/u/cookie_abomination on Find the Aphobia posts confusing

All of my friends are either LGBT themselves, accepting of LGBT orientations, or not political enough to have strong opinions either way. I've never felt unsafe about them knowing my orientation. One friend in particular was my testing ground for coming out, and his response was so nice that I felt safe enough to answer honestly when my dad asked about my ace ring.

That was not a good idea. He started saying that asexuality wasn't real, that asexual people weren't real, that I shouldn't put myself down like that (guessing he thought I was using asexuality as a coping mechanism for being unattractive), and he was actually saying I was sick and needed treatment. He managed to inadvertently hit every talking point on the aphobia bingo card after knowing about asexuality for all of five seconds. Thankfully, he calmed down a lot once he got over the knee-jerk reaction, but for the few minutes he was talking I had no idea what to do or say to fix things.

Which, I think, is where the aphobia posts come in. Overt discrimination of asexual people doesn't happen often and isn't publicized when it does happen because of how few people even know aces exist, so it's easy for me to just... forget that it happens, until it does and by then it's a bit late. The aphobia posts are a reminder to be careful.

April 11, 2020 at 11:57PM