Y'know what? It's Ace Week. I'm gonna give myself permission to get this off my chest.

I used to see some really aphobic defenses for that one particular Rey ship. I've since curated my follows so I avoid it now, but it sucked to have it touted across the timeline as "feminism."

Things like mocking the idea of a platonic interpretation of the Force-Skype, or calling people cowards for not seeing TLJ as Rey's sexual awakening, or saying that those who didn't see these things were prudes and repressed and hated the idea of women embracing their sexuality.

The accusations of repression was a particular fond topic of L. Romaine that I saw frequently, but every time she had a splash on SW Twitter, it was because she was encouraging racism in the fandom, and that was NOT the time to pivot to talk about asexuality.

Shipping in general, I admit, is rather frustrating for me because it automatically treats romance and therefore sex (because rarely do people acknowledge split attraction) as The Most Important type of relationship for characters.

But this Rey ship took it to a different level:

You either saw Rey as sexual or you were misogynistic, as if the only way to be a fully bloomed woman is to desire sex.

On an individual basis, I know and like people who ship this. They enjoy the concept of these character's dynamics, and that's great,

but I have a huge amount of distrust towards the collective fandom of this ship because they have time and again demonstrated that they do not consider asexuality a valid expression of womanhood or even personhood.

And even though I have since come out as nonbinary, it's not like I was the sole asexual woman in existence, and a lot of people still perceive and treat me as a woman, so there is still the pressure for me to desire sex so that I can be "liberated."

This attitude sucks.