darth-char:

bisexywebslinger:

writingfish:

psychrolutes-marcidus:

Stop! making! characters! asexual! in! your! fics! then! having! them! change! their! minds! when! they! meet! their! love! interest! please!

Fun fact: This is called demisexuality and is also part of the ace spectrum.

You’re totally right! How do you write that respectfully in a way that doesn’t take away from ace representation?

(I’m not necessarily asking you, just anyone who feels they have a good idea.)

caveat: i am asexual but not demisexual, so my understanding of that side of things is pretty limited to what i’ve heard from other people.

I think there’s a couple of things at work here. I would guess that the OP is mostly referring to fic writers who create or headcanon ace characters but always wind up putting them in relationships that comply with compulsory sexuality. In a vacuum, having a character you say is ace decide to have sex with their love interest or realize they are not in fact asexual (which are different things!!!!) wouldn’t be a problem.

The issue arises when that happens all the time, and the word “demisexuality” never figures into it–when the (usually allosexual) writer puts characters they claim are asexual into sexual relationships so that they’re “not a prude like those bad stereotypical asexuals” or so that they can “show their love for their partner.”

Aces can and do have sex with their partners. But most aces are sex-repulsed, myself included, and writing ace characters this way contributes to a culture that considers a relationship without sex to be somehow less real or valid. Which, y’know. Bullshit.

THAT SAID. Demis exist! Demis are awesome! Demis need representation too!

So, like … ideal fic setups:

• Character A believes themselves to be entirely ace, meets Character B, forms emotional attachment to B, discovers they are sexually attracted to B, and goes “Wellp, that happened, guess I’m more demi than I originally thought!”, happily ever after.
  
• Character A believes themselves to be entirely ace, meets Character B, decides they want to have sex with B for whatever reason, B does not pressure them into it and makes sure they’re getting what they need out of the relationship, sex happens, happily ever after.
  
• Character A believes themselves to be entirely ace, meets Character B, does not want to have sex with B, B does not pressure them into having sex, sex does not happen, happily ever after.

But what happens a lot of the time is this:

• Character A believes themselves to be entirely ace, meets Character B, decides they want to have sex with B in order to ~show their love~ and ~please their partner~ because they are a Good Ace (unlike all those cold selfish prudish stereotypical aces who withhold sex from their poor partners), sex happens, narrative does not acknowledge the fact that this is Skeevy On Toast.
  

tl;dr–what I see a lot of isn’t representation for demis; it’s shitting on aces who do not want sex under any circumstances. And that does both demis and sex-repulsed aces alike a massive disservice.

I’m currently writing a demisexual character (and I might be, myself? still unpacking that.) and I find a lot of it has to do with their point of view narrative, too. I’m also writing someone who’s pan becoming attracted to a person over a long period of time, and that narrative of “becoming attached + attracted” is very different between the two of them.

Someone who’s not on the ace spectrum will have to reconcile sexual attraction first, I think. They realize they’ve gotten attracted to this person, and their other platonic or romantic relationships will have to navigate that all the time. The attractions grow alongside each other, cooperatively. Depending on how things, go, one of those attractions could exist without the other– or not, depending on the personality of the person. But they don’t grow out of each other, they aren’t one being, they are co-dependent.

But someone who’s demi (and me, too, I think?) doesn’t feel attraction until the first relational attachments are strongly formed. Instead of two attractions growing side by side, their asexual attraction kind of sprouts a bud of sexual attraction just for that one person. It’s not it’s own plant, so to speak– and it can’t exist without the asexual relationship first. It’s self-contained rather than co-dependent.

I guess what I’m trying to describe is that while I’m writing ace and non-ace relationships in one story, I’m learning to see ace relationships as their own thing rather than a lack of a thing. Demisexual people experience a demi relationship, rather than a “lack of a sexual attraction until that one specific person and then they’re sexual” like no, they are having a demi relationship all the time.

(via smolbirbfren)