Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)

There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!

Inviting submissions:

What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?

Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)

These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.

More info:

Keep reading

Extending the deadline until the end of March 2023 (several people who are working on things need more time)

If anyone is still interested, it’s going to take me a while to compile this and the piece could also use a couple more submissions, so extending the deadline for submissions to June 1st, 2023.

Right so I am in the process of making a zine on how aspec relationships inform relationship anarchy (the equalisation or emphasis of importance of all relationships, as opposed to the current social hierarchy of romantic/sexual relationships over platonic, familial, etc. ones) and would love any input fellow aspecs have on the matter.

I’m basically just sick of the covert aphobia /erasure in queer leftist spaces when we have so much to offer.

Please do get in contact and/or share this within ace/aro/agender spec spaces!

Aphobes dni and fuck off xo

Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)

There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!

Inviting submissions:

What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?

Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)

These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.

More info:

Keep reading

Extending the deadline until the end of March 2023 (several people who are working on things need more time)

If anyone is still interested, it’s going to take me a while to compile this and the piece could also use a couple more submissions, so extending the deadline for submissions to June 1st, 2023.

Call for submissions (zine): harm in non-normative relationships (deadline extended: Jan 2023)

There’s been some interest in a new issue of “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm non-normative relationships. So I’m extending the deadline to January 30, 2023 and inviting people to share the call for submissions!

Inviting submissions:

What do you mean by “non-normative relationship”?

Basically any personal or intimate relationship that is NOT romantic, NOT a “couple” (or a romantic/sexual triad), and not a “standard” friendship: a personal relationship that is somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)

These could include queerplatonic** (QP) relationship but they also might include relationships people don’t typically think about when we talk of “non-normative relationships”– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc. They might include cross-generational relationships between adults that are not typical in a particular cultural context, or co-parenting situations of multiple parents who aren’t romantically or sexually involved, etc. Could even be relationship in the context of accountability work gone wrong… So many possibilities.

More info:

Keep reading

Extending the deadline until the end of March 2023 (several people who are working on things need more time)

call for submissions: “Rotten Zucchinis Zine” Revisited (06/2022)

Some recent interest reminded me that it’s been almost a decade since the original “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm in qp / non-normative relationships began taking shape. So it’s time to revisit this in a call for new submissions:

Inviting submissions:

** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)

Keep reading

In terms of prompts, this might be helpful:

So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides— these relationships aren’t romantic relationships, but they aren’t typical friendships either. And we’ve been fighting for years to get our friends, families and communities to take these relationships seriously. We finally have some language to talk about these “nonnormative” relationships existing…

But we don’t have the tools to talk about when our “nonnormative” relationships are unhealthy or go wrong. Often we don’t even have the space to admit that sometimes they do. Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about violence / abuse and harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships. This relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual.

Some optional guiding questions:

Note: By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. This might include relationships people don’t typically think about– for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc.

call for submissions: “Rotten Zucchinis Zine” Revisited (06/2022)

Some recent interest reminded me that it’s been almost a decade since the original “Rotten Zucchinis zine” about harm in qp / non-normative relationships began taking shape. So it’s time to revisit this in a call for new submissions:

Inviting submissions:

** By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. (The people involved do not have to be arospec and/or ace even though almost everyone who contributed to the first 2 issues was.)

Keep reading

In terms of prompts, this might be helpful:

So many of us have been doing our important relationships without any road maps or “how-to” guides— these relationships aren't romantic relationships, but they aren't typical friendships either. And we've been fighting for years to get our friends, families and communities to take these relationships seriously. We finally have some language to talk about these “nonnormative” relationships existing...

But we don't have the tools to talk about when our “nonnormative” relationships are unhealthy or go wrong. Often we don't even have the space to admit that sometimes they do. Rotten Zucchinis is a zine about violence / abuse and harm and destructiveness in “non-normative” relationships. This relational territory is messy. Some forms of harm are about power and control and have a perpetrator wielding that power and control on another. Some forms of harm are not about power/control, and can be mutual.

Some optional guiding questions:

Note: By “non-normative” I’m referring to things like queerplatonic relationships or other non-romantic personal or intimate relationships that are somehow “outside the box” and not adequately or properly described by the term “friendship”– especially relationships for which there are no good specific labels. This might include relationships people don't typically think about-- for example, organising/comrade relationships insofar as they are personal relationships, chosen family, roommates in a community house, etc.

Thanks!

I was wondering why it stopped

Oh, there just didn’t seem to be much interest in a 3rd issue/volume at the time and by that time I was also working on another zine about feeling silenced in / alienated from ace spaces (”f-ace-ing silence”). And any kind of comp zine project (where various people submit things) is tricky-- there’s a reason why so many calls for zine submissions don’t actually result in zines. Zines that deal with experiences of violence or abuse are especially challenging... for various reasons. 

Having said that, it’s now been a few years... and someone just emailed me about this, so it might be time to gauge the interest again... If there are even one or two pieces that people would like to contribute at this point, I could edit them into the combined volume, for an updated edition fairly easily. 

Call for submissions?

Email me at: rotten [dot] zucchinis [at] gmail [dot] com (check in by end of June 2022)

Hey, so I'm doing some reading and came across something I'm mildly surprised that I haven't heard of before.

SAD (sexual aversion disorder) which was removed from the DSM-V,, I know some aces worked with the APA in the HSDD -> FSIAD change,, did they also have input in the removal of SAD?

I looked through some of my old flibanserin related sources, but didn't come across info on the ace input to the DSM-V, will dig deeper into my old sources later.

@rotten-zucchinis @nextstepcake @aceflibanserintaskforce @redbeardace @grace-and-ace

Sorry for tagging yall, but yall were prominent in my old tumblr post sources & maybe someone knows/could point me in a direction?

The short answer is sort of.

There was the AVEN DSM Taskforce that put together a report over 2008-2009 for the APA’s Sexual Dysfunction Workgroup (which was a subcommittee working on revision the sexual dysfunctions section of the DSM). I was one of the people involved in this Taskforce.

The AVEN DSM Taskforce report included input from Anthony Bogaert and (per his request) included a copy of his 2006 paper in the appendix. It also included survey input from several academics willing to provide input (one anonymously). We did not ask for permission to share this input beyond the context of submitting the report to the committee and therefore this report was never made public. The report also included personal statements from several of the us community members (as many as wanted to include them) as well as a general conclusion. 

This report focused largely and fairly specifically on Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) but the lit review did mention and briefly discuss Sexual Aversion Disorder (SAD), and SAD was mentioned a couple times in the report.

In practice, regardless of how the document was framed, the delivery of the report was pragmatically more about having input into the committee’s considerations for their revisions generally than it was about a specific disorder per se in the sense that it was a report raising the issue of asexuality with the group of people that was responsible for revising that entire section with all the sexual disorders. (And Lori Brotto was on this committee, and had already begun researching asexuality.)

And if I recall wasn’t David Jay specifically involved in conversations with the committee about HSDD? I’m reaching back in my memory and it’s fuzzy now, but I feel like David has a real big part too and worked alongside AVEN.

Yes David Jay was involved in the AVEN DSM Taskforce and I believe had done enough preliminary groundwork that APA’s DSM workgroup revising the sexual disorders was willing to consider our report. (This was not a situation where they were soliciting public consultations.) 

I don’t actually know how or to what degree our report actually had an impact on their understanding of asexuality or the direction or specifics they adopted with the various sexual disorders. That’s something only the APA’s DSM workgroup members would know.

Hey, so I'm doing some reading and came across something I'm mildly surprised that I haven't heard of before.

SAD (sexual aversion disorder) which was removed from the DSM-V,, I know some aces worked with the APA in the HSDD -> FSIAD change,, did they also have input in the removal of SAD?

I looked through some of my old flibanserin related sources, but didn't come across info on the ace input to the DSM-V, will dig deeper into my old sources later.

@rotten-zucchinis @nextstepcake @aceflibanserintaskforce @redbeardace @grace-and-ace

Sorry for tagging yall, but yall were prominent in my old tumblr post sources & maybe someone knows/could point me in a direction?

The short answer is sort of.

There was the AVEN DSM Taskforce that put together a report over 2008-2009 for the APA’s Sexual Dysfunction Workgroup (which was a subcommittee working on revision the sexual dysfunctions section of the DSM). I was one of the people involved in this Taskforce.

The AVEN DSM Taskforce report included input from Anthony Bogaert and (per his request) included a copy of his 2006 paper in the appendix. It also included survey input from several academics willing to provide input (one anonymously). We did not ask for permission to share this input beyond the context of submitting the report to the committee and therefore this report was never made public. The report also included personal statements from several of the us community members (as many as wanted to include them) as well as a general conclusion. 

This report focused largely and fairly specifically on Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) but the lit review did mention and briefly discuss Sexual Aversion Disorder (SAD), and SAD was mentioned a couple times in the report.

In practice, regardless of how the document was framed, the delivery of the report was pragmatically more about having input into the committee’s considerations for their revisions generally than it was about a specific disorder per se in the sense that it was a report raising the issue of asexuality with the group of people that was responsible for revising that entire section with all the sexual disorders. (And Lori Brotto was on this committee, and had already begun researching asexuality.)