Ep 185: Pride Month Q&A

(0:00)

KAYLA: This week’s episode is brought to you by Socksmith. You’ve heard of wearing your heart on your sleeves but have you heard of wearing your pride on your feet? If you want to use your feet to show your ace pride, check out Socksmith.

SARAH: This month 100% of the proceeds from their Pride Pops Collection—which actually includes the ace flag— will go toward crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for queer youth. Get your socks now at socksmith.com.

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 demisexual girl (that’s me, Kayla)

SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.

KAYLA: On today’s episode: a proud Q&A.

ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.

SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!

KAYLA: M’ariachi band? I’m almost positive I’ve done it before.

SARAH: M’argarita.

KAYLA: M’arilyn M’onroe. M’argaritaville. M’elatonin.

SARAH: M’illie Bobby Brown. 

KAYLA: Ohh, okay. M’icro penis.

SARAH: M’ontero Lamar Hill.

KAYLA: We went in very different directions.

SARAH: Listen I was trying to think of celebrities whose names start with M and my brain was like Lil Nas and I was like there’s no M in there and then I was like, no his real name is—

KAYLA: Sometimes there is. Em’inem.

SARAH: Ehhh, no. Anyway, hi kids. Adults. Teenagers. People of indeterminate age. How you doing? Good? Happy pride

KAYLA: Yeah.

SARAH: It’s pride o’clock. We do have some housekeeping before we dive into this week’s episode. In case y’all missed it. I was on—what are they called?

KAYLA: I think an episode I guess?

SARAH: An episode? I was on an episode on Spectrum series on the Jubilee YouTube page where it was me and some other ace specs talking about our opinions on things and it was very fun and it was lovely to get to meet a bunch of ace spec people and we have an Instagram group.

KAYLA: I watched the video and it was very good and I liked it a lot.

SARAH: And they spelled my name wrong. I haven’t checked if they fixed that or not.

KAYLA: They would have to unupload the video wouldn’t they?

SARAH: I’m pretty sure that you can re-upload without it being—I don’t know, maybe not.

KAYLA: I don’t know either but that was funny because we all know how you feel about the H in your name and they really took it right outta there.

SARAH: They took it right on out. So sad. Anyway, we were also a guest on the POV podcast from Lustery. We talked to our girl Aria, who was such a delight, about asexuality. It’s a little bit 101-y but we did talk about some really interesting things that weren’t so 101-y.

KAYLA: And also on the episode, we didn’t get to talk to this person but the other half of the episode is talking to an asexual person about kinks which is a super interesting topic that we definitely want to dive into more in future episodes and also kind of goes along with what we were talking about last episode, so, check it out.

SARAH: We will share that. As we’re recording it’s not out yet but I do believe it will be by the time the pod is so we’ll share that with you if you just want to hear more of our voices.

KAYLA: Yeah, if you’re not sick of us yet. I loved that so many people were like, “I was watching the Jubilee video and I was like, wait a second I know that voice and I was like oh my god it’s Sarah.” Like they saw that video before we had posted saying you were in it.

SARAH: I had several people come to me and be like, “I was just watching this video and that’s you” and I was like, yes. This is me, correct.

KAYLA: Yes it is, hello. I just loved that most of the people didn’t recognize your face. You see you in the video before you hear you. But people were like, hold on now I know that voice. Which makes sense because this is an audio medium.

SARAH: Yes it is. But yeah, it was a good time. Check both of those out. Alright, let’s dive in. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?

(5:00)

KAYLA: This week we’re just doing a little Q&A. We’re going to A your Q’s. A lot of them are pride-related. Some of them are just more like sexuality-related. So I have a bunch of screenshots. I just actually made a shared album with you Sarah on iPhone.
SARAH: A what now? In this economy?

KAYLA: In this economy? So I don’t know if you want to look at them but you can.

SARAH: How do I—wait, shared album activity, I was invited to join Q&A. Invitation accepted. Oh hell yeah.

KAYLA: Fun.

SARAH: Great.

KAYLA: We also, in the messages I put out about asking for questions, I put people could ask us about worms so we do also have several questions about worms.

SARAH: Good, excellent. Glad that we slipped that one in there. Do you want to start us out? Are we just going in order from top to bottom?

KAYLA: I mean there’s a lot we’re not going to get through them all. I was just going to scroll through and see.

SARAH: I mean I think the first question is the most important question which is from Soup on Discord which says “will SFBO pride meetup be held at Big Boy? Yes or yes?” Obviously, the answer is yes. We are your number one source of Big Boy facts. 

KAYLA: Should we do a Patreon exclusive episode that’s just about Big Boy? Because I’m not mad at it. Sarah was recently, over the weekend, just popping in Discord with some random Big Boy facts, so if you’re not in our Discord, that’s what you’re missing.

SARAH: I’m hardly ever there but when I am I do provide Big Boy facts. 

KAYLA: Yes. So the answer to this question is yes. “How can other queer be allies to the ace community?” This is from @jose.fedi on Instagram. Sarah’s trying to find the question. This is a good question and as I’ve been making more videos for our socials I’ve seen more and more people asking that. For other queer people who are not ace or arospec, I think the number one thing is education. So, knowing what ace and arospec identities are and trying to do your own research. Obviously asking questions but trying to take some of the responsibility for yourself. I think the other one is actively standing up for ace and aro people. If you see something that is weird or hateful going on actively standing up for ace or aro people. If you are finding queer spaces that don’t explicitly include ace or aro people, saying, “hey I myself may not be ace or aro but you should be inclusive.” Not letting that kind of burden fall on the ace and aro people themselves because it can be really tiring and it would be nice to have other people helping stand for us I think. 

SARAH: I finally found the picture.

KAYLA: I’m so glad.

SARAH: I wasn’t really listening to you but I’m sure you said wonderful things. 

KAYLA: I’m so glad.

SARAH: Yeah what Kayla said sure.

KAYLA: Excellent.

SARAH: How can some queers—obviously—that’s a typo here.

KAYLA: Sarah, what is your favorite worm? We got this question from many people.

SARAH: Trolli summer gummy worms. I used to think that the—I used to have the definitive ranking that the green and orange one was the best but I think I’ve evolved and grown and the yellow and red one is the best. 

KAYLA: Mm, I like them all. I will say that my least favorite worm is ringworm. I can tell you that for certain. Not a huge fan of earthworm—well, what is an earthworm?

SARAH: I think my least favorite worm would be a parasitic worm.

KAYLA: Earthworm? No, I’m thinking of mealworm. I don’t love a mealworm. 

SARAH: Love the big chonky boys.

KAYLA: Yeah I love a good worm out after it rains. Out on the sidewalk, I love that. Not for eating, just for looking. 

SARAH: Did this come from my roommate?

KAYLA: There were several questions on all platforms.
SARAH: Several people have asked. 

(10:00)

KAYLA: Several people asked about the worms. I also love a worm on a string. I don’t own any worm on a string. When that trend was really hitting I never went out and purchased a worm on a string so if anyone wants to send me a worm on a string, I wouldn’t be mad.

SARAH: This is a question on Twitter from @Hannah_Valdis, “does being aspec affect how you see your gender?” Which is interesting because at least at this point both Kayla and I identify as cisgender women. But I do feel like it makes me not care. Like the things that I’ve learned about the ace lens and how none of the things we’re taught are real or matter or it’s all just made up definitely applies to gender. I’m just like, I don’t give a fuck. I will do what I want and that’s that.

KAYLA: Yeah I don’t know that I’ve ever questioned my gender or been like, I don’t think I’m a woman but I think similarly it’s not something I care that much about. If someone wanted to use they/them pronouns for me, I’d be like okay. I don’t think I’d really like he/him pronouns but it’s something I don’t put as much stock into because I realized it’s not a real thing. But I do know, and this is something we want to do future episodes on that we’ve been thinking a lot about as we just do outside projects is there are a large proportion of aspec people who don’t conform to the binary definition of gender. I think a lot of that comes with, once you realize you’re asexual or aromantic and what you’ve been taught forever is false, you’re like okay I guess now let’s think about gender because if that’s nothing, then this is probably nothing either. 

SARAH: Yeah, I don’t know. When you said, binary, thinking about male and female, obviously that’s the point, the binary’s not real. Yes, I identify as a cis woman but I am super not comfortable with the cis woman stereotypes and expectations and binary so I’m just like fuck it. I do whatever I want. So there’s that.

KAYLA: This is a really good series of things from Perry Fiero our dear friend on Instagram. They said, “which episode are you “proudest” of? Get it because it’s pride month...so it’s a joke since pride ha.” And then they ran out of characters. Then in the next post they said “Ok I ran out of characters but I was saying, it’s a joke because pride has two meanings, pride like the sin and.” Then they ran out of characters again, then they restarted and said, “Anyway, as I was saying pride like the sin and pride like the lgbtqia+. Do you get it?” 

SARAH: Actually I don’t get it Perry can you explain that again?

KAYLA: Could you send a couple more messages with just a few more explanations?

SARAH: I just want a little more information.

KAYLA: The first answer is yes I do get it.

SARAH: Yeah, yeah. I don’t and I would like you to explain it again.

KAYLA: Two different answers there.

SARAH: Shoot me a text, Perry. What episode are we proudest of?

KAYLA: There’s a lot—there are episodes that I like a lot but proud is a different—

SARAH: Yeah it’s a different beast.

KAYLA: Honestly, our recent interview with Liam might be one of the ones I’m proudest of. I feel like part of it is we are getting better at interviewing people and we did a decent job of being interviewers. I was also really glad we did that topic and I just feel like it turned out really well. I feel like the conversation was really good, Liam was super insightful. That might be one of my top.

SARAH: And it’s a conversation that some people in the community are really uncomfortable having so I’m proud that we chose to use our platform to have that conversation. That’s a good one. I don’t know, it’s hard. I think I’m proud of our TED Talk episodes, specifically the asexuality TED Talk, the first one because it was hard. 

KAYLA: It was a very hard thing to do for sure. 

SARAH: It was hard and that also really led to us because we had written out, it led to us expanding our resource page and our “what is asexuality” page on our website because it is an important thing to have, you know to have another resource about that. I think maybe just the Ted Talk as much as it caused us pain when we were recording that.

(15:00)

KAYLA: It was also a step out of our comfort zone, it was a more scripted informational thing which is not what we usually do.

SARAH: I concur. Which one are we least proud of?

KAYLA: Least proud of? The thing is the episodes which I don’t feel good after recording, like oh my god this was so chaotic, the energy was weird are the ones that people are like, “this is my cult favorite” and I’m like what the fuck? 

SARAH: We cannot guess which ones are going to be favorites of people. We cannot—for some reason, y’all are unpredictable to us. We can’t understand you. 

KAYLA: I rarely look at the numbers of how many downloads a specific episode has because it never lines up with what I expect. At this point, I’ve just given up caring. 

SARAH: It doesn’t make any sense at all. This is from @poseidon_with_a_c on Instagram. “My sister wants a snake and thinks they’re “cute.” How do I stop her so I’m not living with a snake?”

KAYLA: I do remember. Okay so your sister wants a snake, you don’t want to live with a snake, how do you stop her?

SARAH: Are you a minor? Are you living in your parents’ house or do you live with your sister independently. If you’re not a minor and you just live with your sister independently of whatever else, that is more of a compelling argument because you can be like, “dude I’m your roommate.”

KAYLA: My guess is that these are people who live together with their parents.
SARAH: I’m also guessing that. I don’t know. My cousins have a snake, his name is Billy Bob and he wears a bowtie sometimes, which is pretty cute. It’s less cute when he sheds his sheds his snake snake.

KAYLA: We’re not trying to argue why getting a snake might be okay. We’re trying to help this person.

SARAH: I think what I’ve concluded is that I don’t have any good advice.

KAYLA: Maybe is there a way you can instill a deep fear of snakes into your sister between now and the time of getting a snake so that she is not afraid of snakes and does not want them as a pet?

SARAH: Yeah.

KAYLA: Maybe you can stage a snake accident.

SARAH: Are you a member of BTS ARMY? Is your sister a member of BTS ARMY? If not you need to get your sister into BTS and you need to ensure that her bias is J-Hope. And then you can say J-Hope famously does not like snakes. Would you do this to him? Are you going to put up posters of him in your room and have a snake in the same room? That’s cruel. He hates snake-uh.

KAYLA: Maybe get her a pet mouse and be like, well now you can’t get a snake because snakes eat mice. Even if it doesn’t eat your mouse, your mouse is going to watch you feed other mice to your snake and that's going to be really rude to your mouse so now you can’t. That was a great question I think that’s my favorite question.

SARAH: Really relevant to pride too.

KAYLA: I think so.

SARAH: @MillaCM_ on Twitter says, “if you could add anything to the pride calendar what would it be? Like you talked about last time besides the parade what else is there (like in the future when covid isn’t in the way). I think water gun fights would be very fun.”

KAYLA: Yeah. Or a water balloon fight.

SARAH: I can get behind a water gun fight or a water balloon fight. I think paintball. I’m sorry I just had the best idea. A paintball game where it’s a certain identity versus another identity and the colors of your paintballs are the colors of your flag.

KAYLA: I had a semi-similar thought and it was for a color run, have you ever done a color run?

SARAH: Yes yes. 

KAYLA: And you do the colors for your flag. Those are all very in line with pride parade, very colorful flag, float.

SARAH: Also the issue with the paintball is that it pits identities against each other which is not what we want.

(20:00)

KAYLA: And what if you’re both you know.
SARAH: You can just play for both sides I guess.

KAYLA: I would like to see a Princess Diaries 2 situation where we go down giant staircases on mattresses.

SARAH: See I wasn’t sure where you were going there. My brain was like “where we fall into a fountain” with Chris Pine. 

KAYLA: Or fall in love with Chris Evans.

SARAH: Oh my god.

KAYLA: Shit!

SARAH: Kayla Marie! 

KAYLA: At least I didn’t say Chris Pratt.

SARAH: I will say again it’s much easier to mix up Pratt and Pine because of the P thing.

KAYLA: Yeah but I didn’t.

SARAH: Unfuckingbelievable, wow.

KAYLA: That was embarrassing.

SARAH: I think pride should have a group nap hour. You can participate remotely. It doesn’t have to be an in-person thing, it’s napping time, this is an exhausting event and we just want everyone to have a moment of peace. Maybe you can do some meditation if you don’t want to nap. Maybe you can listen to a podcast or some songs. Play solitaire with yourself. 

KAYLA: Mmhmm.

SARAH: You know, just relaxing, calm activities for an hour. Then we can go back to being chaotic.

KAYLA: Yes. This is from @emilyacostello on Instagram. Who is your favorite le$bean?

SARAH: Well, so here’s—now, for everyone’s reference, this is my sister. She wants me to say that she’s my favorite le$bean. But what she failed to consider here is that she doesn’t tend to use the term le$bean for herself because she thinks it sounds like an illness. Not le$bean but lesbian. And so in my brain I don’t think of her as a lesbian I think of her as gay. So, I don’t know that she can be.

KAYLA: So she really played herself.

SARAH: She played herself. I don’t know that she can be my favorite le$bean for that reason.
KAYLA: Emily you really fucked this one up.
SARAH: Kayla who’s your favorite le$bean?

KAYLA: Now I’m trying to think—I don’t have a lot of friends that are lesbians. I don’t think—that’s not true. Padya is my favorite lesbian. 

SARAH: It’s true. They’re a good le$bean.

KAYLA: They’re probably the only—I feel like most of my queer friends are bi. Or pan or just use the word queer.

SARAH: Vibing.

KAYLA: Yeah, I don’t know that I have many friends who call themselves lesbians.
SARAH: I think Padya and my sister have to fight to the death now.

KAYLA: I wish they would.

SARAH: I think it would be pretty harmful to the podcast either way regardless of who won. If Padya loses then we lose our Padya and we also lose our transcriber. If my sister loses, we lose my sister and also a $15 patron. I guess Rosie could continue to patronize the pod.

KAYLA: Depends on whose card Rosie is putting the patronage on.

SARAH: It’s definitely my sister’s card so Rosie you need to get a job. In the unlikely event that your mother dies, you need to get a job Rosie to support the family. Okay. You’re a grown woman.

KAYLA: This is a podcast just for Rosie now.

SARAH: Rosie, Rosie. I miss you, I’ll see you soon. 

KAYLA: Oh my god.

SARAH: Rosie’s my sister’s dog. To anyone who has no idea what’s going on.

KAYLA: Yeah that’s a good thing to point out.

SARAH: A good thing to note. “Is SFBO established enough as a brand to get its own float?” This is from Sweet Madeleines on Discord. No, thanks for asking.

KAYLA: I’m going to go with no on that one but thank you for your question.

SARAH: Mm hmm.

KAYLA: How are we celebrating pride this year? That’s from @ra.eames on Instagram. 

SARAH: I think regardless of whether there is a group institutionalized napping hour, I will be taking a pride nap.

KAYLA: Hmm. Today I told my boss that I thought it was unfair for me to work this month.

SARAH: Yeah I had to pay rent yesterday and that was extremely aphobic.

KAYLA: I also did that.

SARAH: It was extremely aphobic so that was rude. @Geekingout.fandom says, “what does queer mean?” I don’t know, @geekingout.fandom. Queer means a great many things and it is not the same to every person and that’s okay.

KAYLA: I’d say probably it doesn’t mean straight but other than that I don’t know.

SARAH: Yeah. I think if you don’t understand what queer means, that’s okay?

KAYLA: What does pride mean to you and how does it differ between different aspec experiences? That’s from @aroofexcellence on Instagram.

SARAH: I don’t know how to answer that question. What does pride mean to you? I don’t know what that means.

KAYLA: To me, I think I can better answer what pride isn’t than what pride is. I feel like often people talk about pride as being comfortable in your own skin or being really happy with who you are and wearing the pride flag proudly and I don’t know that I agree with that because I think you can still celebrate pride and have pride even if you don’t love your sexuality or orientation everyday. You can be closeted and still celebrate pride in your own way. You can be not happy with your identity some days or take pride some days or celebrate pride. I think for aspec people it’s really common to not be happy with your identity forever or a long time and wish you weren’t that way. And pride can feel super alienating sometimes cause it’s everyone being super excited and seeming like they’re really happy and they love what they’re about when in reality it’s not like that all the time.

SARAH: I think for me I don’t know what pride means to me because it’s not something I think about and that’s also an okay answer. 

KAYLA: Yeah it’s also okay if pride month really doesn’t mean that much to you. Your sexuality doesn’t need to be that big of a part of your life. It’s totally fine. It doesn’t have to be your personality, you don’t have to have any pride merch, you don’t have to participate in any communities. It can just be how it is.

SARAH: Mm Hmm. @Quinlykinser on Instagram says “how can I celebrate pride if I’m closeted?” Take a nap.

KAYLA: I’ve also seen a lot of artwork that is subtle pride flags. That comes in more discreet packaging. I’ve seen a painting or drawing of a sunset that happens to be in the color order of a sunset and if you were to hang it up and your parents asked you what it was, it isn’t obvious that it’s pride.

SARAH: Right. Like it’s the sunset, look at it. 

KAYLA: Yeah that’s something to look into if you want to have pride-colored things. I think there’s also a lot of ways to celebrate by yourself. Maybe you journal or you make a private Instagram that’s just for you and you post a pride picture you know?

SARAH: You know what’s a really good way to celebrate pride? Regardless of whether you’re closeted or not. I literally just forgot, hold on. Oh no, it was good too. Oh, I remember. I got it I got it. Just practice self-care. Because I think pride is about supporting and celebrating queer folks and part of that is making sure we are doing well mentally, physically, emotionally and do a little self-care. That can be your pride celebration. Do a lil face mask. 

KAYLA: Yeah doesn’t even have to be sexuality-related. 

SARAH: Yeah. Whatever self-care means to you, go for it.

KAYLA: Do it. 

SARAH: Yeah see that was such a good thing, I forgot it. 

KAYLA: I’m very very proud of you for remembering.

(30:00)

SARAH: @Kate.rinos on Instagram says “what do you wish you knew about your sexuality five years ago?”

KAYLA: What year was five years ago?

SARAH: 2016. Oh my god. I have known my identity for five years.

KAYLA: Aww you’re five years old. 

SARAH: I’m five years old I go to kindergarten.

KAYLA: Yeah I don’t know. I fully accepted my demisexuality, what, 2018 maybe? So five years ago was 2016 so we were freshmen and sophomores. In 2016 I was starting to think about demisexuality so it’s not like I didn’t know that I might be demisexual. 

SARAH: I think for me it’s not what I wish I knew about my sexuality five years ago, it’s what I wish everyone else knew. Not that I was how I identified, that other people knew what it was so I wouldn’t have to identify it every time.

KAYLA: Yeah so you didn’t have to teach people what asexuality was. I don’t know that there is something I really—I am not dissatisfied with what my trajectory has been I guess. I don’t know that I needed to know I was demisexual before I did. I don’t really think back to high school or freshman year of college and be like “man my life would have been so much better if I knew I was demisexual already.” Yeah, I don’t know that there is much I would change about how everything had gone. 

SARAH: On Instagram @emily_elizabeth.6, I can’t believe this is the owner of Clifford the dog, says, “how can I find other aspecs without announcing my sexuality wherever I go? Can I?” which it’s hard because you know as we’ve mentioned—

KAYLA: It’s invisible.

SARAH: It’s invisible and you know I think for me it’s just about reflecting the aspec mindset and aspec lens and those values in your life and how you talk to people and how you interact with people and that might not necessarily mean that you just find a bunch of other aspecs. You might but you might not. It will mean that the people who are drawn to you are the people who share those values whether they’re aspec or not and I think that’s always a good first step in that direction. Challenge people if they’re being super normative. You don’t have to get in a fist fight with people. If it’s not a safe situation for you by all means do what you need to do. But just bringing that aspec perspective to your world and your relationships and your conversations, is a wonderful place to start. 

KAYLA: You can also use the internet. There are Meetup websites, or look on Facebook, if there’s an ace group in your area so you don’t have to announce it to everyone you see on the street. You might be able to find your little group.

SARAH: Ace group in your area. Kayla’s not going to get that joke but I hope someone else is. 

KAYLA: I’ve seen some people wearing an ace ring and having other people notice it, so that’s not a super blatant announcement that you’re ace but having the people that know will know.

SARAH: @Poseidon_with_a_c is asking several good questions. “Do you consider yourselves proud of your sexual orientations?” I’m not not proud but it’s just like, I’ve said this a lot. It’s just a part of me. It’s not a huge part of me. It’s just a little slice of the Sarah pie and I know that that seems counterintuitive because I have this podcast but my identity is just a little bit of me. I’m not not proud of it. It’s not my whole identity and that’s chill if it is and chill if it isn’t but I don’t think of myself as being proud of being a certain identity but I’m also actively not proud.

KAYLA: I don’t know that it’s my identity I’m proud of rather than so much as being able to get to the point where I accepted it. I’ve done a lot of reflecting lately on what it was like for me to realize I was demisexual and what that process was like for me. It kind of happened and I didn’t think about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about it recently, like that was a hard thing for me to do. Coming to terms with your sexuality is never super easy but I’m like, I could have handled it better I guess, I think anyone could have, but I’m proud of the way I got through it and handled it.

SARAH: Cause it got you to where you are now. 

KAYLA: Yeah so I think I’m more proud of that. It’s weird to be proud of something that’s just fact.

SARAH: That’s like me saying—I was actually going to say that’s like me saying “I’m proud of having blue eyes” but that actually does sound very white supremacist. But that just points out it’s absurd to say you’re proud of a certain inherent fact about you.

KAYLA: I’m not proud I have curly hair. I think it’s cool and I am proud of the way I’ve recently learned how to take better care of it but it wasn’t my choice. It’s not like it’s an accomplishment to me at least. It’s not like “I’m proud I won this award.” I didn’t put any effort into becoming demisexual. I just am.

SARAH: Yeah pride feels like you’re celebrating an accomplishment so I think you’re right in saying I think the things to be most proud of when it comes to pride are ourselves and how we have overcome certain situations and how we convey ourselves and show ourselves to the world and that’s something to be proud of regardless of how out or not out you are. It does feel a little bit weird to be like, “I’m proud that I like dick you know?”

KAYLA: It’s easier to say I’m proud than to explain, no I’m proud of myself for blah blah blah but yeah.

SARAH: Yeah and I think it’s also reclaiming it. You think I’m lesser because of this but no I’m glad I’m this way. There’s a recognition in that sense.

KAYLA: It’s taking the shame away, like I’m not ashamed to be this way. 

SARAH: Yeah. Well now that we’ve fucking psychoanalyzed what pride means, I have another one from @poseidon_with_a_C, “do you experience celebrity crushes or anything like it?” 

KAYLA: I think there are celebrities that are attractive. I’ve never been like, “I want to date or have sex with this celebrity” but I also don’t know if that’s how other people experience celebrity crushes so I don’t actually know what a normal “celebrity crush” is supposed to look like.

SARAH: I think people do want to have sex with celebrities.

KAYLA: That just baffles me. But it makes sense that that doesn’t connect for me.

SARAH: I could find people very attractive. Aesthetic attraction, oh yeah you so spicy. But it’s not a traditional crush—it could be more like a squish, I would love to be friends with you. But, you’re famous and I’m watching YouTube videos of you and that’s a little weird. Yeah I think that is a misconception about aspec people that they just don’t—especially aroace people—that they don’t have any crush-adjacent things but it’s like no, you can still stan your favorite people and still really like them without being sexually or romantically attracted to them. That’s very very possible.

KAYLA: Yeah there’s so many other types of attraction and it’s like, if an aroace person says they’re oriented in a certain way, more sapphic oriented, maybe I don’t want to date or have sex with a woman but maybe in other ways, like platonic or aesthetic, they’re drawn more than to other people. There are a lot of different attraction types. “How has your relationship with your gender or sexuality changed since gaining a larger following?” That’s from Peanut Butter Lizard.

(40:00)

SARAH: Peanut Butter Lizard.

KAYLA: On Discord. And it looks like their picture on Discord is a lizard of peanut butter. 

SARAH: Oh it does look like a  lizard of peanut butter. I don’t know how else to explain it. You’re right. I don’t know, that’s a good question.

KAYLA: This is something we talked about on the POV podcast. I’m not sure if it’ll make the cut but myself I came to terms with being demisexual very publicly on the podcast like you can very clearly hear me go through that process. And at the time we didn’t have many listeners so it was more comfortable for me to publicly not know what was going on. And I think that’s definitely changed since we have a larger audience. Like recently I’ve been questioning my romantic orientation. But it is harder because whatever I say is published online. There’s a record of it, we’re publishing a book. Whatever I say my orientation is in that book is going to get published. I do think it’s harder in that sense of that like, it’s harder for me to privately question and experiment with different labels, to figure that out without other people perceiving me. 

SARAH: Yeah that’s fair. I think I am less—I don’t want to say I’m less solid in what my identity is because that’s not true. The way I talk about it, I’m definitely careful to emphasize the nebulousness and wiggly jiggly-ness of it more because of the podcast. And part of that is me being more informed and talk about it so often. But I feel like I’m less likely to be like, well yeah I am exactly this orientation and I’m never going to experience whatever in my life. I don’t know that. And so I feel like it’s just made me more aware of the loosey-gooseyness of it all. I try to avoid especially in regards to myself taking super strong stances on stuff because that’s like, who knows? Who knows? Nicole Hathaway asks, “feelings on wanting to be”— I assume this means sexy/attractive but also being ace? I don’t think those things are in contention with each other. I think you can want to be attractive and even want to look sexy and be ace because your sexuality is about the attraction is not about the experience, it’s about how you present, it’s not about—you can’t control how other people are attracted to you. And so if that’s how you want to present yourself and that’s what makes you feel good I don’t think there’s any conflict there.

KAYLA: It also gets back to the point of who you’re dressing for. If you feel good when you’re dressed sexy then do it. You aren’t necessarily dressing sexy to attract someone else. I am in a monogamous relationship, I’m not trying to go out and attract other people but that doesn’t mean that I can’t dress sexy for myself or so people in general know I’m hot without them trying to get with me you know?

SARAH: Yeah. On Twitter this is from @autumnb_sings. It’s basically the same question of what you would like to have to celebrate pride besides the typical parade/march but they’d also said they’d personally love a big queer potluck of the sort which I think is an excellent idea.

KAYLA: Yeah I definitely think there’s definitely these events and they’re smaller—like we’ve participated in and done smaller talks like this of just more educational, it’s smaller, I think those events don’t get publicized as much as things. You can’t talk to someone or talk to them about their experience or share stories or anything. But those things obviously do exist. They’re not what’s going to be on TV.

SARAH: This is from Liz Anita on Instagram kind of going back to what we were saying earlier on pride, “how can I be “proud” of being ace? Should I strive to? Being ace is just simply a part of me, after all!” You don’t have to feel pride in your identity. It’s not a requirement.

KAYLA: If it’s not something you’re interested in, don’t strive for it. 

SARAH: Yeah.

KAYLA: Don’t put pressure on yourself or feel like you have to spend time getting a certain way if you don’t want to. You don’t need to have ace in your Twitter bio.

SARAH: I don’t.

KAYLA: Or have an ace flag. Or you know, you don’t need to.

SARAH: I think if you actively dislike your identity and actively have something against it, I would urge you to move away from that and learn to appreciate that for being a part of you which it is. If you don’t want to advertise or have it be a big thing you don’t have to. I don’t have my identity in my bio on any social media. It’s not a requirement that you be big and loud about it if you don’t want to. And that doesn’t make you any less aspec than someone who is. 

KAYLA: Right. Like take Sarah. Like Sarah has said many times, aside from the podcast she doesn’t think about being ace or aro that much, it’s just how it is and Sarah is obviously still an ace person so.

SARAH: Vibin’. Do you want to do one more?

KAYLA: Sure.

SARAH: Pick one.

KAYLA: What are your favorite things about being aspec? Also happy pride. That’s from violet 7 on Instagram.

SARAH: My favorite things about being aspec is it has made me aware of—the aspec lens, again we’re back on this lil lensy boy—it has made me aware that there are other ways to be and you don’t have to do exactly what the rest of society wants you to do and that can apply to your sexuality, romantic orientation or specific other things, which is what we’re writing our book about. But I think it’s just opened the door to me to better understand that everything’s made up which is frustrating because you’re like why does everyone care so much, it’s all made up. But I think it’s good in guiding the way I live my own life.

KAYLA: Yeah I think the aspec community has made me more open person in general like you’re saying. When I was growing up I assumed everyone wanted to fall in love and get married or whatever and now learning that is obviously not true makes me more open to the fact of like, okay I assume this about everyone but if someone tells me they go against that, it’s taught me not to judge those types of people people or be confused about it because I have first hand experience being outside of that.
SARAH: Yeah we’re all just vibing let us vibe. Yeah well thank you for all your questions, sorry we couldn't get to all of them but there were a great many. But you were right, as I went through them, several people asked us about worms. Kayla, what’s our poll for this week?

KAYLA: Oh man. I like the question of what does your ideal pride celebration look like?

SARAH: Yes what does your ideal pride celebration look like but also what would you like to add to pride if you could? Is there something you would like to add? I would like to see what people think. What is your beef and your juice this week?

KAYLA: My beef is I had to go back to work after a long weekend which is always—

SARAH: Cruel. Cruel and unusual punishment.

KAYLA: Depressing. The post-vacation sad really do be hitting. My juice is that I have much less to do in June. I had a very busy May with family visits and stuff which was very nice and I loved them but I also very much love my vegging out on the couch time so I’m looking forward to getting into my couch.

SARAH: To becoming a vegetable?

KAYLA: Yes.

SARAH: Did you know that really there’s no such thing as a vegetable from a botanical standpoint? There’s leaves, there’s things that grow underground, and there’s trees. But the only thing that makes them vegetable is that we say they ae. Anyway.

KAYLA: And that’s the only reason anything is anything is because.

SARAH: I know but it’s especially true with vegetables. Just let me live my life. My juice is Bo Burnham’s new special. It’s very funny it’s very good. Specifically the song Funny Feeling, followed by Hands Up (Eyes on Me). Oh, it’ll getcha. As it always is with Bo, it’s funny but also you’ll reconsider everything you’ve ever known and maybe cry.

KAYLA: I don’t know if I’m quite ready to watch it, if I’m in the mental state to watch it but.

SARAH: Yeah. My beef is menstruation. I am a cis woman but at what cost?

KAYLA: I think that every day of my life.

SARAH: Okay you can tell us about your beef, your juice, your thoughts on the new Bo Burnham special and what you want to do at pride on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod, where you can support us there. Pretty much all of our money goes towards transcribing episodes and making them more accessible so get on that if that is of interest to you. Our $5 patrons which we are highlighting this week are Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, and Ashley W. Thank you all you such delightful people I assume. Our $10 patrons who are promoting things this week are Doug Rice who would like to promote Church Too by Emily Joy, H. Valdis who would like to promote keeping your space clean and Purple Chickadee who would like to promote using they as a gender neutral singular pronoun. Our other $10 patrons are Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Anonymous, Sarah McCoy, my aunt Jeannie, Cass, Barefoot Backpacker, The Steve, Ari K, Mattie, Derek and Carissa, Aaron, Khadir, Potater, ChangelingMX, Sarah Kujawa, David Jay, The Stubby Tech, Simona Sajmon, and Rosie Costello. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote free mom hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone’s Special and No One is, Leila, who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people, that’s a good thing to remember this pride, love is love it’s all of us, thank you Leila for this apt reminder.

KAYLA: Oh my.

SARAH: Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia, Sherronda J Brown, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote Minnie, Leia, and Loki, Andrew Hillum would like to promote finding your words and your people during pride month, and Dragonfly who would also like to promote not receiving additional calls while you’re recording the patrons.

KAYLA: I have a new juice.

SARAH: What?

KAYLA: I posted on Instagram today and two random spammy brands commented like “wanna collab” so now all of my friends are commenting on the picture “do you wanna collab?”

SARAH: I considered commenting that as well.

KAYLA: I don’t understand your comment.

SARAH: It’s the next fucking lyrics in the song.

KAYLA: Okay mine is a reference to the vine not the song.

SARAH: Things are going well guys. I just had to take a phone call that I really didn’t need to take. Kayla stopped recording because her mic wasn’t working right. Literally there’s two things left to say on the podcast and we’re struggling here. Our $20 patron is Sarah T who would like to promote long walks outside. Thanks for listening, tune in not next Sunday but the following Sunday for more of us in your ears.

KAYLA: And until then take good care of your cows.

SARAH: Happy pride!