‘Home’ Alone

You may have heard that Boris Johnson has recently become the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, and, as such, the Prime Minister. This wasn’t an election open to the general public; party leaders are elected by the members of that party, and it’s no real surprise that the Conservative Party members like conservative candidates.

This isn’t a post about that, per se; there are plenty of other people detailing all of his failings and horrifying attitudes and behaviours. It’s just an illustration of how the political situation in this country is devolving faster and faster. I started talking about this in 2014, just a couple of years after I first got on tumblr at all, and I’ve been talking about it ever since, whenever I have the mental fortitude to do so - which, right now, isn’t often. 

But, hey, what’s another list of my deepest fears? 

I wrote a post a year or two ago with some of the things that we’re facing here, in the UK. I’ll link the entire post, but here is the most important paragraph:

These aren’t stopping.

Keep reading

One of the color-based (rather than ideological) problems with the all-pink and pink-and-orange lesbian flags is that they want several shades of the same basic color.

If you make a flag, and one of its colors is “pale flaxen yellow,” and people can’t find that in their yarn store, they will just damn well use whatever yellow they can get. Those who recognize the flag will see “yellow - purple - black - green” (or whatever the combo is) and know what it means. (I mean. If it’s got aqua, people will knock themselves out trying to find the right shade of aqua. But if they can’t find it, they’ll use light blue and other people will recognize it.) 

But if you have three different shades of yellow, from “dark gold” to “bright yellow” to “pale watery yellow,” then someone has to find the same yarn/ thread/ fabric/ paint/ legos/ gemstones/ whatever etc., in three colors, and they kinda need to have about the same range as the original. If you’ve got navy blue, sky blue, dark teal, and pale aqua, people won’t be able to make items based on your flag unless their local craft store is incredibly well-supplied.

The lipstick lesbian flag has FOUR shades of pink, and two shades of red that are not anything like what we normally think of as “normal red.” The variant, three oranges and three pinks, is not much better.

If you’re designing a flag to be used, try to stick to no more than a light and dark shade of the same color–and no more than a single color for that, because if you use “light and dark green” and “light and dark blue” in the same flag, people have to try to match the ranges between them. The exception is black and grey; there are almost always a range of greys available. 

This. All of this.

But also why are you redesigning the aro flag??

@luvtheheaven one of the biggest reasons is because the aro flag is so commonly mistaken with the agender flag and vice versa. and being aro, i think it would be a great thing to redesign the flag, especiallt because i know what its like being erased by the lgbtqia+/queer community and thats exactly what happens to agender people so so frequently.

so whats an aromantic to do? well, i can make a new flag, to make our community stand out more AND be respectful of our agender family. im putting a lot of thought into it though, because i think the current designs we have/had are decent with some good meanings, but i want more for us.

Are you aware that one of the propossed flags from 2014 does include yellow? 

(Well, two, but the other one also has orange and was dismissed for being too similar to Rastafarian and Jamaican flags.)

ETA: Here’s the source for the dark green - light green - yellow - grey - black flag, and here’s the source for the dark green - light green - white - grey - black one.

This website has a weird tendency to vastly narrow people’s understanding of activism to just one or two things: education and awareness-raising. Probably because those are the easiest things to do via social media, and so the most obvious ones here. But there are a great many types of activism, a great many things that activists do to serve the cause. Every activist has their own strengths and weaknesses, and not every activist is suited to do all kinds of activism. Many, many people are not suited to do external education, and have no obligation to do so. Instead, they focus their energy elsewhere. A few things activists do:

This is just a brief list off the top of my head. I invite others to add to it. But we badly need to fight the idea that education is the whole or even the most important part of activism, and the idea that all activists and oppressed people are obligated to provide education on demand. These ideas are both limiting and damaging.

Hot take but amatonormativity should be considered a feminist issue and was in fact eluded to in a lot of early feminist writing, and the fact that we don’t widely regard it as a feminist issue today indicates either a loss of knowledge or an acceptance of harmful social norms on the part of modern feminists

Amatonormativity:

-Teaches young women and girls that you must be in a romantic relationship to be happy, and therefore insinuates that they should prioritize making themselves romanticly available (usually to men) over all other things

- Validates straight men’s feeling of entitlement towards women by equating the right to happiness with a right to women’s bodies and emotional labor

- Helps justify the act of isolating your romantic partner from their friends by promoting the idea that your romantic relationships should be prioritized over all other social relationships, resulting in a climate where it’s easier for domestic abusers to socially isolate their victims

-Promotes negative views of older single women such as “hags”, “spinsters” and “crazy cat ladies”

And all of these things are directly tied to frequently discussed feminist issues, so I really don’t know why no one ever talks about amatonormativity in feminist spaces.  These norms don’t just hurt aros and poly people they hurt everyone, and it would greatly benefit y’all to actually listen to us when we discuss these issues.  

Hello yes this is important

amatonormativity? all of these examples are of compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity under patriarchy

????

So a few people have made this comment, but almost all the rest of them have been terfs, so I’m only gonna be replying to this one.

Amatonormativity does have a lot of overlap with compulsory heterosexuality, and in fact, Elizabeth Brake, the woman who coined the term even talks about that in her explanation of it, but they are not the same thing. 

I’m gonna be honest, most of my posts about amatonormativity never actually get popular outside of the aro and poly communities so I didn’t bother to define terms but this one is popular enough that it’s probably worth doing.

Amatonormativity: The widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship.

Compulsory heterosexuality: The idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by a patriarchal and heteronormative society.

While you can see from the definition where these two ideas intersect (and there has actually been a fair amount of discussion about whether or not one is a subset of the other) they do have some differences. While the examples I was giving were specific to feminism, and as a result, fit into that intersection more than some other examples would, those aren’t the only ways amatonormativity can express itself. It can also look like: 

None of these things are especially gender-specific, they can be applied to both straight and LGBTQIA+ people, and they don’t necessarily enforce compulsory heterosexuality. Similarly, there are other things that might be considered  compulsory heterosexuality but not amatonormativity.

It’s fair, and maybe even necessary, to view compulsory heterosexuality and amatonormativity as a Venn diagram, and I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that any of the things in my original bullet list also fall under the concept of  compulsory heterosexuality. That said, my examples falling into the middle of the Venn diagram doesn’t make them any less relevant to a discussion about amatonormativity, and I think examining these issues through the lenses of both  compulsory heterosexuality and amatonormativity is important if you want to fully understand the problem. Only looking at these topics through one lens or the other isn’t going to give you a clear picture.

A good thread on Lashon Hara (“evil tongue”) and how it threatens vulnerable communities in particular

here is the link to the thread on twitter, for those of you like me who find this ^ particular format a little difficult to read

I have had this thread open in a browser tab on my phone for literally months because “oh I should link this on tumblr”

So now I can reblog this and close the goddamn tab. Thanks OP!

We have cake! And ace and aro swag! (The swag is thanks to the amazing @redbeardace)

In other words, our conference has been going great so far!

I missed the aro cake!

No matter, I’m #teampizza.

Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy (AUREA) is happy to announce the website - aromanticism.org - we’ve been working on has been launched! We assemble general information and community updates. The website includes FAQ, vocabulary, research, news feed, online resources, links to in-person groups, and printable educational materials. Our aim is also to be a contact point for researchers and media looking to explore the aromantic experiences.

To be all that, we’re also looking for volunteers! You may (and please do, that’d be really great) also contact us to inform us about an aromantic-themed event, an article mentioning aromanticism, new group, new research (or old one that we missed), anything that is relevant to aromanticism and that we, in our nonomnipotence may miss otherwise!

The Asexual Manifesto was found!

There’s a timeline on ace history at Wikipedia. Anyone wanna go work on it this weekend?

#it doesn’t mention the Bogaert paper either (via redbeardace)

Look, i did what i could, but i’m barely a fairy editor (which apparently is a category no longer in use, because i can’t even find an userbox describing it) (and now i feel old) (ETA: found it!)

Some of the things this timeline needs, in case you wanna help:

Not only is there a Pride Month Calendar being shared on spanish-language ace groups, stating that the 10th is the asexual day, but i just a Brazilian group post an events calendar that claimed the 10th is the “International Day of Asexual Visibility”…

ETA: It looks like the calendar may be a translation of this one (shared weeks ago by AVEN on tumblr) or based on the same one that one is based on.

Update: Yes, the Brazilian selfie event (hashtag #AssexuaisExistem) was programmed the 10th because of the Pride Month calendars. They did added an errata clarifying that not everyone consider the 10th to be the (International) Day of Asexual Visibility / Asexual Day of Visibility / Asexual Visibility Day / etc.

Hey! I made a fandom ace server as part of the fest last year! I kept it around for general ace fandom (and non fandom) discussion!

https://discord.gg/dYWgWe5

@fuckyeahasexual has been running one for years; more info here.

There’s also Asexuales en América, a spanish-language one (which i just noticed doesn’t have a Spanish channel).

I think Allure has finally cracked the Asexual Article Photo Puzzle.

Sad people in bed?  Nope.

Chastity locks?  Nope.

Birds and/or bees?  Nope.

Dead flowers?  Nope.

Random Getty stock photo titled “Two Young Women In Sofa At Home”?  Check!

And it works.

So, there it is.  There’s the answer.  If you ever write an article about asexuality and need an image, just grab some random unrelated stock photo and there you have it.

So a national LGBT organization just launched a short story competition and the categories are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans.

I have an entry!

It’s twenty-seven blank pages.

I call it “Erasure”.

:)