Hey folks, it's swankivy and I'm here with another Letters to an Asexual.
This is number 55.
And um, here I am in my uh, fireplace room.
And uh, I think I made one other video in here before, but, I kinda like this room for
videos but the lighting is really weird, so, sorry if it looks strange.
Today's letter is going to be a letter that was not written to me but it did mention me,
actually it just, it mentions my book.
Uh, and it is a few years old, I believe the information I have here says it's from 2014.
But I was rereading it recently.
I had saved it to my computer and I decided this is something I wanted to talk about.
Um, so this was kind of an article-slash-uh-attack piece in a funny way of phrasing, like he
tried to act like it wasn't really an attack on asexuality because it was all humorous,
but to me it wasn't too humorous, and uh, I will explain to you why, um, you may have
seen this back when it came out in 2014.
It was published in Taki's Magazine.
Uh, I don't know if you're familiar with that publication.
I was not really, but uh, you know, other people were saying that this is very typical
for that author.
And he published an article called "Asexuality: It's not just for plants anymore."
Hilarious.
So first I will read you what he wrote, and try not to interject my commentary.
And then I'll go back through it and kind of skim it and read some of the parts that
I wanna talk about, and I'll give you a little summary at the end about why this kind of
thing, even if it's funny, it's, uh, not funny to us and can actually do damage.
So, okay, here's what he wrote.
"Asexuality.
It's not just for plants anymore.
Nay, it is now a designated sexual identity for humans who aren't horny.
But it is much more than merely an individual identity.
Because the Internet makes everything exasperatingly social, asexual individuals now also comprise
a community.
Even more aggravating-- aggravatingly, asexuality is a movement.
It's a moving community.
It's a community that's moving around, not having sex.
It is a living, breathing, moving community of sexually disinterested individuals whose
lack of shared attraction acts like a magnet drawing them all together under the same limp,
dry umbrella.
Members of the asexual movement are quick to distinguish themselves from celibates.
The latter, they argue, are innately horny yet restrain themselves from acting upon their
carnal impulses.
Asexuals, however, simply aren't interested in sex.
Whether that qualifies as a sexual orientation or a sexual disorientation is anyone's guess.
Asexual activists—yes, they exist, and c'mon, if they're not having sex they have to be
active doing something—successfully agitated the American Psychiatric Association to designate
asexuality as a legitimate identity rather than a medical or psychological dysfunction
in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
They have also gone to great pains to buttress and legitimize their abject absence of libidinousness
and concupiscence with scholarly works such as 1977's pioneering paper 'Asexual and
Autoerotic Women: Two Invisible Groups' and 2008's 'Coming to an Asexual Identity: Negotiating
Identity, Negotiating Desire.'
This month saw the release of a full-length book called The Invisible Orientation: An
Introduction to Asexuality, which will surely become the Mein Kampf of the chronically un-aroused.
The asexual community boasts an absurdly vast pool of resources for individuals who wish
to bond and network with the sexually disinclined.
This past June saw the second annual International Asexuality Conference in Toronto.
Asexual Awareness Week is coming in late October.
There are even asexual dating sites.
And Tumblr—which is ground zero for sexual insanity on the Web, the crossroads where
sexual deviancy and social-justice platitudes converge in one gooey rainbow-colored train
wreck—is a comic gold mine for hysterical asexual sloganeering.
By far the most prominent organization that propagates and disseminates asexual 'awareness'
is the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which was founded in 2001 and hosts
a website that answers Frequently Asked Questions and a forum with over two million posts by
people who'd much prefer to shove cake in their mouths than someone else's genitals.
AVEN even designed an asexual logo—an upside-down triangle with purple piping that tastefully
encases a white-to-black gradient.
Like any community, asexuals have developed their own language.
I've considerately decoded much of the arcane terminology they employ to denote the vast
'asexual spectrum': ACE…shorthand for 'asexual.'
ACEVAGUE…someone who may be asexual as a result of being autistic.
ALLOSEXUAL…those who aren't asexual, otherwise known as 'normal people.'
AROMANTIC…those who don't desire romance, either.
AROVAGUE…someone who may be aromantic as a result of being autistic.
BIROMANTIC…those who desire romantic (but not sexual) relationships with either gender.
CUPIOSEXUAL…an asexual who wishes they were an allosexual.
DEMISEXUAL…an asexual who is able to muster sexual attraction only after first forming
a romantic bond with someone.
GREYSEXUAL…someone who inhabits a space somewhere along the vast spectrum between
asexuals and allosexuals.
PAN-HOMOROMANTIC POLYAMOROUS GREY-ASEXUAL GENDERQUEER…the highly specific sexual self-identifier
of the logo designer.
REPULSED ASEXUAL…someone who is actively disgusted at the very idea of having sexual
contact with someone else.
SQUISH…the platonic form of a romantic crush.
Well, if that list didn't kill your sex drive, I'm not sure what will.
Still, the asexual movement presses forward, fired up by its inability to get turned on.
Once someone has 'come out' as asexual, these sexually inactive activists tend to do what
members of every other allegedly 'oppressed' special-interest identity group does: They
lecture people.
DO NOT call them frigid.
DO NOT call them repressed.
DO NOT call them crazy.
DO NOT assume they were molested.
DO NOT suggest they have a hormonal imbalance.
And DO NOT insinuate that they merely haven't met someone who knows how to properly 'deliver
the groceries.'
Hilariously—because intersectional squabbling among self-designated victim groups is always
hilarious—asexuals have tried noodling their way into the so-called LGBT movement, only
to be rebuffed by many homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals who scoff at the idea that
asexuality is a sexual orientation.
Many traditional 'queers' get their assless leather chaps chafed at asexuals who try to
claim the term 'queer' for themselves, arguing that 'queer' denotes non-hetero manifestations
of human sexuality—emphasis on the 'sexuality.'
Ironically, the asexuals—who refuse to take it in any hole—wind up getting it from all
sides."
Hohoho.
So now I'm gonna go back through it and see if I can pick out the parts that I wanna discuss.
Let's see.
All right.
"It is now a designated sexual identity for humans who aren't horny."
Funny how someone who mocked our need for definitions still isn't getting that right.
"Because the Internet makes everything exasperatingly social, asexual individuals now also comprise
a community."
Translation: It's absurd for people who feel isolated in their everyday lives to form online
communities and, uh, discuss common experiences they've had, right?
"Drawing them all together under the same limp, dry umbrella."
Haha!
Rimshot!
We're not having sex, therefore we're boring and prudish and that's the central facet of
what we're organizing about here.
Let's see.
Okay.
"Asexual activists—c'mon, if they're not having sex they have to be active doing
something."
Because if you're not having sex, there's nothing else to do and no meaning at all in
your life, of course, that's how it works.
So you have to desperately claw at meaning and try to squeeze some kind of meaning out
of your organization surrounding asexuality and ya know, fill the void in your pathetic
life!
So, okay.
I'm pretty familiar people who come onto, like, my channel or you know, quote me somewhere
else to talk about me, and try to say like, asexuality activism is the only thing I do
and it's my whole life and they're saying that based on specifically looking at my theme
channel, or my book, or the asexuality-specific things I've done on blogs.
And I'm thinking, how are you getting the idea that you're gonna see diverse content
in a place that you went specifically to see the asexuality content?
I mean, if you had, if they had any idea, like, how mind-blowingly diverse the things
that I do, even just stuff that I do online, not even stuff that I'm not documenting, like
how many different things I do.
Like, I like to think that they wouldn't claim this is the only thing that I do, but it's
just, it's really funny to me how consistently they will look at, like, a specific slice
of my online presence and then claim that that's the only thing that I do.
Um, and also, like, it's, it's really frustrating when they think it's silly for us to want
to talk about these things, like, that even if that was the only thing that I was doing,
or the major thing that I was doing, or did actually occupy most of my time and attention,
like, helping other people with, like, difficulties surrounding a major aspect of social interaction
in how we communicate in our society?
That's not a useless goal.
So even if it was all I did, it wouldn't be pointless or pathetic.
So, yeah, that's really funny to me.
Okay.
"They successfully agitated the American Psychiatric Association to designate asexuality as a legitimate
identity rather than a medical or psychological dysfunction."
It's hard to tell if, like, he's kinda mocking us there, it seems like, just, the way that
it's framed, he's playing us as if we're a bunch of busybodies, like, quibbling about
something that doesn't really need discussion.
But, you know, like other detractors are always, like, yammering at us about how we don't experience
institutional oppression and, you know, therefore have no business joining forces with other
queer groups and other marginalized sexualities.
Um, but you know, like, thanks to the efforts of the people who did petition those in charge
of making those changes, like, we're not actively considered a disorder by the book that tells
psychologists what is a disorder and what the symptoms are.
So, like, that's not a ridiculous thing for us to have done.
Okay.
Mmm.
I don't wanna talk about this one but I will.
"The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, which will surely become the
Mein Kampf of the chronically un-aroused."
As if publishing something to increase understanding is in any way comparable to a manifesto by
the world's most famous bigot, where he describes how he incorporated hatred into his politics.
I mean, and he called it a struggle.
Not to mention as a Jewish creator, um, I don't even have words for how disgusting it
is to compare MY BOOK to the writing of HITLER.
Okay.
All right.
Going on.
"And Tumblr—which is ground zero for sexual insanity on the Web, the crossroads where
sexual deviancy and social-justice platitudes converge in one gooey rainbow-colored train
wreck—is a comic gold mine for hysterical asexual sloganeering."
Okay, like, I get that people like to mock Tumblr because it's a young population and
it has a certain culture.
But again, framing our conversations as inherently hilarious is just really shitty.
"Asexuals have developed their own language.
I've considerately decoded much of the arcane terminology."
No, you misrepresented most of our terms and pretended what's funny about your version
is our fault.
"ACEVAGUE…someone who may be asexual as a result of being autistic."
No, I've actually heard this one used by people who want to suggest that they believe their
asexuality is kind of a function of their neurodivergence.
But you know, this guy is using it as an excuse to take potshots at autistic people, because
autistic people are still an acceptable target.
Awesome.
"ALLOSEXUAL…those who aren't asexual, otherwise known as 'normal people.'"
Okay, if you don't understand why "normal people" as a term for the majority is not
acceptable, um, I'm gonna need another time slot to make a video about that.
That would need a whole separate lecture.
Buh buh buh, a few of these are actually not attempting to make a joke out of the definition,
a few of them are wrong but not necessarily in a deliberately gross way.
It's hard to tell sometimes.
Huh.
"Well, if that list didn't kill your sex drive, I'm not sure what will."
Pfft shut up.
"Still, the asexual movement presses forward, fired up by its inabil--inability to get turned
on."
You know, this kind of misrepresentation is frigging everywhere.
Like, that we're organizing about, like, the lack of anything happening in our pants, like,
that that's what we're organizing around.
And it's like, they suggest oh well, there's nothing to organize about if that's what,
you know, it's literally nothing, ho ho ho.
But like, let's say, okay, you're out there protesting against, like, extreme inequalities
that affect you as a low-income person, and like, you're trying to get mainstream attention
for, like, the special difficulties you face because you're in that situation, and then
like, some dipshit rolls on in there, and spotlights your footage on their crappy show
and like, describes it, ho ho, chortling all the way, like "These people made an identity
out of being broke, lol."
And it's like NO, THEY DIDN'T make an identity out of being broke.
THEY CREATED A FORUM TO SHOW YOU, like, all the problems that they're facing and access
solidarity, maybe, through that.
And like, the fact that you have to misrepresent their cause before you can laugh at it should
probably tell you something about whether you should really be laughing at that.
"These sexually inactive activists tend to do what members of every other allegedly 'oppressed'
special-interest identity group does: They lecture people."
Okay, so yeah, make it seem like nobody needs our messages and all of our discussions are,
you know inherently worthless.
But you know, as evidenced by that list that you offered of the supposed definitions and
lecture topics that we could use, this is like, obviously still pretty necessary because,
like, you're not listening.
"Intersectional squabbling among self-designated victim groups is always hilarious."
That is just a really gross sentence.
"Many traditional 'queers' get their assless leather chaps chafed at asexuals who try to
claim the term 'queer' for themselves."
Yeah, make fun of queer people in general and misrepresent their whole community as
if they don't accept us.
Okay, so, I think that's all I'm gonna talk about with like, specific examples pulled
out of the article, but like, some people have said that article's, like, it's harmless
because like it's just snark or it's really the, the problem is us not finding it funny
and not understanding that it's SATIRE.
But the problem with that is that for something to work as satire, the audience, by and large,
has to understand that it's an exaggeration or it's a reversal.
Like, they have to, they have to understand the basics of what you're even talking about
and some of what he said was identical to the things that actual detractors say to us,
so it doesn't work as satire.
Let me tick off some things that they're doing here.
They're misrepresenting us not understanding biology.
Um, they're laughing at us for wanting to organize.
They're mocking our efforts to legitimize our orientation through stuff like talking
to the DSM, um, they shame us with, like, digs about how we have nothing meaningful
in our lives if we're not having sex or our relationships don't look enough like theirs,
and they're spreading misinformation about our ways of talking to each other, um, and
the thing is, they're also using bigger stages than we generally have in our community, like,
occasionally one of us will get on a show or in a documentary or something, but by and
large they have access to bigger megaphones than we do, and they're, they're using those
big stages to say these things, so like, they're teaching that mainstream audience that it's
okay to laugh at us, that it's okay to mock us, that these are the memorable aspects of
us as individuals and us as a community.
And you know, painting us as if we're some kind of fad that came out of Tumblr that's
obsessed with victim mentality, it's like, that still, that damages us even if you're
kidding.
Because there is no way you can still say those things and frame them humorously but
not still make people think that that's what we're about.
And we still don't have the countering mainstream perspectives to make that kinda thing okay.
So like, that's really why I think it's not funny, and you know, I mean, you might chuckle
at one or two things from that because you might've seen it, but the, the overall message
of it felt like we were the joke.
He wasn't making a joke.
We were the joke.
So um, that's kinda my perspective on why that sort of thing was not okay, still is
not okay four years later, and um, you know, I recommend that if anybody is trying to write
satire about asexuality, uh, they might wanna consider you know, whether they're gonna have
a negative impact on us.
Um, so, that's what I have to say about that, and if you will excuse me, I've got a whole
entire life that I have to go to that only involves writing about asexuality and blogging
about asexuality and going out to march in a pride parade carrying the asexual flag,
and like, see if I can find some new ways to be obsessed with asexuality and do nothing
else, so I mean, like all good asexual activists, I've got some lecturing to do.
So I'll see you guys next time.
For more infomation >> Hidden History: A look at African Americans who have made an impact - Duration: 26:06. 
For more infomation >> Shiranamikai JKA Shotokan karate - an introduction to the club - Duration: 0:58. 
For more infomation >> Merkel holt schärfsten Kritiker an Bord - Duration: 3:23. 
For more infomation >> Driving to the West, an RV lifestyle vlog (Florida to Texas) - Duration: 29:11. 
For more infomation >> PHOTOS MY LIFE (vidéo spéciale 1 an sur Youtube) - Duration: 25:43. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét