, anti-contraception folks, anti-pornography and anti-masturbation crowd – these are all people who have stunted their own sexualities and hate everybody else for not doing the same. “

Now you get down to the good stuff! Asexuals and demisexuals are all oppressive, hateful, sex-negative, and our sexualities are stunted, have I got that right?. Nice. Ever heard of the word, “stereotype” much? I’ll go ahead and educate you though. Many asexuals and demisexuals masturbate, enjoy porn, enjoy having sex just for the sake of enjoying it, are pro-choice, are pro-contraception, anddddddd, here’s the shocker: most of us are sex-positive. Sure, not all of us are. But, the same is true for people who aren’t asexual or demisexual.

Isn’t it nice to know there are people out there who think things like this about us? They’ve never met us, but they already magically know that we’re conservative sexually-repressed oppressors just because we’re asexual or demisexual. You know, the lack of research done by the author into this topic she felt justified in spouting off oh-so-knowledgeably about really does amuse me. There are so many anti-asexual people on tumblr that have got our number so much better. They may say we’re spoiled socially awkward hipsters who like wearing scarves and chilling with our cats and panting after Sherlock, but you know what? At least they bothered to look at us and base their generalizations on something (you know, other than their own imagination).

And that makes their crap kind of funny. It’s funny because those people have added an element of truth to their stereotyping; a lot of us DO like Sherlock. A lot of us probably are socially-awkward college kids who have cats. But you know what is actually a rarity among asexuals and demisexuals? The conservative, repressed, sex-negative type. You really don’t see that too much among us, in fact, I can’t think of anyone ace or demi that I have met or seen anywhere that is anything like the stereotype Clarissa paints at all.

Clarissa appears to be just yet another ignorant person who would prefer to create and perpetuate negative, stereotyped ideas about asexuals, and make the world a little more ignorant and hateful towards us. I wish my fellow aces much luck and support in dealing with this kind of ignorant assholery out in the world.

(Notes/Disclaimer: I am not demisexual, so I am not the best source on such matters. I can say I am, however, a better source of info on demisexuality than Clarrissa; in fact, so is my dog. To any demisexual readers, I hope I have described your orientation accurately, fairly, and have not did it any disservice.)