calgary-aces-and-aros

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

here’s for the arospecs

aego/autochorisromantic people are stunning! enjoying the concept of romance in theory is totally valid, as is not experiencing or desiring romance! you are wonderfully arospec!

akoi/lithromantic people are spectacular! feeling attraction that leaves when reciprocated is amazingly valid and definitely aro spectrum!

arospec people who experience alterous attraction are splendid! feeling attraction that isn’t romantic, sexual, or platonic is completely valid and you are as arospec as you feel!

apothiromantic people are awesome! romance can totally be gross and repulsion to it is absolutely valid! your arospec identity is 100% valid!

aroflux people are outstanding! change is totally wonderful and no matter how much flux you experience or how often you feel aro or arospec, you are completely valid!

arovague people are absolutely superb, and your neurodivergency influencing your romantic attraction is totally a valid reason to be on the aromantic spectrum!

caedromantic people are fantastic and 100% valid! trauma and ptsd  are completely valid, and not feeling romantic attraction because of them is totally a valid reason to identify as arospec!

cupioromantic people are down-right cool! desiring a romantic relationship without experiencing romantic attraction is totally valid and wonderful! 

demiromantic people are dazzling and are incredibly valid! attraction only after making an emotional bond is absolutely a valid identify on the aro spectrum!

frayromantic people are marvelous! romantic attraction is absolutely valid without an emotional bond and totally natural! your arospec identity is great!

fictoromantic (aro) people incredible and are completely valid in feeling romance only in fictional settings! you are absolutely mature in recognizing your attraction as arospec!

grayromantic people are super great! Experiencing rare or nuanced romantic attraction is a perfectly valid reason to be arospec!

idemromantic people are terrific and belong as incredibly valid members of the aromantic spectrum!

nebularomantic people are amazing and neurodivergency is a wonderfully valid reason to be arospec

recipromantic people are lovely and it is completely natural and wonderful to include you in the aro spectrum!

WTFromantic/quoiromantic people are wonderful and are absolutely valid in not always knowing or even having a line between romantic and platonic attraction

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

pls give me 1(one) reason aces have ever been oppressed, and 1(one) example of aces being a part of lgbt history(before 2004 at least) and then maybe i’ll consider the idea that aces belong in the lgbt community lol

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

You're asexual? But...

“but sex is what makes us human!”

  in 1916 a French officer in his twenties writes his

doctoral dissertation under

heavy mortar fire.

he sends it by mail, a page

at a time, to his wife.

a week before he’s to step up to the podium and

defend his work rather than hiscountry

he is killed in action.

even as the bullets rip

through him he still wishes he could have become a professor

in French literature and

the university awards him a posthumous Ph.D.

sex is

  a woman breaks down in tears on the phone because

a week is not enough time to

get over a breakup.

her sister drives an hour across town,

comes up the front steps with

a gallon of ice cream and somebeer

and together they eat moose tracks and marathon

every

single

Godzilla movie

ever made.

  sex is

she’s late for work but her car isn’t

starting and even through her coat and hat she’s cold.

she knows she can’t be late again because she’s missed

one time too many already because her

father’s nurse was sick with the flu and someone

needed to help him bathe.

the clock ticks past fifteen after and she hits

the wheel like it’s a heavy bag as though that will help

steps on the gas like the car will go

and wonders how she will pay rent

and how she will feed her father.

sex is

  it takes three people to hold the predator down because

even with the cover over his head

a bleeding eye and shattered wing

he is trying to hurt them.

none of them have seen this bird before in their lives but

they bandage his wing and head and give him a painkiller and

put him in a warm place to sleep and heal because

it is right.

at first he is paralyzed and cannot

fly but soon he is taking steps

and then fluttering, and then soaring, and

six months later he is whole and healed and hunting.

once he is gone they never see him again

which means they’ve done their jobs right.

sex is

  in 1969 a girl watches grey-and-white footage on her parents’ tiny television and

can’t quite believe that what she is seeing is not a movie set but

another planet.

the men on the screen look a little like

aliens with bulbous heads and no faces and fat

marshmallow arms

but they are still men.

her mother puffs on a cigarette behind her and declares that

this is progress

even if it was just a small step.

the girl grows up to be not an astronaut but a secretary

and her boss calls her ‘sweetheart’.

but sex is

  a boy is taught that real men don’t cry so

he doesn’t.

when his best friend dies from a self-inflicted

gunshot wound, he locks himself

in the shower every day and sobs under scalding

water until it runs cold

so nobody will see him grieving

so nobody will see that tears are just love that

has no place left to go.

he learns to dull love rather than suppress its expression and

soon the owner of the liquor store knows him by name.

three DUIs, two evictions, and twelve steps later,

he is feeding people at a homeless shelter,

and telling them it’s all right to cry.

Sex is

  the broken man tells the comedian

that he didn’t mean to step in front of the car but the rain

made it hard to see.

he seems okay but his leg

does not.

the comedian clutches a grubby receipt with the driver’s

plate number scrawled on the back

in pink pen, stands out in the rain so the broken man

can have his umbrella,

and gives him the comedy routine that ruined his career

so the man doesn’t think about the pain in his leg.

once he’s out of the hospital, the fixed man sends him a thank-you card

with kittens on it.

what makes us human

  yawning is contagious,

and there is a species of bird whose young we call “pufflings”.

melodic collections of sound, spaced by silence,

can move us to tears.

the tallest building in the world is

two-thousand seven-hundred and seventeen feet tall.

in less than eighty years we went from our first powered flight

to touching the moon,

and in one-hundred from the first phone call

to instantaneous connection between thinking machines of our own creation.

we make pies out of tree organs

and let cow’s milk ferment until it hardens and then

we put them together, because apple pie with cheddar cheese is delicious.

what makes us human is

the earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are

two-hundred thousand years old .

we have had pet dogs

for sixteen-thousand of those years, longer

than corn

or the wheel.

the steps we take are part of

one of the most energy-efficient gaits the

animal kingdom has ever seen.

we invented the concepts of love

and hate

and justice, and mercy

and we invented the language to convey them.

we sharpened rocks, then metal, to convince other people

who don’t hold the same idea of those things as we do

because we think

it’s right.

we are two hundred millennia of love and disappointment and

sorrow and innovation and

mercy and kindness and dreams

and failure

and recovery.

but sex is what makes us human.

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

Overview/reasoning behind flag: I designed a new aroace flag (with some help from others on arocalypse).  There have been many attempts to make an aroace flag, but many of them end up simply being aro & ace flags merged together without distinctive acknowledgement of being for specifically aroace people, rather than covering anyone who is aspec.  Additionally, it’s important to have a flag which recognizes the intersection of the two identities and how they interact to become its own specific identity. Who this flag represents:   This flag is for anyone who identifies as being in some way both aro and ace, including people on the ace and aro spectrums; therefore it was important to include the grey stripe to cover people on the spectrums. However, it is not meant to represent all aspec people, such as allo ace and aro allos.  It is important to have an aroace flag and also an aspec flag, but those two things are not the same (though there has been much confusion between the two in the past).

Reasoning for color choices: I wanted it to be recognizable on sight as pertaining to ace and aro identities, thus the importance of utilizing both the purple and green.  (the green is the light green from the aro flag, whereas the purple doesn’t match the one from the ace flag since it was modified to make the flag aesthetically appealing).  However, it was important to add the blue to make it distinct from other aro and ace flags, to emphasize the intersection of having both identities.  Including the grey and white from both ace and aro flags also helps with recognizability.  An earlier version also had the black stripe, but it was removed due to looking cluttered.

Color meanings:

Purple- Asexuality; the ace aspect of people’s identities. It also represents ties to the ace community as a whole and relating to ace experiences.

Blue- Intersection of having both ace and aro identities.  This acknowledges how interactions with one community are affected by the other identity, and the challenge of being kinda stuck between the two.  Blue was chosen since both green and purple are secondary colors which result from a mixture with blue.

Green- Aromanticism; the aro aspect of people’s identities. It also represents ties to the aro community as a whole and relating to aro experiences.

White- Unity and inclusion within the community of aroace people while acknowledging the diversity among us.  There are many different ways for people to experience being aroace, but we also have much in common and should have a supportive community for all.

Grey- This represents both the aromantic spectrum and the asexual spectrum to explicitly acknowledge their inclusion.  

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

In this household we love and respect ace/aro guys, gals and non-binary pals.

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

“Given how misunderstood asexuality is, dating isn’t always the easiest for aces. To get a better understanding of what it’s like, we spoke with three people who identify as asexual about first dates, sex and what their ideal relationship looks like.“

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

My favorite thing about ace discourse is that multiple well known, helpful, LGBT groups such as the Trevor Project, GLMA, National LGBTQ Task Force, GLSEN and PFLAG recognize and accept Asexuals as part of the community. These are groups that actively work to make people within the lgbt+ community have better lives. And they accept Asexuals.

I’m sorry, but y’alls whinny asses on tumblr screeching ‘muh cishet aces’ don’t have shit other than having a bigoted opinion. I’ll take groups that actually do stuff to help lgbt+ people (and my own sense of morality) word on what constitutes as lgbt+ over you who has nothing better to do but spam tags and harass people any day of the god damn year.

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

The 2018 Asexual Community Survey is now open!

It’s that time of year again – we are now recruiting participants for the Ace Community Survey!

The Ace Community Survey, run by the Ace Community Survey Team, collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities. It is the largest survey of ace communities and creates a valuable pool of data for future ace community activists and researchers.

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or still questioning; as long as you are 13 years of age or older we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other potentially interested individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.

Click here to take the 2018 Ace Community Survey: https://goo.gl/forms/0iOOOCbD5OX0pT3S2

You will be able to view any published results from the survey at:

asexualcensus.wordpress.com.

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

HAPPY ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK

I hope all my fellow aces have a wonderful week

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

https://www.yycaroaces.ca/pride-2018/

We want to thank everyone that came out and marched with us this year as well as those that gave us the support we needed to make this year better

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

wild idea here but… instead of pushing this idea that teenagers can’t be asexual bc they’re children and not wanting sex is normal, how about “if you identify as ace as a teenager but later realize you just didn’t want sex bc you were a kid and stop identifying that way, that’s okay” and realizing that doesn’t mean no one can know they’re asexual as a teenager and stop maybe telling asexual teenagers that they’re too young to be ace bc that’s really weird given that teenagers are cetainly capable of being non-asexual also you totally can’t decide something like that for someone else

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

Available here: https://teespring.com/stores/pride-beach-towels

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

For all my Ace Aro Peeps out there. You are amazing, valid, and always welcomed to the LGBT community. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.

Here are my general Pride ones!

If you dont see your flag here, shoot me a message and ill make one for your flag. Everyone deserves representation!

Feel free to use these as an icon, but please give this a reblog if you do!

Also if you like these be sure to check out my Redbubble!

Do Not Repost

[calgary-aces-and-aros]

Aro/Ace + Cat and Dogs aesthetic for anon

Submitted by @katheo-enderheart