Same Song, nth Verse

TW for rape

There's been more argument and anger (read: wank) lately about asexuality; I'm not going to link to it, but head over to asexuality on LJ, or the asexuality tag on Tumblr, if you want a better idea. Apparently it still goes back to the argument (3-6 months ago?) about whether or not asexuals are queer, which, let me be clear, is not what this post is about. I don't identify as queer, and my concern with that argument comes from the way people are treating each other in it rather than the main idea. Asexuality certainly isn't well-recognized or considered "normal"; asexuals certainly lack heterosexual privilege. There needs to be some word to denote how un-usual, societally speaking, asexuality is, but it's not my place to say whether or not that word should be "queer." And that's all I have to say about that.

My concern, as I said, is with other things that are being thrown around in this argument. I believe that self-identifying queer people (and I make that distinction because I know some people consider the word a slur, while other consider it something that's been reclaimed) have the right to police their own community boundaries with regards to the definition of "queer." What they don't have the right to do is police other people's identities. For example: calling heteroromantic asexuals, and aromantic asexuals, straight. No. You do not get to tell members of a minority sexual orientation whether or not they are straight. Conflating someone's romantic orientation and their sexual orientation is also particularly egregious. I am not queer; I am also not straight, and no one gets to police my identity otherwise.

Also, I wanted to reiterate that being asexual is not exactly a walk in the park. I am not playing the Oppression Olympics; this is not about whether asexuals have it "worse" than people who ID as queer (as if the two didn't overlap). This is simply about what asexuals face. I've heard aces reporting corrective rape and being beaten up at school. I've heard aces reporting getting kicked out of the house by their parents, and other aces having their parents maintain an Orwellian watch over all their activities, upon coming out as the "wrong" sexual orientation. Aces have reported being sent to therapy or put on medication, and having unnecessary medical tests done explicitly against their consent. While asexuality and celibacy are not synonyms, in states that maintain "fault" divorce laws, non-consummation or not having sex can be grounds for such a divorce. Some branches of Christianity teach things at odds with asexuality-- for example, much of the fundamentalist Christian church and their attitudes towards having children. So-- no, erasure and invisibility isn't the only problem we face, not by a long shot. (I am working on sourcing all these things this time around, but many of them were on Tumblr, so it's going to take a while.)

But, speaking of erasure... I may be beating a dead horse at this point, but I wanted to reiterate something about the queer-asexual debate and relationships: please don't say that people who want relationships with someone of the same sex are queer, and people who don't are straight. For one thing, it's binary-centric, and erases bisexuals, trans individuals, genderqueer individuals, etc. It also labels people straight who may not identify as such (see above). And the other thing it erases? All relationships that aren't romantic or sexual. Such relationships are incredibly important to a large swath of the ace community, particularly those of us who are aromantic. Of course, sexual people also place a high value on platonic relationships, and I'm not saying they don't-- but, in my experience, the majority of sexual people value their romantic and/or sexual relationships above their platonic ones (except relationships with their children).

So, yeah: a lot of asexual people are fine with the idea of asexuality itself not being inherently queer. What we're not fine with is the labels and ideas that are being thrown around in that argument.

ETA: If anyone has seen the examples I am talking about and can link me, please do so if you wouldn't mind! Thanks.