Potentially helpful things if you're being forced or strongly "encouraged" to go to therapy for your asexuality
While Swankivy wrote this in response to a specific person’s situation, I feel it’s got broad applicability, so I’m reposting it so that everyone can see it. Given the frequency with which aces run into problems with therapists, psychiatrists and other medical personnel, I’ll probably be reblogging this on a semi-regular basis so it stays available to anyone who needs it. It’s also linked from my sidebar.
This be important shit.
—BB
notsimplyagirl asked you:
From what I’ve gathered from the conferences I’ve gone to and the friends I’ve talked to it’s because of fear of being left for another person simply because of gender. While not a great reason to be bi-phobic or denying the existance of bisexuality it’s the one I’ve heard the most and oddly understand the most. I think it’s sucky, and close minded, and even bigoted but we still live in that society. I do my best to accept all my queer friends and straight friends no matter what they ID as.
Also, Ace in a poly relationship makes an enormous amount of sense to me, and your girlfriend is beautiful btw :P lol
Yeah, I’ve heard that at a few of the conferences I’ve gone to as well. I know that was also one of the fears my ex-girlfriend had. She was afraid I’d leave her for a guy. I never really understood the fear but I guess that’s because I didn’t have access to her brainnnnnns and she didn’t want to explain why in detail. I’m itching to go to a conference one of these days and ask why there’s more bi-phobia than pan-phobia. Bi-phobia appears to be more… I don’t know… prominent.
One of the reasons I’m so in love with polyamory is because it takes the weight of of one person’s shoulders. You don’t have to rely on one single person to fulfill your every desire and need. You don’t have to turn to one person when you… ahem… “have an itch to scratch” and you don’t need to. Also… I am totally biased, but I don’t care. My girlfriend is INSANELY beautiful. She’s gorgeous. She and my wife are the cat’s meow, yo. The cat’s meow. Which sounds a little weird now that I think about it since my girlfriend’s name is Cat. BUT HEY!
Anonymous asked:
I don’t get how you can be asexual and in a polyamorous relationship. It just doesn’t seem like it works.
It works because there’s different types and levels of attractions. The attraction I feel for my girlfriend is romantic (and sensual), the attraction I feel towards my wife… well there’s a lot of different types - but I’ll go into that on a different post.
The most common types that I’ve seen people refer to are: aesthetic, romantic, sensual, and sexual. There’s more, of course, but these are the types of attraction that I’m well studied up on and am comfortable discussing. These are also the ones that apply to this post.
Aesthetic attraction is basically when you see someone who’s visually pleasing to you -you don’t have the desire to be romantically or sexually involved with them. You just find them visually pleasing to look at.
Romantic attraction is easier to feel than to explain; you can tell when you want someone to be your friend or you want someone to be your partner. When you want someone to be your partner, when you want to commit yourself to them - that is romantic attraction. It’s usually also accompanied with the thought that this person is just so beautiful… because to you, they are. It’s not an easy attraction to explain.
There’s sensual attraction which pretty much involves touchy-feely feelings. Hand holding… hugging, kissing sometimes (but not always - boundaries people… boundaries).
Sexual attraction is where you have a desire to have sexual intimacy with someone.
I have a romantic and sensual attraction with my girlfriend… it’s actually also aesthetic considering I find her incredibly beautiful. I have a/n aesthetic, romantic, sensual and sexual attraction when it comes to my wife okay and a lot more feelings are involved for both of them but if I have to squish everything down into one word things…
Anonymous asked you:
do asexuals like strippers - i heard you went to poly strip and i know your girlfriend is ace and stuff… is she comfortable with sex and stuff around her? i’m just curious. how does she react to stuff you and your wife do without her?
The very first thought that popped into my head was, “strippers are people too,” but that has to do with a completely different conversation.
I think it’s impossible to lump everyone who identifies as asexual into one group because everyone is different. There are plenty of people who enjoy just watching the human body - seeing someone move with confidence is sexy for some and simply pleasing to the eye for others. It’s like seeing art work in motion.
I’m not sure if my girlfriend is particularly fond of watching people strip - haven’t asked I should probably do that. But I know she’s far more comfortable when sexyteims and things related to said sexyteims aren’t poking her in the face wait that makes it sound like I poke people in the face with sex toys. We pretty much just don’t flaunt sex in her face because that would be crossing boundaries she’s not comfortable with.
I don’t know how to answer this question properly, I guess. Without just constantly repeating, “everyone is different.” I mean there are some asexuals who masturbate, there are some who get horny and what not but flail at the thought of doing something about it, there are also asexuals who just don’t get turned on.
And I mean… stripping doesn’t have to be about sex for someone.
Gah, jumbled mess of thoughts. Sorry.
I find that I am regularly insulted for my girlfriend every time someone says “asexuality is just a phase” or that “if you are asexual you cannot be in a poly relationship.”
To me that is the equivalent of saying: humanity is just a phase (I mean it could be, of course; who knows, maybe they take their Vampire the Masquerade/Requiem LARPing far too seriously and their humanity pool is dwindling) or you can’t be poly if you’re heterosexual.
How does someone’s sexuality define their relationship? Since when does love equate to sex and since when does polyamory equate to sex? I think some people may be getting their terms mixed up - swinging is about sex, not the emotional connection but the physical one (or at least that’s how it was explained to me as by a lovely swinger couple, no insult intended - I’m not a swinger and therefore have no true insight into that lifestyle other than what I am told by swingers).
- Just because you have sex doesn’t mean you’re in a relationship.
- Just because you’re in a relationship doesn’t mean you have to have sex.
Back to my original thing though - how does being asexual automatically exclude you from being in a relationship? Let alone a poly relationship.
Being poly isn’t about sex (some people have physical and emotional connections with each other, some people just have emotional connections with each other but there’s always that emotional layer) it’s about love. You can have a relationship built purely on emotional intimacy.
So maybe I’m a bit biased here… I can’t be in a relationship if I don’t have an emotional connection with someone. My wife and I started dating after being friends for a year (Okay… granted… that year is probably going to be known as the “Year of Lesbian Sheepitude-y-ness”). But it still confounds me - how does sex define your relationship? How does sexuality define your relationship?
So I just wanted to express a two facts of life since apparently this arguement is still going on and my girlfriend is still getting annoying anons.
- Asexuals != Unicorns
- Sex != Love
Gah, it just irks me the wrong way when somebody tries to tell another person that their sexuality is invalid, or that sex needs to be involved when you’re in a loving relationship with someone.
My girlfriend is a unicorn, but it’s purely because of her ability to radiate rainbows. This is only rivaled by my own ability to do so - seriously… both of the women in my life… like… ooze rainbow awesome…
A helpful resource - AVEN.
I think I may have referenced it a few times on my personal blog and on here as well.
AVEN is the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
It is an incredibly amazing resource for asexuals and self-education in general. We’ve actually used it at my university when running the Safe Space program.
- Also, in case you were wondering what Safe Space is, it is a program that is designed to help educators create a safe space for LGBTQIA+ youth in school. After training is complete educators place the “safe space” sticker on their door or where it is generally visible. It’s PRIDE colors which helps out people who don’t know but need a place to go.
darkhavenslight asked you:
I think I’m poly. The idea of having other partners is appealing even though I’m completely devoted to my current boyfriend. Okay, maybe I just want an open relationship. I’m not sure. I’m feeling very confused right now and a little hurt I guess because my boyfriend is monogamous by nature and because past girlfriends screwed him over in open relationships before. I don’t know how to talk to him about it without making him feel bad because he’s asexual and I have a high libido drive. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know where to start when trying to figure all of this tangled mess inside of me and I’m not sure if I’m just being greedy and horny or what. I don’t really have a friend to talk to about this and found y’all through a poly tag and just kind of hoped y’all would have some thoughts. Thanks…
My wife probably has a lot more insight into this than me since she’s amazing with the written word, but, the only advice I can give is talk to him about it. If he isn’t comfortable with an “open” relationship maybe try discussing polyfidelity or polyexclusivity.
Polyfidelity/polyexclusivity basically means that all partners are considered equal within the relationship and all members agree only to be sexually active with members in the relationship. It’s a closed relationship rather than an open relationship.
This is the type of relationship my wife, girlfriend and I are in; as I stated previously, my wife is pansexual/homoromantic, my girlfriend is asexual/grey-romantic and I am pansexual/panromantic. Granted, our situation is different since my wife and I were together before we were romantically involved with our girlfriend.
Communication, communication, communication; it might hurt him a little bit but you need to talk to him about this.
Why I post about my experiences with asexuality.
So as of now I’ve had two people explain how sex-positivity isn’t ‘about me’ as an asexual. How asexuals don’t actually experience harmful messages about sex. How asking the sex-positive community to include us in their thinking is “selfish.”
So I’m going to go ahead and open up about something I’ve never been open about on here before. I kind of feel like I need to share this story in order for people to understand why I feel the need to post about my experience as an asexual.
This is why I refuse to let people make light of asexuality and rights. Because my girlfriend *points to the above* had to go through this and because so many others go through this.
