• Call me Lenny/Leni
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    11 months ago

    Not really something most people are going to call a slur, but asexuality is hugely misunderstood it seems and it doesn’t help to be called things like a “waste of flesh” or “fair game” by people whose minds live chronically in the gutter.

      • speck@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Because your deviance threatens my… Idk. My Monday night football or something

      • Call me Lenny/Leni
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        11 months ago

        The biggest thing is it’s a huge source of incompatibility. Most people can either be categorized into two groups, those who can’t imagine themselves in bed and those who can’t imagine themselves not in bed. If you’re asexual, that means you’re not turned on by anything which would make you say yes to the bed thing, which means, according to non-asexuals, that the other person is left hanging. That’s a part of the first insult though not the whole story, and some often have argued it ruins the point of a relationship.

        This leads to a few misconceptions, some which were too silly to mention such as asexuals not being of any gender (misunderstanding that asexuality here is not in the sense of having no gender like with sponges). Asexuality is a spectrum and can be categorized based on certain characteristics, for example libidoist asexuals refer to those with fetishes (like me) while non-libidoist asexuals are those with no feeling whatsoever, or another categorization is whether they are “averse” (which means they actively get discomfort from physical thoughts) or non-averse (which means they’re indifferent, again this describes me). I am somewhere on the spectrum where I could theoretically get in bed with someone but I would both not feel anything as well as need guidance on what to say and do because it doesn’t come naturally to me, though I also would prefer not to have those moments in bed. Typically my way of pleasuring is the old visiting the batcave.

        Add to these the fact that, historically, a lot of people have used asexuality as an excuse to get out of things. If someone has had their physical morality questioned, often they might say “I’m not a _____, I’m, uhm, asexual, yes that’s what I am”. This over time has caused a stigma towards it which gets even worse when you’re like me and find myself in situations where I turn one person down because they go against the precise preferred circumstances but then am discovered mentioning/doing something that “seems” to them as ominously non-asexual (such as me mentioning turn-ons) because, again, they don’t realize it’s a spectrum. It also doesn’t help that people often ask me when I’ll cease to be a maiden, this idea still lingering in peoples’ heads that everyone should marry.

        The icing on the cake is what many would call the incel movement. I don’t know what goes on in these peoples’ minds, but from the sound of it, they seem to hold onto the Aristotelian idea that people are, by their nature, entitled to physical intimacy, and that asexuality is an offense to human nature. Every now and then some interactions somewhere remind me that hate of this kind is omnipresent to the point that I can’t give total benefit of the doubt to anyone to not have it in their minds that they’re ready to either confront me about it (or even act upon it) or tease me about it behind my back, such as being chased out of a whole association once over it. I feel like I need to seriously vet potential friends over this, and long exposure has drove the point home for me than natural urges are a liability to society and that, ideally, to be asexual is to be inclinationally above others. Many animals are naturally asexual (in the sense that they don’t get pleasure from the act) and often I fantasize about ourselves in their points of view if they were the intelligent species of Earth.

        • Thorny_Insight
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          11 months ago

          In my youth asexuality was kind of a gift because while my friends were chasing girls and sex I was doing the things I was actually interested in. Later in life, however, it has turned into a kind of a curse because unlike what everyone used to always tell me; most women actually do like sex and are really bummed out when you don’t. I hate that not being needy in this way is seen as the problem, though I get it.

          • Call me Lenny/Leni
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            11 months ago

            Same here. I do feel for certain things but nothing I could chase after, so I’m saved a little time each day. If not for another asexual pointing it out, I would’ve never known this to be unusual. Though I wouldn’t mind it and might enjoy certain aspects, I would be completely happy without any physical connection throughout my whole life if not for others being unhappy that I’m happy without it.