So I got brainweasels about that last post immediately after posting it, yay. All your comments are lovely! But that + RL stress = I may be letting them sit without replies for a bit while I fight off small angry mustelids. :/ Sorry.

But we shall push on regardless! Cranky post is definitely a good thing to push on with in this state of mind, right.

So, I have been sort of following the saga of "fandom discovers asexuality is a thing, yay; fandom writes ace fic, almost none of which I actually like, boo" for years and years and years, basically since fandom discovered asexuality.

Every so often I go "asexuality is so much more visible and well understood now! I will go check the AO3 tag and read the good fic that people are definitely writing" and. Nope. I still end up backbuttoning out of my first three tries. Or just looking at the summary and going 'nope'. And then I go back to only reading ace fic by a very small list of writers who I trust to do it reasonably well.

The interesting thing is that the source of Nope keeps changing. Back in the day, it was usually "What you want there is not an ace character, what you want is non-reciprocity kink. Which I also enjoy! But not when you slather 'pat my back for writing ace fic' all over your non-reciprocity kink."

We've gone through several other trends in nope since then, though. The current one actually took me awhile to figure out why it was giving me the nopes, even though it was pretty simple once I thought about it.

Here's the thing: I keep reading stories with variations on this conversation:

Bailey: Hey, wanna have sex?
Ash: Nope, sorry, you're great but I'm ace.
Bailey: Aww, well, if you're ace, we can just be cuddlebuddies.

Or like this:

Bailey: Hey, wanna go out?
Ash: Not a no, but you should know that if we do, I won't be having sex with you.
Bailey: That's OK, I already knew you were ace, we can work around that.

Or like this:

Bailey: Hey, wanna have sex?
Ash: I acknowledge you are objectively attractive, but I'm demi, so your crappy personality means that will never happen. Bye.
Bailey: I guess it's time to improve the personality.

Now, those may be perfectly realistic conversations to have happen (I too have used the "No sorry I'm ace, stop asking" line a few times) because that kind of thing is super-awkward and people don't always say the right thing even if they're trying (sometimes especially) but the thing is, these conversations are never written as "super-awkward, bad situation", they are written as "isn't this person so sensitive and understanding and trustworthy, won't they make a great SO for an ace person" and they are part of stories that are attempting to be pure sugar syrup. And. So much no.

For the record, if I turn you down by mentioning my asexuality, that does not mean "I trust you so much with my deepest darkest secret, I know you can help me figure out how to be happy anyway," it means "this is a really uncomfortable situation and I 100% don't trust you to take a plain no for an answer, so I'm going to make it weird and hope you drop the subject."

For the record, this is how this conversation should go with someone sensitive and trustworthy and cinnamon roll:

Ash: I don't want to have sex with you.
Bailey: OK! Then we won't have sex. Do you want to do something else with me? I made cake.

You see how Bailey just respects Ash's "No sex" without needing an excuse for why? Do you see how at no point does anyone imply that the only reason to turn down sex is sexual orientation? Nor does anyone imply that all non-ace romantic relationships must include sex immediately? Nor that no allosexual ever gets turned off by a crappy personality, only demi people care about that? Do you see how sexual orientation never actually comes up, because "I don't want to have sex with you" is a statement that can be said by people of many sexual orientations for many reasons, and none of them are obligated to explain why? Imagine!

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