On Identification as an Act

In 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.]

Tapping at “Stone”: me & a stone (a)sexuality

This post is my submission to the January 2018 Carnival of Aces under the theme of “Identity.” Specifically, this post deals with topics of sexuality, identity, alienation, labeling, doubt, touch, trauma, and abuse.

This impetus for this post is a tumblr post about “being stone vs. being asexual” that Rowan shared with me, after it came up as a recommended post on their dash. There’s maybe a few different things I would question in that post (emphasis on question, since some of it is beyond my depth), but maybe chief among them is how stone sexuality & asexuality are being presented as either/or, i.e. mutually exclusive.

Quoigendering

[note: looping animated gifs under the cut]