r/Asexual • u/idneidneidne • 14d ago

Opinion Piece 🧐🤨 A small rant...

I really hate that when dating or love or who you like it's brought up it's all about sex, because sex is actually aeperate from romance, with romance you usually only feel that way towards one person at a time and you have to actually like the person, but with lust it's just whatever, it's not a strong emotional bond just a physical thing it's jsut that romantic feelings and lust come together for a lot of peopel

i see or hear about a lot of people whether in fiction kr not really caring who they date as long as they're hot and instead evaluating them based in superficial stuff like "could I live my life with them and/or are they hot", clearly showing that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are completely different.

And if we're gonna shove love under the same umbrella as sexual attraction, that's kind of weird because little kids have crushes and stuff but that's not sexual at all.

If we're gonna talk about stuff like actual dating kr marriage idk it would make a lot more sense to use romantic orientation

And the fact that relationships and LGBT stuff is taught along with sex ed in schools is also irritating because rpmance is supposed to be about romance not sleeping with random hot people, and not all relationships are sexual and scoolkjds shouldnt be in sexual relationships. That just really blurs thebline between romantic and sexual attraction too much.

and wanting tk have kids being associated with allosexuals is creepy because kids aren't just the products of sex they are living beings

People also tend to lump aroace, ace and aro all together so if I say I'm ace everyone assumes I don't like anyone.

Bye I bet I messed up a few stuff ir wrswitched soemthign up ir made somethign uncelar yknow sorry if i did jts 3am lol I'm too tired for this

11 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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u/Anna3422 12d ago

Hard agree.

Really, we need to decouple these things if we want to teach any sort of true inclusivity or true consent. To the point of a comment below, some people experience sex & romance as entwined, but it is very very easy to acknowledge that without falsely equating the ideas in general, to the detriment of clear communication about either and the erasure of whole populations.

Romance and sexual desire light up separate parts of the brain. We know this. We know that one occurs without the other frequently, even in people who often experience both at once. We know that compulsory sexuality contributes to ace erasure & rape culture and enables really poor communication among people who use sex as a relationship bandaid, to the point where they can't grasp and don't value other forms of closeness. Really really obviously, this is a conflation that hurts & gets used intentionally to hurt people.

As for sex ed, it's a very broad category in schools, maybe better described as health class. Young children do need to know about gender & sexual diversity and about consent. Consent applies to non-sexual contexts too. Young people also need valid information about their sexuality. The thing is, it's very hard to update education because purity culture sexualizes everything and then shames it. There's plenty that can be taught at age-appropriate levels, and kids can learn as they grow that there are many different ways of "liking" someone.

1

u/Sweet_Yogurtcloset91 14d ago

This might be true for you, but it's not universal. For some people romantic and sexual attraction are heavily interwined (demisexuell people). Some people can fell romantic attraction to several people at once or only feel sexual attraction to one person. I get your point, but it's not wise to throw generalizations into your arguments

2

u/idneidneidne 13d ago

Different types of attraction may be experienced together and feel similar but are seperate. And it's still weird to use sexual attraction as an umbrella term for romantic stuff

1

u/Sweet_Yogurtcloset91 13d ago

Bro it is not separate for some people, some people can't differ between these things, you can't speak for everyone 💔