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Where do you fall on the aromantic spectrum??

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Here’s a reminder for anyone who thinks that conservatives accept aces: they think we need to be fixed. They think women and feminine people are inherently asexual but they mean it in a way that agency is removed, not as an orientation.

It’s also not a sudden switch. The churches I grew up in preached that sexuality was reserved for your husband, and that if you had boobs (they didn’t recognize anything but cis existed) that your body was inherently tempting, and men’s attraction to you was your responsibility.

Also — while I went to church camp every summer and did Bible Quizzing (I was really good at that actually) and was in the church pageant and youth groups and all of that — I know many people raised in much stricter churches, and that includes stricter purity culture beliefs.

The idea that men and masculine people wouldn’t want sex? Utterly unthinkable. I even remember having conversations in my Christian college with women who wanted to get married who said that part of their marriage was the duty to be sexually available to their husbands.

The body I was raised with was meant for the service of a future husband, not me. And that bled into secular culture (still does). Claiming my aceness was a huge part of claiming agency over my body and healing from the idea that it could only exist for others.

Here’s the thing: in a nutshell, women and feminine people are seen as not wanting sex, but having bodies inherently sexually tempting to men and masculine people. When the two marry, she must give her body to her husband in every way. And yeah, it’s as gross as it sounds.

Just because conservatives didn’t say “asexual” before doesn’t make this rhetoric new. Purity culture has been against anything not based in some 1950s idealized sexuality in marriage for a very long time. Very cis heteronormative— two things aces are not. The only difference is that conservatives are including the word “asexual” in their sexual ethics now.

Wrote an essay about it here.

But yeah it’s not new. They’re just learning how to use more vocabulary to say what they were already saying.

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ace and aro dragon 😌

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Source

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thank you romo-aros thank you romance-favorable aros thank you aros in romantic relationships you do so much for our community

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Aspecs. Acespecs. Arospecs. Aplspecs. Reblog if you agree.

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What does it mean to be “aromantic enough”? — Some thoughts on aromantic history and identity

We, the aromantic community, are a young community with a short history (so far), but I still wanted to reflect a bit on our roots and talk about how we define aromanticism and who “belongs” in our community, since I see a lot of self-doubting aros who worry that they don’t.

There used to be an asexuality-centered Yahoo group called “Haven for the Human Amoeba (HHA),” which was created in 2000, predating AVEN by over a year. The first known usage of the word “aromantic” happened in this group in 2002 when a user named maxnova100 said the following:

It’s quite disheartening to see friends of mine sacrifice what was once important to them (friends, pets, work, hobbies) for the sake of trasient “relationships.” Now, it’s understandable that people make such sacrifices for spouses and children, but those who throw aside things that once defined their lives to make time for a fling that they know won’t last more than a month, that to me is incomprehensible.

As such, I’d have to say that I’m not so much asexual (in that I have some sex drive, though probably much less than what’s “normal” for someone my age) as averse to having “romantic” relationships. They take up too much time and emotional energy (I’ve always felt emotionally drained and tired after what few “dates” I’ve been on) and subtract away from the things I really value in life. The concept of putting my hobbies, work, and avocational interests on the back burner for the sake of keeping a girlfriend entertained seems about as appealing to me as having a 100 pound ball and chain around my ankles.

Nor is this due to being a “loner,” as I enjoy the company of all types of people as friends and casual acquaintances. What would be an appropriate term for somebody who is not quite asexual but who dreads the concept of being in a “relationship?” Aromantic (LOL)?

Part of what’s interesting about this is that there’s no way of knowing for sure whether the person writing this had experienced what we would now describe as romantic attraction. What we do know is that they did not identify as asexual, that they had been on dates in the past, and that the reason they described themself as aromantic was specifically due to their aversion to romance.

The reason why I point this out is because I have often seen people, especially those who are newer to our community, question whether they’re “really aromantic,” if they’re allosexual (non-asexual), if they’ve been in romantic relationships before, or if they aren’t sure whether they “really don’t feel attraction or if they do but are just romance repulsed.” But here, we see the first known usage of the word aromantic being used to describe someone who did not identify as asexual, who had been on dates before, and who was using the word specifically to refer to their aversion to romance (not necessarily a lack of romantic attraction).

The first known use of “aromantic” to specifically refer to a lack of romantic attraction was in a comment on an AVEN poll in 2005, specifically in reference to aromantic asexuals (who until then were referred to as asexual-asexual for lack of a better term). By 2008-2009, the term started to be used more frequently, and a few years later, around 2011, our community’s first flag was designed on the National Coalition for Aromantic Visibility.

This flag, the original aromantic flag, had four stripes. These were a green stripe, a yellow stripe, an orange stripe, and a black stripe. Most sources either describe the orange stripe as having symbolized either gray-(a)romantics or lithromantics, and the black stripe as having symbolized alloromantics who “rejected traditional ideas of romance” (or something along similar lines). This shows that once there started to be somewhat of an aromantic community, people on the aromantic spectrum (outside of those who experience no romantic attraction at all) were considered a part of the community, as were some people who experienced romantic attraction but simply “rejected traditional ideas of romance” (at least, according to the standards of whoever designed our first flag). This flag was later replaced, in part because it was criticized for including alloromantic people but not including many identities on the aromantic spectrum, but these details are still interesting to note.

Nowadays, according to AUREA, aromantic is used to mean anyone who feels little to no romantic attraction or whose relationship to romance is non-normative. This includes gray-aros, demiromantics, lithromantics, frayromantics, cupioromantics, and anyone else on the aro spectrum. This includes allosexual (non-asexual) aromantics, partnering aromantics, and romance favorable aromantics. I would argue that it even includes people who experience average levels of romantic attraction but are uninterested in having or do not enjoy having romantic relationships/experiences (i.e., “orchidromantic” people).

All this is to say, no matter where you fall on the aromantic spectrum, if you feel that “aromantic” is the most accurate description of who you are and of your experiences and relationship to romance, then it is your word. You are just as aromantic as I am as a nonpartnering romance repulsed aroace who experiences no romantic attraction whatsoever. So long as you choose to be a part of it, you belong in our community.

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For purposes of this poll, arospec means on the aromantic spectrum but not 100% aromantic.

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a last little thing for aro week - redrew of a poem from 2014. transcript under the cut:

I refuse to see that my life is led in expectation of the day I wed I am more than just a bride or the groom by their side

I am sick of being told to wait that life can't start until that late doubting my own happiness as if what I feel is somehow less

in this bright wide world to explore I'm sure to learn much and then some more it doesn't matter who I'll meet don't you think I'm already complete?

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these birds are proud to be aro and i hope you can be too

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"love is what makes us human" okay you underestimate my desire to be nonhuman

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Hey i want to send a big shout out to everyone who uses older aspec terminology. shoutout to people who use zed instead of allo, who still primarily describe themselves as partnering or non partnering or favorable. shoutout to using nonsam and not making the jump to the newer similar terms. shout out to people who dont keep up with all the latest identities and labels. shoutout to they people who are still using greyspec and who are helping keep where we came from alive. its super cool that you keep doing that and i cant wait for younger people to find out about their options because those terms and phrases are still being used.

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i love you trans aros i love you nonbinary aros i love you genderqueer aros i love you intersex aros i love you agender aros