Comphet is why so many ace folks don't realise they're ace until they're older. I'm active in the ace community now, and I love seeing teenagers finding the label and community, finding out that they're not weird, and they don't have to pretend to be straight or gay. As a teenager even just a decade ago, I didn't have that. I was "ambiguously queer" as one friend put it. Shows like Heartstopper and Sex Education are finally bringing asexuality into the conversation, and I'm so glad for both the teenagers and the older folks who can finally describe who they are without having to try to lie to themselves or others.
I relate to this, but also I am an asexual that is not “pretending to be gay”. I genuinely am attracted to only people of my gender. I think we need to discuss how being other kinds of LGBTQ is also compatible with asexuality more in our community.
The only issue I have with heartstoppers rep of ace is that it seems like ace=book worm with no interest in Any relationship (platonic and not). Like, his friends seemed optional and more like he was asocial rather than asexual. It also felt a bit stereotype and obvious? Maybe I'm just being picky because I'm ace, outgoing, and have a sports background tho 😅
@i_ate_the_context can you elaborate? Because I believe I used it correctly. He always has his nose in a book rather than interacting with the world around him. He seems only mildly interested in his friends and does not seem violent. Even if hes hanging with his friends, he BARELY interacts with them
@@distortion1 having a hard time understanding what you mean by explaining when its fairly straight forward, thousands of species across the globe show homosexual behavior, and have members that are exclusively homosexual, largely because homosexuality provides several evolutionary benefits, and also just because many species simply use affection and sex much like humans do-to provide intimate social bonding. Penguins are most famous for this, but they are by far not the only ones that do so, other species include but are not limited to: lions, elephants, dolphins, birds of prey, several thousand species of lizards, kangaroos, dogs, cats, bovine, deer, parrots, chickens, goats, all higher order apes, etc. Etc. Etc.
@@facelessdronehmm thanks for this... I've heard of penguins being homosexual and have you heard about how they cause problem to their mates by stealing eggs from other penguins and fostering them? these other animals you called I'll research. Also, if we're talking about nature, plants are included are there any examples of homosexual flowers? P.s this actually isn't straightforward.
@@distortion1yeah they don't cause problems actually and they usually take eggs that have been abandoned or the parent(s) have died. Seems like your bias is showing.
@@distortion1homosexual flowers aren't so much a things because sex is not really a social bonding thing (as far as we're aware) but a large amount of flowers are intersex or change their sexes!
@AmieMorley-st6tz thank you 💕 I hope so, too. I'm assuming that in a few years, she'll connect the dots "all on her own" and then convince herself and others that she always knew. You'd think that would have already happened since im 28 though lol Also, it's not even really about sexuality. Anyone can not want a relationship at any point in their lives. My other sister has actively dated since high school and currently wants to focus on her career. She could get into a relationship tomorrow if she felt like it, she just doesn't rn
@FishVirus pretty positive me saying "I don't want a relationship" and not dating nor having crushes all my 28 years on earth should be a good enough clue. I also don't think people should be required to come out. It's not like heterosexual folks have to, so why should someone queer be forced to? Edit: she's also pretty conservative, whether she admits to it or not. She's the epitome of a heterosexual Bachelorette party at a gay bar, but like, has no gay friends. I highly doubt she even knows what ace is. My other sister connected the dots before I was even 20 lmao
@@xxglowenxx makes sense I suppose. The reason Hetero people don’t need to come out, however, is because most of society expects it as the default. Not that that’s a good thing.
Thank you for acknowledging that ace people can be hurt by this too! I often see the idea that asexuals get to “pass” or are “basically cishet” without realising the effects of being forced to make up crushes, fake date, be put through hormone therapy, corrective assaults…
Hell as an asexual I used to just tell myself I was a ‘late bloomer’ until I reached 20 and realised there ain’t no blooming happen in here. Also I realised that any form of sex was just…. Gross to me
@@emilybarclay8831 I always just thought I was too “intellectual” to be interested in dating. It wasn’t until late in university that I realised I was biromantic asexual.
I realized I am asexual later when the guys seemed more like platonic friends than anything else (I never kissed a guy before because I didn’t feel the need to when I was with them)…also they looked nice but that’s about it. I think Jessica’s video is spot on about asexuals. 😊
@@silversleeper1193 lmao I was also in uni when I read a Instagram post about asexuals having a lack of sexual attraction and I was like ‘wait isn’t that just normal??’ I genuinely thought people were like, all making one big in joke when they talked about finding people hot and ( potentially TMI) I genuinely couldn’t fathom why anyone would find oral sex appealing. I thought everyone hated doing it and just did it because they wanted it in return. The concept is still gross as fuck to me. That’s the pee zone tf
I do love that you mention ace and aro people, it's very true that this assumption that being straight is the normal way of things hurt us too! Going further there is the concept of amatonormativity: the idea that romantic love is the be all end all, the normal "love" to feel and that platonic or familial love are inferior types of love. Yes it is especially hurtful to the aro people but it's a toxic standart for everyone to consider that your love for your friends and family is in any way less important than your love for your partner...
But if society acknowledges that all the different forms of love are equally valid and important to emotional well-being, polyamory would have to be acknowledged and cis-het-mono normativity just can't have that😒
The book about asexuality that is shown in Heartstopper (Ace by Angela Chen) is phenomenal and also brings up this topic. I would really recommend to anyone
@@melowlw8638Oh, I see what you mean 😅 The actual book makes a cameo. It tells the stories of many different people who experience being ace differently
I’m 57 and at various times in my life I’ve been called frigid. As a woman this was seen as being one of the worst things you could be. Thanks to you and other lovely young people I am now relaxed and content with who I am and I can’t thank you all enough 😊🤗🙏
Oh you cutie, I'm so glad you've found yourself, its so nice to see people from older generations accept themselves and find themselves! You're doing so well x
Frigid was an insult I got at school. As I didn't date and wasn't interested in dating. Only later in life, I came to learn what I was, demisexual. (People who identify as demisexual only feel sexual attraction to someone after they've formed a strong emotional bond with them.) I hope you learn more about sexuality and yourself. Much love.
Im ace. Always have been How do i know that? I genuinely thought, as far back as 3rd grade, that “crushes” were just people you PICK and then act like you like. YOU COULD JUST PICK SOMEONE. And then when i was in middle school and people were starting to kiss and stuff, i thought they were joking. Like. It was just a very bad wide spread joke. And then in high school i thought i was broken because i didnt like the person/people everyone said i would be perfect with. Im 25 now and couldnt be happier to have been born AroAce. Its like watching everyone else walk around in 9 inch heels and im over here wearing house slippers. Less hassle. Less fuss Yah i know im missing out on some stuff simple because i CANT feel it. High heels are super cool and look rad, but im glad i dont have to deal with them. Im more than happy to just chill, no stress or heartache in my fuzzy house slippers.
Wait, don't crushes work that way? For me I feel like I could put anyone into the spot of affection and nothing would change. Maybe I just need an object or a being to throw all my affection at, but I really do feel like I could just pick anyone from the crowd and have a "crush".
@@azyo7101 as it was described to me, no. People dont really just go “Ehh. I’ll pick you”. Like yah, you can develop affections for someone if you try. But, as it was told to me by someone who was for sure not ace, people dont actively and consciously ‘pick’ their crush. I think if you genuinely start feeling love for the person, then thats just your process. But for me when i was younger, i would ‘pick’ and then just ‘acted’ as i assumed one should act. So it was all a conscious decision that i didnt actually want to do and only did it because that’s what i thought i ‘needed’ to do.
All this ace and aro talk next to heartstopper give me a reason to bring up my favorite book of all time!!! The creator of Heartstopper Alice Oseman is actually aroace and has written an absolutely stunning novel about it called Loveless!!!! It’s all about struggling with your identity when you don’t know what being on the aro or ace spectrum is and it is the PERFECT example of comphet!!! This book changed my life and i think anyone should read it regardless of your identity because friendship is the core of the story!!! (And while you’re at it read all of Alice’s other books too!!! Solitaire is all about Charlie’s sister Tori, Radio Silence is all about not knowing what’s next, and I Was Born For This is all about the internet and parasocial relationships!!!) (can you tell who my favorite author is?)
The beginning of this video encapsulates how I felt as a little girl about my bisexuality. I thought that all girls had special feelings towards certain girls, but surely that was different than having a crush on a boy, right? 😅 Turns out, no…
My thoughts exactly! Even when I talked with my best friend about how I was feeling towards my other good friend she’s was like „No, you are not queer. I consider some girls attractive, too. That doesn’t make me bi.“ But apparently there’s a difference between considering someone objectively attractive and wishing you could kiss her 😅 But I somehow convinced myself, that all that staring in each other’s eyes, cuddling, funflirting and dancing together was completely normal for friends! 😂 And I discovered years later that she had the same thoughts and did the same thing. I still think we would have been such a cute couple 😂
I still dream about waking up next to my best friend. I haven’t seen her in over a decade and my heart still aches for her. I can’t help but wonder what could have been if I hadn’t felt so ashamed of my attraction to other girls and tried so hard to hide and suppress it. The sad thing is that my parents would have been totally accepting. I never worried about them finding out. It was my peers at school that I was terrified of.
I wasn't aware interest in sex wasn't inevitably something you just naturally 'grow into' so I was kinda saved by the notion of 'saving one's self for marriage', even if compulsory heterosexuality/cisgenderism hurt me in the long run because of it delaying my awakening. Once we had widely accepted terms like 'nonbinary' and 'asexual' in common parlance, I quickly realised how much they applied to me and made me feel so relieved I didn't need to force myself into doing things I was uncomfortable with for the sake of some guy who might not even like me for who I am. The right person will accept and embrace your (a)sexuality - like my partner
I frequently heard, from books and my mom, that kids “grow into” physical and romantic feelings for others. Most everyone in my grade from K-5 had a powerful aversion even to crushes. I didn’t become a hormone addled teen so much as vaguely hormonal. Turns out I’m on both the aro and ace spectrums.
Thank you for including Ace and Aro! As an Ace person on a Facebook Group for Asexual people, the number and degree of Ace people suffering from Comphet is remarkable.
I remember being told that it was natural for girls to have a short period during puberty where they had crushes on other girls/women, and that it’d go away. In other words, the crushes I had on other girls was a normal phase in my otherwise heterosexual life. When my feels for women *didn’t* go away, I convinced myself all straight women could see themselves loving and kissing a woman- it’s just a “woman” thing. I thought even thinking I might LGBTQ was just me trying to be “different”. I was shocked when during a conversation in college I learned that some women legitimately weren’t attracted to other woman and did not, in fact, want to kiss them. That hiding your attraction to the women wasn’t just a part of being a woman. I was, in fact, not straight.
Meanwhile my parents telling me that its totally okay if I want to bring my best friend home as a girlfriend... They figured I must be gay because i was not interested in dating until my twenties. They actually still thought i was dating my best friend when I told them about my boyfriend. Years later my sister came out as bi so atleast my parents attempts to accept us didnt come in vain 😂
I learned about comphet from a very cheesy movie called; But I'm a cheerleader. When Megan is being interrogated in the conversion camp and she's saying she's straight, because everyone looks at everyone else getting changed of course they do. Then she puts two and two together screaming; I'm a homosexual! While crying. It's a dark movie done in a cheesy way.
This kinda helps explain why my relationship with my attractive opposite-sex best friend was weird. I kept feeling "interested" in her, but it didn't feel right. I think it was this expectation that I'm *supposed* to have those feelings, so I mistook my intense platonic love as romantic love. Being bisexual is difficult sometimes.
Like others have said, thank you for recognising this exists for aroace people too. It’s taken till my late 30s to go “Ohhhh, Ace *is* actually a thing!”. It doesn’t feel alien to me. Society still makes me feel like an alien though but…, I’m no longer circling, back and forthing, other sexualities. Nor struggling quite so much with the “reasons” thrown about like “it’s a trauma response”, “it’s because you find yourself repulsive”, “it’s “the autism”…”. It is massively invalidated, misunderstood and medicalised. First Pride in my new town, it was *so much fun* being asked “So you don’t have feelings?” and “But you’ve not closed to mind to finding someone because I wouldn’t want you to miss out…”. Ugh. Still working out the romantic stuff… Maybe aro but also maybe pan. I feel like I’ve always been capable of (platonic) crushes on all genders. But the world’s message to me (brought up girl) has been “You feel that way about that woman because you want to be them and you feel that way about that man because you want to be *with* them” but the feelings were the same, or “the other way around”, or both or neither but still my version of a crush. I have typed a lot. Hello anyone who has made it to the end…!
I'd really recommend just going down the lgbtqia wiki. There's so many terms out there for people who don't neatly fit into the main lgbt. Obv no one needs a label to be valid, but it's so validating to realize "oh, there's a lot of people out there who feel the way I do"
Too true. I believe now that I am ace, and regret all the times I allowed myself to be coerced into sex with men because I thought I had to to be "normal". Unfortunately as a teen I had no sense of self so that I could put my energy to better use and become self-reliant so I wouldn't need a man to " take care of me".
My eldest uncle's wife told my teenage self "love the sinner, hate the sin" when it came to homosexuality. She **can** have a good heart, but she got mixed up with tainted perspectives in religion, when her own traumatic past pushed her to cling to religion for stability. Top it off with my dad being very much so against anything that isn't cishet, even after I outed myself as queer to him (when I was finally living on my own), it's difficult to live with the conflicting feelings of still caring for my kin while acknowledging the person that I am will never truly be accepted by them.
Because it is sin. It is inherently wrong and unnatural urge that anyone of us may have that urge have to deny. Like anyone who has bad urges has to deny because it’s wrong.
@@desertrose3511if anything religion is more unnatural than homosexuality cus we're the only species with religion while homosexuality is in quite a lot of species
I had to pretend to have so many crushes on guys bc I was in a Christian school and they didn't support the LGBTQ. I remember sex ed class and they said that if someone doesn't experience sexual or romantic attraction it was a medical concern. I also remember them forcing us to potray ourselves as the gender we were assigned as. I am demisexual/polysexual and genderfluid so I remember having so much gender dysphoria because I was forced to wear 'feminine clothing' and sometimes I would be okay with it and other times I wasn't. I have cptsd and the past gender dysphoria and constant religious abuse is a cause for it.
As an asexual, people tell you that your just haven't met the right person yet, or you have to try it before you make your decision. I didn't choose this
In the words of a great internet anonymous, " If you say, "how do you know you're asexual if you haven't tried it?" I ask you this; how do you know you won't enjoy hugging a cactus? Go on, try it. *Go hug a **-fing-** cactus* "
That’s literally assault, you should take it up with the school board if you haven’t already (though we all know most school boards are incompetent) or even with the police.
Make sure to include Aros please! Asexual people can still want romantic relationships and can even be hetero! While Aro people do not feel romantic attraction (or may feel limited attraction) and are often forced to “pick people” to have crushes on in order to fit the norm. Ace does not = not wanting romance! *I am on the Aro and Ace spectrums*
I came here to ask that :) these two spectrums are different and many people conflate the two or get confused between them, so it's important to mention them both by name
She did say “those who are on the asexual spectrum and those who just don’t want romantic relationships”. I think the latter was meant to include both aro people and also anyone who doesn’t want a relationship at the moment for whatever reason rather than excluding people who aren’t both aro and ace. Maybe she could have been clearer but I don’t think she was intentionally conflating the spectrums
@@theladycata9648 I agree! :) But it's confusing, especially for those who doesn't know aro people exist or that aromantic people who can be allosexual, and I have a lot if experience talking about both asexual ity and aromanticism, which taught me that even phrased like that - it's also not clear that aromanticism isn't on the asexual spectrum
Ive seen a lot of people saying it only applies to lesbians and it just does not make sense to me, people of all sexualities have had to force themselves to “act straight” or “act cis” to be allowed to even exist without fear (of violence specifically), i just dont get it
When I was a teen on Tumblr the term "squish" was doing the rounds. The idea being that it's a platonic crush on someone. Turns out all those "squishes" I had on other girls were somewhat less than platonic
Kind of funny because for me it was the other way around, I didn't really know that you could be platonically attracted to someone so I always just thought that I was into someone. Which was why it was really confusing (and a bit upsetting) that I felt so weird if I'd start a relationship with them. It took me my whole 20 years to discover that people can be aro and/or ace and that Big Feelings™ don't necessarily mean love
I forgot about squishes! It's such an adorable word for it. I had a squish on my current partner two years ago, which then rapidly turned into a crush, we talked for hours at night when we couldn't sleep, within a few days I was head over heels, the flirting and teasing was NOT subtle on my end, which was so weird and new, because usually I don't make the first moves. After a month he gently, teasingly confronted me about it, and the next day we confessed our love. I was also the first to kiss him
thank you for including ace and aros in this!! A lot of the community has experienced this, including myself, to the point where we force to have “crushes” in order to feel like we’re “keeping up with society.” The aro and ace community are rarely ever brought up in conversations like these or LGBTQ+ conversations in general, so it’s nice to see someone, especially a bigger influencer, include us!! And to anyone on the spectrum or questioning, you are valid and loved 💜💚
When I visit my grandparents their like: “ SO WHO DO YOU LIKE” “ARE YOU DATING” “DONT KEEP IT A SECRET” like- what do I say to that??? I'm not openly out yet as aroace either, now my mom is start
@@EatMetalic You literally just say, I don't like anyone. Honestly, you're making it into something it's not. Which is putting more stress on yourself. What could they possibly say to you? Nothing. It's not like you're hitting them with big news. The conversation will just move on.
@@erin6945 I do lol they think I'm lying just cause my sister lied about having her first crush. I'm worried they won't accept or believe me, and they certainly won't know what it is, which will add another layer of uncomfortableness for me to explain.
I love your aesthetic, honesty, clarity, love and honesty everything about you in a bi-gal admiring amazing queer folk ways 🤗. Guess I'm watching Heart stopper next!😅
I remember i stumbled across a CZcams short a while ago of a young woman talking about this, it was in depth as this but pointing out the same thing. Almost all of the comments were about how “society doesn’t do that” “you just want attention” and “not all men” bs. I decided to comment because I related to the exact thing and DEAR LORD, the comments I got in response and how “no one forced you to be straight” 🤔😐 we sure we’re living in the same world here? I didn’t even realize I was doing it to myself for YEARS. I didn’t even question if I was anything other than straight until my junior year of hs. And up until last year (first year of college) I said I was bisexual. After dating a couple of guys in college I very quickly realized that I have absolutely ZERO interest in men. On ANY level 😂 and it was just kinda crazy to me as I figured that out how much I didn’t realize I was forcing myself to conform to 😅
Woah! The first bit was so fast it was incomprehensible! I had to scroll up and back down and pause to read the subtitles. At least it got slower after the start!
I just want to say that ur videos have helped me become more comfortable with my sexuality, I used to feel bad about not being strait and try to hide it, but now I openly tall ppl! (If they ask, I am pan btw!” ❤
I LOVE HEARTSTOPPER! I am bi (like Nick) and he is my favorite character. I really love the way that these kinds of shows let people see how these things are NORMAL. My parents don’t think it is normal, so it has delayed me coming out. I do love the ways these shows let people of other sexualities see a peep into the world of lgbtq, even if they are a little off
I had a phase where I asked ALL my female friends who their "pash" was. By this I meant another girl you just *really want to be like* it wasn't until everyone I asked said they didn't have one, and asked another lesbian friend this, she just said, "Hun, I think that's just called being gay." That I realised😅
i came out as a trans man in 2018. it took me until 2022, after years of pretending to be interested in men and dating them, to realize that im just not attracted to men. you hear about the opposite happening for trans men where they feel like they have to date women to be "real men," but i had such a hard time accepting that im just not attracted to men. i literally had to pretend for so long and have so many relationships with men that were ultimately doomed to fail regardless of these men oftentimes treating me very poorly
Im not a lesbian I just wanna be very good friends with this girl, like making sure she has everything in life she wants, holding hands, always accidentally bringing her favourite snacks when we meet up, my, that’s your favourite ? I’d never have known !! And generally be super excited whenever i see her. I mean wanting to kiss her is totally cool too, don’t have that with any other female friends but hey, I just wanna be besties
oh, my stars! You have summed up my first 14 years of life. And when I came out of the closet at 15 ... though I was sick of comphet. I was bravely bisexual, and so hard to come out of the closet in 2009 that I was told that I was better off being Comphet...
I had an interesting experience with comphet, because I was out for a while as bisexual, but I only recently at 26 realized that my male “attraction” was only towards fictional or unattainable men.
That best friend thing..I thought the feelings I had for my best friend were just how everyone felt about their best friend and it was normal friendship until one day he got a girlfriend and I felt this devastation inside and didn't know why
My aroace ass still does the comphet dance around everyone who isn't queer tbh. It sucks. I'm stuck with my bigoted conservative relatives, too, so I have to waltz around the subject even at the place I should consider a "home." Sometimes I hate being alive tbh, and I wonder if I'll ever live long enough to find the aroace equivalent of queer joy. Now that's enough trauma dump for one comment 💀
I do hope you feel better, but what would to your conservative relatives have against not being interested in anyone. I don't know if they're religious, but it doesn't go against any religion. I also don't hear many conservatives talking about it. Like I said, I hope you're feeling better.
@erin6945 "I'm not giving them any grandchildren" is all they can talk about. A lot of their religion circles around the idea of a "family," and they can't accept that our family legacy dies with me.
@@t.k.5088 I gotcha. Not having grandchildren can happen for so many reasons. I hope eventually they can let that go. Don't let it get to you, I know that's easier said than done. 🥰🥰
@erin6945 thank you ❤️ I just wish they'd be happy enough that I'm still alive and here instead of mourning the grandkids that will only ever exist in their heads
@@t.k.5088 Yes!! I hope so too, It may take a little while, but hopefully it will happen. In the meantime, try not to let it take up too much of your time or thoughts. 🤗🥰
It can also lead to nasty interactions with healthcare providers. I'm ace. Stop asking sensitive questions because that's the default. We don't all do... that. Attracted to doesn't mean... Physical, too.
It's really alarming how much of the medical field is home to too many "professionals" that are incapable of comprehending anything beyond the cishet agenda. Whether a lack of exposure and educating themselves on other identities, or a lack of empathy that could be there for a multitude of reasons (or even all of the above, in the shitstew), it's DEEPLY underrated how refreshing it is when finding doctors that have consideration for non-conforming sexuality and gender identities.
I kind of get you but also I can kind of understand why they ask. They pretty much go through the same checklist of questions and some health issues do stem from from whether you have s3x or not. The way that helped me from feeling uncomfortable when they ask me "are you s3xually active?" Is to just think that they asked me whether I drink soda or not (works for me cuz I don't drink soda and am ace). If they make suggestive remarks or weird comments, I just keep going with my imagination and say "nah, I'm not really into that (soda)" lol It's fine for me since I barely go to the doctors but if it's the same person who keeps talking like that to you, consider changing to another.
honestly, my parents were so open about people being gay, but i didnt realize I COULD BE TOO. I thought it was like you got a card in the mail saying 'your gay now!' or something like that. i still dont know why
I get the same thing with being trans. Afraid of being clocked or coming out because of the drama. Is very weird when people go on anti LGBT diatribes because they don't realize I am a member.
Yeah, it gets even worse when communities actually succeed in their quest to make it seem like homosexuality doesn't exist. I honestly thought I was broken because I was interested in kissing girls. I thought I was the only person who felt that way. I thought that I was defective somehow because I was extremely uninterested in kissing boys, and the idea of penetrative intercourse is just beyond gross. I was still planning to get married. To a man. I was planning to engage in this gross, borderline traumatizing thought of undergoing penetrative intercourse because I didn't know there was any other path. I am now with an amazing non-binary masculine person, who is the best communicator I have ever met and honestly I feel so lucky to have found. Not everyone in my community was so lucky. When I was in my mid twenties, two boys about five years younger than me died. I heard about this a few years after the fact, because I lived several states away at that point and men and women were highly segregated in my childhood community. I asked around about them because holy crap two teenagers died. That's horrible. Lifelong best friends, constant sleepovers at each other's houses, and just reaching the age where they were expected to start thinking about marriage. To a woman. I was lucky, I learned that there was a way out. I think they didn't think there was one aside from the one they took. I have no proof that they intended their own deaths. But having talked to some of the people who knew them, it's highly plausible that they also thought they were broken, they didn't see any way to avoid comphet while remaining alive. A lot of people who are fortunate enough to grow up in a society that accepts them, whether That's because they fit the standard mold, or because they're in a society that is more accepting, sometimes don't realize the despair that can happen without ever really knowing why. I had no idea that I was a lesbian, I didn't know the word, didn't have the concept. People don't realize how incredibly damaging that is. I would never wish for anyone, even the homophobes to know that level of self-doubt and despair. But sometimes I wish that people could understand that just avoiding the topic completely is damaging in and of itself.
Woo Heartstopper 🥳🍂💖 I didn’t know much about the comic when S1 came out, but with the release of S2 I had to consume all media content available. 😆 Alice Oseman’s Twitter sketches are amazing!!
As an ace person who still has days where they subconciously force themself to "Have a crush" on random people because that's how they grew up, I say you have a point there
There are many reaction videos on CZcams so when you've finished watching s2, you can rewatch the series (many times 👀) through other people's videos. 😅
Yeah this has done just so much damage to so many. The amount of “girlfriends” or “girl crushes” I had that I thought of as a friend, but heteronormative standards told me that girl + guy = you have to be into them. It was ridiculous lol, and there were my guy besties who I just really wanted to hang out with more and would get flustered around. I just wish it was easier back then for me and countless other children to put words to describe how you feel.
Me in kindergarten hearing that i was supposed to have a crush on someone so i went through the yearbook and evaluated them based on how they treated me and that's how i picked my first few crushes ladies and gentlemen.
Thanks for mentioning ace folks. I'm demisexual and I remember having crushes on celebrities and fictional characters only because my friends did. When I look back, the actual crushes I did have, I could count on one hand. Didn't realize I was demisexual until I was in my 20s
Thank you for including the ace flag and talking about ace/aro spec people It makes me happy seeing someone who mentions us when dealing with comphet b/c I've been told so many times "you just haven't had the right d--k yet" ect ect. I'm a sex repulsed ace so I'm well aware from health classes and just general talk I never wish to engage in it
As someone who is on the ace spectrum (demi) thank you for mentioning how rhos affects us to because I have often felt pressured into faking sexual attraction for people like celebrities and others that my friend group collectively found attractive when while I could see that they ever a good person who is objectively good looking I have no sexual interest in them because I don't know them enough for that, but I don't want my friends to think I'm weird because I don't want to sleep with the last heart throb they are all crazy about
If anyone wants a song about comphet, the song “Doing This” from the musical Spies are Forever has the femme fatale and leading man singing about how since they’re opposite sexes and attractive they have to get together and they awkwardly flirt before finally she decides they should stay as friends which he is all for since he’s literally gay (just closeted, though he comes out to her during this song)
I relate to this! I remember in sixth grade my friend got very mad at me for not telling her who my crush is, even though i didn't have one and was telling the truth, So I decided to make up a boy to have a crush on. Year later I told her that he didn't exist and she was shocked but cool about it. I'm still yet to have a crush on someone at 14.
Wow, thank you so much for putting my own history in perspective I absolutely did this when I didn’t know what asexuality was and that I was/am ace I appreciate your channel so much, hope you’re all doing well ❤
This was me, and lack of diverse male non-het representation in media hurt me. I came out to myself as gay in my late 20s. I would have likely emotionally hurt any female partners in the time before hand if I had opportunity to explore. Representation is important.
THIS THIS THIS!!! I'm ace and didn't realize it until I was in my late 30s. I knew I wasn't attracted to girls but it never occurred to me that I wasn't attracted to guys either. Never had the "boy crazy" phase that most of my friends went through, no real crushes. I did have a couple of boyfriends, but it was really innocent. Then I fell in love with my husband. We're still happily married 26 years later, but my aceness was always a bit of frustration for both of us. We put it down to I just have a low libido. Figuring myself out was so validating.
When I was 14 I had an epiphany, I had never had a crush on anyone nor did I want to, I was aro. I thought that I was arohet because I was attracted to women all the time and made no secret of this. It's only in the last few months that I realised that I am in fact asexual and was simply overcompensating for the feelings that I knew I should be having but wasn't
Only realised I was bisexual when I was in my late 20s after I was already married to my wonderful husband. Had so many crushes on both genders. This one girl inparticular made my cheeks flush. Do you know what my Mom said when I was trying to figure myself out, "do you like boys" me nods "well then youre straight". End of, no mention of bisexual. I leanrt what it was in my 20s and as I got older and started remembering things I was talking to a colleue who was a gay about all our crushes we had groeing up and she asked me " wait are you bi." Me like a light bulb went off "oh shit... Im bi."
Aroace here, i spent a large portion of my late teens forcing myself into romantic and sexual relationships because that was the expected thing for people of my age to be doing. I would be engaging in intercourse with my partners while entirely uninterested in what was happening at the time, and ruin good friendships because people told me that i MUST have a crush on someone because we were so close, pressuring me to pursue relationships that i wasnt actually looking for. I wasted a lot of time and energy forcing myself into these relationships and it took a long time for me to realise that i had an absence of romantic or sexual feelings, all because the possibility of being aroace was never once presented to me. (Quick note that all my previous partners were lovely people and never forced me into anything, and had no idea i wasnt into what we were doing)
So this. I came out as Bi as a teen because I assumed that wanting to be friends with boys meant that I was attracted to them, despite never actually thinking about them sexually yet having highly sexual 'crushes' on various different women in my life that I couldn't ignore.
The amount of times people ask me if I have anything romantic going on with a friend of mine when we're literally "just" friends being friends. What people don't realise about aroaceness is that it fucks you up being told you should seek out relationships, and when you find someone you might be somewhat interested in and you confess to them, and they reciprocate those feelings you're not happy about that but instead you're absolutely terrified because what now? I actually kinda see my past relationships in a similar way to how a gay person may have been in a straight relationship before discovering they're actually fully gay. The difficult thing about being ace is that a lot of people still do not understand why that's a necessary label to have. "You're just not interested, why label that disinterest?" or "One day you'll find that person who'll make you feel that way". Fun how a lot of allos fail to see how incredibly damaging these kinds of mentalities can be for aros and/or aces :))) It's both comphet as well as compulsory allosexuality 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
THANK YOU!! I hate it when people act like I'm confused when I tell them I'm not attracted to anyone or anything in any way!! Not sexually and not fucking romantically!!
One thing to note is that comphet is a very real obstacle for bi folk when it comes to truly understanding their sexuality - especially for those who are fluid, demi for one gender, or not "50/50". Pls everyone, give your bi's some grace. The struggle is real.
That’s literally what happened to me back when I was in school. Started dating a guy only to realise 7 years into the relationship that he was always more like a friend to me than a romantic interest. It felt uneasy for quite some time because I did things I never wanted to do in the first place and couldn’t fully grasp what was going wrong. Glad I got out of it now and I’m happier than ever. Pursue your own goals people
Comphet is why so many ace folks don't realise they're ace until they're older. I'm active in the ace community now, and I love seeing teenagers finding the label and community, finding out that they're not weird, and they don't have to pretend to be straight or gay. As a teenager even just a decade ago, I didn't have that. I was "ambiguously queer" as one friend put it. Shows like Heartstopper and Sex Education are finally bringing asexuality into the conversation, and I'm so glad for both the teenagers and the older folks who can finally describe who they are without having to try to lie to themselves or others.
I relate to this, but also I am an asexual that is not “pretending to be gay”. I genuinely am attracted to only people of my gender. I think we need to discuss how being other kinds of LGBTQ is also compatible with asexuality more in our community.
The only issue I have with heartstoppers rep of ace is that it seems like ace=book worm with no interest in Any relationship (platonic and not). Like, his friends seemed optional and more like he was asocial rather than asexual. It also felt a bit stereotype and obvious? Maybe I'm just being picky because I'm ace, outgoing, and have a sports background tho 😅
@@stoyanpetkov3853you’re right!!
@@xxglowenxxhi, I think you used the term asocial incorrectly?
@i_ate_the_context can you elaborate? Because I believe I used it correctly. He always has his nose in a book rather than interacting with the world around him. He seems only mildly interested in his friends and does not seem violent. Even if hes hanging with his friends, he BARELY interacts with them
It’s hilarious when people say homosexuality is unnatural, when it literally happens all the time in nature.
Thanks for the likes
would you be open minded to explaining this?
@@distortion1 having a hard time understanding what you mean by explaining when its fairly straight forward, thousands of species across the globe show homosexual behavior, and have members that are exclusively homosexual, largely because homosexuality provides several evolutionary benefits, and also just because many species simply use affection and sex much like humans do-to provide intimate social bonding. Penguins are most famous for this, but they are by far not the only ones that do so, other species include but are not limited to: lions, elephants, dolphins, birds of prey, several thousand species of lizards, kangaroos, dogs, cats, bovine, deer, parrots, chickens, goats, all higher order apes, etc. Etc. Etc.
@@facelessdronehmm thanks for this...
I've heard of penguins being homosexual and have you heard about how they cause problem to their mates by stealing eggs from other penguins and fostering them?
these other animals you called I'll research.
Also, if we're talking about nature, plants are included are there any examples of homosexual flowers?
P.s this actually isn't straightforward.
@@distortion1yeah they don't cause problems actually and they usually take eggs that have been abandoned or the parent(s) have died.
Seems like your bias is showing.
@@distortion1homosexual flowers aren't so much a things because sex is not really a social bonding thing (as far as we're aware) but a large amount of flowers are intersex or change their sexes!
Literally last week:
Me: i dont want a relationship
Eldest sister: its okay if youre not ready
"DONT WANT" AND "NOT READY" ARE TWO SEPERATE STATEMENTS
I hope she learns to accept you and you two can communicate in better ways
@AmieMorley-st6tz thank you 💕 I hope so, too. I'm assuming that in a few years, she'll connect the dots "all on her own" and then convince herself and others that she always knew. You'd think that would have already happened since im 28 though lol
Also, it's not even really about sexuality. Anyone can not want a relationship at any point in their lives. My other sister has actively dated since high school and currently wants to focus on her career. She could get into a relationship tomorrow if she felt like it, she just doesn't rn
@@xxglowenxxso wait, you never told her you’re ace? I think if you want her to understand what you mean you’d need to tell her.
@FishVirus pretty positive me saying "I don't want a relationship" and not dating nor having crushes all my 28 years on earth should be a good enough clue. I also don't think people should be required to come out. It's not like heterosexual folks have to, so why should someone queer be forced to?
Edit: she's also pretty conservative, whether she admits to it or not. She's the epitome of a heterosexual Bachelorette party at a gay bar, but like, has no gay friends. I highly doubt she even knows what ace is. My other sister connected the dots before I was even 20 lmao
@@xxglowenxx makes sense I suppose. The reason Hetero people don’t need to come out, however, is because most of society expects it as the default. Not that that’s a good thing.
Thank you for acknowledging that ace people can be hurt by this too! I often see the idea that asexuals get to “pass” or are “basically cishet” without realising the effects of being forced to make up crushes, fake date, be put through hormone therapy, corrective assaults…
Hell as an asexual I used to just tell myself I was a ‘late bloomer’ until I reached 20 and realised there ain’t no blooming happen in here.
Also I realised that any form of sex was just…. Gross to me
@@emilybarclay8831 I always just thought I was too “intellectual” to be interested in dating. It wasn’t until late in university that I realised I was biromantic asexual.
I realized I am asexual later when the guys seemed more like platonic friends than anything else (I never kissed a guy before because I didn’t feel the need to when I was with them)…also they looked nice but that’s about it. I think Jessica’s video is spot on about asexuals. 😊
@@silversleeper1193 lmao I was also in uni when I read a Instagram post about asexuals having a lack of sexual attraction and I was like ‘wait isn’t that just normal??’ I genuinely thought people were like, all making one big in joke when they talked about finding people hot and ( potentially TMI)
I genuinely couldn’t fathom why anyone would find oral sex appealing. I thought everyone hated doing it and just did it because they wanted it in return. The concept is still gross as fuck to me. That’s the pee zone tf
@@emilybarclay8831 🤝🏽🤝🏽🤝🏽
I do love that you mention ace and aro people, it's very true that this assumption that being straight is the normal way of things hurt us too!
Going further there is the concept of amatonormativity: the idea that romantic love is the be all end all, the normal "love" to feel and that platonic or familial love are inferior types of love. Yes it is especially hurtful to the aro people but it's a toxic standart for everyone to consider that your love for your friends and family is in any way less important than your love for your partner...
But if society acknowledges that all the different forms of love are equally valid and important to emotional well-being, polyamory would have to be acknowledged and cis-het-mono normativity just can't have that😒
jeez, seeing all these vocabs and I feel sooo ignorant about the LGBTQ topic 😢
@@distortion1that's OK, it can take a while to learn stuff, and I'm speaking from experience.
Are there any terms I can clarify for you?
@@distortion1well, ask me and the other person in this comment section has said we'd be happy to teach you
@@theweirdestfish9962what does ace and aro stand for? Genuine question
The book about asexuality that is shown in Heartstopper (Ace by Angela Chen) is phenomenal and also brings up this topic. I would really recommend to anyone
wait so is the book abt ace rep in hearstopper or abt the form of asexuality that is shown in heartstopper
@@melowlw8638Oh, I see what you mean 😅 The actual book makes a cameo. It tells the stories of many different people who experience being ace differently
I’m 57 and at various times in my life I’ve been called frigid. As a woman this was seen as being one of the worst things you could be. Thanks to you and other lovely young people I am now relaxed and content with who I am and I can’t thank you all enough 😊🤗🙏
Never too late to discover yourself. I'm glad you're learning to love yourself
I can’t figure out the words to say it properly right now, but I am so, so happy for you. Self-love is important.
Oh you cutie, I'm so glad you've found yourself, its so nice to see people from older generations accept themselves and find themselves! You're doing so well x
Frigid was an insult I got at school.
As I didn't date and wasn't interested in dating.
Only later in life, I came to learn what I was, demisexual.
(People who identify as demisexual only feel sexual attraction to someone after they've formed a strong emotional bond with them.)
I hope you learn more about sexuality and yourself.
Much love.
Im ace. Always have been
How do i know that?
I genuinely thought, as far back as 3rd grade, that “crushes” were just people you PICK and then act like you like.
YOU COULD JUST PICK SOMEONE.
And then when i was in middle school and people were starting to kiss and stuff, i thought they were joking. Like. It was just a very bad wide spread joke.
And then in high school i thought i was broken because i didnt like the person/people everyone said i would be perfect with.
Im 25 now and couldnt be happier to have been born AroAce.
Its like watching everyone else walk around in 9 inch heels and im over here wearing house slippers.
Less hassle. Less fuss
Yah i know im missing out on some stuff simple because i CANT feel it.
High heels are super cool and look rad, but im glad i dont have to deal with them.
Im more than happy to just chill, no stress or heartache in my fuzzy house slippers.
Wait, don't crushes work that way? For me I feel like I could put anyone into the spot of affection and nothing would change. Maybe I just need an object or a being to throw all my affection at, but I really do feel like I could just pick anyone from the crowd and have a "crush".
@@azyo7101 as it was described to me, no. People dont really just go
“Ehh. I’ll pick you”. Like yah, you can develop affections for someone if you try.
But, as it was told to me by someone who was for sure not ace, people dont actively and consciously ‘pick’ their crush.
I think if you genuinely start feeling love for the person, then thats just your process.
But for me when i was younger, i would ‘pick’ and then just ‘acted’ as i assumed one should act.
So it was all a conscious decision that i didnt actually want to do and only did it because that’s what i thought i ‘needed’ to do.
Does ace mean asexual?
@@lukedeulen1830 yup!
Ace= asexual
Aro = aromantic
Oh my god I love this!
"Im more than happy to just chill, no stress or heartache in my fuzzy house slippers." -- I FELT that
All this ace and aro talk next to heartstopper give me a reason to bring up my favorite book of all time!!! The creator of Heartstopper Alice Oseman is actually aroace and has written an absolutely stunning novel about it called Loveless!!!! It’s all about struggling with your identity when you don’t know what being on the aro or ace spectrum is and it is the PERFECT example of comphet!!! This book changed my life and i think anyone should read it regardless of your identity because friendship is the core of the story!!! (And while you’re at it read all of Alice’s other books too!!! Solitaire is all about Charlie’s sister Tori, Radio Silence is all about not knowing what’s next, and I Was Born For This is all about the internet and parasocial relationships!!!) (can you tell who my favorite author is?)
I love your summary of Radio Silence (I am also a big Alice Oseman fan 😊)
I'm also a big fan, tho I'm only starting reading their novels
I love Alice Oseman. So. Damn. Much.
I love how as an ace I always feel included and seen as Queer with Jessica's content 🖤💜💚
Yes 🥹
Ace is queer and valid
The beginning of this video encapsulates how I felt as a little girl about my bisexuality. I thought that all girls had special feelings towards certain girls, but surely that was different than having a crush on a boy, right? 😅 Turns out, no…
My thoughts exactly! Even when I talked with my best friend about how I was feeling towards my other good friend she’s was like „No, you are not queer. I consider some girls attractive, too. That doesn’t make me bi.“ But apparently there’s a difference between considering someone objectively attractive and wishing you could kiss her 😅
But I somehow convinced myself, that all that staring in each other’s eyes, cuddling, funflirting and dancing together was completely normal for friends! 😂
And I discovered years later that she had the same thoughts and did the same thing. I still think we would have been such a cute couple 😂
I still dream about waking up next to my best friend. I haven’t seen her in over a decade and my heart still aches for her. I can’t help but wonder what could have been if I hadn’t felt so ashamed of my attraction to other girls and tried so hard to hide and suppress it. The sad thing is that my parents would have been totally accepting. I never worried about them finding out. It was my peers at school that I was terrified of.
Ohh I would love to watch your take on heartstopper in general!
I totally agree
I wasn't aware interest in sex wasn't inevitably something you just naturally 'grow into' so I was kinda saved by the notion of 'saving one's self for marriage', even if compulsory heterosexuality/cisgenderism hurt me in the long run because of it delaying my awakening. Once we had widely accepted terms like 'nonbinary' and 'asexual' in common parlance, I quickly realised how much they applied to me and made me feel so relieved I didn't need to force myself into doing things I was uncomfortable with for the sake of some guy who might not even like me for who I am. The right person will accept and embrace your (a)sexuality - like my partner
I frequently heard, from books and my mom, that kids “grow into” physical and romantic feelings for others. Most everyone in my grade from K-5 had a powerful aversion even to crushes. I didn’t become a hormone addled teen so much as vaguely hormonal. Turns out I’m on both the aro and ace spectrums.
Thank you for including Ace and Aro!
As an Ace person on a Facebook Group for Asexual people, the number and degree of Ace people suffering from Comphet is remarkable.
I remember being told that it was natural for girls to have a short period during puberty where they had crushes on other girls/women, and that it’d go away. In other words, the crushes I had on other girls was a normal phase in my otherwise heterosexual life. When my feels for women *didn’t* go away, I convinced myself all straight women could see themselves loving and kissing a woman- it’s just a “woman” thing. I thought even thinking I might LGBTQ was just me trying to be “different”. I was shocked when during a conversation in college I learned that some women legitimately weren’t attracted to other woman and did not, in fact, want to kiss them. That hiding your attraction to the women wasn’t just a part of being a woman. I was, in fact, not straight.
Meanwhile my parents telling me that its totally okay if I want to bring my best friend home as a girlfriend... They figured I must be gay because i was not interested in dating until my twenties. They actually still thought i was dating my best friend when I told them about my boyfriend. Years later my sister came out as bi so atleast my parents attempts to accept us didnt come in vain 😂
I learned about comphet from a very cheesy movie called; But I'm a cheerleader. When Megan is being interrogated in the conversion camp and she's saying she's straight, because everyone looks at everyone else getting changed of course they do. Then she puts two and two together screaming; I'm a homosexual! While crying. It's a dark movie done in a cheesy way.
This kinda helps explain why my relationship with my attractive opposite-sex best friend was weird. I kept feeling "interested" in her, but it didn't feel right. I think it was this expectation that I'm *supposed* to have those feelings, so I mistook my intense platonic love as romantic love. Being bisexual is difficult sometimes.
Like others have said, thank you for recognising this exists for aroace people too. It’s taken till my late 30s to go “Ohhhh, Ace *is* actually a thing!”. It doesn’t feel alien to me. Society still makes me feel like an alien though but…, I’m no longer circling, back and forthing, other sexualities. Nor struggling quite so much with the “reasons” thrown about like “it’s a trauma response”, “it’s because you find yourself repulsive”, “it’s “the autism”…”. It is massively invalidated, misunderstood and medicalised. First Pride in my new town, it was *so much fun* being asked “So you don’t have feelings?” and “But you’ve not closed to mind to finding someone because I wouldn’t want you to miss out…”. Ugh. Still working out the romantic stuff… Maybe aro but also maybe pan. I feel like I’ve always been capable of (platonic) crushes on all genders. But the world’s message to me (brought up girl) has been “You feel that way about that woman because you want to be them and you feel that way about that man because you want to be *with* them” but the feelings were the same, or “the other way around”, or both or neither but still my version of a crush. I have typed a lot. Hello anyone who has made it to the end…!
I'd really recommend just going down the lgbtqia wiki. There's so many terms out there for people who don't neatly fit into the main lgbt. Obv no one needs a label to be valid, but it's so validating to realize "oh, there's a lot of people out there who feel the way I do"
Too true. I believe now that I am ace, and regret all the times I allowed myself to be coerced into sex with men because I thought I had to to be "normal". Unfortunately as a teen I had no sense of self so that I could put my energy to better use and become self-reliant so I wouldn't need a man to " take care of me".
My eldest uncle's wife told my teenage self "love the sinner, hate the sin" when it came to homosexuality. She **can** have a good heart, but she got mixed up with tainted perspectives in religion, when her own traumatic past pushed her to cling to religion for stability. Top it off with my dad being very much so against anything that isn't cishet, even after I outed myself as queer to him (when I was finally living on my own), it's difficult to live with the conflicting feelings of still caring for my kin while acknowledging the person that I am will never truly be accepted by them.
Because it is sin. It is inherently wrong and unnatural urge that anyone of us may have that urge have to deny. Like anyone who has bad urges has to deny because it’s wrong.
@@desertrose3511nah bro its not
@@desertrose3511if anything religion is more unnatural than homosexuality cus we're the only species with religion while homosexuality is in quite a lot of species
@@desertrose3511What's so wrong about loving someone.
@@desertrose3511source?
I had to pretend to have so many crushes on guys bc I was in a Christian school and they didn't support the LGBTQ. I remember sex ed class and they said that if someone doesn't experience sexual or romantic attraction it was a medical concern. I also remember them forcing us to potray ourselves as the gender we were assigned as. I am demisexual/polysexual and genderfluid so I remember having so much gender dysphoria because I was forced to wear 'feminine clothing' and sometimes I would be okay with it and other times I wasn't. I have cptsd and the past gender dysphoria and constant religious abuse is a cause for it.
I miss read this as crumpet😅
It makes more sense now
As an asexual, people tell you that your just haven't met the right person yet, or you have to try it before you make your decision. I didn't choose this
In the words of a great internet anonymous, " If you say, "how do you know you're asexual if you haven't tried it?" I ask you this; how do you know you won't enjoy hugging a cactus? Go on, try it. *Go hug a **-fing-** cactus* "
Nothing like getting groped constantly at school because it’s ‘funny’ you don’t fancy people 😂
That’s terrible! So sorry that happened to you. ❤
@@jennifers5560 all good :)
That's sexual assault...
That’s literally assault, you should take it up with the school board if you haven’t already (though we all know most school boards are incompetent) or even with the police.
As someone who is ace/aro* I was so comphet I pretended to have most of my crushes cause I thought I had to.
Make sure to include Aros please! Asexual people can still want romantic relationships and can even be hetero! While Aro people do not feel romantic attraction (or may feel limited attraction) and are often forced to “pick people” to have crushes on in order to fit the norm.
Ace does not = not wanting romance!
*I am on the Aro and Ace spectrums*
I came here to ask that :) these two spectrums are different and many people conflate the two or get confused between them, so it's important to mention them both by name
im aro and ace and while i love whenever aces get mentioned bc we barely ever do it makes me so sad that aros get mentioned even less 😂
She did say “those who are on the asexual spectrum and those who just don’t want romantic relationships”. I think the latter was meant to include both aro people and also anyone who doesn’t want a relationship at the moment for whatever reason rather than excluding people who aren’t both aro and ace. Maybe she could have been clearer but I don’t think she was intentionally conflating the spectrums
@@theladycata9648 I agree! :) But it's confusing, especially for those who doesn't know aro people exist or that aromantic people who can be allosexual, and I have a lot if experience talking about both asexual ity and aromanticism, which taught me that even phrased like that - it's also not clear that aromanticism isn't on the asexual spectrum
THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP! Like so much ppl mess up ace and aro😭
Ive seen a lot of people saying it only applies to lesbians and it just does not make sense to me, people of all sexualities have had to force themselves to “act straight” or “act cis” to be allowed to even exist without fear (of violence specifically), i just dont get it
When I was a teen on Tumblr the term "squish" was doing the rounds. The idea being that it's a platonic crush on someone.
Turns out all those "squishes" I had on other girls were somewhat less than platonic
Kind of funny because for me it was the other way around, I didn't really know that you could be platonically attracted to someone so I always just thought that I was into someone. Which was why it was really confusing (and a bit upsetting) that I felt so weird if I'd start a relationship with them. It took me my whole 20 years to discover that people can be aro and/or ace and that Big Feelings™ don't necessarily mean love
I forgot about squishes! It's such an adorable word for it. I had a squish on my current partner two years ago, which then rapidly turned into a crush, we talked for hours at night when we couldn't sleep, within a few days I was head over heels, the flirting and teasing was NOT subtle on my end, which was so weird and new, because usually I don't make the first moves. After a month he gently, teasingly confronted me about it, and the next day we confessed our love. I was also the first to kiss him
@@merelha5930
Ah, my friend struggled with that. He's 18 and aro/ace now, and I'm proud of him for accepting himself. All the best to you
How do you make speed speaking so fluently beautiful? 😊
Wooosh, the exasperation of that first sentence is just about how it feels in real life when you are trying to figure out your feelings.
I was concerned she was pushing through a particularly pervasive migraine
Yaaaaaayyyy your finally talking about heartstopper! 😊😊😊 I've been waiting to hear your take on this beautiful show 💖🙏
thank you for including ace and aros in this!! A lot of the community has experienced this, including myself, to the point where we force to have “crushes” in order to feel like we’re “keeping up with society.” The aro and ace community are rarely ever brought up in conversations like these or LGBTQ+ conversations in general, so it’s nice to see someone, especially a bigger influencer, include us!! And to anyone on the spectrum or questioning, you are valid and loved 💜💚
Yesss, we would love to listen to your view on heartstopper ❤😊
I am Aromantic. I might be able to hide it from my family because none of em are in my school, but in school it might be a lot more difficult
You don't have to hide it. Nobody will even notice. All you have to say if someone says anything is, you're not interested in any one.
Same, I'm so glad I live far enough away from most family members to where I'm not bombarded with questions about my romantic life.
When I visit my grandparents their like: “ SO WHO DO YOU LIKE” “ARE YOU DATING” “DONT KEEP IT A SECRET” like- what do I say to that??? I'm not openly out yet as aroace either, now my mom is start
@@EatMetalic You literally just say, I don't like anyone. Honestly, you're making it into something it's not. Which is putting more stress on yourself. What could they possibly say to you? Nothing. It's not like you're hitting them with big news. The conversation will just move on.
@@erin6945 I do lol they think I'm lying just cause my sister lied about having her first crush. I'm worried they won't accept or believe me, and they certainly won't know what it is, which will add another layer of uncomfortableness for me to explain.
I love your aesthetic, honesty, clarity, love and honesty everything about you in a bi-gal admiring amazing queer folk ways 🤗.
Guess I'm watching Heart stopper next!😅
I remember i stumbled across a CZcams short a while ago of a young woman talking about this, it was in depth as this but pointing out the same thing. Almost all of the comments were about how “society doesn’t do that” “you just want attention” and “not all men” bs. I decided to comment because I related to the exact thing and DEAR LORD, the comments I got in response and how “no one forced you to be straight” 🤔😐 we sure we’re living in the same world here? I didn’t even realize I was doing it to myself for YEARS. I didn’t even question if I was anything other than straight until my junior year of hs. And up until last year (first year of college) I said I was bisexual. After dating a couple of guys in college I very quickly realized that I have absolutely ZERO interest in men. On ANY level 😂 and it was just kinda crazy to me as I figured that out how much I didn’t realize I was forcing myself to conform to 😅
Woah! The first bit was so fast it was incomprehensible! I had to scroll up and back down and pause to read the subtitles. At least it got slower after the start!
Thank you for presenting these topics of discussion so beautifully and eloquently 🌈💜🌈🩷
And fast! Don't forget fast!
I just want to say that ur videos have helped me become more comfortable with my sexuality, I used to feel bad about not being strait and try to hide it, but now I openly tall ppl! (If they ask, I am pan btw!” ❤
I LOVE HEARTSTOPPER! I am bi (like Nick) and he is my favorite character. I really love the way that these kinds of shows let people see how these things are NORMAL. My parents don’t think it is normal, so it has delayed me coming out. I do love the ways these shows let people of other sexualities see a peep into the world of lgbtq, even if they are a little off
I had a phase where I asked ALL my female friends who their "pash" was. By this I meant another girl you just *really want to be like* it wasn't until everyone I asked said they didn't have one, and asked another lesbian friend this, she just said, "Hun, I think that's just called being gay." That I realised😅
i came out as a trans man in 2018. it took me until 2022, after years of pretending to be interested in men and dating them, to realize that im just not attracted to men. you hear about the opposite happening for trans men where they feel like they have to date women to be "real men," but i had such a hard time accepting that im just not attracted to men. i literally had to pretend for so long and have so many relationships with men that were ultimately doomed to fail regardless of these men oftentimes treating me very poorly
It's pretty amusing living through all the internet terms of your teendom becoming more common parlance. A very good thing, on the whole.
Im not a lesbian I just wanna be very good friends with this girl, like making sure she has everything in life she wants, holding hands, always accidentally bringing her favourite snacks when we meet up, my, that’s your favourite ? I’d never have known !! And generally be super excited whenever i see her. I mean wanting to kiss her is totally cool too, don’t have that with any other female friends but hey, I just wanna be besties
Of course you watched a lot of Heartstopper. Who didn't ? It's adorable.
So adorable!!! It's one of my favorite romances. Just so wholesome.
Absolutely accurate. Took me over 40 years to learn I'm on the aroace spectrum 😂🤣
oh, my stars! You have summed up my first 14 years of life. And when I came out of the closet at 15 ... though I was sick of comphet. I was bravely bisexual, and so hard to come out of the closet in 2009 that I was told that I was better off being Comphet...
I had an interesting experience with comphet, because I was out for a while as bisexual, but I only recently at 26 realized that my male “attraction” was only towards fictional or unattainable men.
That best friend thing..I thought the feelings I had for my best friend were just how everyone felt about their best friend and it was normal friendship until one day he got a girlfriend and I felt this devastation inside and didn't know why
My aroace ass still does the comphet dance around everyone who isn't queer tbh. It sucks. I'm stuck with my bigoted conservative relatives, too, so I have to waltz around the subject even at the place I should consider a "home." Sometimes I hate being alive tbh, and I wonder if I'll ever live long enough to find the aroace equivalent of queer joy. Now that's enough trauma dump for one comment 💀
I do hope you feel better, but what would to your conservative relatives have against not being interested in anyone. I don't know if they're religious, but it doesn't go against any religion. I also don't hear many conservatives talking about it. Like I said, I hope you're feeling better.
@erin6945 "I'm not giving them any grandchildren" is all they can talk about. A lot of their religion circles around the idea of a "family," and they can't accept that our family legacy dies with me.
@@t.k.5088 I gotcha. Not having grandchildren can happen for so many reasons. I hope eventually they can let that go. Don't let it get to you, I know that's easier said than done. 🥰🥰
@erin6945 thank you ❤️ I just wish they'd be happy enough that I'm still alive and here instead of mourning the grandkids that will only ever exist in their heads
@@t.k.5088 Yes!! I hope so too, It may take a little while, but hopefully it will happen. In the meantime, try not to let it take up too much of your time or thoughts. 🤗🥰
I go to a school that is really homophobic so for awhile I was a comphet casually dreaming about marrying my best friend
I'm on the aroace side of things and yeah. This hits home.
It can also lead to nasty interactions with healthcare providers. I'm ace. Stop asking sensitive questions because that's the default. We don't all do... that. Attracted to doesn't mean... Physical, too.
It's really alarming how much of the medical field is home to too many "professionals" that are incapable of comprehending anything beyond the cishet agenda. Whether a lack of exposure and educating themselves on other identities, or a lack of empathy that could be there for a multitude of reasons (or even all of the above, in the shitstew), it's DEEPLY underrated how refreshing it is when finding doctors that have consideration for non-conforming sexuality and gender identities.
I kind of get you but also I can kind of understand why they ask. They pretty much go through the same checklist of questions and some health issues do stem from from whether you have s3x or not.
The way that helped me from feeling uncomfortable when they ask me "are you s3xually active?" Is to just think that they asked me whether I drink soda or not (works for me cuz I don't drink soda and am ace). If they make suggestive remarks or weird comments, I just keep going with my imagination and say "nah, I'm not really into that (soda)" lol
It's fine for me since I barely go to the doctors but if it's the same person who keeps talking like that to you, consider changing to another.
honestly, my parents were so open about people being gay, but i didnt realize I COULD BE TOO. I thought it was like you got a card in the mail saying 'your gay now!' or something like that. i still dont know why
I get the same thing with being trans. Afraid of being clocked or coming out because of the drama.
Is very weird when people go on anti LGBT diatribes because they don't realize I am a member.
Yeah, it gets even worse when communities actually succeed in their quest to make it seem like homosexuality doesn't exist. I honestly thought I was broken because I was interested in kissing girls. I thought I was the only person who felt that way. I thought that I was defective somehow because I was extremely uninterested in kissing boys, and the idea of penetrative intercourse is just beyond gross.
I was still planning to get married. To a man. I was planning to engage in this gross, borderline traumatizing thought of undergoing penetrative intercourse because I didn't know there was any other path.
I am now with an amazing non-binary masculine person, who is the best communicator I have ever met and honestly I feel so lucky to have found. Not everyone in my community was so lucky. When I was in my mid twenties, two boys about five years younger than me died. I heard about this a few years after the fact, because I lived several states away at that point and men and women were highly segregated in my childhood community. I asked around about them because holy crap two teenagers died. That's horrible.
Lifelong best friends, constant sleepovers at each other's houses, and just reaching the age where they were expected to start thinking about marriage. To a woman. I was lucky, I learned that there was a way out. I think they didn't think there was one aside from the one they took. I have no proof that they intended their own deaths. But having talked to some of the people who knew them, it's highly plausible that they also thought they were broken, they didn't see any way to avoid comphet while remaining alive.
A lot of people who are fortunate enough to grow up in a society that accepts them, whether That's because they fit the standard mold, or because they're in a society that is more accepting, sometimes don't realize the despair that can happen without ever really knowing why. I had no idea that I was a lesbian, I didn't know the word, didn't have the concept. People don't realize how incredibly damaging that is.
I would never wish for anyone, even the homophobes to know that level of self-doubt and despair. But sometimes I wish that people could understand that just avoiding the topic completely is damaging in and of itself.
Woo Heartstopper 🥳🍂💖 I didn’t know much about the comic when S1 came out, but with the release of S2 I had to consume all media content available. 😆 Alice Oseman’s Twitter sketches are amazing!!
You are so PRETTY AAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Comphet puts people in danger.
As an ace person who still has days where they subconciously force themself to "Have a crush" on random people because that's how they grew up, I say you have a point there
I forgot Heartstopper is also a TV series now, well there's my plans for the week 😊
There are many reaction videos on CZcams so when you've finished watching s2, you can rewatch the series (many times 👀) through other people's videos. 😅
Yeah this has done just so much damage to so many. The amount of “girlfriends” or “girl crushes” I had that I thought of as a friend, but heteronormative standards told me that girl + guy = you have to be into them. It was ridiculous lol, and there were my guy besties who I just really wanted to hang out with more and would get flustered around. I just wish it was easier back then for me and countless other children to put words to describe how you feel.
So thankful for the captions on this as I couldn't process most of what was said in the first half 😆
Me in kindergarten hearing that i was supposed to have a crush on someone so i went through the yearbook and evaluated them based on how they treated me and that's how i picked my first few crushes ladies and gentlemen.
There is nothing wrong with rewatching that masterpiece of film and comic 😊.
Thanks for mentioning ace folks. I'm demisexual and I remember having crushes on celebrities and fictional characters only because my friends did. When I look back, the actual crushes I did have, I could count on one hand. Didn't realize I was demisexual until I was in my 20s
Thank you for including the ace flag and talking about ace/aro spec people
It makes me happy seeing someone who mentions us when dealing with comphet b/c I've been told so many times "you just haven't had the right d--k yet" ect ect. I'm a sex repulsed ace so I'm well aware from health classes and just general talk I never wish to engage in it
"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's common."
As someone who is on the ace spectrum (demi) thank you for mentioning how rhos affects us to because I have often felt pressured into faking sexual attraction for people like celebrities and others that my friend group collectively found attractive when while I could see that they ever a good person who is objectively good looking I have no sexual interest in them because I don't know them enough for that, but I don't want my friends to think I'm weird because I don't want to sleep with the last heart throb they are all crazy about
If anyone wants a song about comphet, the song “Doing This” from the musical Spies are Forever has the femme fatale and leading man singing about how since they’re opposite sexes and attractive they have to get together and they awkwardly flirt before finally she decides they should stay as friends which he is all for since he’s literally gay (just closeted, though he comes out to her during this song)
I relate to this! I remember in sixth grade my friend got very mad at me for not telling her who my crush is, even though i didn't have one and was telling the truth, So I decided to make up a boy to have a crush on. Year later I told her that he didn't exist and she was shocked but cool about it. I'm still yet to have a crush on someone at 14.
I’m not sure if the straight hair was planned here but i love it 🥰
This is incredibly helpful and important information
I might need a comphet 101 from a queer/bi/pan perspective because I always end up feeling conflicted whenever I read up on the topic.
Wow, thank you so much for putting my own history in perspective
I absolutely did this when I didn’t know what asexuality was and that I was/am ace
I appreciate your channel so much, hope you’re all doing well ❤
This was me, and lack of diverse male non-het representation in media hurt me. I came out to myself as gay in my late 20s. I would have likely emotionally hurt any female partners in the time before hand if I had opportunity to explore.
Representation is important.
I love seeing your straight hair too
When she started speaking super fast I forgot I can speak english
THIS THIS THIS!!! I'm ace and didn't realize it until I was in my late 30s. I knew I wasn't attracted to girls but it never occurred to me that I wasn't attracted to guys either. Never had the "boy crazy" phase that most of my friends went through, no real crushes. I did have a couple of boyfriends, but it was really innocent. Then I fell in love with my husband. We're still happily married 26 years later, but my aceness was always a bit of frustration for both of us. We put it down to I just have a low libido. Figuring myself out was so validating.
When I was 14 I had an epiphany, I had never had a crush on anyone nor did I want to, I was aro. I thought that I was arohet because I was attracted to women all the time and made no secret of this. It's only in the last few months that I realised that I am in fact asexual and was simply overcompensating for the feelings that I knew I should be having but wasn't
Only realised I was bisexual when I was in my late 20s after I was already married to my wonderful husband. Had so many crushes on both genders. This one girl inparticular made my cheeks flush.
Do you know what my Mom said when I was trying to figure myself out, "do you like boys" me nods "well then youre straight". End of, no mention of bisexual. I leanrt what it was in my 20s and as I got older and started remembering things I was talking to a colleue who was a gay about all our crushes we had groeing up and she asked me " wait are you bi." Me like a light bulb went off "oh shit... Im bi."
Yeeees!!! Do heartstopper content!!!
Aroace here, i spent a large portion of my late teens forcing myself into romantic and sexual relationships because that was the expected thing for people of my age to be doing. I would be engaging in intercourse with my partners while entirely uninterested in what was happening at the time, and ruin good friendships because people told me that i MUST have a crush on someone because we were so close, pressuring me to pursue relationships that i wasnt actually looking for.
I wasted a lot of time and energy forcing myself into these relationships and it took a long time for me to realise that i had an absence of romantic or sexual feelings, all because the possibility of being aroace was never once presented to me.
(Quick note that all my previous partners were lovely people and never forced me into anything, and had no idea i wasnt into what we were doing)
Ooooo would love some more Heartstopper discussion videos
As someone who’s aromantic and asexual this hits so hard
So this. I came out as Bi as a teen because I assumed that wanting to be friends with boys meant that I was attracted to them, despite never actually thinking about them sexually yet having highly sexual 'crushes' on various different women in my life that I couldn't ignore.
The amount of times people ask me if I have anything romantic going on with a friend of mine when we're literally "just" friends being friends. What people don't realise about aroaceness is that it fucks you up being told you should seek out relationships, and when you find someone you might be somewhat interested in and you confess to them, and they reciprocate those feelings you're not happy about that but instead you're absolutely terrified because what now? I actually kinda see my past relationships in a similar way to how a gay person may have been in a straight relationship before discovering they're actually fully gay. The difficult thing about being ace is that a lot of people still do not understand why that's a necessary label to have. "You're just not interested, why label that disinterest?" or "One day you'll find that person who'll make you feel that way". Fun how a lot of allos fail to see how incredibly damaging these kinds of mentalities can be for aros and/or aces :)))
It's both comphet as well as compulsory allosexuality 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
THANK YOU!! I hate it when people act like I'm confused when I tell them I'm not attracted to anyone or anything in any way!! Not sexually and not fucking romantically!!
Excellent definition and description, Jessica!
Thank you for putting good educational content out there! 🙏❤️🏳️🌈🟦
Thank you for acknowledging not only gay ppl are affected by comphet!!
One thing to note is that comphet is a very real obstacle for bi folk when it comes to truly understanding their sexuality - especially for those who are fluid, demi for one gender, or not "50/50".
Pls everyone, give your bi's some grace. The struggle is real.
I still have to watch heartstopper lol, I've been reading the webcomic
That’s literally what happened to me back when I was in school. Started dating a guy only to realise 7 years into the relationship that he was always more like a friend to me than a romantic interest. It felt uneasy for quite some time because I did things I never wanted to do in the first place and couldn’t fully grasp what was going wrong. Glad I got out of it now and I’m happier than ever. Pursue your own goals people
Help why did I feel that opening rant so much 😂
Thank you for making this video. People ask why it can take so long to realize you're LGBTQ plus, and the answer is comphet
let's be real tho-i would much rather kiss my best friend than most of the dudes at school
The fact that you just described both of my parents is crazy
My friend who is 31 just recently discovered she was ace. She felt giddy when she started owning it.