arowitharrows

[arowitharrows]

Oh wow, this is amazing!! I'm a bit speechless. thank you for sharing your art, it's so well done and really captures the imagery I was going for <2

My aromanticism is not a soft suffering waiting for you to shape it, lovingly, into something you can pity. I am not seeking your tender validation.

I do not need you to explain love to me.

Were we not hand fed the same dreams, the same wishes? Were we not given the same template, told to fill in the blanks with the same values? I've spent all my life being forced into the shape of someone like you.

I know what love is.

Let me explain lovelessness to you.

Let me press my hands deep into something you never questioned and let me break it open. Let me show you the rugged edges, the sharp teeth buried inside. If I bare my heart to you, will you see me as human?

My aromanticism is wrapped in bitter sharp barbed wire edges. You may lay your hands upon me but beware of shaping me.

[arowitharrows]

Hi I'm one of those romance-favorable aros that people keep bringing up and I'd just like to say:

Stop using my identity to invalidate my aro siblings

And if you're truly set on making aro characters romance-favorable, then do that!

My experiences are not the same as someone who is alloromantic just because I'm romance-favorable. You can't just slap 'romance-favorable' on an aro character to write them how you would an allo.

Have them grapple with being in a relationship and feeling guilty that they don't feel what their partner feels. Have them have tough conversations with their partner over how they feel and their specific limits. Have them fight the internalized arophobia they feel that tells them they can't really be aro if they're in a romantic relationship.

But for the love of God, stop just slapping 'romance-favorable' on aro characters to ignore the fact that they are aro.

[arowitharrows]

I never saw people say stuff like this enough when I was a teenager, so I’m saying it now.

I’m in my mid-thirties and I have never had sex. I’ve thought about it and could have had one or two opportunities if I put in more effort, but I always decided against it because I just wasn’t into it at the time.

I can safely say that I do not feel I have missed out on anything. I was perfectly capable, by myself, of learning about my own body and boundaries without anyone else there to muddy the waters. The immense pressure that was there in my teens/twenties to Have Sex Just Do It is basically gone. I’m vibing. I’ve got my routine by myself in bed that I enjoy, and that’s enough for me.

And in the unlikely event that I ever decide to have sex with someone in the future, I don’t feel at all like I’m lacking some essential Knowledge or Skill that would “make it good” for someone else. I fully expect to ask my partner out loud what they like and to receive an answer clearly communicated and to relax and have fun. And if it’s a disappointing experience, I’m fine with that too. It is what it is.

Sex is just not that big of a deal. I suspected it as a teen, and I’m more sure of it now. It’s fine to have it or not have it. It’s whatever.

[arowitharrows]

If the people in a relationship say it's platonic, then it's platonic, regardless of your preconceived notions about commitment, cohabitation, gender, sex or other physical intimacy, and anything else you associate with a strict position on a romantic/platonic binary. Likewise, if the people in a relationship say it's romantic, then it's romantic, again regardless of your preconceived notions about commitment, cohabitation, gender, sex or other physical intimacy, and anything else you associate with a strict position on a romantic/platonic binary. Friends can have sex and/or live together, and romantic partners don't need to. People can also do either of those things or neither without placing themselves in a platonic-romantic binary.

Platonic and romantic relationships (as well as, frankly, sex itself, if you take a look at the way sex has been typically defined in such a cisheteronormative way) are way too socially constructed for your stereotypes to overrule the actual intent and self-understanding of the people those relationships most matter to.

[arowitharrows]

God put me on this earth to not date anybody

[arowitharrows]

the "how would we build a non-amatonormative society, where no kind of relationship or family is legally privileged over another, and being single doesn't put you at a financial and social disadvantage?" discussion is one I absolutely think we should be having

but I do also think it would be nice if an aro person could make a vent post about how amatonormativity negatively affects their life without immediately being asked to come up with a fullproof solution for reorganizing our culture and legal system

it is not the responsibility of marginalized people to have a solution for the problems that affect them before they are allowed to point out that the problems exist

[arowitharrows]

"marriage is the ONLY way to get these protections" "there is NO WAY to hack a legal arrangement to cover everything that marriage grants" "kiddos you don't remember what it was like before we could get married, we finally got rights because we could get married" Okay But You Recognize Why That's Bad, Right. Like that is really, really bad that you have to enter a specific type of relationship to get legal rights. That is A Problem. You recognize that that is Not A Good Thing, Right

[arowitharrows]

Some aros reject the concept of love altogether and others redefine it for themselves. Neither of these is the wrong way to go about it. The wrong way to go about it is being an asshole.

[arowitharrows]

Basically I think that if aromantic is a word that you think is Helpful to describe your experiences and you want to use it to describe yourself, or would if you weren't scared of being Wrong, then you Are aromantic.

[arowitharrows]

have you ever thought about how amatonormativity is so prevalent that it twisted the word "relationship" to generally mean "a romantic relationship" in normal conversation. saying "I'm in a relationship" should be an inane statement. everyone is in relationships dipshit it came free with your membership card to a social species. but alas

[arowitharrows]

Yes! My sister made the cushion for me <2

since it's hard to find aro flags at pride I made my own flag this year

[arowitharrows]

since it's hard to find aro flags at pride I made my own flag this year

[arowitharrows]

"Single people are on average less healthy, less financially stable, and overall less satisfied with life than partnered and married people are. This must mean that monogamous relationships and marriage are the solution to society's problems"

Huh, it's almost like society, both socially and financially, is set up to specifically benefit people who have monogamous relationships and get married and punish people who don't partner or get married. It's almost like there are financial benefits that exist specifically to incentivize people to get married and have kids and be a nuclear family. It's almost like it was very culturally normal until very very very recently to just not have any deeper platonic relationships after you get married, meaning that single people past a certain age just get left behind and get treated as spinsters or loser bachelors. It's like life just is not designed for single people to be able to easily participate and survive while still being single. Huh, very weird. I'm sure marriage will fix this.

[arowitharrows]

do people get that romance repulsion is a real thing. like i know that it is not a term that many people have heard but the kind of responses i see from people when i talk ab my feelings on romance sometimes… do people understand that it’s like. sometimes a real feeling of nausea that you can’t control. it seems to click for everyone that someone might be innately repulsed by the idea of sex or that someone might have a negative response to seeing romantic stuff because they want it really bad and it upsets them to see other people have it but the second an aromantic person has a negative response to romance that is not emotionally invested suddenly they are a supervillain only interested in kicking people’s puppies and personally attacking anyone who’s ever been in love

[arowitharrows]

I want to live in a world where aromantic people and asexual people don’t have to lie to our doctors and therapists about our orientations to avoid them attempting to “fix” us, find an “underlying cause” for who we are, or take us off necessary medications like antidepressants just in case they’re “suppressing our emotions”. I want to live in a world where openly experiencing a lack of romantic and/or sexual attraction is not a barrier to receiving adequate healthcare.

[arowitharrows]

if you say “but aros can still date!” about your aromantic blorbo, I need you to mean it. you can’t make the ship just boring old romance.

your blorbo is still aromantic, so how would that color their relationships? how would that affect their daily life? do they struggle with feeling “greedy” because they can’t love their partner back the way their partner loves them? do they have a hard time with an allo partner because on a fundamental level they don’t quite understand what romance is like, even if they’re experiencing it? on the positive side; what societal boundaries of romance do they cast aside or embrace? how do they navigate a romantic relationship differently than their peers? if it’s an aro4aro partnership, how is it unique? how much does being aro define their relationship vs. just their own personal quirks? is that even a line that can be drawn?

an aro relationship is different from an allo one. I promise, it’s so much more fun to explore what that means and the consequences of that than just “oh aros can date so they’re dating in the same way any allos would”.

[arowitharrows]

Asexual people who feel pressured into having sex when they don’t want to and queer people that are afraid or ashamed of having sex even though they want to are actually being repressed by the same societal forces but nobody seems to want to talk about that