My asexual perspective on the interaction between “Sex-Positive” views, Compulsory Sexuality, & AVEN

I read Siggy’s new post, Sex-aversion, for sex-positive audiences, and then I was reading Aqua’s comment, and it made me want to share some of my own thoughts and experiences.

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Trigger Warnings for rape, discussions of loss-of-virginity, etc. Please tell me if I should word this differently or add something else to this list.

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I found out about the sex-positive movement before I found out about asexuality’s existence.

I watched pretty much every one of Laci Green’s videos and I also heard Dr. Darrel Ray speak in various atheist podcasts I listened to, and there were probably a few other places that sex-positivity seeped into my world.

At first, when it was a distant possibility for me, when I wasn’t close to dating anyone, when I knew I’d be single for the forseeable future (so the next few months), I loved learning about sex. And the sex-positive movement felt like a great place to do it.

At a basic level, I’ve always thought that “Sex-positive” was a reactionary term to the idea that sex is inherently a negative, sinful thing (or at least certain kinds of sex – premarital, homosexual, “sodomy”, etc). Sex-positive people are people that recognize that there is nothing morally wrong with fully consensual sexual acts of any kind, and sex-positive people on the whole believe that shaming people for things that aren’t hurting anyone – being gay, their specific fantasies and kinks, etc – is wrong. (Yes, the sex-positivity movement is a lot more complicated than that, but that is how I viewed it and… and how I mainly still do, when looking at it on its most basic level.)

So when I first was actually dating and realized I felt no chemistry when I experienced my first kiss, and I got to the point of considering “Is there a chance that I am asexual?”, I finally went on to the AVEN forums, which was the only place, at the time, that I knew to look for any asexuality discussion.

I really LIKED the “it’s great if people who enjoy it have sex” rhetoric being something around there on that site, and I agreed with it, and if I had posted more than lurked, I might’ve ended up repeating the sentiment myself. I’m fairly certain I myself never said anything along those lines over there, but I read what other people wrote. I read a rape-survivor’s experience on that site where she wanted to have surgery to repair her torn hymen because she wanted her virginity back, and never wanted to lose her virginity (she was ace and sex-repulsed) and I appreciated what people said in response to her about virginity being a sexist and antiquated concept and I don’t remember if the issue of her being raped was handled properly or sensitively enough, but my impression at the time was that people were generally kind, understanding, and wanting to make the world as a whole a better place by encouraging people to adopt sex-positive views. I think people handled her rape as a serious thing that is very different than just “losing your virginity”. I felt immediately comfortable in the sex-positive environment I saw on AVEN.

If everyone had been super negative sex and shamed allosexuals for things that allosexuals didn’t deserve to be shamed for, I would have felt uncomfortable in the community. For all of the people who say that AVEN made them feel uncomfortable because of their sex-positivity, I just wanted to express the alternate viewpoint that I, myself, actually felt more comfortable there because of it. I was already a sex-positive person. And I needed a sex-positive place or else I wouldn’t have felt I belonged.

I think one main reason why this sex-positive sentiment was important to me at the time, even though it turns out I am somewhere between sex-indifferent and sex-averse myself, is because I legitimately wanted to understand myself, and I knew that a relatively common societal belief is that losing your virginity makes you “dirty” and that sex is shameful and sinful, or that enjoying porn is “Wrong”, etc… and so I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I wasn’t repressing any true desires. I didn’t want “sex-negativity” to be the only reason I didn’t feel anything positive toward the prospect of sex, so I made sure that yes, I was thoroughly on board with the prospect of sex-positivity and agreed with that philosophy. I became sure that I didn’t think less of other people for giving in to temptations that were not hurting anyone. And I got to the point where I knew I wouldn’t think less of myself for doing such a thing either. I wouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to give in to my own temptations, if I had any. It was only then that I could fully realize and accept that I didn’t have any sexual temptations, and in fact had some small aversion to sex/sexual things – the opposite of a sexual temptation, really. I had a temptation to avoid it.

I hadn’t realized yet how much the sex-positive movement had hurt me, though, because I’d entrenched myself in it for years and the compulsory sexuality there is insanely strong. Being in a sex-positive environment means surrounding yourself with the FALSE rhetoric that we are all “sexual beings” (meaning allosexual) and we all feel sexual attraction and we all enjoy sex or will someday when we finally become sexually active, and everyone will be sexually active eventually, and the idea that anyone who doesn’t masturbate or doesn’t feel sexual attraction is LYING. I didn’t realize how wrong these messages were at first. I internalized them as true, and then felt very confused when I myself didn’t line up with any of them. When my experiences & feelings contradicted all of them.

I also remember seeing the sentiment over on AVEN that it was OKAY to be a virgin for life. To never want to have sex, not even “just to try it”. The compulsory sexuality that I had been so entrenched in in the sex-positive movement was being challenged, and it was jarring for me. It was that feeling of “Wow, wait, I maybe won’t ever be “Ready” for sex, because it’s not a matter of “not being ready yet” for me, it’s something else, it’s my sexual orientation” and combined with that, it was “Wait, is it really okay? Don’t I have to have sex?” Because I had internalized so much about compulsory sexuality, I couldn’t really believe that it was acceptable to never have sex. I felt like it still was compulsory for me to try sex, but my personal experiences on just a few threads on AVEN’s forums I don’t think were making that feeling worse. I think they actually said some good things that combated the compulsory sexuality mentality.

I think heteronormativity and compulsory sexuality both hurt me, growing up and into my adult life, and they made me take longer than it should’ve to accept my true asexual self and my true sex-averse feelings. I think AVEN and the sex-positive movement have both broken free, almost entirely, from heteronormativity, but that they both are entrenched in compulsory sexuality. I think it is possible to be a sex-positive asexual posting good comments on AVEN forums that combat the compulsory sexuality narratives, just like it is possible to try to combat compulsory sexuality even if you’re a sex-positive allosexual… but it is also possible to be a sex-positive asexual posting comments on AVEN that perpetuate compulsory sexuality. I was lucky to not run into people telling aces to try sex, and I am aware that I was lucky.

I just wanted to share my point of view and what I experienced.

The story of “Hansel and Gretel” really resonated with me as a child

This post does mention my asexuality very briefly, but mainly this post touches on the fandom and family parts of my blog and takes a break from asexuality-related discussions, FYI. The main fandom discussed is an unusual one, one most people wouldn’t call a fandom… lol… but I would like to think it counts. I also bring up Harry Potter at one point. 😉

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 I would recommend you read my “The Insidious Nature of Abuse” post first, which I wrote back in April. It deals with many similar topics as what I have just now written about, below. I also discussed some stuff about my family situation in my “Lack of Awareness/Education Leads to False Assumptions… aka It Would’ve Been Great to Have Heard of that Term Sooner!” post and probably in a few other posts too.

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So my dad and I went to Kohl’s on the Friday night a little over a week ago to buy some new socks for ourselves and the first thing that caught my eye upon entering the store was a Mercer Mayer collection of newly released children’s books, including an adaptation of Hansel and Gretel. I picked up a copy of the book and began leafing through it curiously, and was quite disappointed to find my favorite part of the story – by far the most memorable part, for me – being entirely skipped over as the story starts with Hansel and Gretel already stumbling upon the witch’s cabin in the woods.

My response to an anonymous tumblr user who has been struggling with figuring out their sexuality, societal expectations, etc.

This was posted on my tumblr first, but I decided to share it here too. Someone anonymous asked me a question, broken up into 7 “to be continued” parts (tbc) because tumblr’s “Ask” system only allows people to ask questions with a limited number of characters.

If I have said something I shouldn’t have said, please let me know. I had recently checked out this linkspam of Queenie’s on giving ace advice, but I had read through these things before realizing I’d be getting an ask and an opportunity to give advice. When I read the “How to” on giving advice, I was looking at it was an outside perspective, as an onlooker, as an observer, not realizing it would apply to me too soon. So I feel like, now that the time has come to give out advice to questioning people, I probably did something wrong.

I am nervous posting this here on my blog – a blog that many asexual bloggers follow. I am much more nervous than I’d be just keeping it on my tumblr, because I fear many people might criticize how I said what I said, but I feel like sharing this is important. I did say what I said and I don’t want to hide that. I think these types of experiences such as the anon’s are important to be heard, and I’d like to hear feedback on how I replied and if people think I should have just not replied or if I should have said things differently, or what. I would like to learn and improve myself for the future in case this happens again, where someone else talks to me for advice. The tumblr user remains anonymous so I don’t think it hurts to share it more publicly, and besides, my blog is followed by a fairly limited number of people, so it’s not like I’m really sharing this “with the whole world”.

Anonymous asked:

This isnt the best format so please forgive the multiple submissions and disjointedness. I recently came across this blog and wanted to say thank you to you and others with similar ones. I have struggled with figuring out my own sexuality and not necessarily thought there was something wrong with me, I just knew that I didn’t have the same feelings, views as others but I didnt have words or labels or context to try to understand why or what they meant…

…Reading posts on here makes me feel a little bit better about that. I am still trying to figure out who I am, I do know that I find myself attracted (I don’t even know if that is the right word) to both men and women, but thinking about sex with another person (man or woman) does not sound appealing to me. Thats not to say I don’t have sexual desires – just the thought of myself and sex with someone doesnt seem to compute, if that makes sense…

…Obviously a big part of my struggle is what society views as normal, not just re sexuality, but kids, school, work, etc. I grew up in a suburban area with a good school system, people were expected to go to college, find a job, get married have kids etc. I did the first 2 because they were easy, but I don’t know about the rest…

…I’m not sure I even want to have kids. I dont know if its because I cant even figure out who I am, how am I supposed to raise a child, be there for them, answer their questions if I struggle with myself and my own questions? It could be I just dont want kids, but I dont know and it is so infuriating that I cant tell which one it is…

…When I was in high school I had asked my mom if she would be okay with it if I were gay. I was shocked when I saw the look of sheer disappointment on her face. I honestly thought she would be open about it, but I guess I was wrong. I thought she would be understanding because my uncle is gay and she was there for him during his coming out and they have a very close relationship even now. I cant wrap my mind around how she can be so accepting of her brother, but not of her own child…

…I don’t want to blame all my issues on her, but I feel that that one moment made me want to be try my hardest to be “normal” that it set my figuring out process back. Even thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes – tears of anger, frustration and sadness…

…I have never talked about my feelings with anyone and I am thankful for the anonymity of the internet, because I don’t think I would be able to discuss this with people I know personally (at least not any time in the near future). I’m not going to say I feel better, because honestly I dont, I’m still confused and don’t know what to do about it, but I would say it does feel nice to have expressed my feelings in some format for the first time in my life, so thank you.

Wow. Thank you for sending me your anonymous “Ask”, all 7 parts of it. I know you weren’t really asking for my advice, or opinion, but then again you did share your story and feelings and experiences with me in the form of an “Ask”, so I’d like to respond a little if I could. I’ll put it after a “Read more” break because this has ALREADY gotten long from just your question, and my response is gonna be even longer.

What Does a Real Asexual Look Like?

I think so much of this needs to be said, and in a way this post by Ace in Lace works well as a follow up to my own post for this carnival: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/your-asexuality-has-been-made-unassailable-for-you/

I think it works well in correlation with my own post, because of the “So what?” section. I recommend that everyone read the whole thing, because while I stand by my original post, I also agree with everything here. I think they complement each other in some ways, rather than contradict. 😀

Ace in Lace

The August 2014 Carnival of Aces is on The Unassailable Asexual. The Pure Asexual. The Gold-Star Asexual. True Asexuals. Real Asexuals.

These are all terms to describe the kinds of asexuals that meet whatever qualifiers someone has set for what makes up an asexual.

There is an agreement on what makes someone an asexual that is widely agreed on. “Does not experience sexual attraction”. Few people dispute that definition. The problem is that there are so many people out there that have decided there are other qualifiers to being considered a “real” asexual. Not only must you not experience sexual attraction, you must also not masturbate. Or have sex with your partner for any reason. Or you must never have been raped or traumatized. Or you must not be physically impaired or its probably the physical impairment that’s causing the asexuality, you’re not a real asexual in those people’s eyes.

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My “wtfromantic” identity label has become very significant to me…

Queenie of Aces just wrote a new post on Prioritizing Identity, and a wonderful conversation has been happening in the comments too.

This post is a response to that. I branch off to one specific part of the discussion though, and don’t talk much about the whole… um… “Are Aces Queer” discussion or some of the other things in the post. But I might leave a comment on that post to address one of the other sides of the discussion.

Queenie mentions:

…you can divide aces into four groups:

• Group 1: Aces who consider their romantic orientation more important than their sexual orientation.

• Group 2: Aces who consider their sexual orientation more important than their romantic orientation.

• Group 3: Aces who consider their sexual and romantic orientations equally important or who prioritize different orientations at different times.

• Group 4: Aces who don’t identify with a romantic orientation and thus consider this whole categorization system boring and pointless.

And there is a lot more in the post worth reading but I figured quoting at the very last this small part here was necessary, because I would like to refer back to “Group 4” or whatever and you be able to quickly and easily scroll back up and understand which group I am talking about.

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As someone who on the surface is a Group 4 person, “Aces who don’t identify with a romantic orientation and thus consider this whole categorization system boring and pointless”, I wouldn’t quite agree with the second half of the statement. I mean… yes, I don’t identify with a romantic orientation, but…

I find the whole categorization system to be so many things, but NOT boring and NOT pointless. I find it amazing and wonderful, I find it enlightening and it seems useful to a lot of people and because of that in some ways useful to me too, but at the same time confusing, frustrating, and inadequate for me, myself. I find it fascinating and worth discussing more. I like the system, I mainly have positive feelings toward it, and really, all of the confusion and frustration I feel is more pointed at myself for not fitting into it quite right. The system itself seems pretty great because without it I feel like we’d all be SO LOST lol and even if I don’t fit in it quite perfect, having the system is so much better than having nothing.

But because it’s so hard for me to find my place in it, to figure out the difference between romance and non-romance, I definitely find myself falling more in Group 2 and just calling myself asexual and not worrying too much about my romantic orientation for practical purposes. My asexuality is a clearer part of my identity, so it’s easier to focus on. You physically *can’t* focus eyes on the foggy, blurry, unfocused mess of a romantic orientation that is “maybe heteroromantic, or maybe bi or panromantic, but maybe just aromantic”. It’s too vague or self-contradictory and you don’t even know what you’re looking at. So you focus on the asexuality, the clear simplicity of that, especially when you’re like me – a non-libidoist, not even close to gray type of ace who is pretty sure she’s averse to sex too and plans to remain celibate for the rest of her life. Asexuality becomes kind of “cut and dry”.

But THEN AGAIN, there are times when I almost feel like I’m in Group 1, when the fact that I am wtfromantic matters a lot to me, where the fact that I am asexual is a given, a background “yeah, you and I know that about my identity, let’s move on” type of thing. My asexuality can, sometimes, become a practical non-factor, because for those moments what matters to me is: “What even is my goal in life? Am I looking for a boyfriend? Should I delete my stupid OkCupid profile because I’m aromantic anyway?” When I’m at an ace-meetup (I’ve only been to two of these, ever, and both within the past 2 months, FYI) of course I’m ace, we all are, so it’s our romantic orientations that make us different and suddenly I feel kind of weird – or at least “special”, lol – when person after person is completely secure in being aromantic or one young woman thought they were a lesbian before realizing they were ace and I am met with wide eyes and a bit of surprise when I explain that I actually did online dating… with (*gasp*) 3 different guys… and even the people who talk of heteronormative experiences, of dating (or in one guy’s case, marrying) the “opposite” gender, etc. don’t actively identify as heteroromantic, and I don’t want to identify as heteroromantic either, it feels important to me to express that I am actually currently identifying as wtfromantic – as not necessarily aromantic, but not definitively hetero-romantic.

…and then I’m writing a fanfic where I’m making a girl have asexual experiences a lot like mine, and I need to tag it on AO3, and I don’t know whether to tag it aromantic or not and I spend way more time actually thinking about that stupid thing than I should… and yeah my wtfromantic identity (and my character’s) end up mattering a lot in my life, and I basically feel like I am in Group 1, where I don’t even know how to end my fanfiction story, because what does my character even want?

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When reading Queenie’s post just now, that one that this whole post is basically just a reply to, I noticed when she discussed the Group 4 aces that she linked to 3 tumblr discussions that I clicked on and read and I ended up in an internet-death-spiral of reading other people’s tumblr comments on these same posts as the whole thing is a bunch of people reblogging reblogs and adding their own comments along the way. And I found the discussion facsinating. One of the most fascinating things that I found indirectly because of this “Prioritizing identity” post of Queenie’s just now was where Sciatrix questioned:

*Are* people thinking of “wtfromantic” as a distinct identity?

And I looked at that and thought… I think yes, yes I actually have been, lately. I’ve been thinking of myself as a wtfromantic asexual and feeling comfortable in that label.

When I read The Ace Theist’s post recently, “Re: Greyness 301”, and also the linked/heavily referenced epochryphal.tumblr.com original Greyness 301 post I left the first comment. The Ace Theist and Cor had been talking about grey-asexuality. Grayness in terms of sexual attraction and stuff. They talk about how confusing and messy it is. I never wanted to call myself a “gray-romantic” before reading that post, but when reading it and seeing how well their descriptions of “greyness” in regards to sexual orientation fit my whole relationship with romantic orientation so well. Other people (Queenie, yes her again lol, and also Ace in Translation) agreed with me after that in the comments that they also related as gray-romantics.

I have been strongly identifying as wtfromantic over gray-romantic because I think the “wtf” accurately expresses so much that the gray doesn’t. Gray implies some middle ground, halfway points, etc… it implies a lot of things to me that I don’t think I am. Maybe I have been wrong to assume that gray means any of those things. But “WTF” expresses more of where I’m at – confusion, frustration, etc.

I’m not sure I have a good stopping point for this post, so I’m gonna stop right here. I’m going to end by saying I am pretty comfortable in the wtfromantic identity label for now. And it has been for months and months. I do think of it as BOTH a distinct romantic orientation label and a non-romantic orientation at the same time, somehow. I think it somehow is a good final answer, as I’m not sure things will ever get more clear/less confusing for me… but it’s also a state of being in perpetual questioning – which means the chance for answers to maybe be found, one day. It is what it is, and I, personally, am happy to have found it.

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For people who came to my blog searching for the term “wtfromantic”, consider reading this post: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/i-have-looked-through-what-search-terms-have-brought-people-to-my-blog/ about search terms that have brought people to my blog. Also, consider reading various other posts of mine, as I write about this topic fairly often.

Your Asexuality has been made “Unassailable” for you.

This is a post written for the August 2014 Carnival of Aces, which has the theme “The Unassailable Asexual”. Details are here: http://queenieofaces.tumblr.com/post/93501116848/august-2014-carnival-of-aces-call-for-submissions

And I apologize in advance if this gets ramble-y and confusing. I’m trying my best here but I’m aware it’s a bit convoluted.

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From what I can gather, the basic idea of “The Unassailable Asexual” or “Gold Star Asexual” is that many people aren’t unassailable when it comes to their asexuality. If you look up “unassailable” in The Free Dictionary, which compiles definitions from multiple different dictionaries, some of the relevant definitions are:

Impossible to dispute or disprove; undeniable.

or

not vulnerable to attack or assault.

I think the main purpose of discussing the idea of “the unassailable asexual” in the first place was probably to drive home the fact that it is difficult to fit this “ideal” mold. That all of the people who are not unassailable (who are assailable, if you will allow that,) are not alone; that a person’s asexual identity being able to be easily attacked is actually quite common.

It would be amazing if other people, both inside and outside of the ace community, would look at any random given asexual person and say, “Yeah, I believe you completely when you say your sexual orientation is asexual. I’m not gonna try to tell you you’re not ace. Of course you are.” But that is a fantasy.

Many people – heck, probably most people – have some specific aspect about who they are, how they act, or what they’ve experienced that makes them a target. Something that makes it so their asexuality is “assailable”.

It might be the fact that they fall on the autism spectrum. Or maybe it’s a history of having been abused, or perhaps it’s simply the fact that this person finds pleasure in something deemed too-sexual-for-the-person-to-still-be-asexual, such as reading erotica or masturbating at times. And countless other personal factors can become reasons their asexuality becomes doubted. There are so many ways this happens.

Interestingly, when you look up “assail” in the dictionary too, the definition isn’t only “to attack”, although yes, definitions #1 and #2 are such a thing.

But a notable thing is that there is also the following definition:

To trouble; beset: “was assailed by doubts.”

And that example sentence – “was assailed by doubts” – that is probably the most insidious of the ways failing to be an unassailable asexual person hurts us asexual people.

It’s not just other people attacking our label. It’s us, ourselves, doubting it fits – often before we have officially adopted the asexual label. We are asexual, deep down we know we don’t experience sexual attraction, and we’re really close to accepting that fact. But then we start to doubt it.

We think: “I have a lot in common with asexual people’s experiences, but can I really be asexual if I am a rape survivor?” or “I’m not sure I really am asexual, maybe it’s just my anxiety disorder making me feel this way where I don’t find other people sexy.”

From the inside out, we are assailing that “asexual” label too, and that is a very unfortunate place we find ourselves in.

I’ve seen a lot of newcomers to the ace community, often anonymously asking tumblr advice blogs or posting their question on the AVEN forums, saying “if ____, can I still count as an asexual person?” and overwhelmingly, most of the good advice I’ve seen dispensed is always “yes, you can be. The only thing that being asexual means is that you don’t experience sexual attraction. If you fit that definition, and you feel comfortable labeling yourself asexual, then you’re welcome here. Regardless of romantic orientation, if you have sex or if you’re celibate, if you enjoy sex or if you’re sex-repulsed, if it was caused or if you think your asexuality’s innate.” I see this good advice being dished out regularly, and I’m happy about that. I think that is the right message to be sending.

This way, the newcomer to our ace community has had their asexuality made unassailable. It’s not a vulnerable identity anymore. If you come out to a new friend and say, “Hey, I’m asexual”

and your friend says, “But that can’t be true, I know you like to use a sex toy for masturbation – I’ve seen it in your bedroom,”
you aren’t vulnerable to that attack.

You can easily defend yourself and say, “The fact that I masturbate doesn’t make me any less asexual. I don’t experience sexual attraction to people and that is that.”

I think this is a powerful and important thing, for our own sakes first and foremost. Even if your friends and family still doubt your asexual sexual orientation, if you know that you can be secure in your asexual identity label, then you can go on with your life as a happier, more confident person. And the more confident you are about your own asexuality, the more likely everyone around you in your life will accept that the label is right for you.

Carnival of Aces: July 2014 Round-Up of Everything Submitted!!

Hey, everybody! It was my honor to host the Carnival last month. The theme was “Sex-Aversion & Sex-Repulsion”: https://luvtheheaven.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/july-2014-carnival-of-aces-call-for-submissions/

Like when I hosted the Carnival in April, again in July I was extremely impressed by the sheer number of different people who submitted a post.

I think 13 14 different people submitted things, plus Ace Admiral wrote something related during this past month of July (the month of the carnival), even if it isn’t actually submitted, so that brings us to fourteen fifteen different participants. Sometimes I forget the Ace Blogging community is actually even this big. 😉 It’s wonderful to hear from so many different voices and perspectives.

Queenie also compiled a collection (“linkspam”) of posts NOT written for this carnival but that were also about Sex-Aversion/Sex-Repulsion, so you should probably check all of those other links out too! Some of these are really old and many of you have probably read many of these things already… but in case you’ve missed them, they’re certainly worth reading: http://queenieofaces.tumblr.com/post/93122138058/teeny-tiny-linkspam-on-asexuality-and

Ace Admiral’s post that was not written for the carnival is not included in Queenie’s sex-repulsion/sex-aversion linkspam either, I’m pretty sure. So I’m including it right here. AceAdmiral Glossary: Repulsed vs. Averse. http://aceadmiral.tumblr.com/post/92242124558/aceadmiral-glossary-repulsed-vs-averse. You don’t have to read it, but you might find it interesting and relevant to this carnival. 😉 And it was posted on July 19th, 2014, right at the height of this carnival.

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I think I probably should have actually made the theme “Sex-Aversion, Sex-Repulsion, and Sex-Indifference“, now that all of the entries have been submitted. A lot of people, including me, discussed sex-indifference in their posts. Some people also brought up what being a sex-favorable ace means to either them or to others, and all 4 of these categories were heavily discussed topics this month. Actually, Talia over at The Asexual Agenda also wrote about Reflections on the Use and Boundaries of Sex-Favourable Asexual as a Term this month (July 2014) which was not a submission for the carnival, but which had a sub-section: Demarcating Sex-averse, Sex-neutral, and Sex-favourable and I highly recommend you check it out. 😉 It is pretty relevant to our discussion here.

Speaking of the 4 categories (Sex-Favorable, Sex-Indifferent, Sex-Averse, and Sex-Repulsed)… (#1) the first submission that I’ll mention is killerbee13’s post about why xe prefers the term sex-revulsion, yes “revulsion” with a v, and how xe doesn’t like any of those original 4 categories. Xe doesn’t feel any of them fit xyr experiences well. (“Revlusion” is the 5th one that xe came up with, and that xe thinks fits xem better.)

Somewhat similarly, Victrix over at Reflective Ace wrote about Sex-Adversion and Stress Responses (#2) – please note the “d” in the word “adversion”.  He and I had a discussion in the comments over on that post about the use of the word, because when I first read it I saw he only contrasted “Adversion” with “Repulsion” but he clarified for me that he made a conscious decision to use “Adversion”. 😉 However, the heart of his post is actually about the freeze stress response as an alternative to fight or flight and his personal experiences with it. So check it out and read a very interesting point of view on this general “sex-aversion & sex-repulsion” topic.

Third (#3), we will transition to Elizabeth Leuw’s post over on Prismatic Entanglements. Elizabeth wrote The False Dichotomy of Repulsion vs. Indifference and she discusses having been incorrectly assumed to be a “sex-favorable” ace by other ace bloggers who have linked to her old posts, and writes:

…there isn’t a label that fits me. It’s inaccurate to say I’m indifferent, and it’s also inaccurate to say I’m repulsed. I can’t categorize myself on a scale between Averse-Neutral-Favorable, because I range at different points on that scale at different times, depending on my mood. It doesn’t even make sense to me to make it a scale.

Check out the whole post.

Fourth (#4), I’ll link you to Hezekiah the (meta)pianycist’s Claiming a sex-repulsed identity post. Hezekiah discusses how without a clear definition of what is and isn’t “sex”, it’s difficult to decide whether or not to label yourself as “sex-repulsed”. In their post, they discuss various reasons for hesitating to adopt the label and:

It has taken me a long time to come to the point where I don’t think that defining sex in exact terms is necessary in order to call yourself sex-repulsed, and to be okay with claiming a label as an approximation, rather than as an exact thing. It’s completely okay for a label to be an approximation.

Fifth (#5), let me link you to the post I wrote for this month’s carnival, Am I sex-averse? Maybe. I have made a decision to identify as such. I discuss some somewhat similar issues – I discuss how it has been hard to pinpoint if I “count” as sex-averse or not.

#6: Pegasus over at Beyond the Rainbow also wrote about a very similar theme: Sex-Averse or Sex-Indifferent? and it discusses how:

I can of [course] label my feelings towards different types of sex separately – though this would be quite a long explanation, and kind of defeats the point of using a label.

and there is a lot of interesting nuance in this post as well. Please read Pegasus’s contribution to our carnival!

#7 Sara K. over at The Notes Which Do Not Fit wrote a poignant piece for the carnival called Why Are Sex-Indifferent Aces Assumed to Be Open to Sex? and

#8 The Thinking Asexual’s post, On Sex-Indifference vs. Sex-Aversion & Sex-Repulsion, is partially a direct response to what Sara K. said.

There is a good discussion in the comments on Sara K.’s post too, and in general these posts are both worth reading. These two perspectives are both actually quite different from the typical perspective we’ve gotten from sex-averse and sex-repulsed people this Carnival round. They are also quite different from each other though, of course… 😉 A lot of people’s perspectives this round were pretty unique, though.

For instance, another kind of different post is #9 where Ace in Translation over on the tristifere tumblr wrote Sex aversion, asexuality and identifying as bi and explained:

Instead of having a scrutinizing close-up view on the subject, I want to expand it and see how it interacts with other parts of someone’s identity.

and:

I’ve chosen to finally sit my ass down and write about a topic I’ve been meaning to untangle for some time now: my sex aversion, the sexualization of queer women, and bisexuals in particular, and my identification as bi – and more specifically why these intersections made my journey towards identifying as bi so hard.

There is also some discussion of what being averse vs. repulsed means in that post, and just a lot of good stuff worth reading, as there is in all of these posts, so please, try to find the time to check them all out!

#10 Nutmeg discusses being academically fascinated by sex from an objective point of view, socially being sex-averse, and personally being sex-repulsed.

#11 Ace Muslim wrote When the answer is always no: Sex aversion and my sex-negative feminism. Allow me to quote a small section:

I see sex repulsion as being like a live wire that electrocutes anyone who touches it – but sex aversion is a force field that prevents anyone (including me) from even getting near the live wire. Situations trigger the aversion response, and cause me to depart from them, long before the repulsion response might activate.

For submission #12 in our list here… we have Dragon from over at The Dragon and The Fox (a tumblr blog)’s submission on being sex-averse. This is combined with living by a code of internalized pleasure-negative rules and some interesting personal explanations about how Dragon specifically as a person has always felt about these things, and how she came to the realization that she was sex-averse.

Finally, Penultimately, (#13), last but certainly not least, we have queenieofaces’ submission, Not everybody wants to do it. The post is also on tumblr, if anyone prefers that or wants to reblog it over there or anything. 😉 Queenie wrote about a lot of really interesting and unique things in her post. She discussed allosexual people also not necessarily always wanting sex. This was the first sentence of one of the paragraphs:

There are a lot of reasons why a person who experiences sexual attraction may not really be that into sex.

and then it goes into some detail with examples and it is really worth reading the reminder that allosexual people are not all alike either.

She also discusses the prospect of needing sub-spaces for the different types of aces.

Even if it is possible for everyone to get their needs met in a single space, is that the heathiest and most productive way to go about it?  Maybe it would be better to have spaces that are aware of all the possibilities–sex-favorable, sex-averse, sex-indifferent, sex-repulsed, not digging the sex- labels–but are intended to cater to one subgroup (or intersection or interest) within the asexual spectrum.

And there is a ton of good stuff in that post – not to mention the many many wonderful links!! – so please, check it out. Queenie over at Concept Awesome, who wrote this final submission linked to in my list, also is the person who is hosting the Carnival of Aces this month, August 2014! The theme she’s picked for this month is the Unassailable Asexual, which she explains over there. Please check it out and consider submitting for it during this month of August! http://queenieofaces.tumblr.com/post/93501116848/august-2014-carnival-of-aces-call-for-submissions

UPDATE as of August 21st, 2014: Queenie just informed me of an important blunder I made. I  forgot to include:

#14, Stormy’s submission: http://rainbow-after-the-stormy.tumblr.com/post/92583535827/on-sexual-abuse-repulsion-and-aversion-in-the-asexual

She wrote a lot of good stuff about sexual assault, sex-aversion/repulsion, and asexuality. It’s a great piece for the carnival and certainly worth a read. I’m so sorry to have accidentally excluded it.

Thank you, everyone, for all of these wonderful submissions in July!

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If I somehow overlooked your post and didn’t include it in the above post, let me know in the comments, or by emailing me at pemk7@aol.com, or by telling me on tumblr. I’ll be sure to update this post asap to include the link! If you want to submit something slightly late for this July Carnival too, that’s fine. I can add it as submission #14 or something. It’s fine. Just let me know!