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squidproquoclarice · 3 years

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Can you talk more about Demisexuality and Arthur in Sunrise? Am I right in saying Sadie is too? I’m not fully aware of what the term means but curious about it :)

OK, so for clarity: demisexuality is under the asexuality umbrella. It’s when you don’t feel sexual attraction except after a strong emotional bond (and even then it’s a maybe). I hear a lot of “Wanting to sleep with people you care about is just ‘normal’, it’s nothing special,” and that’s not really right. The difference between being demi and being allosexual but preferring emotionally bonded sex is that demis, like other asexuals, really don’t experience sexual attraction based on looks. In other words, they don’t ever look at someone and just realize, “God, I’d take them home in a minute, they make me horny.” Not to say they can’t appreciate a good looking person, but it’s like appreciating good looks in someone who isn’t your type. It’s aesthetic, not sexual. But they can (no guarantee, however) possibly develop that attraction for someone after getting emotionally close to them. That’s what’s called secondary sexual attraction. Let’s be clear--demis and other aces can have a sex drive/libido. They can masturbate. They can have sex, and enjoy sex. They can also do none of those things, and that’s valid too. But sexual attraction =/= sex drive. Aspec is more about not having a person or people there with whom you want to use libido. Here’s a quick, simplified comparison: “I’m hungry, and what I really want is a donut” (allo preferring emotionally bonded sex) and “I’m not hungry at all (ace) and “I wasn’t hungry at all, then I saw that donut and now I want it, but that’s the only thing that sounds good (demi)”. (NB: Any and all errors in explaining any of this are my own.) Turning to the Sunrise portion: I do write Arthur as very clearly demisexual, and I do see Sadie as being likely in that direction as well. Arthur, in contrast to numerous other men in the gang who show sexual interest even in more limited NPC roles (Charles, Javier, John, Sean, Micah, and Dutch for sure, others seem implied), shows pretty much zero interest all the hours we spend with him, despite ready and easy opportunities. I do think guilt over Eliza plays into it, yes, and there’s probably some element of self-punishment in the idea that he’s seemingly given up on romance, sex, and his dreams of being a husband and father. But that doesn’t feel like the only reason. There’s not really the tension of a man who’s chosen to be celibate but still has to fight against attraction and ready opportunities. The only clear craving we get from him is a very strong need for emotional attachment, for love. That really seems to point more to him absolutely needing, rather than preferring, that kind of intimacy first. Sleeping with Eliza certainly happened given Isaac, and the fact they almost definitely weren’t romantically involved doesn’t disprove Arthur as aspec. It could have been a youthful attempt to conform to the expected image of “manliness” by sleeping with her. It could have been, like I wrote, a very drunken night where he was pining for Mary after their break-up. For Sadie, her deep attachment to Jake is clear and emphatic. “We was always sweet on one another,” etc. From how practical and earthy she is, it’s not hard to argue she and Jake probably had a very fulfilling sex life. Yes, her grief definitely plays into that attachment. But that depth of feeling and fidelity to him, and how loyalty to those she loves is stressed as much in her char bio as Arthur’s, it also makes it easy to imagine her being demi herself, that she needs that partnership and intimacy to even be interested. Even in the Epilogue years later, we see no signs of her being interested in sex. Given as generally cool and distant as she is and how we see a fairly firm control of her impulses compared to 1899, she’d probably be capable of casual sex if she was interested at all. She’s living an unusual life where she’s living by masculine standards rather than feminine restriction, so I highly doubt she’d feel bound as a woman by the gendered double standard of chastity and refrain for that reason. She could easily argue that it’s not betraying Jake using the old argument that it’s not meaningful, it’s not making love, it’s just scratching an itch. But we don’t get that at all from her either. Again, like with Arthur, that implied tension of denial isn’t there. So you end up with these two bi demi dramatic disasters who do the “Haha, yeah we’re saying we’re so married so we can stay together here in a strange place” thing for a long time and keep getting closer and closer as they think admiringly about how much they depend upon and love each other as friends, and pretty much everyone around them believes they’re married because of that love. But again, zero sexual or romantic tension. They can share a room. They can touch and hug. They can talk jokingly without it being flirting. And to be clear, in different circumstances, they could very easily have continued like that for life and been queerplatonic partners, and been happy. I don’t buy the “beyond a certain depth of feeling it has to turn romantic” idea. Romantic love isn’t better or deeper or more “mature” than platonic. It’s just a different shading. But as demis, then you hit the point for both of them where that romantic and sexual attraction did happen to switch on. It’s not obliviousness to existing feelings and slowly overcoming that and realizing they’ve actually felt like that for a while. It’s more of a full-stop oh shit moment where something exists abruptly that didn’t before. They realize that they love this person in an additional way, and that the very comfortable enjoyment from being near them now suddenly has this facet of longing and excitement too. Hits harder too for that feeling towards someone being so rare in both of their lives. (And being the blessed idiots they are, panic ensues.)

#arthur morgan #sadie adler #rdr2 #sunrise ama #writing #fic from the parking lot #may the sunrise #aspec characters #demisexual #Anonymous

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posi-pan · 4 years

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so i watched the thing about harry over the weekend (i thought it was rly cute btw!) and while the way they defined pansexuality def could’ve been better (iirc they went with the “it’s more inclusive” definition), Harry did say something along the lines of “it just felt more ME” and i honestly really liked that. while it wasn’t the best or most accurate portrayal/explanation of what being pan is, it still felt like a step towards the right direction. hopefully one day we’ll have it 100% :)

so glad i have an excuse to rant about this on here now lmao. the movie charmed the fuck out of me and harry is a chaotic pansexual disaster who we stan!!!

for those whose haven’t seen it, harry says:

“i’m pan. it means i don’t have preference in terms of gender. i used to call myself bi, but someone schooled me that pan is way more inclusive and also honestly just more….me.”

he then goes on to worry about being a pan stereotype:

"i felt like i was playing into the whole pan stereotype. that we, you know….get around. i’m just looking for mr., mrs., person right.”

the way he says “and also honestly just more…me” is really great because labels are personal and it’s not all about technical definitions and which one is “better”, it’s more often than not just feeling connected to the label. plus, the way he says it makes me think he cared more about clicking with pan in a way he didn’t with bi, than its supposed inclusivity.

and pan characters talking about pan stereotypes? sign me up! his whole “mr, mrs, person” thing was super cute and actually covered the “all” aspect of pan and the fact that not everyone is a mr or mrs.

is the more inclusive line inaccurate, tired, and biphobic? yeah. but harry is a pansexual male character in a new-adult m/m romcom (written/directed by and starring queer folks) who uses the word onscreen within the first like ten minutes and discusses pan stereotypes, and was written as pan to reflect this generation’s way of thinking about sexuality, which the writer/director found different from his own generation. that’s all super important.

and that importance isn’t negated by one line. should it have not made the cut? of course. but it did and it’s been called out and that’s literally all there is to do about it. there are people acting like the movie or rep or pansexuality is complete trash because of that line, and honestly? that’s super shitty and panphobic.

people praise the fuck out of other movies/shows that have imperfect queer rep, but yet again, we’re showed that if pan rep missteps even in the slightest way, it’s written off completely. everyone immediately jumped on this line for being biphobic, but everyone has been praising sex education despite the shitty cookware line when a character comes out as pan.

people continue to show that biphobia is horrible and deserves to be called out and can ruin queer rep entirely, but panphobia doesn’t even make it on their radar. even with big mouth, very few people mentioned how that scene was panphobic, too. not just biphobic and transphobic.

people need to stop holding pan rep to a higher standard than other queer rep. if pan rep can be written off as trash or have the shitty elements of it outweigh the good/importance of it, then the same has to be true for all queer rep, otherwise your panphobia is showing.

like, let pan folks enjoy and appreciate and be happy about pan rep, even if it isn’t flawless. we don’t have a lot of rep like this, and expecting us to hate it because it isn’t perfect, or care more about the fact that it isn’t perfect than the importance it has to us, isn’t fair or realistic. we can address the issues of queer rep while still appreciating it.

and honestly? pan folks are always the first to criticize and call out their own rep. pan and aspec folks are the only ones i see being so critical of their own rep, in a way other queer folks aren’t. i said it.

#asks #anonymous #the thing about harry #pansexual #pan positivity #pan antagonism #pan character #harry turpin #long post

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belzinone · 5 years

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sexuality & gender diversity headcanons.

// this turned out... so very... L O N G. so answers under the cut <3

@rulerofthesewalls asked:

when did your muse first realise they’re not attracted to the gender(s) that they aren’t?

// her mother risa was always pushy about growing up and marrying a rich dude they could mooch off of. despite being a bi disaster herself and spending most of her youth in an arguably feminist tirade, she pushes a lot of sexist ideas onto her daughter as a half-joke. bel always brushed her off, but as everyone around her started getting crushes and dating and talking about how hot they thought people were, she just couldn’t relate. she wasn’t into people the conventional way or felt “human” urges the way other people did. it probably really hit home for her when she tried to “fix” herself by forcing herself into an intimate relationship with a guy she hardly knew, yet everyone around her seemed to consider conventionally attractive. it probably didn’t last very long at all and left her with the impression that there was something wrong with her. her issue wasn’t that she experienced same gender attraction, rather she experienced no superficial attraction at all.

when did your muse first become aware that they’re not cis?

// it started to hit her sometime around puberty, when her body started changing into something she didn’t feel like was hers. she wouldn’t have had the vocabulary to explain her feelings, nor would she have known it was aberrant enough to warrant mention. it was really easy to conflate feelings of minor dysphoria with being body conscious and having poor self esteem, which is what she thought was going on. her starting to bind was probably more of a teller, yet she didn’t really know why her breasts bothered her so much. it wouldn’t help that dressing them up in private helped her feel better, but as soon as she was in company again, resigned to intense shame. because she could never feel one way about herself, it was hard for her to pinpoint exactly what it was that confused her so much about her body.

how much does your muse’s gender identity and presentation differ from one another? is this a source of issues, or does the relationship between the two feel natural?

// it depends on where she is, but it changes. sometimes, she dresses really androgynously and binds. other times, she dresses up like a high femme. her true gender identity is somewhere between the two, but she finds herself caught between the way she wants to present herself and the way she thinks she is. she doesn’t feel “woman” enough to dress really feminine but doesn’t feel completely comfortable dressing more masculine or binding either.

how does your muse feel about not being cis or straight? are they content with it, proud, ashamed? would the situation be the same if the culture or surrounding support systems were different?

// currently, she’s not concretely aware that she’s queer. if she knew her source of discomfort with her body and her identity had a name, she’d probably find peace in it and even devote herself to activism. it’s complicated for her, though, because she’s not even “conventionally queer” in the sense that she’s not concretely gay or trans or even bi. her sexuality is defined by a lack of one and her gender is also defined outside the binary.

// her issues from feeling “woman enough” are also both identity and biologically driven. she has a pituitary adenoma, which throws off her hormones and renders her infertile as a result (she also doesn’t menstruate). however, she has an intense desire to want to be a mother and in not being biologically capable of doing so (without medical intervention or a miracle) she feels like she’s a failure of a woman.

// if society as a whole didn’t put such harsh gender stereotypes on women (to exist for the purpose of producing children and solely for male consumption), she probably would have a much easier time existing outside of the normative. furthermore, if the queer community itself wasn’t so hell bent on gate-keeping the more marginal identities (namely, aspec and nonbinary) she’d have a much easier time discovering she wasn’t alone and just as valid as anyone else.

what are your muse’s feelings towards stereotypes relating to their identity? do they affect their self-image, or how they perceive others?

// before figuring out her identity, she’d believe that she’s frigid, broken, and inhuman, some things wrongfully attributed to people on the ace spectrum. (her wallflower name reflects this. it’d be so awesome to write her reclaiming it omg) it’d trouble her immensely, but she wouldn’t know what else to do but accept the rhetoric people place on her: that her general lack of drive makes her inhuman. deep in the back of her mind, however, it’d hurt her because she’s completely capable of experiencing platonic love (as well as minor sexual and romantic attractions depending on her interactions.)

// with regards to her demi identity, a lot of people invalidate it as just being a “tomboy”, which isn’t necessarily true. she wouldn’t like being called a boy at all and find it really offensive, triggering even because that’d tap into her feelings of inadequacy as a woman. being a tomboy is also considered “cool” (as opposed to boys being feminine being considered shameful but that’s a whole other deal) and it upsets her to think that someone would think her inner turmoil as something to be proud of.

@shuuhuu asked: // about 18 & 7

how does their family feel about the matter? friends? coworkers?—and does their thoughts matter to your muse?

// risa might be a little disappointed to learn that she might not have grandkids (more so that she’s less likely to have a sugar son-in-law lol) but otherwise won’t have much to say about bel being ace. she’d lowkey mourn the loss of having that part of her identity in common with her, but on the other hand, bel would be a little glad that she doesn’t share her mother’s wild sexuality.

// her brother, however, would more than overcompensate for their mother’s lack of enthusiasm. he’d be fiercely protective of and coddle her in a bit of a problematic way that’s infantilizing, but bel would appreciate it nonetheless. however, if she does ever find herself in a relationship in a verse where her brother’s still alive, he’d be a terror and get on her nerves. all he’d want is to make sure her partner (more likely a boyfriend to warrant his most extreme responses) isn’t pushing her too hard or causing her much trouble, but bel’d think he was taking his paranoia way to far and even interfering with her self discoveries.

// as for her friends and coworkers, they probably wouldn’t know unless they were more closely related to her personal life. she’d stay quiet during certain conversations and casually admit that she’d have nothing to contribute to the discourse of who was the current hottest celebrity. if the situation ever came that she could open up, she’d do so very slowly and carefully, since being aspec and demifem isn’t nearly as mainstream as being gay or trans or nonbinary even.

how public is your muse about their gender / sexuality / romantic attraction?

// convoluted as they seem even within the queer community, as soon as she figures out that labels that suit her exist, bel’d be publicly out to any circumstance that calls for it. she certainly wouldn’t be as out as i am or even make jokes about it, but if the situation’s safe enough she wouldn’t necessarily hide her identity. if anything, she’d refrain from talking about it at length. surely, she wouldn’t go through the trouble of explaining what her identity means to someone. if they’re not already familiar with the terms, she won’t make a big deal about it. it’s a can of worms she’d rather not open unless she was 100% confident said person wouldn’t react poorly to it.

#// i went so ham on this omg #// thanks for all these thooooooooo <3 #// it's not as simple as yes she likes girls or yea she's transgender #// decoding her sexuality has to be a murky grey mess #// now you see her now you dont #// now you think you see her but you dont really better luck next time askdjfnaskfn #i'm not bad ; i just muse that way . aspec #DYSPHORIC AND DESOLATE . demifemme #// i also took the liberty of answering these with a modern connotation #// bc trying to make sense of this in the snk world would make it so much different like #// when she was a kid her mother made her dress like a boy but she wanted to look like a girl #// then when she grew up she stopped feeling so much like a girl #// also i venture that sexuality isn't much of a deal in the snk world but the lack of one would be more of one?#// perhaps?#// that'd make things especially unfortunate for her asdfnask #// also gender roles don't SEEM as rigid but still #// her relationship with her femininity is still a mess that troubles her more than it should

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