The face of asexuality
Wut?
Asexual people aren’t protected by the Equality Act.
Meaning…what? That the Equality Act doesn’t mention asexual people? But it can’t mention every [adjective] person on the planet, much less every [non-adjective] person on the planet. Just think – people who don’t love apples, people who don’t love bananas, people who don’t love greengages…then all the fruits, then all the vegetables, then all the pastries, then all the types of food, then all the examples of all the categories, and so on ad infinitum.
And why would asexuality be included anyway?
We aren’t protected by hate crime laws. And we should be.
Why? When do people persecute or shun or exclude asexual people? When and how do people even know which people are asexual in order to shun or exclude them? What hate crimes are committed against asexual people? What are the stats? Who is collecting them? Where are they published?
We aren’t included in the ban on conversion therapy.
Why would they be? Who tries to send “asexual” people to conversion therapy?
Also…to be crude about it…if you’re an asexual woman what’s with the tits? What’s the goal in flashing them? I know, I know, the Correct view is that she’s just dressing how she enjoys dressing, it’s nothing to do with wanting to attract sexual attention, but I don’t buy it.
Persecution envy is not a good look.
Being a lingerie model and representing asexuality is an odd pairing. Why can’t she just reject the sexual advances of people she’s not interested in like everyone else?
https://www.instagram.com/theyasminbenoit/
Her pinned tweet makes even less sense (in terms of outfit I’d expect someone who’s asexual to wear):
https://twitter.com/theyasminbenoit/status/1675204827196923904
Ha! Jeezus.
I am Norwegian, yet I don’t like lutefisk. And you know what? Non-likers of lutefisk have no protection under Norwegian equality laws! It’s intolerable – intolerable, I say. Whenever I go out on the street wearing my I HATE LUTEFISK T-shirt, people back away as if I had some communicable disease. It’s just a matter of time before some lutefisk fanatic comes after me with a baseball bat, or worse. Even my (American, of Swedish-Finnish descent) father-in-law tried to convert me to a lutefisk eater using his own daughter as bait! Luckily, she supports my non-lutefisk-eating habit, even though she loves the vile dish herself.
Well, in her case, parading around on social media advertising her asexuality does make this a bit easier. They’ve got their own flag fer chrissakes. Horizontal bars of (from top to bottom) black, grey, white and purple, like some sad, leftover licorice allsorts.
Yeah, but it’s a good gig. Pretty soon she’ll be flashing her cleavage all over as the Official Spokeswoman of Oppressed Aces. But she’ll have to jump on it quickly and take that ride for as long as it lasts until the next invisible, esoteric “identity” cries “OPPRESSION!” and tries to grab its own 15 minutes of media attention.
Unless this is a really elaborate singles ad, whatever attention she attracts is likely to be unwelcome, as she’ll probably inspire guys who are more than happy to tell her that she just hasn’t dated the “right” man yet, and they are 100% certain that they’re him. Just like “corrective rapists” who are out to “cure” lesbians. Yeah, that’s going to work out well.
Ultimately, she has to face the unfortunate truth that NO ONE CARES. Nor should they have to. She should just get quietly along with not being interested in sex, which requires the interest, participation, or action of absolutely nobody else.
You think you have it bad? I’m American, and I’m allergic to peanuts. So I have never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a Fluffernutter, or a Snickers bar. And what’s more, I find the smell of peanuts and peanut butter absolutely repulsive. A Reese’s cup is not two great taste–it’s one mediocre taste destroyed by the devil and Biden.
Do you know how many times I’ve been beaten up just because I refused to eat something with peanuts in it? And yet there’s no law specifically protecting us apeanutists, despite the horrific levels of apeanutphobia out there.
The celibacy spectrum is real. Uninterested, Involuntary, Voluntary, Forced… Just for starters. They’re going to have to modify that flag a bit more.
The steelman version is that they’re occasionally subjected to micro aggressions but even if so, who cares? Dealing with micro aggressions is part of being an adult.
Harald, WaM, you aren’t as oppressed as those of us who grew up in Oklahoma and hate chicken fried steak! And to top it off, I hate green beans, and mashed potatoes aren’t any too great either.
I demand protection for a-chicken fried steakists. Equality Now!
WaM @ 6 – I was just out for a walk and found myself trying to think of a food I really hate (I forget why) and was struggling but then remembered peanut butter. UGH. The cookies especially.
not Bruce, #5:
How dare you! What have you got against Liquorice Allsorts? They are all delicious.
Couldn’t asexual be covered under sexual orientation? Attracted to/interested in neither?
BKiSA@8: Like many of the progressive concepts that have gotten warped and misappropriated by the identity fringe groups, ‘microaggressions’ started out as a legitimate issue. It wasn’t just, “This small thing that irritates/offends me”, but rather, “this small thing is meant to remind me that I am viewed as sub-human and can be safely targeted by violence at any time.”
Homosexuals, women and racial minorities all face the latter sort of microaggression on a regular basis, and it does extract a real toll on the persons targeted. Hell, much of the trans-speak I would count as micro-aggressions against women. It’s not that the comments themselves are anything more than childish taunts; it’s that those taunts are meant to remind women that hey, we’re actually male and we’re prepared to use violence on you if you don’t shut up.
Essentially, true micro-aggressions can only be defined by context, as it requires historical, societal oppression to serve as a backdrop for the behavior being discussed. Natch, asexuals don’t in fact have that sort of oppressed history to draw upon. They have a bit of being regarded as weird, and sometimes being asked intrusive questions by rude people, but that’s about the extent of it.
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Ophelia, that said, I don’t think there’s a huge contradiction in dressing ‘sexy’ while eschewing sex. I suspect that, if anything, people who are asexual are likely to have an outsider’s view of some aspects of social interaction; as such, she has a strong possibility of knowing precisely how much attention she can draw, and how to monetize that attention. She’s selling out, albeit in a way that plays into some very ugly stereotypes about attractive women.
[…] a comment by Freemage on The face of […]
If I had to guess what sort of “hate crimes” are perpetrated on the asexual, I’d say it might be violence or just anger coming from people who should have been told a long time ago. If, after 9 or 10 dates and talk of marriage, you reveal that you’re not religious, modest, or old fashioned, but haven’t had sex because you’re never, ever going to have sex and feel no sexual attraction to your partner at all — that partner might rightfully get a bit miffed. No, they don’t want to spend the next 50 years “cuddling.”
That would seem to fall under deception, though — or at least a failure to communicate. Which, judging by the way she dresses, would seem to arouse the Asexual Spokesperson.
Don’t these people have day jobs? Why does so much energy and so many words need to be spent on not being something? Hell, I should spend all day tomorrow being angry that I cannot travel at the speed of light.
If being asexual genuinely meant not being interested in sexuality it would be as much as sexual orientation as collecting stamps is a hobby. But it’s pretty clear that professed asexuals are very interested in sexuality (and performing sexuality) – they just don’t think social performance of sexuality has any particular connection to the sexual act. And you can see why that might make them a target of hostility by certain people. By which I mean men. And well, I’m just not feeling well enough at the moment to wade into that minefield. (I’ll just say that when young women feel that cutting off their breasts is a reasonable way to avoid performing sexualized femininity the social pressures are clearly overwhelming. Just giving in to them with reservations is perhapsnot such a crazy approach.)
But it’s an indicator of just how screwed up we’ve become as a culture, that the response to that is not an awareness campaign and a discussion that might lead a general understanding of how to negotiate the conflicts that arise from differing expectations, but a demand for some sort of legal “protection”. As if the law wasn’t a very, very blunt instrument.
The Correct view is stupid.
Why does she enjoy dressing that way? Because it attracts sexual attention, and sexual attention manifests as positive social interaction, which reinforces the behavior with a dopamine hit, eventually transforming the manner of dress into a reinforcer itself. It’s the same phenomenon as in dog (or child) training. The sound of the clicker transforms over time from a signal of a reward into a reward of its own.
Operant conditioning is a powerful thing.
I’m very disappointed in all of you. Won’t someone think of the poor asexuals, who have to endure the oppression of friends occasionally trying to set them up on dates when they’re just not interested? Surely of all oppressions that is the very worst.