Since telling my Mum that I considered myself ace, I already noticed that she was a bit… too interested, if you want to say it like that. Asking for “signs”, or how being ace feels like… I tried to answer her to the best of my ability, giving her links to websites that would explain better as I ever could.
Today she said, very quietly, “Do you think I could be ace, too?”
And I said very carefully “If you think it suits you, I don’t see why not”
And my Mum, my strong, self-confident Mum, who never once has ever felt uncomfortable in her own skin as far as I know, beamed in relief. Relief.
Because she never knew. Because getting married young and bearing children for her husband (meaning sex) was expected of her. Because everyone gave her the feeling as if something would be wrong or broken about her if she didn’t want, didn’t do that.
Because her whole life long, she thought there was something wrong with her.
I’m honestly torn between feeling happy and relieved for her, and angry that humanity has such trouble with showing some understanding to those who don’t fit in the boxes society has designed for all of us.
Update: My
Mum was getting ready for bed when I noticed her humming loudly around her
toothbrush and I asked her what the good mood was about.
She beamed
around a mouth-full of toothpaste and said, very proudly and deliberately, “I
think I like that, being ace.”
And continued
on with her brushing, humming a bit louder.
(Or in
other words, I’m more than a little bit teary eyed.)
I had almost the exact same conversation with my Mom. We were talking about the LGBT acronym and explained that it’s LGBTQ and that some people add the PIA at the end as well. And she asked me “What’s the a?” So when I explained it she said immediately “Me. That’s like me.”
This is why I get so mad at people who think this is all just trendy bs, people just don’t have the vocabulary or permission to describe their lived experience.
This is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever read, bless this post 🙌🏼
so we have a conversational safeword in my group of friends and it’s great, idk why more people don’t do this. whenever someone wants a subject to be dropped immediately no questions asked we just say “spleen” and we stop immediately and it’s a really good way to avoid crossing the line between teasing friends and genuinely upsetting them by accident, or stopping debates from turning into actual arguments
Wait but no this is actually a brilliant idea.
When I was a little baby high school student, I used to do the Living Chessboard at our local Renaissance Faire. We always used “forsooth” to indicate if someone was actually injured and needed to quickly end a choreographed fight. It was also very useful when doing little street improvisations because if someone tried to stop you, you could say “forsooth good sir, I must leave.” and they knew you couldn’t do a scene right then. We all used it in real life too, to say “no really” and it was amazing because there was a word used in a casual setting that meant “I’m not playing, I need you do listen to me.” So if someone tried to pick me up or tickle me, I could say “forsooth stop.” And I was instantly obeyed. I had “forsooth” long before I learned what a safeword was, and having a non-sexual safeword for everyday use amongst a circle of friends was the best thing ever. It made me feel very safe and listened to, even as a tiny 14 year old. Because let’s be honest, 14 year old me was teeny tiny and adorable and it’s easy to coo at kids when they say “no don’t pick me up!” but to have a word that every single person respected to mean “whatever I say after this MUST be listened to” was amazing. It gave me a definitive voice when it would have been easy to dismiss me.
So basically having platonic safewords is awesome and I’m all for it.
As someone who does ceramics, that twisted, broken up fork would make an excellent tool for slipping and scoring, or maybe even just texturing. It would make a super cute bug print, or make easy, perfectly spaced lines at a farther difference than a typical fork. It can be used for creating, rather than just feeding some giant machine. Just because it wouldn’t be particularly good at being used as it is expected to be used, which is not to say that a creative person couldn’t find a way to make it work, does not make it useless. In the right hands, even the most seemingly “useless” object can be functional, or even groundbreaking in the right hands.
Also, people aren’t objects, and you dont need to be able to “use” them in order for them to exist.
Thats because the point of paying for a service like Netflix is so you DONT have to see ads. You’re paying a monthly fee so that they dont need the revenue from ads to pay the bills. That’s it. Thats the whole point. The catalog for streaming can be lackluster but there’s some good stuff there and ads during a marathon of Dexter would be obnoxious. Why do you think so many millenials dont even do TV anymore unless their ISP forces them to buy at least their bare minimum TV package to get that internet? Because it’s overpriced and you get to watch a show all of 7 minutes before youre now basically paying to watch ads (on top of all the channels you will never watch). You get what? Something like 6 minutes of ads in a show with a runtime of 30min? Its annoying.
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