Taking A Break With Some Martells And Sand Snakesleft To Right: Tyene, Nymeria, Obara, Arianne, Sarella(from

taking a break with some martells and sand snakes left to right: tyene, nymeria, obara, arianne, sarella(from theory), quentyn, oberyn, doran

Gann of Dreams and his beloved one.

gannaev

When I was little, I thought love was about red roses and expensive dinners. Truth is, love is giving him half your fries when he said he wasn’t hungry. It’s waking up at 4am to him snoring and refraining from shoving him off the bed. It’s talking in accents just for shits, and trying to embarrass one another in public. It’s going on adventures, and making fun of each other. It’s stupid fights and memorable make ups. Love isn’t always pretty and romantic. Love is just stumbling through life with your best friend.

one of my favourite love quotes - Unknown (via sunsetandthestars)

It’s All A Fucking Joke, Right

In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.

And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;

Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers

“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”

“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”

“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”

“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”

“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”

First Few Days Of Dating

“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)

“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)

“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”

“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”

Long-Term Relationships

“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”

“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”

“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish - which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”

Self-Care And Self Development

“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”

“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”

“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”

“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”

“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”

“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”

“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”

“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”

Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day - this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash. 

‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.

This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.

Hi, I’m an asexual person, and I still experience attraction.

I find people attractive, I get crushes, I like the thought of physical affection and maybe kissing someone if I really like them. I’d like to share a bed with a significant other sometime, hold their hand and dance the most sexually provocative ballroom dances with them, but I also want to make stupid jokes and laugh and have pillow fights and watch Community with them too.

I’m ace, and I talk about sex all the time. I make jokes about it and point it out at every opportunity, because for me that helps normalize a concept that doesn’t otherwise apply to my life. I love innuendo and sex jokes and teasing people (all in good fun) about that sort of thing. It helps my brain accept sexual activity as something that is normal and a part of many people’s lives. It could be part of mine one day, but I don’t know yet.

I’m ace, and that means that I don’t experience sexual attraction. At least, I think I don’t. Orientation is fluid, and I may eventually discover that I’m somewhere else on the ace spectrum (gray-ace, demi, who knows), but for now I’m asexual. That doesn’t mean I’ll never experience arousal or that I will never have sex. My orientation refers to sexual attraction, and that’s it, and I think sometimes people forget that part of asexuality.

That’s not to say that I am a sexual person. I’m not. As I am now, I don’t think I will ever want to have sex of any sort, and I know it’s the same for a lot of ace-spectrum people. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But it is not the only ace experience out there.

And especially right now, with valentines day approaching, I want to remind you all that we’re all different. There are aces out there with thriving sex lives (whether with others or with themselves), there are aces out there who have never had sex and never want to, there are aces out there everywhere in between. There are alloromantic aces and aromantic aces. There are aces who will be going on ‘traditional’ dates, aces who go on non-traditional dates, aces who prefer not to go on dates at all and aces who wish they had someone to go on a date with. There will be aces who will kiss someone on the 14th, or next week, or next year, and there are aces who don’t want to be romantically intimate with anyone, and aces who will kiss someone in a completely platonic way.

There will be aces who send cards with sexual innuendos as a joke, there will be aces who send them completely seriously (because let me remind you that libido is entirely separate from orientation/attraction), and aces who won’t touch sex jokes with a nineteen-and-a-half-foot pole.

Everyone’s relationship with their orientation is unique and different. Ace-spectrum people are no exception.