A post about short hair, big shirts, and half a dozen neuroses about feeling simultaneously drawn to and held back from the word “butch,” written for the Gender Exploration Carnival.
[Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image edited from a photo by Dano, licensed under CC BY 2.0.]
Continue readingThis is not a direct discussion of the “are aces queer” question. This is a personal reflection piece about what else has bloomed out of it like a fungus, modifying my relationship to all orientation labels other than ace.
[Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image by OldTor, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.]
Continue readingThe word “platonic” is relatively popular in ace communities and other contexts, even though its meaning can be ambiguous, and most people don’t see an issue with that. Unfortunately one of my own chief associations with it is its namesake: Plato. Having had to read stuff by this guy for school, I’ve come to hate Plato, and my reasons for that aren’t as unrelated to the word “platonic” as you might like to think. It’s not something I usually talk about — but this month I decided the May 2021 Carnival of Aces was the perfect excuse.
Note: this post is an anti-Plato only zone. If you’re not interested in a bunch of bashing on the word “platonic,” don’t engage with this post.
[Crossposted to Pillowfort.]
Continue readingNow that I’ve talked about what happened at the event, I want to work through a few things I would have liked to have said in the TAAAP Pride Chat that was supposed to make space for “people who object to there being a binary.”
[Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image by Matteo Magro, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.]
Continue readingRomantic orientation: some people identify with one, some people don’t — but the problem comes in when everyone is expected to have one. This post spells out my (quoiromantic) perspective on compulsory romantic orientation by sketching out a few different ways this expectation can manifest in certain contexts. Note this post is largely just rehashing things already familiar to my regular readers; for everyone else, the goal of this post is to serve as an introductory primer on the topic.
[Preview image by Nccmrm97, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.]
Continue readingIn light of how “the split attraction model” (the term) emerged, this post delves into how its associated critique overlooked preexisting efforts, neglecting to fully disentangle itself from prescriptivism, and at this point, the term is getting used to perpetuate the selfsame problem it was originally devised to combat.
[Reposted to Pillowfort. Preview image by Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.]
Continue readingI don’t know that I should be writing this here, but it’s like I was telling the Elizabeth the other day: I want so badly for the ace community to be in a state worth returning to.
Continue readingIn this post, I’m contrasting a more conventional outlook on identity (identity as trait) against another way of thinking about it (identification as an act). The first one is mostly fine to fall back on as a useful simplification, but there are also times when it can lend itself to problems, which is why I think it’s sometimes worthwhile to shift into another mindset. Note this post was written with orientation/sexuality/gender identity in mind, and whether it’s more broadly applicable is a question I leave to your judgement.
[Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image by Reinhard Link.]
Continue readingThis month we’ve got yet another case of somebody over on Tumblr trying to revive card suit sorting, plus even more people claiming it was only abandoned because of the anti-ace brigade. I’ve put this post together just to explain that, in actuality, this narrative is false. The call to get rid of that junk isn’t some hostile outsider perspective. The call is coming from inside the house.
In this post, you will find what I mean by “card suit sorting,” how it’s not quite fair to fellow aces, and how this connects back to larger problems of absolutist thinking within the ace community.
[Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image by Poker Photos.]
Continue readingHello, it’s me again.
We’ve been talking for several weeks now, but for the other folks just tuning in, give me a moment to establish a bit of context here.
Last month you announced the theme for your December chat event in your discord server. I have written before about where that particular phrase comes from and what’s happened because of it, so when I saw the announcement, I knew it was time to speak up. Fortunately, you facilitated a private conversation by providing me with your contact email, and that’s how this conversation began. During that conversation you worked very effectively to persuade me that a private conversation with you was a dead end. For that reason I’ve decided to write this open letter, inviting more people to contribute their perspective on the subject and join me addressing you, too.
Continue reading
