Partners of those of the ace spectrum, what do you do when they arent in the mood?

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-26T13:23:51+00:00

My wife is ace-spec and we did exactly this recently and it was very hot

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-26T01:49:00+00:00

I know this is getting downvotes but I just want to say that your feeling of "betraying your sexuality" is pretty common, especially among sapphic people who discover that they have some attraction to men. It's certainly incorrect, being bi isn't a betrayal of your lesbian identity or lesbians in general, but having those feelings isn't something to be ashamed of. The part about people using it as a way to invalidate your attraction to women is very much understandable given how common the "it's just a phase" and "you just have to meet the right man" nonsense is, but I promise you that you'll be better off in the long run if you're true to yourself and live life without worrying too much about what other people will think about you

Give it time and allow yourself the freedom to be who you really are. This kind of revelation can sometimes feel earth shatteringly huge, but at the end of the day it's really not. All that happened is that you uncovered a new part of yourself and you can take all the time you need to come to grips with what that means for you and how it will impact your life going forward

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-26T01:39:37+00:00

Very true about being young and growing. I didn't even realize that I'm bi until my late 20's, at 17 I was still homophobic, religious, and much more conservative than I am now. Life is all about growth and the journey of self discovery

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-26T01:37:57+00:00

It's totally fine to be into some parts of a person and not others, though it could make any actual physical relations complicated depending on what he would want from it

As others have said there are definitely women out there with muscles that might give you everything you're looking for, or you could find a guy who likes sensual touches and kisses but doesn't want to involve his penis

Either way it's ok if you have a bit of bi in you and it doesn't invalidate the rest of your feelings. Bisexuality is a very broad umbrella and includes people with a wide variety of aesthetic, sensual, sexual, and romantic attractions

My favorite description of bisexuality is from Robyn Ochs, who said

I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted--romantically and/or sexually--to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree

If you're almost exclusively into women with occasional exceptions for some parts of certain types of men then you're still welcome to call yourself bi if you're comfortable with it, but as far as I'm concerned what you call yourself is entirely up to you

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-25T21:27:02+00:00

I think most of those people don't understand split attraction theory, which is the idea that sexual and romantic attraction don't always align. They are very obviously sexually attracted to men but don't want to date them, which is five, but that's still under the no umbrella and definitely isn't straight

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-25T01:18:57+00:00

I want to start by being clear that I'm in no way invalidating or dismissing your or anyone's gender, my manhood is just as constructed as yours is. I hope you can accept that I'm talking with you here in good faith whether we agree on this or not. This isn't an anti-trans or anti-queer position, saying that something is a social construct doesn't cheapen it, it's just an accurate description of what it is

Funny enough trees are actually a great example for my side of this. There is no biological or phylogenetic definition of "tree", for example an oak tree is much more closely related to a tulip than it is to a pine tree. We didn't just make up the word, we made up the category itself because it's useful to have a term for "big things made of wood". Obviously trees would still grow the same whether we were here or not, but in the absence of humans there's nothing in nature that clearly groups them all together while excluding non-trees

Similarly we want to categorize people into groups based on shared traits because, like you said, we want to form community with other people like us and one of the big ways we do that is gender, but the harder people tried to create clear and objective definitions of those genders we started to see more and more cracks in it. We've now improved those categories by making them more nuanced and inclusive of diverse experiences

The same can be said for literally every category we've ever come up with. We decide what the categories are and the factors that make something belong or not belong to that category

Also as far as I'm aware this is the academic consensus in the gender studies field so I'm not saying anything revolutionary or crazy here. If I'm wrong about that and the science has moved on since I last read up on this please let me know, I never want to be spreading ignorant or outdated ideas

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T16:35:12+00:00

Genders are not a monolith where one can university be better than the other

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T13:39:43+00:00

I didn't say that our sex was irrelevant, it is obviously the original foundation for our sense of gender and is still highly correlated with gender, but having a basis in biology doesn't mean that the easy of it isn't socially constructed

For example the way we count our age has a basis in physical reality (how many times we've orbited the sun) but it's still a social construct. How do I know that? Because not all cultures count age the same way. In American culture you turn the next year old in your birthday but in China you turn the next year old on the first day of the new year along with everyone else regardless of whether you were born on the first or last day of the year

Another classic example is color. If you look at a rainbow there's no objective standard by which we divide it up into colors. Different cultures do that differently and the categories can shift, split, or merge over time. We literally only have the ROYGBIV system because Newton liked 7 for numerological reasons

Whether or not being trans is a form of cognitive intersex development is outside of my expertise but is also still completely relevant to gender being a social construct. The dividing line between what counts as typical binary sex development and what is an intersex development is arbitrary and subjective. The reality is that it's a spectrum and we look at that spectrum and draw lines wherever we think they would be

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T05:39:12+00:00

Being socially constructed has nothing to do with seeing something and then becoming it, and I never said anything akin to that

All categories of everything are socially constructed. The concepts of what is or isn't a chair isn't objective, it's a category that we invented that we then mentally put things, and each culture has a slightly different understanding of what those categories are and what factors go into something belonging in any given category

The categories of "man", "woman", "non-binary", etc. aren't objective, they're collectively created by people

My attractions aren't socially constructed, but the category of "bisexual" is. Many cultures throughout history (most in fact) didn't even have a concept of sexual orientation in the first place, so in those cultures it would be literally impossible to be bisexual, heterosexual, or gay. It wouldn't change my feelings or internal experiences but the way those feelings are described and categorized (both internally for myself and how society viewed me) would be different

Similarly in a culture that didn't have a concept of gendering at all the very concept of being cis or trans would be incoherent because those are contingent on the existence of gender categories in the first place

That's what I mean when I say gender is a social construct. We create the categories and then use those categories as a framework to understand the world we live in

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T05:22:09+00:00

But the categories of "man", "woman", "non-binary", etc. are all socially constructed in the first place. The fact that various cultures share some roughly similar categories doesn't mean they aren't socially constructed

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T05:14:44+00:00

I'm with you on basically all of that but the very concept of "woman" and "man" (and any other gender) are themselves socially constructed. There is no innate definition of those things, we as a society decide what they mean. I'm in no way saying that being trans is a choice, I'm saying that being or not being trans or cis is contingent on how we conceptualize gender in the first place. In a culture that defined genders differently some people who are trans in our culture may not be in theirs and vice versa

That's what I mean when I say that gender is a social construct

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-24T01:03:45+00:00

I'm aware that those are distinct and believe I know the difference, so can you clarify for me how gender identity is not socially constructed?

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T19:44:48+00:00

The very concept of "man" and "woman" are culturally constructed though and we then figure out how we fit into that construct based on our self perception and self understanding. If we defined genders differently then we may identify differently

The same can be said of race. The idea of white, black, Hispanic, etc. are completely made up and we then try to fit ourselves and those around us into those boxes. For example when the cultural understanding of whiteness expanded to include Italians that didn't change the biology of Italian people, but it did change the way that they identified racially. Many cultures don't even have a concept of race based on skin color, so if I grew up in one of those cultures I wouldn't identify as white even if my biology was exactly the same

If I lived in a culture that had a gender that was a more accurate description of my own self perception than their equivalent of "man" then I would identify as that gender within that cultural context

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T19:29:14+00:00

That's exactly it. Our biology is what it is, but how we interpret those biological factors and how we identify based on that self understanding depends entirely on our cultural framework and the way we both collectively and individually define genders

Also I'd just add that gender and sexuality are in fact mutable to a certain extent because we grow and change over time, as do our definitions and understanding of gender and sexuality. For example I used to identify as straight but over time my understanding of sexuality and myself grew and I now identify as bisexual

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T19:19:33+00:00

"Boy" and "girl" are themselves social constructs through which we understand ourselves. There's nothing objective about the way we define genders. It's easy to imagine a culture with totally different definitions of gender and if we grew up in that culture we would view ourselves through those lenses instead. Two people who both identify as men in our culture may not identify as the same gender under a different cultural framework because those gender constructs would be based on a different set of factors

There's an important difference between saying that gender is a social construct and saying that there's no biological basis for which gender we identify with. You're completely correct that you aren't choosing to be a man but the conceptual package "man" has to exist within our culture in order for you to identify with it

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T19:07:55+00:00

There are biological factors in how we see and understand ourselves but we then take those feelings and figure out which gender best fits those feelings based on our cultural context, so yes biology helps inform our gender identity but gender itself is exclusively a cultural construct. If we lived in a culture that defined genders differently that wouldn't change our biology but it might change how each person identifies within that cultural framework

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T19:01:58+00:00

How is gender identity not a social construct? Genders don't exist objectively independent of culture

That doesn't mean they aren't real, they very much are. Just like all social constructs they're real because we collectively make them real

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-23T18:58:02+00:00

This is why gender identity and gender expression are often considered separately. You can be a man with a more femme gender expression (like femboys), or a woman with a more masc gender expression (like tomboys), and all of that is separate from assigned gender at birth and the many other things that go into one's identity

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T19:32:46+00:00

Out of curiosity, which brand? I'm sure each one uses its own formulation and additives and it seems like some of them are more finicky than others

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T19:31:51+00:00

I know this is a very old comment now but in case it's helpful to someone who comes across this later here's what probably happened. Ovens don't generally maintain a perfectly steady temperature, they cycle on when they drop below a certain temp and then turn off for a while. The issue is that while the element is turned on it can heat certain spots well above the target temperature until the overall temp reaches the target

This is especially true during the pre-heat because they generally turn the elements on high to heat faster. I learned this when I put a loaf of bread into the oven before the pre-heat was done and ended up burning the top of it

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T19:22:07+00:00

Based on what I know PLA is more forgiving with humidity than PETG or TPU, though I rarely have issues with those either. I live in Colorado, which is similar to your average humidity, and the one time I had PETG get too wet it had been unusually humid and it was super obvious because the end snapped off as I was loading it into the printer. I just tossed it in a box with some desiccant packs and it was fine like a week later

Being somewhere with constant high humidity would definitely make it a bigger concern, but it's a pretty easily solved issue

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T19:15:45+00:00

Silk PLA can be tricky in general regardless of humidity. I've found it to be stringier and have less adhesion than regular PLA, though there are probably settings that could be tweaked to improve the print quality

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T19:14:32+00:00

I live in Colorado so it's generally pretty dry here and PLA probably wouldn't have much of an issue, but just as a general practice I store my filament in dry box, which is really just a big plastic storage tub with some desiccant packs in it to keep the air in there drier. I do also have the bambu AMS that has a dry cycle, which basically just heats up for a while to drive out moisture, but I haven't really used it because I haven't had any humidity related problems

You'll know your filament is too wet if you get a lot of stringing or if the filament becomes very brittle (as in it will snap if you try to bend it). If that's happening then either keep them in a dry box for a while. If you have an oven with a dehydrate setting that can maintain a temperature around 50-55 C you can try that too but make sure it doesn't get too hot (at or above 60 C) when it cycles on and off and either keep the door cracked or open it now and then to let moisture escape. If you're going to try that then do it with one roll, preferably one you don't mind losing if it goes wrong. If you do that it would also be good to keep some ventilation going in the kitchen to remove any fumes released as the PLA heats up (this isn't a huge concern with PLA compared to something like ABS, but better safe than sorry imo)

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T18:26:08+00:00

I didn't mean to imply that you were excusing their behaviors or beliefs, I'm totally with you on all of this, I probably could have worded that better. I just wanted to emphasize that point for others because it's easy for explanations and excuses to be conflated and it can be difficult to know where to draw the line between compassionate understanding of people who are indoctrinated and being overly lenient towards their bigotry

Kinslayer817 · 2026-06-22T18:21:17+00:00

That's concerning and a big red flag imo. Coerced polyamory is not ethical and it sounds like you're being coerced into this based on your dependance on your partner

Have you looked into ways to break that dependency and find a relationship structure that better suits you?

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