How to not be Acephobic

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple, and today this might be a short little episode. It’s a topic that we have talked about at length across multiple episodes over the span of years. This has certainly been discussed before and no doubt will also be in the future.

Courtney: But we’re also coming to understand that we have a large enough backlog of episodes, we have enough newer listeners who have not gone back to some of these old episodes, and it’s an important enough topic that it does sort of warrant having its own little episode, especially for folks who are newer in their ace education journey, um, or self-exploration, or if you just want a simple episode to send to someone who— maybe their heart’s in the right place, but they just don’t quite get it yet. And that topic is how to not be acephobic. This is by no means going to be an exhaustive episode. I want to mainly focus on what I have routinely cited in my daily life and interactions with other people as the number one rule to sort of be your entry point into understanding what is and is not acceptable to say when talking about asexuality.

Courtney: And maybe we’ll push it a little bit deeper to the next level, so to speak. And in this discussion, I want to use a couple of examples that I have personally heard in my physical, real-life discussions with other people. And recently, mind you. These are things I have heard before, both online and in person, from a variety of people, a variety of backgrounds. But since they both came up again recently in my life in close proximity to one another, it really had me thinking through this once again. So let’s start with the number one golden rule for allos, for allies.

Courtney: One simple thought experiment you can do to try to begin to understand whether or not something would be acephobic, and that is simply treat asexuality like a queer identity. A lot of folks, some of whom may even be well-meaning, albeit misguided, will say like, yeah, asexuals are queer. Yes, aces are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Why, they’re one of the A’s in that acronym.

Courtney: But while saying that, they don’t seem to internalize it in the way they speak about asexuality. And because there’s a bit of a cognitive dissonance there, and time and time again I’ll hear people say, well, yeah, it is queer, but then they’ll talk about asexuality in a way that they would never talk about other queer identities. I’ve become really accustomed to calling people in and saying, listen to what you just said, substitute any other queer identity in that sentence. Does it still feel okay to say?

Courtney: Obviously this exercise is only for people who are well-meaning and do want to learn and do want to do better. These are for the realize these are for, you know, allo queer people who don’t mean to be exclusionary. So obviously this advice is not going to be for the bigots who are just going to be bigoted. But in the name of education and progress, this has really opened the eyes of a lot of people I have had conversations with.

Royce: Yeah, if the source of the bad comment is ignorance, grounding someone in something that they already know and understand is a good way to clear that up.

Courtney: Yes. So, for example, I don’t know if this is the first time I ever mentioned this rule on the podcast or not, because I’ve been using this for many, many years in personal discussions, but I know I shared this story when we were talking about our former friend and horrible dungeon master who tried to run Curse of Strahd for us, there was a very specific instance. And this is one of the more egregious examples of this that I’ve had to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. Substitute that for any other identity. Do you still think that’s okay to say?

Courtney: And this was very much, you know, we’re talking about a fantasy setting, but the real-life implications, he was saying, well, of course all of the soulless husks are going to be asexual. If you don’t have a soul, you’re not going to, you know, want to experience the pleasures of the flesh. That’s, that’s a human thing. That’s, you know, that’s the, the soul and the spirit. Horrible.

Courtney: When, when I have a good-at-the-time friend say, yes, all soulless husks are going to be asexual. I’m like, say that for literally any other queer identity. Like, of course they’re gay, they’re soulless! Of course they’re trans, they don’t have a soul!

Courtney: Like, horrible, horrible things to say. Unfortunately, that guy didn’t get it. One of the many reasons he is no longer in our social circle. And that is a more outlandish, very hyper-specific-to-our-situation kind of a thing, because unless you are playing some kind of game digging into fiction, you probably aren’t literally talking about the concept of a soulless vessel and the implications of their sexual orientation.

Courtney: So to give a more... I guess, common example that you might encounter. This is one I heard recently and have heard many times over the years. And this is one I’ve even heard other ace people throw out on occasion. And I’ve even heard, you know, well-meaning allosexuals say like, well, I heard, I heard an ace say this, so I’m, I’m just repeating what other aces have said. And that is questioning someone’s self-identification as asexual due to age. Young people. The conversation I was a part of most recently was revolving vaguely around like a middle schooler, a middle schooler who is coming out and saying, I’m asexual. And a fairly diverse group of people were saying some combination of like, well, of course you’re asexual, you’re in middle school, or you’re too young to know if you’re asexual.

Royce: Which the first one is a misunderstanding of the word. That’s a conflation with celibacy. Like, you are asexual because you’re too young to have sex. Like, that’s not what that word means.

Courtney: I think sometimes that actually is coming from sometimes ace people who don’t understand how early sexual orientation develops for allos and how obvious it can be for allos.

Royce: There are—

Courtney: I have absolutely had conversations like this where some aces are like, well, yeah, you don’t really start getting sexually attracted to people until like high school puberty. Like, and it’s like, that’s not true.

Royce: It’s just not true. My earliest memory was when I was three. And it was having a crush on a girl with the same babysitter.

Royce: Like, it is, it is very early. And that’s the same for— I mean, sometimes depending on the home situation that they grow up in, sometimes it takes gay people or other queer people a while to like unpack the societal expectations. But if you are attracted to people, that happens early.

Courtney: And like, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t, right? Like, there are people who, you know, come out later in life and they’re like, oh my gosh, how could I have not known myself better? How did it take this long to understand it?

Courtney: But then, then you have queer friends that are like, yup, I had my first crush on a boy when I saw this commercial at age four.

Royce: It was this, it was this cartoon I saw, it was this moment.

Courtney: Right, yes.

Royce: Someone put on Sailor Moon.

Courtney: So it— there’s those little things where sometimes I genuinely think whoever’s saying that either doesn’t understand how early those things can develop, or they are allos who are just completely ignoring their own that happens a lot. That happens a lot. And this particular conversation I had most recently did have some mallows like that, and I had to remind them of their own life and their own experience as part of this conversation. And I, I do want to point out, this was a very good, respectful, productive conversation. This was not argumentative, this was not combative. I think everyone was receptive to what I was saying and did come away with a much more nuanced understanding. Because I also, I mean, especially for aces who are new to having these conversations, especially if you’ve only had these conversations online, or you’ve only witnessed these online, sometimes those get very, very ugly.

Courtney: And some people just choose to opt out of it. And it is totally fine if you do not see yourself as an educator, if you don’t want to be the one to have these conversations, no one making you be. But I also know there are some people who want to be able to articulate these things better and just haven’t had that practice yet. And the first couple times you have conversations like this, it can be really stressful because you don’t know how the other parties are going to react. And sometimes it’s a wonderful positive experience. And sometimes— you end up losing a friend because the longer you talk, the worse it gets. Either way, great learning experiences, great life experience.

Courtney: But in this situation, there very much was, before I entered the conversation, a consensus of like, you’re in middle school, you can’t say you’re asexual, you don’t know if you’re asexual. And someone did kind of turn to me like, oh, Courtney’s in the room.

Courtney: What are your thoughts on that?

Royce: Isn’t that around the time when a lot of adult ace people are looking back being like, oh yeah, I had to fake interest in a boy band or something like that because everyone around me was doing that?

Courtney: Right. So—

Royce: Also, I can distinctly remember some, like, not, not a majority, not to the extent as in high school, but some kids flirting in like late elementary school.

Courtney: Well, as I began this conversation, someone did, you know, not incorrectly point out that yeah, there are some people who might identify as asexual at a young age, and at some point or another they will find that that label doesn’t fit them anymore. And that was used sort of as like, you know, evidence to you’re too young to understand. And that’s when I had to break out the golden rule.

Courtney: I had to say, okay, it is true that there might be a young person identifying as ace who won’t be identifying that way for the entire rest of their life. That’s also true for any identity. Any single identity, whether it is a queer identity, even if it’s just like—

Royce: There are a lot of people identifying as Straight at that age. You—

Courtney: there’s a lot of people identifying as straight at that age, you know. Then even just alternative subcultures, like, think about the, like, it’s not a phase, Mom.

Courtney: Like, if you identify as something, if you have— if at this point in your life it is important to you to use this label, you think that is conveying something to other people, that conveys a truth about yourself, I do think that needs to be respected. And in this case, I had to say, let’s— while simultaneously holding the truth that sometimes identities do either outright change, or maybe they didn’t change but someone learned more about themselves, maybe it evolved, maybe it developed, I said, this is gonna be true for every population of, in this case, middle schoolers. You can look at any single middle school kid and know not every single kid in this, like, school, in this class, is gonna be identifying or behaving exactly the same way as an adult as they are right now. But knowing that, would you say that to a middle schooler who came out as gay.

Courtney: If you have like a 12-year-old who goes to their teacher or their parents or their friends and says, I’m gay, would your first impulse be, you’re too young to know that you’re gay? Because in this particular group of people, no the fuck it would not be.

Courtney: When I said that, you know, they were kind of like, oh. Oh.

Courtney: ’Cause yeah, you could also maybe say the same thing is true. Maybe, maybe a gay middle schooler does say, you know, I’m gay. What if they grow up to be 30 and find out, no, actually, I’m asexual and homoromantic, or maybe I’m bisexual, but I just didn’t, you know, see the other side of it yet?

Courtney: I said, you know that that is true and that that is a possibility that that will happen. But with the gay kid, that’s not your first immediate— you don’t know. You don’t know.

Courtney: I said you’d be supportive of that kid. You would support that kid saying, this is what I am, because that is what you are supposed to do as a supportive adult in the life of a queer child.

Royce: So I think I’ve mentioned sort of my thoughts on, like, the underlying nature of bigotry before. And if you take, you know, your traditional religious conservative bigot, they have a very narrow view of what humanity is supposed to be.

Royce: And so every identity outside of that they see as deviant. And that’s why they tend to say the same things about gay people that they’ll say about bisexual people or trans people or ace people, because to them it’s all just— it’s outside of what they consider a correct human experience. And you can have queer people who are very progressive and very supportive of gay, bi, trans people who still have asexuality outside of their view of what the human experience experience is supposed to contain, and thus act exactly like the conservative bigots in those same situations.

Courtney: Yes. And unfortunately, I do think societally, like, not on an individual level for each particular case, but on a societal level, that is because so much of, like, policy work and social work and just attempts to educate and gain acceptance comes from trying to appeal to the norm. Like, so much of, you know, gay acceptance came from like, we’re really just like you!

Courtney: We also love! We also have sex! We can also have kids! Like, we should be able to have marriage because our marriage will look just like yours! The only difference is the same-sex thing. Everything else completely the same. Like, that is— basically how Obergefell v. Hodges was passed is, finding that proximity.

Courtney: And unfortunately, things that are binary are easier to, you know, squint a little bit and see like, yeah, that’s, that’s close enough to the societal norm that more people will start to be swayed. And that’s why, like, biphobia is also extremely kinda— has its own properties aside from just good old-fashioned homophobia. And that’s why there’s so much bi and ace solidarity, because we’re both not only not the cis, het, allo norm, but we also don’t fit neatly into a pre-established binary, even if you’re trying to move the goalposts for what those binaries are. And for that matter, I mean, why there’s so much aerophobia, because you know, if someone’s path to accepting asexuality is like, oh, they can still love, they just don’t need the sex part. That’s, that’s kind of good. That’s kind of wholesome.

Courtney: Like, they can still love, they can still get married. If that is one person’s path to accepting asexuality, not okay, because that is arophobic. So, I mean, this, this golden rule works for any lesser understood orientation that you might hear something very questionable about, like substitute that for an identity that you’re more familiar with, that you’re more allied toward, that you have more experience talking about, and does it still feel okay? And naturally with more ace and aro education and awareness, some of this over time will start to get a little better. But I do feel like we have such a significantly high percentage of aspec people who didn’t come to understand themselves until a little later in life, that I do think some are a little out of touch as to how, like, younger people are learning about identity and starting to use identity and engaging online in these conversations where a lot of this awareness is happening right now.

Courtney: Because it’s really easy for an ace person to say like, you can’t possibly know you’re ace in middle school because I didn’t know I was ace in middle school. But that’s also just not universally true. We hear a lot of these stories because there are a lot of us, but I was fairly young by a, you know, ace population perspective when in my head I used the word asexual, not knowing that it was an orientation that other people were also— claiming. So no, I didn’t have right at that time a big coming out moment, but I knew I’m not experiencing things the way other people are experiencing, and I made a word for myself.

Courtney: And I do almost feel like the ace who doesn’t understand themselves has almost become a bit of a stereotype, ’cause I actually do know plenty of aces of different generations who knew exactly what their deal was at a much younger age. And almost any ace who didn’t will tell you that it’s just because they didn’t know that word. They didn’t know it was an option.

Royce: Yeah, a lot of that can be said about a variety of different identities and orientations, and it changes with exposure or awareness. Like, it’s much easier to understand how a part of you works when you’re presented with an example. I mean, just look at the explosion of understanding in neurodivergence.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Royce: Now that it’s talked about.

Courtney: For sure. So that was a big stepping stone in understanding to say, yeah, sometimes things change, because I, I don’t want to be defensive and say, no, wait, things don’t change, you’re born that way, because humans are just not that black and white. And sometimes I think it’s a very natural impulse for people in these situations to try to distance themselves from whatever narrative is being used to argue an acephobic talking point. So yes, you are too young to know you’re asexual does come from an acephobic place. So if the argument is, well, some people are going to grow up and learn more about themselves, I see why some people will be like, that’s not true.

Courtney: It doesn’t change. Orientation is immutable.

Courtney: We’re born that way. Because you’re trying to argue— the initial point. But what I’m always trying to get at in these conversations is not distancing yourself from the argument, but pointing out that the argument isn’t doing what you think it is. Because if the argument is, well, someone somewhere who as a middle schooler says I’m asexual might grow up and learn, oops, never mind.

Courtney: Okay. Does that mean that every middle schooler who comes out as asexual, we just say, no, you’re not? And we just say that to their face. Does that seem kind? Does that seem like the correct thing to do?

Courtney: So really, what are you arguing? To me, the argument is not, will this person ever change their mind or learn more about themselves? It’s how do we support this person and meet them where they’re at right now?

Courtney: That’s what allo queer people and allies would do if a middle schooler came out as gay. That’s what allo queer people and allies would do if a middle schooler came out as trans. You would protect that young person and you would support them in their identity journey. So to me, there, there is no utility to arguing on an individual basis, you’re too young to know.

Courtney: None at all. ’Cause the only thing it serves to do at the end of the day is to other asexuality amongst other queer identities. It’s to say we aren’t going to treat this the same way we treat other identities. And that is fundamentally invalidating. But furthermore, this was a diverse group of people. We had a few different flavors of queer people and we had some staunch allies. And I did have to say, you know, did you know you liked girls in middle school? And the answer was like, oh yeah, definitely. Definitely I did know I liked girls in middle school. I said, okay, well, if you know that you liked girls in middle school, is it really so weird to think that someone knows that they don’t like girls in middle school?

Courtney: Not to mention the fact that just from a mindset of support and protection of the young person in question here. Very rarely, I think, would there be a young person identifying as asexual that would grow up to be completely cisgender and heterosexual. Like, within these lesser-known orientations, sometimes things do shift and evolve, but if someone identifying as asexual says, oh, actually, I am bisexual, and, you know, 10 years later they’re saying they’re bisexual. Okay, now you have a bisexual person who maybe didn’t understand this about themselves 10 years ago. What did questioning who they said they were back then actually do for them?

Courtney: Except maybe make it even more uncomfortable for them to come out as bisexual later. Because the first time people questioned them, so then it would create a less accepting atmosphere of, see, I’m just gonna prove them right, which I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be the one who proves them right. How are they even gonna believe me this time? Or even, am I gonna get a like, see, I knew it, I told you so?

Courtney: Because none of those are gonna feel good. None of those are gonna be good supportive responses. So even though this ended up becoming a little bit more of a detailed explanation as to why you’re too young to know you’re ace has no good faith purposes.

Courtney: A very quick way to get someone to understand that is to, yeah, substitute it for another orientation. That’s an easy first stepping stone. Now, another conversation I heard recently.

Courtney: The same rule still applies, so we’re still going to apply it here, but I do want to take it to a slightly deeper level as well. Because this was fundamentally a conversation about sex, sexuality. It was predominantly focused on allosexual people, but there was also a big component about, like, pornography consumption and practices and preferences and whatnot. Now, I don’t have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to talking about, uh, viewing pornography, so coming into this conversation, it was more, I’m just going to be a curious listener and observer of this conversation. But this very well-meaning person tried to play the caveat game. In a way that was not particularly effective. It very much read to me as someone who maybe in the not-so-distant past had the understanding that all people are inherently sexual and all people consume porn and all people, you know, X, Y, and Z.

Courtney: And then they were at some point called in or called out or some variation thereupon to say like, what you’re saying is really exclusionary of ace people. And maybe they got a little bit of a baseline understanding because the conversation very much proceeded as like, everyone has these desires and urges except for asexual people.

Courtney: And if we’re giving a very generous, like, benefit of the doubt, like, you’re trying. I see that you’re trying. But let’s think about that, uh, by the Golden Rule standpoint.

Courtney: I guess I don’t have super good one-to-one examples of this, but like, um, all women want to have sex with men unless they’re lesbians. Like, I can’t think of a time when someone would genuinely say that unless you’re like intentionally being campy and ridiculous.

Courtney: Like, that sounds like a joke. That doesn’t sound like a legitimate thing someone would— eh, maybe.

Courtney: All boys play with trucks unless they’re gay. I don’t know.

Courtney: But because there isn’t a perfect one-to-one for this one, like there are some other examples, and if, if you start training yourself to think this way, you’ll find more and more in your everyday life where you’re like, oh yeah, I can literally just substitute this word for the other, and now all of a sudden it is uncomfortable. This one doesn’t have a perfect one-to-one, but that’s a great opportunity to take it a little bit of a step deeper, because what you’re doing here is, yes, you’re acknowledging there are some people who don’t fit the mold, so to speak. You’re acknowledging the caveat of, yeah, ace people exist. Thank you for acknowledging we exist. We don’t always get that, I guess.

Courtney: But you are simultaneously reinforcing a normativity. And in this case, I don’t think that’s what the person meant to do. I think if they understood that that’s what they were doing, they would try to find a different way to approach this conversation. But I think one of the lines in this conversation was very similar to, you know, ace people exist, but I’m not really talking about them right now. I’m talking about people who have normative sex. I think the phrase normative sex came up. And I think caveating and just acknowledging that other types of people exist is not good enough if you’re reinforcing a normativity. It’s kinda like, it’s like calling cis people normal. Like, trans people are very valid, but cis people are normal. You’re either normal or you’re trans.

Courtney: Like, these are terrible things to say. If you are yourself trans or a trans ally, you would understand that. And so when it comes to allosexual versus asexual, it is still problematic to say, yes, allosexual is normal. Allosexual is normal.

Courtney: And sure, ace people exist, but they’re the weird ones over there. We’re gonna look at you and say, yep, you exist, but we’re talking about us normal people right now.

Courtney: You see how this gets very messy very quickly. It is very othering. So the deeper level of substitute any orientation, treat it as a queer orientation, is try to unpack the underlying normativity.

Courtney: And I think everyone really needs time to sit with these. Some of them are very difficult and very heavily ingrained. But think of all of the other normativities that we do try to unpack. We try to unpack Heteronormativity. We try to unpack cisnormativity. We try to unpack patriarchy and white supremacy. There are underlying normativities here. So I don’t think it’s enough to identify who is the other, because in this instance it’s saying, yes, asexuals are the others here. They’re the others. I see them. I’m acknowledging they’re the others. But it’s not acknowledging what the underlying normativity is that makes us the others. In this case, the word we would use is allonormativity, or to a further extent, especially if we’re talking about aromanticism as a component, that would be amatonormativity.

Courtney: And these normativities have relationships with one another, so it’s not always a clear-cut example of just one. defining normativity. But this particular conversation was with folks who think deeply about societal normativities and try to reject and unpack them time and time again. And so it was very disappointing to hear that someone who acknowledges that heteronormativity is bullshit and that cisnormativity is bullshit. Someone who acknowledges that under patriarchy and white supremacy, that a white man who is straight and cisgender with a wife and two kids is this society’s ideal, and the system and policies that make up our country revolve around that particular person. And under all these normativities, anyone who doesn’t fit neatly within those boxes is going to be othered in some ways.

Courtney: It’s hurtful when someone like that acknowledges all of these things, but then still reinforces allonormativity because they themselves are allosexual and want to study and investigate and talk about sex and sexuality and porn and— other cultural elements that go along with all of these things. Because why is that the line? Why is that the one normativity, the one normativity, that this particular person says, yeah, that is normative and that, that’s normal, that’s the baseline. The normal baseline is that people are sexual and this is what that looks like.

Courtney: Sure, because I got called out, I’ll say that aces do exist, but most people aren’t that, so they’re the weird ones. And I think a lot of people don’t start to understand these normativities until someone who falls outside of them really explains it and they start to learn about someone else’s experience. But I don’t think it has to be that way. I think people on the whole are just not in the practice of trying to identify and unpack underlying normativities like that. If something is pointed out to you, someone explains white supremacy to, say, a white ally. They might start to identify things here and there because it was explained to them, and with that practice you might get better at identifying white supremacy. But what if we all, as a community and as allies to one another, just got in the habit of saying, you know, I see that this group of people is othered.

Courtney: I don’t understand their experience necessarily. I might not have a personal relationship with that community. I might not know why this, you know, bigoted legislator is coming for them right at this moment. But if instead of just being like, that’s awful, they’re valid, what if everyone stepped back and said, what is the underlying normativity here? What is the presence of this person challenging?

Courtney: And how is that a threat to societal normativities? That’s a much, much deeper thought experiment and exploration. And I’m going to use the word practice again, because it is a practice to identify these things. It needs to be practiced. It’s a skill that needs to be honed. And anybody who is trying to develop their own practice of doing this, I will spend as much time and energy as it takes to help educate and show you things from my perspective and explain the way I think about things, because I think that is a noble goal, and anyone who’s willing to try, I think, deserves to have someone with patience who is willing to do that. Because I think that will also reveal a lot on an individual level. If you are someone who has started to develop this practice of questioning the underlying normativities, if there is a normativity that in your head, your knee-jerk reaction is like, yeah, that sounds about right, that actually checks out, I agree with that one, that’s probably what you need to identify, like, under a microscope more thoroughly.

Courtney: Why is that the one that you are willing to die on this hill about? Why have you unpacked all these other ones, but this is where you draw the line? This is the one that you’re gonna treat with an exception. I’m gonna treat this one a little bit differently than I treat the other ones. So you see, even though it’s a deeper thought experiment, it’s the same concept. Why am I treating this one differently than I treat the other ones?

Courtney: If someone really, really sat with that question, if everyone could take time to sit with these questions as they arise. Because of course it’s also true, you don’t know what you don’t know. There will be instances where someone will point out to you a normativity within our society that might not make sense to you right away.

Courtney: It might take time. But if instead of trying to defend it, or reinforce it, or otherize anyone who doesn’t fit inside of it, there’s deeper work that needs to be done there. Hopefully that gave you all a little bit of food for thought.

Courtney: Like I said, it’s not the first time we’ve talked about this concept, it almost certainly will not be the last. But that is going to do it for today.

Courtney: So we are going to leave you off as always with today’s featured marketplace vendor, which also fits very well into today’s topic because another community which does have some overlap with our own at times, who is very currently and very recently under attack by our legislators for gnomes know why, uh, the furry community. We love furries over here. Why the last few days on my newsfeed I’ve been seeing, oh, this senator is raising alarm bells about furries who are pilots. I will never understand.

Courtney: Which, first of all, the furries are brilliant, and yes, I would 1000% trust my pilot to be a furry. Uh, my close personal furry friend is the reason why I know about, uh, cooling vests in the summer now. Thank you so much for that recommendation. Absolutely saved my ass on this historically hot summer, which is itself, uh, quite existential.

Courtney: But you do not need to be a furry to talk— to shop at today’s Marketplace vendor, Tail Ends. Tail Ends has a lot of things that we love. They have cute, safe-for-work undies and tops designed and sewn by an ace artist. This is truly slow fashion.

Courtney: The prints are created by Tail Ends and everything is hand sewn, created for you. There are all sorts of different cuts depending on what your personal preference is.

Courtney: There are boxer briefs, boy shorts, there are socks and arm warmers. There are accessories if you would like to get yourself a collar, and they even make chest binders.

Courtney: So lots of different options here. We love fiber artists, we love slow fashion. In addition to the clothes, you can also get some stickers and other various prints. I got a whole bunch of prints through the Mutt of the Month Club. So I got a precious canine design for every month of the year.

Courtney: And to those of you who are, uh, brave and less sex-repulsed than I, they do have an 18+ only section on the website. So there are options for a variety of tastes. Reject fast fashion and AI slop.

Courtney: And you can do so by checking out the link in the show notes on our website as well as the description box if you happen to be listening YouTube. Tail Ends is part of our marketplace, which, as a reminder, has over 150 ace and aro-owned shops right now. You can peruse all of our shops by going to theacecouple.com/marketplace, and if you yourself are an ace or aro small business owner or artist, you can find a shop entry form right at the top of that page to let us know who you are. And if you do, you just might see your shop on our website, and you just might hear a future shout-out on an episode of the podcast.

Courtney: As always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.