CW: q slur, fundamentalist Christianity, homophobia, family,
Apparently Ettina has another post trying to prove that she's a Valid Kweer, and I hadn't seen it. It's about how asexuals are apparently oppressed by conservative Christians. Weird topic, considering that our current vice president fucking hates anything that's pro-LGBT or pro-sex (especially if the people having the sex aren't middle/upper-class straight white cis men), but let's just roll with it.
Online, I've encountered some people who are adamant that asexuals don't belong in the queer community - particularly cisgender heteroromantic or aromantic asexuals.
First of all, Ettina is a cis aromantic asexual, using a homophobic and transphobic slur that she can't reclaim and needs to keep out of her damn mouth before she uses it in front of the wrong person and they slap it out for her.
Now that we've established that, there is no "queer community". Queer is a slur that not all LGBT people have reclaimed, that is associated with trauma for a lot of people, and that many of us are tired of having shoved in our faces. There is the LGBT community, which is a coalition of resistance against homophobia and transphobia. Cishet aces and cis aroaces experience neither of those forms of oppression.
Also, no one (except maybe TERFs, but they're moldy, rotting pieces of trash anyway, and many LGBT people don't welcome them into our spaces) has said that all asexuals don't belong in the LGBT community. I know LGBT people who are asexual or aromantic. Like me, Mod Frey, Mod Cosima, and my friends Chris, Alex, Amber, and Marie (respectively, a grayromantic genderfluid bisexual, a genderfluid asexual, an agender pansexual grayromantic asexual, a bisexual gray-asexual demigirl, an aromantic agender gray-ace lesbian, an aromantic cis lesbian, and a grayromantic asexual cis lesbian). We're no less LGBT just because we're asexual or aromantic. It's just that being asexual or aromantic isn't what makes us LGBT.
One reason they cite is the idea that prejudiced religious people are fine with asexuality but are usually vehemently anti-gay.
Some background info on my life: I wasn't always the pro-choice, sex-positive leftist pagan I am today. Shocking, I know, especially if you haven't read the first few posts I made on this blog.
I'm not proud of my past, but I can acknowledge what shaped it. I was a product of my environment, essentially. While I never hated LGBT people the way Ettina is talking about, a good chunk of my extended family does.
The odd one in that particular group is my cousin Abby. Abby is cisgender, aromantic, and either straight or asexual - I'm not sure which one, but she's specified that she's not attracted to women, has no interest in romantic relationships, has never had a crush, isn't interested in any man except Killian from Once Upon a Time, and doesn't feel any desire to date or get married. The point is, she's aro and not LGBT. Which she knows and is just fine with, thank the gods.
I'm bringing her up to highlight the contrast in our experiences, because that contrast is vital to this post.
We're part of the same family. We're only two years apart in age. We're both on the aromantic spectrum. We both told our families about our sexualities around the same age: sixteen. While I also came out as nonbinary a few months later, for about three months they were under the impression that I was cis.
Here's how they reacted to my bisexuality:
Here's how these same people reacted to Abby being aroace:
Also, most biblical conservatives aren't even aware that asexuality exists. And if my family is any indication, they do not care. That, or they think asexuality is a good thing. After all, aces are less likely to have premarital sex, especially nasty gay premarital sex. Why wouldn't they like it?
To be honest, it doesn't really make sense to me why we'd let homophobes define what is queer.
Ettina is absolutely right. We shouldn't let this homophobe define what's "queer". Now shoo, Ettina, stay in your lane and stop dictating to LGBT people how we should handle our own damn community. Go on now, silly little homophobe.
Generally, Christian conservatives are stereotyped as anti-sex. But that's not true.
Really. Even with Mike fucking Pence, the man who plans not only to defund HIV research, but also to basically obliterate America's entire reproductive health industry, in power, Ettina really wants to claim Christian conservatives aren't anti-sex? How politically ignorant can she get?
That said, they are anti-premarital sex...mostly because they want to control women's bodies. Which doesn't inherently have anything to do with homophobia, but does have to do with misogyny. Something all women experience.
But generally they expect that you will find yourself an opposite sex partner to marry, and you will have sex with your spouse.
I mean...they expect that, but in my experience they also don't really care if you don't. Just as long as you're not LGBT. In fact, being "called to singlehood" is a thing that I've heard talked about often in church circles, and it's not looked down upon.
Also, some aces do have sex and some non-aces don't. Some aros get married, and some non-aros don't. Most of Ettina's beliefs on the existence of aphobia as an axis of oppression rest on the assumption that all aromantic and all asexual experiences are the same and are fundamentally different from "allo" experiences, which just isn't true.
For a Catholic, the only religiously supported means of opting out of sex is to become clergy (nun, priest or monk).
Hmmm...not really. Remember those two friends I mentioned above? Chris and Marie? They're both Catholic and have never been religiously ostracized for not wanting sex - something I know because we were in the same youth group for years and have talked extensively about our experiences with sexuality.
As far as Chris's family knows, she's cishet and non-ace. So we can't really count them here. She has gotten flack for her asexuality from other Catholics, but it was mostly based in racism (assuming that Chris, a Latinx person, is inherently sexual because of her race), sexism (punishing a woman-aligned person, especially a WoC, for not being willing to provide sexual labor to men), and misdirected ableism ("there must be something mentally wrong with you"). Unlike the homophobia that we've both faced, which is based in a hatred of same/similar-gender attraction.
Marie has gotten the same assumptions about her asexuality, minus the racism because she's white. Her family is conservative, something she's struggled with, but only for being a gay woman and a feminist. Never for being ace.
So basically, it's not opting out of sex that Catholics have a problem with. It's opting out of sex while being a woman, especially as a woman of color.
And that's definitely not an indication of any oppression other than rape culture and misogyny (especially racialized misogyny), especially when Catholicism often punishes women so much more for having sex.
And if you're not a member of celibate clergy, regardless of what brand of Christianity you're in, you'll be expected to marry an opposite sex partner.
I've covered this already. I won't do it again.
In most Christian traditions, sex validates a marriage.
Why would your pastor, priest, or minister even know if you're having sex?
Furthermore, many Christians don't necessarily require consent for marital sex, especially the female partner's consent.
See, this is a little thing we call rape culture. And it affects people, especially women, of all sexualities. But please, go on implying that non-ace people can't be raped.
Marital rape is considered acceptable in many Christian churches - indeed, in many cases, 'withholding' sex from your partner is a sin.
Does...does Ettina think that us "allos" want to have sex 24/7? That we don't ever feel up to it, that we don't ever have low sex drives or low libidos or sex repulsion?
They might get away with it if they're male, but a woman who refuses her husband sex runs the risk of him ignoring that refusal.
Again. Rape culture and misogyny.
Plus, babies are expected in these religious traditions. If you're not making enough babies, then people start to wonder if something's wrong.
The same applies to non-ace cishet couples who are infertile or don't want kids. And this could also qualify as a form of (often misdirected) intersexism, as many intersex variations cause infertility.
And masturbating is definitely considered a sin in most Christian churches.
Why does your religious community know whether you masturbate?
But masturbating in preference to sex with your spouse? That's definitely not OK.
There are plenty of non-aces who don't like having sex with their spouses. Sex repulsion is common in many neurodiverse conditions, such as schizotypal personality disorder, autism, PTSD, and sexual aversion disorder (which is, in fact, a legitimate mental illness and was not created to medicalize asexuality). Which, sorry, but neurotypical cishets experiencing misdirected ableism is not my problem.
Both aromantic and heteroromantic asexuals are subject to religious prejudice. It simply takes a different form that the prejudice against people with same sex attractions. But then again, so does transphobia.
That is a terrible, transphobic comparison. Trans and nonbinary people are often tortured, raped, physically attacked, or killed for being trans or nonbinary. Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brockingham, Sasha Fleischmann, Taylor Alesana, Papi Edwards, Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Penny Proud, Bri Golec, Kristina Grant Infiniti, Tyra Hunter, Mercedes Williamson, Jasmine Collins, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Ashton O'Hara...
Learn those names, and the many others of the dead in the trans community. Until then, Ettina, shut your cis mouth.
Neither cis aromantic nor straight asexuals will ever be subjected to religious prejudice the way trans or even cis LGB people have always been.
Apparently Ettina has another post trying to prove that she's a Valid Kweer, and I hadn't seen it. It's about how asexuals are apparently oppressed by conservative Christians. Weird topic, considering that our current vice president fucking hates anything that's pro-LGBT or pro-sex (especially if the people having the sex aren't middle/upper-class straight white cis men), but let's just roll with it.
Online, I've encountered some people who are adamant that asexuals don't belong in the queer community - particularly cisgender heteroromantic or aromantic asexuals.
First of all, Ettina is a cis aromantic asexual, using a homophobic and transphobic slur that she can't reclaim and needs to keep out of her damn mouth before she uses it in front of the wrong person and they slap it out for her.
Now that we've established that, there is no "queer community". Queer is a slur that not all LGBT people have reclaimed, that is associated with trauma for a lot of people, and that many of us are tired of having shoved in our faces. There is the LGBT community, which is a coalition of resistance against homophobia and transphobia. Cishet aces and cis aroaces experience neither of those forms of oppression.
Also, no one (except maybe TERFs, but they're moldy, rotting pieces of trash anyway, and many LGBT people don't welcome them into our spaces) has said that all asexuals don't belong in the LGBT community. I know LGBT people who are asexual or aromantic. Like me, Mod Frey, Mod Cosima, and my friends Chris, Alex, Amber, and Marie (respectively, a grayromantic genderfluid bisexual, a genderfluid asexual, an agender pansexual grayromantic asexual, a bisexual gray-asexual demigirl, an aromantic agender gray-ace lesbian, an aromantic cis lesbian, and a grayromantic asexual cis lesbian). We're no less LGBT just because we're asexual or aromantic. It's just that being asexual or aromantic isn't what makes us LGBT.
One reason they cite is the idea that prejudiced religious people are fine with asexuality but are usually vehemently anti-gay.
Some background info on my life: I wasn't always the pro-choice, sex-positive leftist pagan I am today. Shocking, I know, especially if you haven't read the first few posts I made on this blog.
I'm not proud of my past, but I can acknowledge what shaped it. I was a product of my environment, essentially. While I never hated LGBT people the way Ettina is talking about, a good chunk of my extended family does.
The odd one in that particular group is my cousin Abby. Abby is cisgender, aromantic, and either straight or asexual - I'm not sure which one, but she's specified that she's not attracted to women, has no interest in romantic relationships, has never had a crush, isn't interested in any man except Killian from Once Upon a Time, and doesn't feel any desire to date or get married. The point is, she's aro and not LGBT. Which she knows and is just fine with, thank the gods.
I'm bringing her up to highlight the contrast in our experiences, because that contrast is vital to this post.
We're part of the same family. We're only two years apart in age. We're both on the aromantic spectrum. We both told our families about our sexualities around the same age: sixteen. While I also came out as nonbinary a few months later, for about three months they were under the impression that I was cis.
Here's how they reacted to my bisexuality:
- Several of them were visibly uncomfortable around me.
- Two of my cousins, who I was close to and had changed in front of many times, began changing in the bathroom whenever we slept in the same house.
- My aunt and uncle became afraid that their son, who was two years old at the time, would develop "tendencies"
- If they had been able to, they probably would have put me in conversion therapy
- They've called my sexuality a sin in front of me
Here's how these same people reacted to Abby being aroace:
- Her mother looked up in confusion.
- Abby explained it to her.
- Her mother said "that's nice" and went back to reading
- That's it. That's all that happened. Our family probably thinks she's weird, but she wears capes in public. They already thought that. Everyone thinks that. No one cares.
To be honest, it doesn't really make sense to me why we'd let homophobes define what is queer.
Ettina is absolutely right. We shouldn't let this homophobe define what's "queer". Now shoo, Ettina, stay in your lane and stop dictating to LGBT people how we should handle our own damn community. Go on now, silly little homophobe.
Generally, Christian conservatives are stereotyped as anti-sex. But that's not true.
Really. Even with Mike fucking Pence, the man who plans not only to defund HIV research, but also to basically obliterate America's entire reproductive health industry, in power, Ettina really wants to claim Christian conservatives aren't anti-sex? How politically ignorant can she get?
That said, they are anti-premarital sex...mostly because they want to control women's bodies. Which doesn't inherently have anything to do with homophobia, but does have to do with misogyny. Something all women experience.
But generally they expect that you will find yourself an opposite sex partner to marry, and you will have sex with your spouse.
I mean...they expect that, but in my experience they also don't really care if you don't. Just as long as you're not LGBT. In fact, being "called to singlehood" is a thing that I've heard talked about often in church circles, and it's not looked down upon.
Also, some aces do have sex and some non-aces don't. Some aros get married, and some non-aros don't. Most of Ettina's beliefs on the existence of aphobia as an axis of oppression rest on the assumption that all aromantic and all asexual experiences are the same and are fundamentally different from "allo" experiences, which just isn't true.
For a Catholic, the only religiously supported means of opting out of sex is to become clergy (nun, priest or monk).
Hmmm...not really. Remember those two friends I mentioned above? Chris and Marie? They're both Catholic and have never been religiously ostracized for not wanting sex - something I know because we were in the same youth group for years and have talked extensively about our experiences with sexuality.
As far as Chris's family knows, she's cishet and non-ace. So we can't really count them here. She has gotten flack for her asexuality from other Catholics, but it was mostly based in racism (assuming that Chris, a Latinx person, is inherently sexual because of her race), sexism (punishing a woman-aligned person, especially a WoC, for not being willing to provide sexual labor to men), and misdirected ableism ("there must be something mentally wrong with you"). Unlike the homophobia that we've both faced, which is based in a hatred of same/similar-gender attraction.
Marie has gotten the same assumptions about her asexuality, minus the racism because she's white. Her family is conservative, something she's struggled with, but only for being a gay woman and a feminist. Never for being ace.
So basically, it's not opting out of sex that Catholics have a problem with. It's opting out of sex while being a woman, especially as a woman of color.
And that's definitely not an indication of any oppression other than rape culture and misogyny (especially racialized misogyny), especially when Catholicism often punishes women so much more for having sex.
And if you're not a member of celibate clergy, regardless of what brand of Christianity you're in, you'll be expected to marry an opposite sex partner.
I've covered this already. I won't do it again.
In most Christian traditions, sex validates a marriage.
Why would your pastor, priest, or minister even know if you're having sex?
Furthermore, many Christians don't necessarily require consent for marital sex, especially the female partner's consent.
See, this is a little thing we call rape culture. And it affects people, especially women, of all sexualities. But please, go on implying that non-ace people can't be raped.
Marital rape is considered acceptable in many Christian churches - indeed, in many cases, 'withholding' sex from your partner is a sin.
Does...does Ettina think that us "allos" want to have sex 24/7? That we don't ever feel up to it, that we don't ever have low sex drives or low libidos or sex repulsion?
They might get away with it if they're male, but a woman who refuses her husband sex runs the risk of him ignoring that refusal.
Again. Rape culture and misogyny.
Plus, babies are expected in these religious traditions. If you're not making enough babies, then people start to wonder if something's wrong.
The same applies to non-ace cishet couples who are infertile or don't want kids. And this could also qualify as a form of (often misdirected) intersexism, as many intersex variations cause infertility.
And masturbating is definitely considered a sin in most Christian churches.
Why does your religious community know whether you masturbate?
But masturbating in preference to sex with your spouse? That's definitely not OK.
There are plenty of non-aces who don't like having sex with their spouses. Sex repulsion is common in many neurodiverse conditions, such as schizotypal personality disorder, autism, PTSD, and sexual aversion disorder (which is, in fact, a legitimate mental illness and was not created to medicalize asexuality). Which, sorry, but neurotypical cishets experiencing misdirected ableism is not my problem.
Both aromantic and heteroromantic asexuals are subject to religious prejudice. It simply takes a different form that the prejudice against people with same sex attractions. But then again, so does transphobia.
That is a terrible, transphobic comparison. Trans and nonbinary people are often tortured, raped, physically attacked, or killed for being trans or nonbinary. Leelah Alcorn, Blake Brockingham, Sasha Fleischmann, Taylor Alesana, Papi Edwards, Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Penny Proud, Bri Golec, Kristina Grant Infiniti, Tyra Hunter, Mercedes Williamson, Jasmine Collins, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Ashton O'Hara...
Learn those names, and the many others of the dead in the trans community. Until then, Ettina, shut your cis mouth.
Neither cis aromantic nor straight asexuals will ever be subjected to religious prejudice the way trans or even cis LGB people have always been.
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