Ep 215: Being an Aspec Outside Observer
(00:00)
SARAH: Hey, what’s up hello, welcome to Sounds Fake but Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl, I’m Sarah, that’s me.
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl, that’s me Kayla.
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: The Outsider’s Perspective
SARAH AND KAYLA: Sounds Fake but Okay
(intro music plays)
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Here we are!
SARAH: Here we are, once again, we just keep coming back.
KAYLA: But in a different location this time. Can you even believe it?
SARAH: For you. I’m in the exact same spot.
KAYLA: True. I have moved into the apartment I will be living in for the next months.
SARAH: (laughing) And then you have to move again.
KAYLA: (laughing) And then I have to move again, and the thought of it does make me want to die. I’m not sure the state my audio will be in.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: Because it’s pretty empty in here, and there’s not a lot of soft things to soak up the bouncing, so if I’m echoing, sorry.
SARAH: (singing) I’m going to soak up the bouncing
KAYLA: True. So hopefully Sarah can do something in post, but if not, sorry.
SARAH: Yes. Do we have any housekeeping before we dive further into this podcast?
KAYLA: Not that I can think of. Oh, I did want to say – So we’re recording this on Tuesday, which is much earlier than we usually do, but –
SARAH: Much by one day.
KAYLA: True, but I have many things going on this week, including finishing moving and other things.
SARAH: Bitch, you don’t have to explain yourself. This is free.
KAYLA: That’s so true. This is literally free except for like 2, some people.
SARAH: But that’s their choice, bitch. Continue.
KAYLA: So we have gotten some very lovely messages on last week’s episode, about people that have been experiencing the same thing I did, or just have very similar experiences to mine and were sharing or saying they liked the episode, so thank you. I haven’t gotten to read everyone’s messages yet because I’ve been moving, but it was very nice to see that other people were like “yeah, this is an experience that I had before, and it is weird to question things while you’re aspec”
SARAH: Yee haw.
KAYLA: Very cool.
SARAH: Wonderful. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we’re talking about kind of the outsider perspective that we as aspecs often have. This came up because I was observing Sarah’s behavior in the BTS fandom space, and I know Sarah has a lot to say about that.
(laughter)
SARAH: Sometimes I send Kayla, because she doesn’t follow me, do you ever just stalk me sometimes for fun?
KAYLA: Occasionally, yes.
SARAH: Yeah. She doesn’t follow me, but she knows my @, so occasionally whenever something particularly aspec happens to me on Army Twitter, I will often send it to Kayla. (laughing) and make her aware.
KAYLA: Yes. So I was observing the way that Sarah interacted, and I know Sarah has a lot to say about her happenings on BTS Twitter.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: But I’ve also seen this idea apply to many other ideas.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So I don’t know what order we want to go in, but...
SARAH: Yeah. I mean, I wrote a lot of things that are very specific to my BTS Twitter experience but can be extrapolated upon in many different directions, so let me just start with explaining what my experience has been with being the aspec on Army Twitter. Now, to be clear –
KAYLA: The Aspec. There’s only one.
SARAH: – yeah, that’s what I was about to say. I actually do have a lot of mutuals who are also aspec, or people who have messaged me like “hey, you know about this, I’m questioning whether I’m aspec, help?” Multiple Twitter people have reached out to me that I know from Army twitter.
KAYLA: I love it. And this is a completely separate thing of just I think this happens to every queer person of every type, that you’re like the first person to come out, and then people come to you like “hey um, so”
SARAH: Bestie!
(05:00)
KAYLA: I have recently had several people come to me and be like “I’m demi” or “I’m aspec.” It’s just very funny to me. They flock.
SARAH: Yep. (laughing) I’m obviously not the only aspec.
KAYLA: Yes you are.
SARAH: I keep discovering more that I didn’t realize were aspec that I already follow, but just as an aroace who is in that space, I’ve had some interesting encounters, as Kayla will know, my pinned tweet –
KAYLA: (laughing) Ah, yes.
SARAH: On my army Twitter. I’m not going to read it word for word because then you’d be able to find my Army Twitter way too easily.
KAYLA: Then you’ll find her.
SARAH: Basically says if your timeline is ever too horny, whether it’s you being too horny or one of your mutuals being too horny, call me up, and I will come and dump a bucket of water on you. And it’s a standing offer for muts (short for mutuals) and muts of muts.
KAYLA: You are so generous.
SARAH: (laughing) I know. I know.
KAYLA: Your generosity knows no bounds. For free? For free you’re doing this?
SARAH: For free. I have been on occasion summoned.
KAYLA: She’s so generous. You should have like a co-fee or a Patreon just for this service, I think.
SARAH: Just for this service. You know, I found that I was just doing it and I said “I should make it known that I’m willing to do this for others”
KAYLA: You’re so brave.
SARAH: Anyway, that’s just the context here. Before I get too deep into it, I do need to explain to the people of the world who don’t know, what a delulu is.
KAYLA: (sighs) When we were discussing this potentially being an episode, I think it was after last week’s episode.
SARAH: It was.
KAYLA: I was way too tired to be taking in this information and Sarah just started spitting lots of words at me including too delulu, and I just (laughing)
SARAH: She had no idea what was happening.
KAYLA: I mean I can guess, but…
SARAH: Yeah, but still.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. So, a delulu is in reference to a person, a fan of something – in this context BTS, but it transcends boundaries – where they’re like, delusional. The textbook meaning is that they think they’re actually friends with them or they think they actually have a chance. Very few people are actually proper delulus in that way. A lot of people are self-aware delulus for the gags, you know?
KAYLA: Ironic delulu.
SARAH: Ironic delulus. All the time people will be like “Oh, Jungkook just told me that, he’s sitting right next to me” and people will do shit like that all the time, and you’re just like “oh my god, yeah, so true. Ask him this” (laughing) So there’s that, but then there’s also what we’ll get into with this, which is the delulu of the, I almost feel weird saying it, but the romance of it all of like “oh, I could date this person”, but it’s never actually –
KAYLA: The people that genuinely think they have a chance at dating like an A-List celebrity.
SARAH: Yeah, but there are a lot of people that are like delulu for the jokes in that sense. And, worth noting, a lot of the people, even those who would themselves identify as either a part-time or full-time delulu –
KAYLA: (laughing) Are there benefits that come? Do you get dental as a full time delulu?
SARAH: I wish. You know what you do get? Yoongi Teefs. You don’t need dental when you have Yoongi Teefs, you know?
KAYLA: Interesting. Yeah, I totally know.
SARAH: A lot of them are queer. And a lot of them, of those queer people, or even not of those queer people, are not attracted to men at all, but are still delulu in this sense, which I think is a very interesting phenomenon. I have, one of my mutuals is a straight man, and he’s like “unfortunately I am a straight man. Exceptions can be made for BTS. We’ll talk” He will often make these delulu posts.
(10:00)
SARAH: And he’s literally a straight man, and so I have found that so interesting. Of people making these posts, and I’ll get into what I mean by that, it’s so interesting to me because I’m sitting here as the aroace being like “what’s happening out here? You are people that I do like and respect, and so I’m just trying to understand you”. I think when I’m talking about the delulu posts, I don’t like to think of them in terms of you know how back in the day there would be like “1D imagine tumblr accounts”?
KAYLA: Yeah, like what’s it called – when you insert yourself?
SARAH: Yeah, self-insert like “imagine holding hands with Niall at the pier”
KAYLA: What’s it called? The type of fanfic that I’m thinking of?
SARAH: self-insert. y/n
KAYLA: Yeah, but what is the person called?
SARAH: Y/n
KAYLA: Y/n, thank you.
SARAH: Yeah, so you have classic imagines like “imagine Niall Horan donates his teeth to you,” you know those ones?
(laughter)
KAYLA: I’ve never heard that one.
SARAH: You know the one where it’s like, “you wake up from heart surgery and you ask ‘Where’s Harry’ and they’re like ‘who do you think gave you the heart?’” There’s a meme one off of that where it’s a teeth transplant, and you wake up, and Niall is there, and he’s like “who do you fink gave you your teef?”
KAYLA: (laughing) Not this.
SARAH: (laughing) Not this. Anyway, but there’s definitely these kind of posts where it’s like “so-and-so person is the type of guy to fill in the blank”. Recently there was a bunch of posts going around like “this is how this person would kiss.” and I was like “okay? I guess? I don’t know. What? You guys okay?” It’s like that kind of stuff, but they’re self-aware in a way that I feel like imagines aren’t, you know what I mean? For some reason there’s a difference to me. I don’t know why. It’s like an “okay, we know this is never going to happen so we’re just going to suspend our disbelief and just pretend, we know we’re entering delulu land, and we know it’s all make believe, and we’re just going to fuck around here”.
KAYLA: Well it’s almost like the second generation of it.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: A lot of people might have spent time on Tumblr and were part of these fandoms –
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: when this kind of behavior was first starting in that way. Obviously, mega fans are not real, we’ve all seen the Beatles and the Elvis documentaries, but it almost feels like people are more self-aware now, so it's like a second level to the joke.
SARAH: Yeah, and I feel as I was thinking through what I wanted to say on this, I feel very defensive about the people who are making these posts because as the outsider, part of me wants to be like “that’s really cringy” – and I will get into the cringiness because I have thoughts on that, as the aroace outsider, part of me is like “this is weird. Y’all are weird” but the people who are doing this are people that I know and I like and I respect, and I get why they do it, and it has led me to think about why these people do it even if they’re queer or not even attracted to men, or when they know they literally have no chance and it’s all like “we’re in delulu land”. And to some extent it feels like, to my little outsider psychoanalyzing, to some extent, for some people, it might be about wanting that particular thing with that particular person in a daydreaming sort of way, like Niall Horan donates his teeth to you. Listen, Kayla. Kayla. Who among us, wouldn’t drop everything to marry Min Yoongi if given the opportunity?
KAYLA: You just said a lot of words that mean nothing to me.
SARAH: Even I, an aroace, without a strong pull towards having a life partner, would I throw my entire life away to marry Min Yoongi? Yes.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: (laughing) What kind of question is that? So you know, there’s that aspect of it and also you’re a fan of this particular person, whatever. But I also think a lot of it is wanting certain types of intimacies generally, and projecting it onto a certain person.
(15:00)
SARAH: And so you have these people talking about like “it would be like this” or “imagine doing this date thing” and what I’ve gathered is that it’s not about the person we’re pretending it’s happening with it’s about the thing generally and then using that person as a stand-in because you know and you like that person, or you like that public persona, and you’re like “I really like this person, and this is what I want with” – I was about to say real person, they are real people, but like a real person in your life that you know.
KAYLA: Yeah. Well, it’s also easier because it’s someone that is so far away, it’s almost like a fictional person.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: Because obviously they are a real person –
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: but they have this persona. You are never going to have this type of relationship with them.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: So you get to know logically this is a real person, but you kind of treat them as a fictional character.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It allows this distance where you can really fantasize anything –
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: – where with someone in your real life you might be fantasizing and then your logic might come in like “well that could never happen because X, Y, Z”
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Like these practical logistics would get in the way of this happening, but if it’s a celebrity…
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: …or a fictional person, it’s like you can do whatever.
SARAH: Right. And this is a bit of a sidebar, but there’s been a lot of discussion among armys about BTS ruining them for other men. I have heard multiple stories of people breaking up with their boyfriends, always a boyfriend, never a girlfriend, breaking up with them because of BTS. Not because they’re so genuinely delulu-ist to think they actually have a chance with them, but because they see the members, like the way that they treat each other, and Army, and the people around them, and it has made those people, those armys realize they deserve better than whatever man is in their life.
KAYLA: That is wild.
SARAH: Like, that they don’t have to settle and they shouldn’t settle, and I think that is also another reason why the imaginary delulu land of it all works because it’s this real tangible person that you know a lot about, but as you said, you’re distanced from, but also it’s a person who from everything you know about them is a good person and the kind of person you would want to spend time with, I can’t imagine any of the members of BTS totally fucking me over. That’s not to say that they couldn’t because they’re people, but because you see them and you appreciate them as people, you can be like “ah yes, this is a good stand-in for what I want in my life as someone in that role that I would want in my own life” Also one of my mutuals, she needs to break up with her boyfriend. He’s so bad. He sucks.
KAYLA: (laughing, incredulous) Oh my God.
SARAH: She wanted to have a BTS themed birthday cake just for fun. He said no. She wanted a BT21 plushie stuffed animal, which is designed by BTS, but they’re just little stuffed animal things. They don’t have any actual BTS on them, they’re just whatever, and her boyfriend said no.
KAYLA: Why, is he like jealous?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: (laughing) Oh my God.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: That’s very funny.
SARAH: Everything I’ve heard about this boyfriend I’m just like, girl, you need to break up with him. Anyway. Meanwhile (laughing) one of the other people I follow, she writes fanfiction, which we could do a whole other podcast on that, but her husband got her a whole setup so that she could write her fanfiction.
KAYLA: This I love.
SARAH: (laughing) Anyway, yes. I’ll kind of jump to the sort of next point, which is like for me, personally, I can certainly enjoy reading romance or whatever. I’m not often like “this is everything I want to consume,” but I can certainly enjoy it, and it can make me feel nice, but for me it’s always independent of myself. And I said this a long, long time ago on the pod, but to me, y/n –
(20:00)
SARAH: like y slash n, your slash name in self-insert fics, y/n is like her own person. That’s like a character to me.
KAYLA: Yes, I agree.
SARAH: And my relationship with certain aspects of romance are kind of similar to my identifying as sex-averse, although to a lesser extent I think, in that I just don’t ever see myself participating in it whether that’s with a member of BTS or any other placeholder, so even for people who aren’t attracted to men, they can look at these delulu posts and want that with someone. So they may not relate to every delulu post, but they get it. Because I don’t necessarily want that with someone, I’m this weird semi-objective observer, and because of that – Were you going to say something?
KAYLA: Well I was just going to say it kind of puts in perspective of what you were saying about how like your mutual who’s a straight man,
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: and it’s what we say about understanding asexuality all the time is for people who are allo you can be like “I don’t quite understand”
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: Like a straight allo will be like I don’t quite understand what it means to be gay, but I can understand the feeling, because I am also attracted to people or whatever.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So this straight man could be putting his fantasies of what he wants with a partner in general onto BTS
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: because he knows that feeling of attraction.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But for you, who does not feel that at all, you cannot transfer that onto anyone, no matter the gender.
SARAH: Yeah, and it is for that reason I think, that those posts often come across as cringy and embarrassing to me.
KAYLA: Because you fully have no relation to it at all.
SARAH: Yeah. And you know, when it is from people that I know and love, it’s like a charming, cringy, like “Oh those allos, so silly. Every one of y’all is a simp, embarrassing”
(laughter)
SARAH: There is also the aspect of just like, for me personally, that cheesy, cringiness might come in part that for me, conveying genuine emotions is my worst nightmare.
KAYLA: True.
SARAH: But, as much as some allos might be like “oh it’s cringy to imagine this with whatever famous person” or “this particular thing is cringy” on the whole I think they get it. They understand it, and so as the aroace that I am, it’s not that I don’t get it, it’s that I get it on an intellectual level rather than feeling it on a personal, emotional level. And maybe a part of that is me intentionally distancing myself from it because in the case of BTS I do want to keep front of mind that in the case of BTS these are real people, and I don’t ever want to cross a line they would be uncomfortable with, but I also think a large part of it is my aroace pseudo-objectiveness.
KAYLA: Well, and that’s where I think a lot of this relates to any other aspect of life. That sense of objectiveness. I have heard from so many aspec people that people constantly come to them for relationship advice, or you know, XYZ, and it’s kind of like, I’ve had friends that are always single, and they are the ones that are always asked for relationship advice.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And I feel like it’s because as an aroace person, like you specifically especially who doesn’t really have an interest in dating or sex or anything like that.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: You see all of these types of things from a completely logical perspective.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: You’re able to take –
SARAH: I’m Spock.
KAYLA: the majority of the emotion out of it. Yeah. Yes. Like if someone came to you, like your friend who you said should break up with her boyfriend.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: You’re able to look at the objective things that happened
SARAH: Everyone thinks she should break up with her boyfriend.
KAYLA: Okay, but taking this example, because you have never experienced the type of attraction she assumedly experiences to this boyfriend.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: You aren’t going to have the same hang-ups as her like “Oh I love him” or “I’m attracted to him” or whatever. You’re able to objectively be like “okay, well to me none of that matters” so you’re able to give the logical advice rather than the emotional advice.
SARAH: Yeah. And I don’t want people to think that we’re saying that it’s a robotic thing.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Because bitch, boy howdy I’m real human. I’ve checked.
(25:00)
KAYLA: You have many emotions, just not some of them.
SARAH: Just not this type. And not to the same extent allos seem to have them, but it definitely is (sighs). It’s weird because you know, some of these people too, who I see making these posts are people who are aspec, but they’re not straight cut-and-dry aroace like I am, and so they still do experience certain aspects of it. Despite being aspec, they have a different experience of it than I do. It’s so weird. I think there’s a very specific aroace experience. It’s what I live in all the time, and so sometimes I forget that not everyone else lives in it. On the other hand, there are times when it is so apparent to me that no one else lives in it except for aroaces. And this is one of them.
KAYLA: Well, because the particular experience that you have is an aroace who does not date,
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And does not have sex, which obviously is not every aroace. As we have always said, you do not have to have those types of attractions to take those types of action.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: But you are the type that you don’t have those attractions and you also don’t take those types of actions, so you’re in this very, complete opposite end of the spectrum.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It feels painful to say it, but like the vast majority of people out there.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: You have this very specific experience that –
SARAH: I’m special.
KAYLA: You’re so special. It gives you this very outside looking in perspective on all these allo people or aspec people…
(Sarah singing “Waving Through a Window”)
KAYLA: …who date. You singing?
SARAH: Yeah, very very quietly.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Yeah, I agree. I have some slightly on topic, but it will kindly send us in a different direction thoughts about the less romantic more sexual end of things on this front?
KAYLA: Uh huh.
SARAH: Should I go that way, or do you have more to say on this front?
KAYLA: I don’t think I do. I just –
SARAH: You’re just reacting to me.
KAYLA: I am, but I think this concept is incredibly universal for aspecs of every – like whether they’re aspecs who date and/or have sex or not.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I don’t know, I just think this experience is very universal for a lot of aspecs.
SARAH: Yeah. Well I think, as I mentioned, this doesn’t just apply to romance, it also applies to sex, and there are these same types of posts who – who, they’re sentient – which go less romantic and more sexual, and there’s a line, first of all. I want to be clear that there’s a line. And maybe I am more uncomfortable with these posts in part because I am personally more uncomfortable with sex than romance. It’s also just because of objectification and there’s a whole thing there. There’s a couple of people I follow where sometimes I’m like “I am respectfully looking away from your posts”
KAYLA: (laughing) Hm.
SARAH: (laughing) But there are what’s called hard stans and soft stans. You can probably guess what that means.
KAYLA: Hm. I don’t want to.
SARAH: Okay, hard stans are people who will view a person in a more sexual manner, and soft stans are the ones that are like “I would like to hold your hand. You are so cute. You look like a little bunny”
KAYLA: Yes. I see.
SARAH: Most people are a mix of both, but there are some people who very much identify as one or the other, for whatever reason. Or people will be like “I’m in my hard stan era” or “I’m in my soft stan era”
KAYLA: (laughing) That’s very funny.
SARAH: But some of the more aggressive hard stans I’ve come across can freak me out a little bit.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because I’m like is this all that you think of them as?
(30:00)
SARAH: Even if it’s not in a strictly objectifying way, I mean, it’s always going to be a little objectifying. It gets blurry on what they’re inviting versus what’s just not, it’s complicated. Even if it’s not in a strictly objectifying way, my brain is like “is this the only context in which you engage with these people that you’re fans of?” Like thinking about it sexually? That weirds me out. I don’t like it.
KAYLA: Yeah. It’s hard to describe exactly what is so much more icky about –
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: – objectifying these people in a sexual way versus a romantic way. Because if you really think about it,
SARAH: It’s the same, but it’s different.
KAYLA: Objectifying strangers, right. They are strangers, they are real people. And to project your romantic fantasies onto them is also…
SARAH: It’s weird.
KAYLA: You know, it’s not the most appropriate thing to do. Even as we talked about this entire episode, the logical reasons people may do this,
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And the psychological ways it may help people figure out what they want in their own lives.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: There are obviously benefits that come from activities like this, and I don’t think either of us are trying to shame people that do this.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: I think we have probably both done this ourselves. If not you, then me.
SARAH: I mean you do the exact same thing with friendship. There’s no way to not do this to a certain extent.
KAYLA: Right. It just happens. It’s not like you try to do it. It is hard to describe what exactly is – I guess maybe because sex is just so much more personal-seeming.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Or like, vulnerable.
SARAH: If someone holds your hand, and you don’t want them to hold your hand, that’s not good, and you should not have to do that, but it feels, on a severity level, much less bad if someone holds your hand when you don’t want them to hold your hand than something sexual because that’s literally sexual assault, right?
KAYLA: Right. It’s the different levels of kind of intimacy.
SARAH: Right. So if you’re thinking about imagining certain things with another person, the level of severity I think stands. Not that thinking about having sex with someone is sexual assault, because it’s not.
KAYLA: (laughing) It very much is not.
SARAH: (laughing) Just to be clear. But the people that I associate with on Army Twitter are not so disrespectful or crass as to cross what I view as the line, right? There’s also an unspoken agreement among the same people of Army to never, ever intentionally try to put anything like that in front of the actual members of BTS.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: That includes fanfiction, like anything. You do not ever put it in front of them. Like, yes, it exists publicly on the Internet, but they should only see it if for some ungodly reason they look it up themselves.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Well also because it’s just like those Buzzfeed thirst Tweet videos are funny because the person reading them consented to it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It wouldn’t be funny if they didn’t. Also though, recently on the topic of sexual things question mark? It’s been kind of a meme, but also a form of actual self-censorship where people will bleep their own Tweets out and they’ll put asterisks of the number of letters of the words they’re bleeping out, so you’re sitting there counting the number of asterisks trying to figure out what it is they’re trying to say. And sometimes there are many options, and often, when I see these, if I know the person, I will jokingly respond with “you meant this, right?”
KAYLA: It reminds me of the Twitter account that just posts unfinished wheel of fortune things.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And you fill it in yourself.
SARAH: Yeah. People will be like “I want to (four letter word) his (four letter word)” and I’m like “You want to hold his hand, right?”
(laughter)
(35:00)
(laughter)
SARAH: “That’s what you want?” and I do that because it’s funny but also for the record, knowing full well that’s not what they meant.
KAYLA: You’re so smart.
SARAH: I’m so smart. But because I’m aroace I feel like I’m specially situated to call it out, or not call it out, because not that it needs calling out, but point it out and comment on it because I can bring in this outsider’s perspective where I’m making a joke and I’m being funny while also pointing out this is kind of weird, you know?
KAYLA: You’re pointing out from an outsiders’ perspective “hey y’all. Look at this from my perspective. Y’all realize how weird this is”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: “out of context or without the same understanding you have, right”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: It’s almost in the same way aspecs are able to look at anything relating to romance or sex and kind of be like “why is this the unwritten rule”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Iike “I know we all go along with this stuff like it’s normal but we realize it’s bizarre, right?”
SARAH: Yeah. You mean you want to smooch his nose, correct?
KAYLA: Ew. Smooch.
SARAH: You know recently at work, I was writing something on the whiteboard, and it was a scene where these two people were kissing, but I didn’t want to write they were kissing so I wrote they were smooching, and my boss did laugh.
KAYLA: I’m so glad.
SARAH: That’s all. What were you going to say?
KAYLA: I don’t know.
SARAH: Great. This also made me think of, this is kind of another sidebar, do not get me started but I am getting started right now on the woman recently on Army Twitter who was being judgy about armys “dressing like strippers” at the Vegas concerts.
KAYLA: Oh! I saw you respond to this woman but she deleted her Tweets so I didn’t know –
SARAH: Yeah. She was like “I’m not judging” but proceeds to judge so hard.
KAYLA: Of course.
SARAH: And then people, as they do when you have a bad opinion on Army Twitter, people will dig into you and find your receipts and find everything you’ve ever done wrong.
KAYLA: Yes. And your social security number.
SARAH: Yes. And people did a little bit of digging and they found several Tweets – first of all this is a 40 year old woman.
KAYLA: Of course.
SARAH: It’s not like this is some 17 year old teenage kid where you can be like “they’re still young”, no it’s a 40 year old woman. And she had several Tweets where she was openly and aggressively sexualizing specifically, it’s relevant here, Jungkook in images and videos from around the time of BTS’s premiere.
KAYLA: Wasn’t he really young?
SARAH: At which point Jungkook was a minor.
KAYLA: Mm. Ma’am. (laughing)
SARAH: And people are like “why are you, a 40 year old, intentionally, openly, and so brazenly sexualizing a 16-year old?”
KAYLA: Oh man.
SARAH: He’s 24 now, but in this picture that you’re talking about he was 16. Anyway.
KAYLA: (laughing) She really shouldn’t have done that.
SARAH: Also, just another little side note that I didn’t know where to put, brings us back to the point you made in last week’s episode which was the realization that a lot of people on the Internet have had that a lot of fanfiction smut writers are ace, and a lot of the best fanfiction smut writers are ace, says the worldwide web. I have not read every smut that ever existed, so unfortunately I can’t give you the definitive answer on that, but I have seen multiple posts about it since we talked about it. I sent a post to Kayla where someone I follow Tweeted a TikTok about it, and I was like “I guess this is funny”, but I also think that in part might have to do with our distance from it, which is just interesting. It’s a thought.
KAYLA: It’s almost like… I can’t remember where I heard this, but there is a very large population of straight women who write gay men
SARAH: A lot, yeah.
KAYLA: Like, smut books.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And it is this weird thing of like – and the ethics of that is, I don’t know…
(40:00)
SARAH: Questionable.
KAYLA: None of my business, and I am not smart enough to go into it.
SARAH: A whole other podcast.
KAYLA: Yeah, a whole other podcast by smarter people, but it is this thing of you’re so outside of it, like for an aspec person writing smut you can almost logically look at “okay, here are the parts that make a good smut, and maybe I don’t personally connect with these things, but I am a good writer and I can put this kind of stuff together”. You don’t need to have that kind of attraction to understand the structure of how something is written.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And it could almost make you better if you’ve never experienced it.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Because then your own personal experiences aren’t muddying the water.
SARAH: Yeah. And then if you have logistical questions, you can ask a friend.
KAYLA: So true.
SARAH: I think I’ve said this on the podcast before. I was beta reading a fic for my friend one time, and it was a little bit smutty, nothing crazy, and this was partially because this was my job as her beta reader, but I did find an extra hand. I said “There’s an extra hand here. Where did this third hand come from?” And she said “You’re so right, bestie”
KAYLA: I think that it should have been left in.
SARAH: So sometimes being aroace just means you find bonus hands.
KAYLA: I love that. Because if you’re not distracted by the smut of it all, you can really pay attention to those details.
SARAH: Why are there so many hands? That’s all. Once again, as ever, I have lots of thoughts and no conclusions.
KAYLA: I mean, I think the conclusion is just that, I don’t know. First of all, the important disclaimer is that none of this is to say that aspec people are robots who only look at things logically.
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: And have no emotions and are able to look at everything perfectly objectively and we’re superior with the best opinions.
SARAH: Yeah, or that all aspecs have the same experiences here because very obviously they don’t.
KAYLA: Right. Obviously what Sarah was talking about is her own very specific experience.
SARAH: I live in my own brain. What am I supposed to do about that? I can’t change that.
KAYLA: We live in Sarah’s brain, and so do you.
SARAH: Kayla lives in my brain too. I live in Sarah’s brain and so do you.
KAYLA: And so do you.
(laughter)
SARAH: I can’t wait to see the graphic in our discord.
KAYLA: Oh my god, Weasel has been on top of the graphics every single episode. It is wild. I really should post some of them on our Instagram, but yeah, there is something to be said for that outsider perspective of “I’ve never experienced this before” or “I’ve experienced it in a different way so I’m able to look at it removing the messy bits and I can look at it a little bit clearer” and I think that applies to a lot of parts of life.
SARAH: And we can point out how fucking weird allos are. Y’all think you’re so normal because everyone around you is doing the same thing. Objectively, weird. Sex? Objectively gross. Messy.
KAYLA: Squishy.
SARAH: Ew.
(laughter)
KAYLA: Uh huh.
SARAH: It’s the truth. I just didn’t like the use of the word squishy, but that’s because it’s gross.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because you know what is gross? Objectively? Sex.
KAYLA: (laughing) Okay.
SARAH: Anyway. Yeah, that’s all. Being an outsider is cool. Don’t listen to Evan Hansen and don’t pretend that every person who has died was your friend when they weren’t.
KAYLA: That’s such good advice.
SARAH: Thank you. I have not seen the movie, and I will not.
KAYLA: Same.
SARAH: Kayla?
KAYLA: Yeah?
SARAH: What is your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: I’m like still –
SARAH: No. What’s our poll?
KAYLA: –still pretty certain that the poll is supposed to come first.
SARAH: You know, I think you’re right. (laughter) No one told us.
KAYLA: I think someone actually did, I can’t remember, but I’m like 99% sure the poll does come first.
SARAH: No because I do the poll, then what’s your beef and juice, then I say you can tell us about your beef and juice or you can answer our, I don’t know, whatever.
KAYLA: I know.
SARAH: What’s the poll?
KAYLA: Umm.
SARAH: Are you on the outside always looking in?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Will you ever be more than you’ve ever been?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Are you tap tap tapping on the glass?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Waving through a window?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: How about this? If you see a post, like a sort of imagine post, a delulu post if you will.
(45:00)
SARAH: No matter how mundane, do you find it cringy?
KAYLA: Okay. I’ll find a way to make that make sense.
SARAH: Find a way to say that. Yeah.
KAYLA: I’ll figure it out.
SARAH: Yeah, we’ll figure it out. And by we, I mean you.
KAYLA: (laughing) Mm, yeah.
SARAH: Kayla, what is your beef and your juice on this delightful Tuesday evening? Breaking the fourth wall, it’s Tuesday.
KAYLA: It’s Tuesday. My beef and my juice is moving.
SARAH: Mm.
KAYLA: I’m very happy to not be in the hotel anymore and to have all of my stuff, but also moving is very stressful and I’m very sore and tired.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And I just want it to be over, but alas, there are still boxes everywhere, so yeah.
SARAH: My – I had a beef and then I decided it was boring and I deleted it and now I have nothing to say.
KAYLA: I mean I think we all know what the real beef is at the moment.
SARAH: My beef is Dave Chappelle.
KAYLA: That’s not what I was going to say.
SARAH: (laughing) At the Hollywood Bowl. Do you know what fucking happened? Guys, remember how last week Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl made me take so long to get home from work? Kayla.
KAYLA: You’ll never guess what happened.
SARAH: Kayla asked to podcast on a day this week where Dave Chappelle was also at the fucking Hollywood Bowl. How many days? Three? Three days at the Hollywood Bowl? Dave. Calm down. That’s my beef. My juice is before we started this pod, I asked Kayla if she would still love me if my name was – what did I say? Garg?
KAYLA: It was like Glog or Gorg? Gork?
SARAH: And she said yes, so that’s my juice.
KAYLA: And then I asked Sarah if she would still love me if I was a worm. She said yes, and this is not something that Dean has ever said yes to.
SARAH: I could be a better boyfriend than him.
KAYLA: Sarah is my boyfriend now. You heard it here first, Sarah is my boyfriend, and I guess Dean is my podcast partner? I think maybe they just switch?
SARAH: Hm, interesting. We’ll have to think about it.
(laughter)
KAYLA: Very softly from the other room Dean just goes “yay”
(laughter)
SARAH: Delightful. Thank you for your contribution, Dean. You can answer our poll, tell us about your beef, your juice – no that is right, poll first – on our social media
KAYLA: I know. I told you this like two weeks ago, and you didn’t believe me.
SARAH: @soundsfakepod. Hit us up on our Instagram for that poll. We also have a Patreon if you want to support us that way, if you want to be some of those sweet, sweet listeners who don’t get this podcast for free. I know that’s an enticing offer. patreon.com/soundsfakepod. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Chris Lauretano, Colleen Walsh, Corinne, Daniel Walker, and Doug Rice. Now I’m just thinking, the screenshot you sent me before this podcast, was in fact Daniel Walker.
KAYLA: (laughing) I know. We don’t have to talk about it.
SARAH: Listen, Kayla –
KAYLA: Well now we do have to talk about it.
SARAH: Yeah I know, that’s why I said it, because I thought it was funny, and it’s relevant to this podcast, to this episode.
KAYLA: So my friend Max sent me a screenshot of some tweets from –
SARAH: Long ago.
KAYLA: – maybe almost 2 years ago now?
SARAH: Mm, yeah.
KAYLA: The original Tweet was a screenshot video from when we interviewed Daniel for the podcast. It was like a screenshot.
SARAH: Slice of Ace.
KAYLA: Yes, Slice of Ace, Daniel Walker. For the podcast, It was like a video of Zoom. And I have my hand on my head, and my fingers are kind of on my forehead as if they’re my bangs.
SARAH: Mhm.
KAYLA: And our friend Parker who was on an episode a long time ago talking about polyamory, tweeted something like “you did recently have bangs like a year ago” and I responded back and I said “these are different. These are finger bangs” and then my friend Max tweeted and said “hey I don’t think that’s what you think it means” and I said “I’m too aspec for this”, so anyway. And then I sent the screenshot to Sarah.
SARAH: Hey, well recently one of our friends sent a Tweet to a group chat where someone, they loved Jesus a lot, I almost just called it their handle, their @, their license plate,
KAYLA: (laughing) I mean I guess that’s like your car’s @ in a very real way.
SARAH: Their license plate was “JISLORD”, J in reference to Jesus, but it did in fact look like it said “Jis Lord”
KAYLA: It did.
SARAH: And our presumably non-aspec friend did not notice, and I did and I was like “look at me”
KAYLA: It’s that objective – there’s so many aspec people who love a sex joke.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And it’s just because like, I don’t know man.
SARAH: I don’t know.
KAYLA: From an outside perspective, there’s a whole other layer to the sex joke, you know?
SARAH: Yeah, there is. And now for those people who left before the patrons…
KAYLA: You’ll never know.
SARAH: They missed a little tidbit of pod.
KAYLA: Also worthwhile to note about the screenshot is it’s not like my friend went back on Twitter and found this.
SARAH: It was fresh.
KAYLA: Because my profile picture is old. This is a screenshot they took at the time of this Tweet and have kept –
SARAH: Good.
KAYLA: – for over 2 and a half years. Anyway.
SARAH: Good. Anyway, our $10 patrons who are promoting things this week are Mattie who would like to promote gender euphoria – I keep encountering new genders every day. This is what Army Twitter will do to you. Potater, who would like to promote potatoes, I ate potatoes before this. Purple Hayes who has bumped up from 2 to 10. Purple Hayes, what do you want to promote? Because this is a somewhat BTS episode, you’re going to promote purple.
KAYLA: Ooh.
SARAH: Rosie Costello who would like to promote sticks, preferably long sticks. Rosie Costello is the best girl. And Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote their podcast Travel Tales from Beyond the Brochure, and you know what, we’ll also do The Steve, who would like to promote Ecosia, a search engine for the trees, because that rounds us out.
KAYLA: Love that.
SARAH: Our other $10 patrons are Arcnes, Ari K, Benjamin Ybarra, Changeling and Alex the ace cat, David Jay, David Nurse, Derek and Carissa, my Aunt Jeannie, Maggie Capalbo, and Martin Chiesl. Our $15 patrons are Andrew Hillum who would like to promote the Invisible Spectrum podcast, Click4Caroline who would like to promote Ace of Hearts, Hector Murillo who would like to promote friends that are supportive, constructive, and help you grow as a better person, Leila who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people, Nathaniel White who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina who would like to promote @katemaggart.art, and Sarah Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere. Our $20 patrons are Sabrina Hauck, Merry Christmas from your parents, and Dragonfly who would like to promote stanning BTS for clear skin. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.
(52:40)
(Outro music)