Okay, but it’s a problem to have asexuality (or lack of sexual interest) paired with villainy and incest. That doesn’t make it better.
Tag: acowar spoiler
Omg if you don’t like her books and have so many problems with it, why continue then? Just don’t. It’s clear you think sjm is careless and what not, so just leave it alone then geez. Other people enjoy her books.
So I’m not sure if you follow me or not, but I’ve written nearly half a million words of fanfiction for SJM’s books. I’ve been an active and passionate part of this fandom for over a year now. I have loved these books. I’ve been so eager for ACOWAR to come out that I’ve been working my ass off to get my 60+ pages of term papers done before May 2 so that I could have as much time as possible to read it and enjoy it. This is something I’ve been excited about for months.
I read the preview in good faith, and wound up getting hurt. I’ll get over it and probably move on. But I have the right to be critical of something that’s hurt me.
wordwitch-of-prythian
replied to your post “I … I don’t know if I can buy this book now. ”She could just be representing that opinion, because sadly, it exists. If she feels the need to include this, I’d say she most likely will be adding multiple queer characters. This just makes the world more lifelike? Because not everyone has the same opinion and that needs to be shown? This is just my opinion. Have hope!
acephobia is not an opinion, thanks. it’s bigotry.
I’m ace, and the fact that people do see the world that way makes me nauseous, but I’m just trying to find a positive justification for the writing.
Understood. Sorry for being terse. I was still emotional.
This is my legitimate example of your behavior right now; I would just really like you to consider yourself in a different light, to maybe understand how fucking ridiculous you sound. If someone who fucking LOVED steak suddenly had stomach issues and their friend said – “He lost the ability to eat steak. And with it all light in his life.” And all the vegans were like “okAY fiRST of all – HOW dARE YOU?!?!?! ARE YOU IMPLYING ALL VEGETARIANS HAVE TERRIBLE LIVES AND JUST LIVE IN THE DARKNESS 1/2
BECAUSE THEY DONT EAT STEAK?????? THIS IS SO OFFENSIVE WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??????? I am so grossly offended right now I don’t even have the words – just wanted to protect all my veggie brothers and sisters out there 💕 remember that you are loved and that it’s okay to get your proteins in different ways ❤ supporting people who eat meat is not a choice, it’s bigotry and I don’t know if I can ever let you speak another word to me again.“ Honestly, you’re completely absurd. 2/2
lol look at you go. Hope you feel better.
People are allowed to have hurt feelings, yeah? And to want to keep other people from having hurt feelings? Asexual people are accused of being soulless on a regular basis and so the suggestion that not being attracted to someone is a further indication of soullessness kind of throws salt on old wounds.
I’m not telling anyone not to read the book. I haven’t even decided that I’m not, yet. But that pissed me off and I’m trying to give other people a heads-up. But I hope you feel better about yourself sending anon hate mocking someone’s hurt feelings. Thumbs-up to you!
As a fellow ace person…I actually didn’t take that line to mean the same thing. I don’t think SJM was saying that people who don’t experience sexual attraction are soulless. I thought of it as being that because they are soulless, because they’ve basically given themselves up, other facets of their being has also drained away. Which is a thing that actually happens to people. And maybe she didn’t explain it right, but it’s also possible that people’s interpretation (Part 1/2)
(Part 2/2) of that line just never occurred to her. I mean I’ve definitely written things before that meant one thing to me and something else entirely to a reader. Not that it makes it ok, but people slip up. And this book went through an agent and editors and multiple drafts, which tells me that maybe they just didn’t read it like that…Idk. I don’t think she meant that line to mean what people think it does.
Well, yeah, not everyone is going to read it the same way. That’s the nature of things. But it really upset me and I would hate for other people to be hurt because I didn’t say anything. And (spoiler below cut)
if it was just that line alone, it wouldn’t be so bad, but given that it was in the breath after implied incest AND that the characters are villains … I read that as a lack of sexual attraction being equated to incest and villainy.
I’ll grant that asexuality isn’t well known, but awareness is stronger than ever, and how many times have we said that equating a lack of attraction to soullessness is like, entry-level acephobia? Like, that’s the first thing we tell people not to say. I just don’t see there being a good excuse for this.
That is just my take, and I’m only trying to protect other people. You feel free to read it however you want, and that’s totally okay. I’m glad you weren’t upset! But we have to cover all the bases.
I am sorry you felt hurt reading that, Sarah. A big hug for you :-) And thank you for the trigger warning. Now I feel disappointed with the book. I was looking forward to reading the ending of the series but that kind of phrases are awful.
Thanks so much, Natalia. ❤
I just was totally blindsided and I didn’t want other aces to have the same experience. It totally sucked. I’m not saying to boycott the book or anything but I’d hate for anyone else to get hurt because I kept my mouth shut.
im not asexual myself, so i really cant say that i know what youre going through. speaking from the perspective of a person identifying the same sexuality as sjm, im sure that she did not mean for that sentence to offend anyone at all. im not excusing her for her inconsiderate writing, but i, myself, did not realize what that sentence meant for aces until i read your explanation. i hope you can understand and excuse her mistake. im really sorry.
If this were her first offense, I might be more lenient. Most acephobia is ignorance. But this is part of a long track record of her not being careful and causing harm to readers. Though honestly I should not be surprised given how highly she prizes sex in her books (which, don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with). I’m still not totally sure how to feel, so I’m still processing. I do know I’ve been hurt, so I’m still trying to decide what to do about it (besides warning others).
Sarah Viehmann 