How do you argue about asexuality as a real thing with someone, when they don’t see anything wrong with the sentence “You don’t know if you want sex until afterwards.”?
When they insist you trying to be healthy and fit as a sign that you are purposely trying to attract someone else, and not just doing it for yourself?
When they say “you really have to have sex” while claiming they don’t mean you HAVE to but you should, ‘cuz that’s just what you do. And clearly it’ll “cure” you?
And through it all they are not talking down to you or being condescending, seeming quite open but having problems relating to something so “weird”. I do understand, things that are different from how you are used to view them can be difficult to understand. Especially if it’s a new concept to you.
Still… It was civilized conversation, I’ve had it before where people just accepted I was this way and knew it wasn’t their business if I wanted sex or not. I found it odd having someone insist I needed to have sex with SOMEONE and seems to think masturbation proves as an erasure of asexuality. As long you have a libido it proves asexuality is not real.
Mind you he weren’t offering. It wasn’t that. It just seemed like a concern to him for me to be “healthy” sexually.
He even asked “what happened to you?” The first time anyone came to the conclusion that I was simply traumatized from wanting sex.
I know I’m rather privileged as an asexual. Coming out I only met acceptance and curiosity or just mild disinterest. I’ve never faced anything negative about my orientation (with some awkward exceptions including my aromantisme). I know there are Aces out there who had it hard. Experiencing acephobia and erasure, facing people thinking they are broken or lying, that they need to be cured, who loses friends or even family members for wanting to be accepted for who and what they are.
I got it easy. I’ve known that from the start. And compared to many of those other cases, even this conversation last night was nothing. We still parted as friends, nothing changed. Maybe I could have told him his choice of words hurt me a little, maybe it’s good it didn’t when it’s on such a small scale.
But it’s still with me. I’ll take it with me to prepare for next time I have such a talk. I want to help people understand when they ask or are confused. I’m pretty open about my asexuality. I’ve been so more at peace with myself when I understood I wasn’t “broken”. And I’m so very lucky. Having so many people in my life just accepting it and do their part to understand.
That said… I do try not to be too much “in your face” about it to people. It’s not a badge to wave around, one label which defines everything about me. I’m a person, not “just” an asexual.
Just… some thoughts I had to get out there to get them out of my head.
Okay, this is in incredibly petty nitpick, but: if you’re writing a fantasy setting with same-sex marriage, a same-sex noble or royal couple typically would not have titles of the same rank - e.g., a prince and a prince, or two queens.
It depends on which system of ranking you use, of course (there are several), but in most systems there’s actually a rule covering this scenario: in the event that a consort’s courtesy title being of the same rank as their spouse’s would potentially create confusion over who holds the title by right and who by courtesy, the consort instead receives the next-highest title on the ladder.
So the husband of a prince would be a duke; the wife of a queen, a princess; and so forth.
(You actually see this rule in practice in the United Kingdom, albeit not in the context of a same-sex marriage; the Queen’s husband is styled a prince because if he were a king, folks might get confused about which of them was the reigning monarch.)
The only common situation where you’d expect to see, for example, two queens in the same marriage is if the reigning monarchs of two different realms married each other - and even then, you’d more likely end up with a complicated arrangement where each party is technically a princess of the other’s realm in addition to being queen of her own.
You’ve gotta keep it nice and unambiguous who’s actually in charge!
Okay, I’ve received a whole lot of asks about this post, so I’m going to cover all of the responses in one go:
1. The system described above is, admittedly, merely one of the most common. Other historically popular alternatives include:
The consort’s courtesy title is of the same rank as their spouse’s, with “-consort” appended to it: prince and prince-consort, queen and queen-consort, etc. This is how, e.g., present-day Monaco does it.
The consort is simply styled Lord or Lady So-and-so, and receives no specific title. I can’t think of any country that still does it this way, off the top of my head, but historically it was a thing.
(Naturally, your setting needn’t adhere to any of these, but it would be highly irregular for it to lack some mechanism for clarifying the chain of command.)
2. The reason why the consort of a prince is historically a princess even though those titles are the same rank is basically sexism. This can go a couple of ways:
In many realms, there was no such thing as being a princess by right; the daughter of a monarch would be styled Lady So-and-so and receive no specific title, so the only way to be a princess was to marry a prince.
In realms where women could hold titles by right, typically a masculine title was informally presumed to outrank its feminine counterpart. So, e.g., kings outrank queens, princes outrank princesses, etc.
In either case, no ambiguity exists.
(Interestingly, this suggests that in a more egalitarian setting where masculine titles are not presumed to outrank their feminine counterparts, or vice versa, you’d need to explicitly disambiguate rankings even outside the context of same-sex marriages. Food for thought!)
3. It would also be possible to have two kings or two queens in the same marriage without multiple realms being involved in the case of a true co-monarchy. However, true co-monarchies are highly irregular and, from a political standpoint, immensely complicated affairs. If you’re planning on writing one of those, be prepared to do your research!
4. The next rank down from “countess” is either “viscountess” or “baroness”, depending on which peerage system you’re using.
(Yes, that last one actually came up multiple times. Apparently there are a lot of stories about gay countesses out there!)
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
