I will defend aces/aros who enjoy reading or writing romantic or sexual stuff in fiction to my dying day but
I also wanna talk about the overwhelming feeling that no one will read a fic we write if we don’t include some ship or another, how much we’re told “if it’s not rated M it’s not worth reading"–followed up by “the fic was rated M and it didn’t even have smut scenes!” of course
how many times I’ve seen fellow ace writers talk about how they are trying to teach themselves to write smut they’re repulsed by because people keep demanding it in their works, how many times I’ve seen fellow aro writers buckle under the pressure to make the central relationships in their works romantic
how when we write about characters with nonromantic sexual relationships we get swarmed with “I can’t wait for them to open their heart~”, how when we write about characters with romantic nonsexual relationships we get “I hope they give in soon~”
how difficult it is for sex- and romance-repulsed people to find works without it, how frequently we’re guilted or pressured when we try to write it for ourselves
I am 100% behind the “it’s okay to be ace/aro and enjoy stuff with romance/sex” posts forever but we really need to talk about the pervasive pressure that we have to include it no matter what, whether we want to or not
we need to talk about the overwhelming culture in fandom that a story is worthless without it
no subject
I also wanna talk about the overwhelming feeling that no one will read a fic we write if we don’t include some ship or another, how much we’re told “if it’s not rated M it’s not worth reading"–followed up by “the fic was rated M and it didn’t even have smut scenes!” of course
how many times I’ve seen fellow ace writers talk about how they are trying to teach themselves to write smut they’re repulsed by because people keep demanding it in their works, how many times I’ve seen fellow aro writers buckle under the pressure to make the central relationships in their works romantic
how when we write about characters with nonromantic sexual relationships we get swarmed with “I can’t wait for them to open their heart~”, how when we write about characters with romantic nonsexual relationships we get “I hope they give in soon~”
how difficult it is for sex- and romance-repulsed people to find works without it, how frequently we’re guilted or pressured when we try to write it for ourselves
I am 100% behind the “it’s okay to be ace/aro and enjoy stuff with romance/sex” posts forever but we really need to talk about the pervasive pressure that we have to include it no matter what, whether we want to or not
we need to talk about the overwhelming culture in fandom that a story is worthless without it