🌈 LGBT+ OCs discussion thread

Gingasnap ohh that makes a lot of sense! absolutely no need to apologize, I'm big into worldbuilding and would love to hear more but probably not in this thread haha. I'll have to find the time to check out your webcomic :o

another thing I couldn't really figure out how to articulate in the last post is that a lot of the sketchy depictions I've seen sort of equate being nb and being nonhuman? similar to the aro/ace conversation above, some writers feel a need to justify a character being nb with personality traits or backstory. some nb people do have those kinds of experiences but it's not inherent to being nb, so it gets grating when that's all the representation you see. since you have nb human characters and binary jinn characters I don't think you have to worry too much about that, though! I dunno how well I'm articulating this but I hope it helps 

Punksoda Honestly, I agree! As a masc-aligned trans man, it makes me deeply uncomfortable that so many cis people portray trans men like that when most of the time, that's not the case. Yes, there ARE feminine and soft trans men and they're completely valid, but that does not excuse portraying all of us in the same exact way.

Also,, straight trans male characters are just so,,, rare?? Most of them are homosexual. It just bothers me a bit since I'm bi LOL

Not sure if this is a good thread for this but am a sex-repulsed bi ace myself and recently have taken to writing a more sex-positive grey ace character, but there have been a lot of experiences I've had with people questioning the character's aceness as he's willing to have sex with a partner and occasional casual sex as stress relief despite never once having attraction to a character outside of romance. Attempting to explain it has gone really badly and resulted in my own ace experience being used as an example against me :/

Not sure if I'm writing him right and I've run into a lot of discourse that's made me very nervous about exploring that side of his character any further in the future. 

Xedite that’s literally just a sex-positive ace??? I don’t see how they have any problem with him just for that alone, ace = not feeling sexual attraction. He sounds cupiosexual to me just by that description, which is completely valid :)

JOYII

I was pretty sure he fit the definition of sex positive ace too which is where I was getting confused. Looking more into this thread I saw this wasn't a problem I alone have run into and I think it stems from people still misunderstanding what being ace is and all that entails along with the different shades of it. 

Looked into cupiosexual as and that definitely fits him well, thanks for the input ^^

My last post in this thread was almost two years ago as a straight ally telling mfs to suck up their opinions….

Now I’m the B in LGBT+ LMFAOOOOO

Xedite

I know you already got an reply, but I wrote about this on this post, if it helps any!

I would also like to add though something of a personal opinion and may be a hot take. Whatever microlabels people wanna use to describe themselves are absolutely fine, but there are so many under the asexual umbrella, and a lot of them really at their core just mean "sex positive ace," or "ace with preferences" and I feel like they kind of help aid in the misconception that "default" ace means "sex bad." It is 110% okay to just say "sex positive ace" and you'd still be in the right, and it's also something I personally like seeing because it feels more unified, I guess. Especially in a community where there's so much infighting about this stuff. At the very least, using both not just one makes it more clear.

I don't think I ever posted it here, but if someone would want help/advice for characters who're aromantic and not also asexual (AKA aro-allos), feel free to ping me, DM me, whatever y'all would like. I'm here to help. I however can't speak on the concept of "QPPs" so uhhh please don't use the q word when talking to me, trauma related

I think I only briefly talked about it in the open, but I'm generally saddened when I see aroallo characters on here... I feel like every time I find a character who's aromantic and allosexual its almost always written as if it's because people find them repulsive, because they hate people, overall because the author deems them "unlikeable" and therefore aren't capable of receiving romantic love... Not grasping that that isn't how it works at all. They're basically making incels that're vengeful for people not liking them. That's not what it's about and that's a horrible agenda to push. And the fact that this is the majority is alarming to me.

I also see this, albeit less, but aroallo characters being labelled that because they don't care about people and use them. Which is also really bad!! The lack of romantic feelings doesn't automatically mean they hate people. It also doesn't make people hypersexual. Or... Evil! Which I also see. Something something "no love in their heart" (yeesh)

Its been grinding my gears for a while, and its a really shitty thing to put out there when aroallo is a small minority that already constantly gets talked over and deemed inherently "disgusting", whether outright or implied by dogwhistles. It really doesn't help when its already perceived horribly by others (IE "you don't know what love is", "you just want to use people"), and its disappointing to see every time, especially when the OP isn't aroallo... And it gets a little worse when they're aspec in some form and put that out there, via seeing a lot of "purity" arguments in relation to sex being evil and bad and romance being pure. Or both being bad. Generally speaking the rest of aspec doesn't really accept us. I just wanna get along, man.

Basically what I'm trying to say is... If you make an aroallo character please just treat them normally. Not being into romance in one form or another doesn't fundamentally change someone at their core to where it's their only defining trait. It shouldn't interfere with worldbuilding or writing unless you try to put them in a romantic situation. If my wording seems off I'm just thinking about it and sadKLJFDGBFK;DNH sorry about that. If you have aroallo characters who don't fit these then I platonically kiss them mwah

IIDX

While I don't have any advice for you, I understand the frustration with that kind of portrayal! It's also something I see with polyamorous characters, with them portrayed as being non-monogamous because they "don't have time for love", which is just awful and entirely misses the point of polyamory.

It's so tiring to see the "sex is evil and romantic love is pure" nonsense, and I say this as an acespec person myself. It's such a fucked up and shitty viewpoint.

LightningCoyote I'll try to answer

--- adding a disclaimers is the best way to go w this in my opinion

--- if they're for a bigger project that you plan to publish also adding ace characters that don't fall into those categories or stereotypes is the best way to go, no need to remove those traits from the other characters, the bad representation problem is mostly presenting that all people that fall in certain category have certain stereotype. If it's personal character I don't think anything needs to be done

--- yes, also it's nice to have some warnings for possible triggering stuff as a thon of people have traumas about those topic

LightningCoyote for the second and third questions:

It is absolutely no one's business what your romantic or sexual orientation is, however, and you do not need to "out" yourself to  justify writing anything. Ever. If someone claims that you do, they're  just an asshole SDGSDFHBH. Regardless of what the topic is. Writing characters with horrible traits is fine. Writing them negative is fine. Writing them in a positive light is fine. People like to fuss and scream "something something romanticize" but the truth of the matter is that the world is not so black and white, and, especially if the story is told through the lens of the villain, they're probably not going to see their own actions as immoral. Context matters a lot. "Everyone's a hero in their own story," so the saying goes, you know? If you're really worried, there's always the standard disclaimers and warnings, and if someone chooses to read it at that point and still throws a fit---that's on them at that point. Like walking into a horror film and then complaining it's too scary. You can tell a story about an awful person and have people realize they're not meant to be idolized without having to explicitly say so.

It's also okay to have characters that fall into stereotypes, and it's okay to relate to stereotypes. Stereotypes exist for a reason after all. They're not always a bad thing. The frustrating parts of this come from the fact there are so many ace characters that are nothing more than these stereotypes and have no other existing personality traits other than that. This is especially true of aroace characters---which make up the vast majority of representation. 

A lot of the times, it's also the very misinformed wording that's upsetting, such as "I'm ace, so of course I think sex is gross." "They're ace, so of course they don't understand sex. They're such a pure bean uwu." "They're aro, so of course they're an asshole." And then the general conflation of ace and aro being the same thing. All of which are all inherently wrong and incredibly offensive. The problems arise from portraying the sex negative clueless type aroace that refers to people as "humans" something something fluent in sarcasm t-shirt wearer the definitive and "true" all encompassing representation of ace---with little room for anyone else who does not fit this bill.... if that makes ANY sense SKRHJGBSDFR.

It's fine to be these things or to relate to them, but to attribute them to their sexuality specifically and to make them absolutely nothing else is where you start getting into offensive and eye rolling territory.