aroacepagans:

It continues to be clear as fucking day to me that the main reason we even have those “this character is aroace” “no, this character is lesbian” debates is because people refuse to acknowledge the vast number of shared experiences that lesbians and aroace women have.

I mean seriously:

• Both groups have to deal with straight men who feel entitled to their bodies as well as navigate the expectation that they need to have a husband/boyfriend.
• Both groups have a tendency to dress in a way that actively subverts the male gaze.
•  Lesbians and aroace women share a huge amount of history, including the golden orchid and the spinster movement (see the book: The Spinster and her Enemies).

And that’s just the really obvious stuff. Like there are definitely characters that are canonically lesbian both sexually romanticly,  and there are definitely female character that are canonically aroace (although not very many) and those should be respected for what they are, but female characters that are just heavily queer coded in a “I don’t like men” sort of way, but never actually pursue relationships with women and aren’t given any specific labels to go by could just as easily be of ether identity, or they could be an aro lesbian or an ace lesbian. I don’t really understand how these debates are still happening, just acknowledge that these two identities share some similar experiences and move on.