Y'know, Whenever People Want To Talk About Why Aspec People 'count' As An Oppressed Identity, They Tend

Y'know, whenever people want to talk about why aspec people 'count' as an oppressed identity, they tend to go for the big stuff like corrective rape and conversion therapy. And like, we should absolutely talk about that stuff. Obviously those things are terrible and important and we need to raise awareness and deal with them.

But I feel like people often gloss over how… quietly traumatising it is to grow up being told that there is only one way to be happy— and that everybody who doesn't conform to that norm is secretly miserable and just doesn't know it— and then to gradually realise that, for reasons that you cannot help, that is never going to happen for you.

You're not going to find a prince/princess and ride off into the sunset. Or if you do, then it's not going to look exactly the way it does in fairytales. You're not going to get a 'normal' relationship, because you are not 'normal', and everybody and everything around you keeps telling you that that's bad.

You see films where characters are presented as being financially stable, genuinely passionate about their work and surrounded by friends and family, but then spend the rest of the plot realising that the real thing they needed was a (romantic and sexual) partner, to make them 'complete'.

You absorb the idea that any relationships you have with allo people will ultimately be unfulfilling on their side, and that this will be your fault (even if you discussed things with your partner beforehand and they decided that they were a-okay with having those sorts of boundaries in a relationship) unless you deliberately force yourself into situations that you aren't comfortable with, so as to make uo for your 'defects'.

You grow up feeling lowkey gaslighted because all the adults in your life (even in LGBT+ spaces. In fact especially in LGBT+ spaces) are insisting that it's totally normal to not be attracted to anybody at your age, and then you go to school and everybody keeps pressuring you to name somebody you're attracted to because they can't imagine not being attracted to anybody at your age.

And then you get older and realise that one day you're going to be expected to leave home, and that one day all your friends are going to be expected to put aside other relationships and 'settle down' with a primary partner and you don't know what you're going to do after that because you straight up don't have a roadmap for what a 'happy ending' looks like for someone like you.

(And the LGBT+ community is little help, because so many people in there are more than happy to tell you that you're not oppressed at all. That you're like this because you don't want to have sex, and/or you don't want to have any relationships, that your orientation is some sort of choice you made— like not eating bananas— rather than an intrinsic part of you that a lot of us have at some point tried to wish away.)

Even if you're grey or demi, and do experience those feelings, you still have to deal with the fact that you're not experiencing them the 'normal' way and that that's going to effect your relationships and your ability to find one in the first place.

If you're aiming for lifelong singlehood (which is valid af) or looking for a qpp, then you're going to have to spend the rest of your life either letting people make wrong assumptions about your situation (at best that your relationship is of a different nature than it actually is, at worst that the life you've chosen is really just a consolation prize because you 'failed' at finding a romantic/sexual partner) or pulling out a powerpoint and several webpages every time you want to explain it.

This what being aspec looks like for most people, and it is constantly minimised as being unimportant and not worth fighting against— even in aspec spaces— because we've all on some level absorbed the idea that oppression is only worth fighting against if it's big, and dramatic, and immediately obvious. That all the little incidents of suffering that we experience on a daily basis are not enough to be worth bothering about.

I mean, who gives a shit if you feel broken, inherently toxic as a partner, and like you're going to be denied happiness because of your orientation? Shouldn't we all just shut up and thank our lucky stars we don't have to deal with all the stuff some of the other letters in the acronym have to put up with (leaving aside the fact that there are many aspec people who identify with more than one letter)?

So you know what? If you're aspec and you relate to anything I've said above (or can think of other things relating your your aspec-ness that I haven't mentioned) then this is me telling you now that it's enough. Even if we got rid of all the big stuff (which we're unlikely to do any time soon because— Shock! Horror!— the big stuff is actually connected to all the small stuff) we would still be unable to consider our fight 'over' because what you are experiencing is not 'basically okay' and something we should just be expected to 'put up with'.

No matter what anybody tells you, we have the right to demand more from life than this.

More Posts from Mor-ranr and Others

mor-ranr

3 years ago

FOB lyrics that feel incredibly arospec to me

so boycott love

love never wanted me but I took it anyway

this is a love song in my own way, happily ever after below the waist

its a strange way of saying I know I’m supposed to love you

I got your love letters, corrected the grammar and sent them back

it’s true romance is dead, I shot it in the chest and in the head

I thought I loved you, it was just how you looked in the light

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mor-ranr

4 years ago

thinking about my future as an aroace is weird cuz like.

unless you want to live alone or go about your life moving between various roommates, you're generally gonna want to get yourself some kind of domestic partner. maybe two or three if you're polyamorous and especially good at compromising and communicating. this person (or couple of people) is going to be more important to your future plans than anyone else.

even if amatonormativity and expectations of a monogamous nuclear family didn't exist, this would still happen to some degree. like if you decided your top 5 friends would be equally important in your future plans, and each of them gave THEIR top 5 friends the same importance, and so-on, then eventually you'd end up with a "household" the size of a small city and nobody would be able to agree on anything.

people who are alloromantic, allosexual, and monogamous already have this issue figured out for them. generally, (unless you both agree the relationship is more casual) it is assumed that your romantic/sexual partner will also be the one who is most important to you and will be your domestic partner in the future

and the whole idea of domestic compatibility is typically considered SECONDARY to the passion of romance. it's just ASSUMED that if you're dating you're gonna spend your lives together (if you dont break up first). you have that safety net and hardly have to think about it! (though imo, more people SHOULD think about it and question why their romantic partner HAS TO be their domestic partner too, rather than a best friend filling that role instead, but i digress)

so when you ask someone out, the main question is more of "do you want our relationship to get more intimate and romantic?" and then "do you want to spend our lives together?" is secondary, to be figured out later.

but i'm an aroace and building a relationship from that kind of passion is simply not an option for me. some aspecs get into queerplatonic relationships, and those don't have the same romantic/sexual passion of more traditional relationships, but there's still usually an expectation that your qpp will be more emotionally intimate with you than your other friends, alongside the whole "let's spend our lives together" thing.

but im a more reserved person and i wouldn't want to be too much closer to any potential partners than i already am to my best friends. so asking someone to be my partner would basically JUST be me asking "hey do you want to spend the rest of our lives together?"

that's basically just a marriage proposal right there! it feels like i cant just *ask* that of someone right off the bat! especially with how young i am! so i have no clue how the FUCK to ask anyone to be my partner because there is no intermediate "dating" relationship state for me! no middle step between "friendship" and "i wanna spend eternity with you"!

and most of the world is allo so even if i DO figure out how to make that work, my options are EXTREMELY limited.

i COULD seek out other aroaces to have that kind of relationship with, but then i'd be meeting a total stranger, skipping normal friendship, and jumping right into "lets spend time together and become friends in order to figure out if we want to be together FOREVER".

none of my friends are full aroace, so it would either be "you have to forego all romantic/sexual relationships for me" OR "let's do some type of polyamory-adjacent thing, and either your romantic partners will have to come second to me, OR me and your partner have to get along really well and be okay sharing a household, along with some heavy discussions to make sure i don't get third-wheeled by you two"

it's so confusing!!! i dont think i wanna be alone forever but like! all those options have their own drawbacks! what the fuck do i do???

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mor-ranr

3 years ago

“this is the hill you want to die on?” oh no i just love arguing. i fully intend to leave this hill once it gets boring. sorry for the confusion!

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mor-ranr

2 years ago

BBC News

Final Tasmanian tiger's remains found in cupboard - BBC News

The pelt and skull of the last known thylacine are identified in Hobart, solving an 85-year mystery.

!!!!

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mor-ranr

4 years ago

Anti anxiety.

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mor-ranr

4 years ago

Days Of The Week In Norwegian With Their Etymology. A Lot Of Them Transparently Have The Same Origins

Days of the week in Norwegian with their etymology. A lot of them transparently have the same origins as English. The major exception is Saturday, which comes from the Old Norse for washing day.

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mor-ranr

4 years ago

the zelda that you know

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mor-ranr

4 years ago

Remember in 1993 when Jurassic Park was like…the end all, be all of special effects?

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mor-ranr

3 years ago

So, I was studying for my finals and reading the bit in Snorri’s Edda about Ragnarok and at one point a wolf swallows the moon and it says “og gerir sá og mikið ógagn”. Now, I understand that the meaning of the words have changed a bit over time and all that, but to a modern Icelandic speaker, this just sounds like “one of the wolves took the moon, which was unhelpful”

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mor-ranr

3 years ago

The aromantic agenda is a good one.

Go and think about what kinds of relationships you want. Don't think about labels like romantic or platonic or sexual, think purely about what relationships would make you happiest.

When I realized I was aromantic, I was asked things like "Would you still date? Would you have a QPR? Will you ever kiss?"

But the aromantic community didn't ask that. Instead, they focused on "What do you want in a world where anything is possible?"

And I realized I want to be alone, surrounded by friends and family I love who are close enough, I can bring them fresh baked scones when I overbake.

They asked me "What do you want?" and the question was so broad, I could weigh labels in my hand like queerplatonic partner and nonpartnering and significant other. I could look at these and shrug and say, "What I want is to not worry about questions I don't care about." I could shelve these indefinitely. Maybe even forever. And just enjoy being myself.

The aromantic community celebrates exploration. Tells people asking if they are aromantic, "This is a personal decision. Your personal decision. If this label helps you, take it. If this community helps you, stay as long as you need. You don't have to be labelled anything, aromantic or otherwise, unless it would bring you comfort. You don't have to be anything you aren't."

It's a good community with good philosophies born from a unique experience, not rooted in missing out, but in being forced to consider what you want when you don't want what's expected.

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