Romance: unknown, seems to be “best friends with sex”. I’m clearly missing something. (People treat it as separate from sex, a bigger deal than friendship) So: what is romance.
I don’t really entirely know. I would have pretty much agreed with that definition at one point, but there are people who have romance without much friendship, and now I just don’t even know. It doesn’t appear to be inherently sexual, although there’s a ton of correlation. I have no idea.
Romance, IMO, is when you don’t just Have Feelings about someone, you also Have Feelings about Having Feelings about them. Barring that, just watch the Addams Family movies.
wow, it is really hard to explain how romance is different from friendship. i feel both toward seebs, and they’re not the same. and it’s not remotely just sex. but any attempt i could make to explain it would just turn into poetry. i can’t be concrete about it.
i think romantic love is one of those things that can’t be explained directly, like enlightenment.
Shoutout to all my closeted trans and nonbinary followers. You and your gender are still valid, even if others are not aware. I hope you stay safe and have a nice day.
when youre nonbinary but people dont realize youre nonbinary because you dont appeal to nonbinary standards and appeal to gender binary standards and people assume youre a certain gender and you accept it because you dont want to explain that youre nonbinary.
Since I’ve been getting a lot of questions about being non-binary, I thought I’d share this handy little zine!
Click to enlarge pics 🙂
I’m not nb myself but THANK YOU for providing a gender neutral name for aunt/uncle! Been lookin’ everywhere for one! I’m gonna need that in the future.
imagine lemony snicket narrating your transition, though.
Rachel said, “I’m cis, but—” a phrase which here means ‘I have a very large surprise waiting for me later in life’.
“Perhaps you have been influenced by all the transtrenders,” opined Mrs Scorseby. ‘Transtrenders’ here refers to a small group of people who, for reasons quite beyond Mrs Scorseby, enjoy dressing up in particular sorts of specialized undergarments and avoiding various gristly and untimely demises at the hands of local gender authorities.’
Gender is a very complicated business for some people. Many people live their whole lives as the same gender they started with, in the same way many people are fortunate enough to remain in the same house in which they were born, a house which never burns down or goes into foreclosure or finds itself due to be invaded by mysterious operatives with nefarious purposes. But some rare and unlucky people wake up one day to an urgent and undeniable phone call, and after that there is simply nothing else to do but throw anything that comes to hand into a rucksack and take off for the Scottish highlands in a false beard.
s/o to aces who like to be sensually intimate with their partners
s/o to aces who like to be sexually intimate with their partners
s/o to aces who aren’t “perfect” asexuals, you are still valid and you are all ace af
I am really not trying to be rude, I just want to understand!! If you enjoy being sexually intimate with a partner, how are you asexual? Sorry if this comes across as offensive, I’m just interested to know!
There are other reasons than specifically wanting to have sex for the sake of having sex. For example, some asexuals want to please their non-asexual partners, and it isn’t necessarily uncomfortable for them, they just don’t specifically desire that particular action. Like, asexuals can still dig the feeling of sexual stimulation, since it is meant to be pleasurable.
It’s like, if there’s cake on the table, but you don’t particularly want cake at that time, or you don’t really care for cake, you can still choose to eat it because even if cake isn’t your favourite or you’re quite full already, it still tastes fine, and your best friend is eating some with you.
Alternatively, it’s possible to sort of “trade favours”; instead of sexually pleasing their asexual partner who is disinterested in receiving sexually, the non-asexual party might cuddle, kiss and otherwise be physically affectionate with their partner while making love. This’d still count as sexual intimacy, even though only one person in the act is – hopefully – orgasming.
Some asexuals see sex as a way to bond with their partners. Again, the act isn’t specifically interesting to them, but it works as a means to an end – through it, they get to feel closer to their partner.
Asexuality is the absence of sexual attraction, the “I want to bang that” trigger that most people have in response to potential sexual partners. Not the absence of sexual activity itself, which would be celibacy – the choice to not engage in sex, the act. An asexual can have sex and not feel that specific type of attraction to their partner, as attraction is passive and not based in active choice. It doesn’t mean that that partner is disgusting to them, either; they may well be aesthetically attractive to the asexual person (the same way you can appreciate a beautiful statue or a painting without becoming sexually aroused by viewing it) and the asexual person may well desire physical intimacy with them, such as hugging, kissing, cuddling and holding hands. Since not all asexuals are inherently repulsed by sex but merely disinterested in it by default, turning that desire for general closeness into sexual activity where it provides fulfillment of some form to both parties isn’t necessarily paradoxical.
Someone once brought up a fairly good point regarding this subject; non-asexual people also sometimes hook up and have sex with people that aren’t specifically attractive to them. It can still be perfectly consensual and satisfy the needs of both parties, despite the fact that the base attraction wasn’t there. For example, a person who just wants to have sex with someone might go along with a partner they would not otherwise choose, but who simply happens to be available and ready to do the deed with them. Alternatively, a woman might seek to have a baby, and have sex with a partner solely for that purpose, and whether the partner chosen is sexually attractive to them or not isn’t a big factor in the choice. (Plenty of asexual women choose to have sex to have children.) There are multiple reasons to have sex even when you’re not sexually attracted. Specifically for asexuals, the factor of having a non-asexual partner is usually a big motivator to have sex, and other reasons like the ones I explored above may additionally pop up to support that decision.
Finally, some asexuals just really dig orgasms. Most people do. We just don’t have that special someone we wish was delivering them to us, and largely prefer to take care of our own. But when you are in a relationship and that kind of comes as a package deal, some asexuals don’t feel like it’s a bad trade, or at least aren’t violently opposed to the idea. I think most asexuals who do choose to have sex are indifferent to it – it’s not their favourite thing in the world, but it takes care of business.
My favourite thing about the whole ‘no man of woman born’ thing is that it applies to a very broad church.
For example:
People born via c-section (no man of woman born, meaning natural childbirth, aka, the Shakespeare approach)
Women (no man of woman born, aka, the Tolkein approach)
Non-binary types (see above)
Aliens (no man of woman born, with the meaning of man being in the ‘mankind’ sense)
Artificial intelligences (see above again)
Transmen (no man of woman born, the man-ness appears to come later as gender is a social construct. Arguably borderline, I know.)
People carried by a man (no man of woman born)
People grown in vats (no man of woman born)
Basically, anyone who isn’t a human cisgendered male delivered via natural childbirth by a woman could kill Macbeth. (Given the equipment via science!, the child of a transwoman born via natural childbirth would still count as unable to.)
It’s odd that you can divide mankind into ‘Macbeth killers’ and everyone else, even though everyone else is in the minority, especially if aliens are real and we create AIs capable of murdering Scottish kings.
there are two genders: macbeth killers and macbeth
just moving along like everyone else 