Four days ago Star Lord from marvel was confirmed bi in the comics which is admittedly not much and it is made worse since Chris Pratt dabbles with religious fundamentalism.
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- Thread starter dhelmise
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The writers fumbled a bit with his characterization, but Klaus from the Umbrella Academy is essentially bisexual. Perhaps pansexual. Some also interpret him as non binary apparently... but the show never really identifies him as anything but a guy who sleeps with men and women.
just spoiled a beautiful man for me
I recommend either using a different label or doing your homework on the very terms you're lobotomizing to quell conflict. This is a complete bastardization of the term, and it's evident you lack the range for this conversation if you assert that queer is an apolitical identity.
I do believe there is a time and place for everything, and I certainly would never use a person's coming out post as a stepping stone to philosophically dunk on their newfound and developing identity. After all, I have certainly held incoherent and poor beliefs in the past. And probably in the present. We're all works in progress.
Are you in cahoots with that many aromantics and asexuals to where you're THAT offended by Crux's assertion that LGBT communities shouldn't center asexuals in their politicking? Or, maybe, just maybe, do you find the assertion that you're not queer just by virtue of being, and must politically act as such, at odds with your core identities? You cite LGBT communities being rooted in compassion and mutual understanding, which is true to a degree, but they are also fixed within militancy and opposition to hierarchy. Queerness is liberationism, not assimilationism. Queerness is intentionality. Queerness is anti-capitalism. Queerness is love through action and showing up.
And to define liberation? You must define the political movement. You must have a critical understanding of the architects of oppression—systems, laws, actors, etc. As a corollary, you must also articulate the groups and bodies which are being oppressed to create a community and coalition. Political movements have limited capital to enact change, and thus specificity is required to efficiently make use of their time. Perhaps suggesting hetero-asexuals(?) aren't particularly worthy of our energy isn't aphobic(?), but instead strategic marshaling of focus. Let's flip the script: I find it homophobic to hog resources dedicated to folks who face the brunt of systemic violence in order to feel good about your vaguely divergent identities.
I understand qualms with Crux's methods. He is an ardent debater and forces you to double down on any misstep. That being said, every misstep is a chance for improvement.
Truly Rosa, I wish you would just come out and say "I find Crux antagonistic," and it would be a more honest post. It's absolutely asinine to strip queerness from any form of politicized definition. If you want to have a coming out thread, I believe that could be a proper compromise in order to have it removed from discussions.
How is anyone being "indoctrinated", by the way? You, unlike me, are in a position of power, and yet you have repeatedly misfired in this thread; if you're not drinking this supposed Kool-aid, who is?
TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Queerness is not inherently anti-capitalist.
Stop being rhetorically dramatic for effect, it's garbage and never works and makes you look like a self-aggrandizing gibbon. (This goes for everyone who has ever said "At best it's x, and at worst it's harmful"- harmful how? Be specific or else again, all you're doing is slapping your genitals and howling as a show of rhetorical force)
Stop being rhetorically dramatic for effect, it's garbage and never works and makes you look like a self-aggrandizing gibbon. (This goes for everyone who has ever said "At best it's x, and at worst it's harmful"- harmful how? Be specific or else again, all you're doing is slapping your genitals and howling as a show of rhetorical force)
I am sorry your experiences with this world building and community have led you to believe as such, Valk. I hope you find space and community which leads you to believe more strongly about their enmeshment. Universalizing your own experiences for dramatic effect (in the weirdest place for a gotcha, too) however, seems to be the most self-aggrandizing action on this page.
David from Schitt's Creek. Im only a casual fan of the show (I watch with my mom sometimes) but I can tell they definitely did a good job with representation with his character
Is the underlined portion meant to relate to asexuality specifically? If it is, I don't understand how "being" ace is any different than "being" gay or trans. If it isn't ace-specific, why mention it as a reason to react badly to Crux's ace-exclusion? I don't mean to come off hostile; I sincerely don't understand what you intended.
I will say that I am ace myself, but trans also, so whether I am queer is not affected by ace-exclusion.
As someone opposed to Crux, I may as well say this if it does anyone any good. I do find him antagonistic, and while missteps certainly can be opportunities for growth, I did not perceive his presence in this thread as one focused on the growth of others.
E: Thanks for the clarity, it was very helpful.
Sorry for the muddiness. I was referencing 'queer' being an identity which required intentional engagement. If you don't want to walk the walk, just say you're gay like everyone else.
TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Queerness and anti-capitalism are bound in many ways, but capitalism is not found in skin color or gender or sexual orientation, it's merely a form of distributing power. So no, queerness is NOT anti-capitalist axiomatically as there are myriad examples of queer peoples or peoples of other oppressed minorities building their own space amidst the power structure and leveraging it against people with shared identities. This is quite literally: the exact same reasoning Crux employs for asexuality not necessarily being inherently LGBT. Queerness is only anti-capitalist in practicality, in the sense that our current capitalist system serves those who devalue queerness. (coincidentally, how asexuality is queer in practicality in the sense that the predominant function of sexuality in society is based around... having it.)
As for "universalizing my own experiences", I assume you mean the interpretation where you are coming off as morally superior, then you have to truly reflect and see that's what the majority of this entire conflict has ACTUALLY been about. We've been dancing around the tone policing in this thread for days, and I couldn't give a hoot about it under normal circumstances, but when you're trying to be persuasive to people, that's the number one thing that's blocking you from ACTUALLY building a community that is as you describe.
Please don't take my post as a gotcha, it's an attempt to make you recognize the affect you are having and how effective it is in its intentions. I agree with you for the most part, but the conflict going on in this community right now isn't built around ideas, it's built around interpersonal relations. Using rhetoric that is better suited in a speech at a rally to galvanize the undecided to tangible political action isn't going to be as effective in fixing the overall impression that you and crux and the overall "discourse havers" view yourselves as superior in some way.
Sorry to interrupt the discussion but I realized I never came to say hi to the LGBTQ+ gang here. I'm Nol, I'm aromantic and bisexual, and I'm very happy to see a thread for this kind of representation on Smogon!
Figuring out my place took me forever because I wasn't aware there was a word for aromantic until I took a Psychology course in my freshman year of college and we talked about sexuality and how romantic and sexual attraction aren't necessarily always the same, and my professor brought up aromanticism and what it means, and it all kind of clicked for me from there.
Glad to meet you all!
Figuring out my place took me forever because I wasn't aware there was a word for aromantic until I took a Psychology course in my freshman year of college and we talked about sexuality and how romantic and sexual attraction aren't necessarily always the same, and my professor brought up aromanticism and what it means, and it all kind of clicked for me from there.
Glad to meet you all!
Hi im a trans lesbian (i also like to call myself the d slur but also i know most arent comfortable with that so lol). I actually dont know what the fuck you're supposed to write in these coming out posts but women hot.
I wanted to discuss stuff here but i realized that my pov is honestly irrelevant as I live in a country thats completly different from the us, both in lgbt politics and how lgbt groups discuss (other than twitter but no one cares about twitter discourse lol). So instead just a chill post. I hope you guys are safe and well.
I wanted to discuss stuff here but i realized that my pov is honestly irrelevant as I live in a country thats completly different from the us, both in lgbt politics and how lgbt groups discuss (other than twitter but no one cares about twitter discourse lol). So instead just a chill post. I hope you guys are safe and well.
makes me all the more interested in what you would have to say or a fresh pov if you wanted to, but either way hi!
I guess its just hard for me because, since my only contact with non-brazilian lgbt stuff is the internet, theres probably a lot of gaps on my knowledge on what groups from these countries belive is best for them.
sure, i could come in and say, just a random example of course, that brazilian trans women usually hate being associated with blue, but it may be of little value if american trans women love the association and embrace it. who am I to say theyre wrong? I dont really want to step on toes with assumptions that probably arent correct, or arent very useful.
of course, if people are fine with it, I can discuss some differences in community, but i'll try to not impose stuff along the way.
and before i forget: hello :]
What's the reason that they don't like being associated with blue? Something with blue being a traditional color for baby boys or something?
oh that was just a random thing i made up for the sake of argument. I dont think disliking blue is a big community thing, just a individual's
hey all, didn't know this was a thing and I'm ever so glad it is! just thought I'd introduce myself, I'm Dratios and I'm ace, took me a while to find out that it was something that existed and even longer to be comfortable identifying with it. when I did get to that point I really leaned into it though, to the point where I dyed my hair purple, partially because it looked cool but mostly because it matched the ace flag lol
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
So, I've been thinking this over the past night. Well, actually, that'd be a lie...this has been going on for years. But I think I'm approaching the light at the end of the tunnel.
I've always identified as Biromantic and transgender, but never really been sure about what my sexuality actually is. I kind of defaulted to bisexual considering my romantic orientation, but it doesn't seem to be the truth. To clarify, my sexuality hasn't played a role in my romantic orientation nor my gender identity. It's hard to explain, everyone has their own stories.
Ever since I experienced trauma at a young age I've never really...felt anything, sexually. Even with pornographic material, there's just nothing. All it does is drive me back into the rut. I've tried to get help for this, but mental health services in the UK are awful. Hell, they got the police involved when I first came out about it without my permission. I've since made leaps on my own in overcoming that trauma these past few years, but...
I've been beginning to think that this thing with my sexuality isn't just my trauma anymore. Surely there's something there? Am I asexual? Or is it my standards? Is the answer right in front of me?
I guess these aren't questions anyone but me can answer, considering how personal this is. Just needed to write this somewhere, I suppose? It's a weird situation and I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'll probably work it out as I go about my life, no need to force it.
I've always identified as Biromantic and transgender, but never really been sure about what my sexuality actually is. I kind of defaulted to bisexual considering my romantic orientation, but it doesn't seem to be the truth. To clarify, my sexuality hasn't played a role in my romantic orientation nor my gender identity. It's hard to explain, everyone has their own stories.
Ever since I experienced trauma at a young age I've never really...felt anything, sexually. Even with pornographic material, there's just nothing. All it does is drive me back into the rut. I've tried to get help for this, but mental health services in the UK are awful. Hell, they got the police involved when I first came out about it without my permission. I've since made leaps on my own in overcoming that trauma these past few years, but...
I've been beginning to think that this thing with my sexuality isn't just my trauma anymore. Surely there's something there? Am I asexual? Or is it my standards? Is the answer right in front of me?
I guess these aren't questions anyone but me can answer, considering how personal this is. Just needed to write this somewhere, I suppose? It's a weird situation and I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'll probably work it out as I go about my life, no need to force it.
The Official Glyx
Banned deucer.
I resonate with many parts of this message since I was in a very similar position years ago. I think probably the most important thing to remember when it comes to matters of identity is that there never is any one specific thing that we "actually" are besides ourselves. The life experiences of each person is always vastly different from one another, such that it isn't really realistic to refer to ourselves with such rigidly defined terms as "straight", "gay", "bi", and what have you. Sexuality, romantic interest, and everything in between all operate as more of a sliding scale, rather than an on/off switch; not only that, they are also highly prone to shifting around, especially when we're still developing and looking inwards to try and put our feelings to terms. The way I generally like to go about describing it is as more of a ratio (M-F): things like 20-80, 40-60, 50-50, 1-99, 10-20, etc; I feel this does a better job of describing how I feel, as opposed to the more rigid terms. If you're not comfortable with something like that, it's also fine referring to yourself in ways like "bi but with a preference", "mostly straight", "prefer women but leaning asexual", etc. Exact labels generally just don't matter, since the way we feel can never be as exact.
When it comes to trauma, I can empathize with how you feel. I can only really offer my experiences on it since I don't really know what happened in your case nor how much it still impacts you up to now (not that that's something that can easily be put to terms anyhow), so take from it what you will. In my experience, I immediately turned towards being more of a lesbian since I was physically and mentally uncomfortable with the opposite gender for several years after being sexually assaulted. It wasn't until my brain developed to a point where I could be more self aware of how I came off to people around me before I could properly begin taking the steps to bring my feelings from my subconscious to the conscious to process them and reach some form of self-assured closure to what had happened and allow myself to dissociate all other men from one jerk who acted on impulse. Having roughly a year or so of isolation from non-family irl interactions in the period of time between finishing high school and starting college also very much helped so I could take things at my own pace and focus solely on developing myself. At this point, I can proudly say that I've made it past the 10 year anniversary without feeling bogged down by what happened!
Even though that trauma was a major push towards me being more of a lesbian for a long time, it's not like I wasn't already exhibiting gay traits long before what happened, having spent a majority of my childhood enveloped in the masculine culture of male-dominated elementary and middle schools. Odds are that even if I hadn't been assaulted I'd have still ended being gay, or at least some form of bisexual. It really just goes to show that the scars of trauma can only ever be a small part of the person who bears them, no matter how deep or painful the wound that caused them might have been. With that in mind, I'd say it's definitely worthwhile to take the time to process your feelings so that you can possibly come to a conclusion about what your values in a relationship are, regardless of the terminology you'd use to describe it. The odds of settling with one set of identity labels forever with no changes are astronomically low, so I wouldn't worry about getting too caught up on the details; with enough experimentation and open-minded consideration, anything is possible!
When it comes to trauma, I can empathize with how you feel. I can only really offer my experiences on it since I don't really know what happened in your case nor how much it still impacts you up to now (not that that's something that can easily be put to terms anyhow), so take from it what you will. In my experience, I immediately turned towards being more of a lesbian since I was physically and mentally uncomfortable with the opposite gender for several years after being sexually assaulted. It wasn't until my brain developed to a point where I could be more self aware of how I came off to people around me before I could properly begin taking the steps to bring my feelings from my subconscious to the conscious to process them and reach some form of self-assured closure to what had happened and allow myself to dissociate all other men from one jerk who acted on impulse. Having roughly a year or so of isolation from non-family irl interactions in the period of time between finishing high school and starting college also very much helped so I could take things at my own pace and focus solely on developing myself. At this point, I can proudly say that I've made it past the 10 year anniversary without feeling bogged down by what happened!
Even though that trauma was a major push towards me being more of a lesbian for a long time, it's not like I wasn't already exhibiting gay traits long before what happened, having spent a majority of my childhood enveloped in the masculine culture of male-dominated elementary and middle schools. Odds are that even if I hadn't been assaulted I'd have still ended being gay, or at least some form of bisexual. It really just goes to show that the scars of trauma can only ever be a small part of the person who bears them, no matter how deep or painful the wound that caused them might have been. With that in mind, I'd say it's definitely worthwhile to take the time to process your feelings so that you can possibly come to a conclusion about what your values in a relationship are, regardless of the terminology you'd use to describe it. The odds of settling with one set of identity labels forever with no changes are astronomically low, so I wouldn't worry about getting too caught up on the details; with enough experimentation and open-minded consideration, anything is possible!
I'm really deeply sorry to read that these things happened to anyone and I hope you're healing. I just have to say that I do not agree with any suggestion that trauma and abuse change or influence your sexuality. I may have clashed with rosa a bit in past pages, but this is not really about that, and I would like to foreclose that reading of this post as much as possible. I just want to say for all the young folks questioning their sexuality: you are a lesbian even if you feel perfectly comfortable 'around' men, and you can be all manners of identities irrespective of your comfort levels around men. You can hate men and still be bisexual or straight or w.e, even while being a man yourself. While it is true that an individual's sexual identities are likely to change over time, it is also unfair to attribute anyone's sexuality to a traumatic experience, as though if that experience had not occured you would be straight. This is a typical conservative narrative of sexuality, which locates being gay as the pathological consequence of trauma, some type of flaw masking a person's innate heterosexuality.
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
I'm not entirely sure if this was directed at me, but I value this perspective. I've struggled with my situation for years, and opening it up to more thoughts and viewpoints will be helpful for figuring myself out. I defaulted to my trauma being a contributing factor, but as you're implying, I could be too reductionist in thinking. Never did I want to imply that what became of me is any kind of flaw, but in hindsight, I think that's actually where I'm failing the most, like I did a few years ago with everything else. Hell, even writing that sentence, you can probably see that problematic thinking.
Thank you. I'll have a long think about this.
I don't really think that karma was trying to say that abuse resulted in a change of sexuality. What I got from the post was more along the lines of karma being unsure whether responses and emotions experienced while experiencing things that should be arousing to bisexual people, or lack thereof, were because of actually being asexual or because the trauma was overriding what should normally be felt. You know, like when people can't get in a sexual mood because their mind is weighted down by feeling bad or remembering bad memories, but in this case it's the thing that's supposed to be arousing bringing bad memories. What seems to be the basis of the post is asking a question: are my reactions the reactions of an asexual person, or a defensive mechanism?
Also karma, I would really like to tell you to try to talk to a professional about this, or since you said you already did, to try to find others until you can find one that works for you. Everybody here wants to help you, as well as give advice and insight, but the vast majority of us users on a public forum are still not educated/experienced/knowledgeable/acquainted with your personal situation enough to give you surefire advice about such difficult topics. I would also like to wish you luck in figuring it all out, and wish you all the best when you do
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
I understand the sentiment and thank you for it, but this isn't what I was saying...I said already that I have made massive leaps in getting over my trauma on my own, which included seeing other professionals. COVID-19 made it difficult, but I'm getting by. I still get traumatic flashbacks from time to time; those will never go away on the basis that I cannot reverse what happened to me.I don't really think that karma was trying to say that abuse resulted in a change of sexuality. What I got from the post was more along the lines of karma being unsure whether responses and emotions experienced while experiencing things that should be arousing to bisexual people, or lack thereof, were because of actually being asexual or because the trauma was overriding what should normally be felt. You know, like when people can't get in a sexual mood because their mind is weighted down by feeling bad or remembering bad memories, but in this case it's the thing that's supposed to be arousing bringing bad memories. What seems to be the basis of the post is asking a question: are my reactions the reactions of an asexual person, or a defensive mechanism?
Also karma, I would really like to tell you to try to talk to a professional about this, or since you said you already did, to try to find others until you can find one that works for you. Everybody here wants to help you, as well as give advice and insight, but the vast majority of us users on a public forum are still not educated/experienced/knowledgeable/acquainted with your personal situation enough to give you surefire advice about such difficult topics. I would also like to wish you luck in figuring it all out, and wish you all the best when you do
What I was saying is that I am not sure if my lack of sexual attraction is actually rooted in what happened to me. Myzozoa gave a sound response in that I may be thinking too reductionist when relating it to my trauma, and I believe that thinking without my trauma in mind will help me figure out if this is the case.
Oh sorry, I did mean that maybe it would be wise to talk to a professional about the lack of sexual attraction, since they probably have experience talking about such things, and it might help to talk about such topics to people who have seen other people who are also were in a similar situation. It doesn't really have to be a long process, you can just go for a couple of sessions to bounce some ideas of off someone who is anonymous, educated on the topic, experienced and willing to give you the atmosphere to air your toughts on the subject and offer additional insight for some more introspection. Something like help for reaching the conclusion you would have probably reached by yourself, but easing the process along.