#Amatanormativity

[yeehawpim]

here is the original comic i'm talking about

here is some stuff on relationship anarchy

here is a blog post that helped me (it's about sexual attraction but it resonated with me about romantic attraction too)

I get this isn't a very satisfying conclusion, but hopefully this helps someone😅also to add on, it's totally ok not to have a label or change as you figure out more about yourself! I think realizing I could be comfortable and happy being aro/ace really helped me decide

[aro-absol]

You know what I like so much about the aromantic community?

We have so many concepts that the average alloromantic person has never heard of. Concepts that make it so much easier to explain our experiences, desires and struggles to other people. They make it so much easier to exist as an aromantic person in this world. Of course, every aromantic person can decide whether they find these concepts helpful and applicable to their experiences. But I find it amazing how many cool concepts the aromantic community either came up with or took pre-existing concepts and made them our aromantic 101. I don't think the allos really get how being aromantic can fundamentally change your worldview. And to be honest, I think they're missing out because I think everyone would benefit from at least being familiar with those concepts.

Being aromantic is basically like this:

Aromantic shrimp colours are real.

Anyways, aromantic community, y'all mean a lot to me and I'm so happy I found y'all and now share your "secret" knowledge!

[angryaromantics]

I think what the alloro's don't get is we're not like, out to take love from them. We don't see the word love and automatically grow rabidly angry (mostly lol).

For example, I just saw a text post that was something like, "I love love and being a lover." This was fine. It didn't make me feel gross. It didn't make me feel less than. And what it really boils down to is how that love is being framed.

This post is personal. They have strong feelings about love!! Great!! The "I" takes a strong lead in the sentence. Good job, op, I support you.

What I've seen piss a lot of people off is the posts of the genre, "_____ is about love," or "love is all that matters, " or even, "love is what makes us human." These statements automatically rope EVERYONE into the sentiment.

I try to see many of them with grace. Sure, love is in the soup, whatever. I can recognize that this is just a silly sentiment about how soup makes us warm, and food can be shared at the dinner table, etc. It's a metaphor in action. It might annoy me, but there are no real repercussions of that thought process.

The ones that are trying to sell love to everyone as the most important, vital thing in the world, though? Steeped in amatanormativity. And that is just furthering the cycle of dehumanization for aro people. And they don't even realize it.

[short-wooloo]

The Jedi are an aro/ace culture that live happy and fulfilling lives and people hate them for it

People steeped in amatanormativity can't stand the idea that people don't want/need romance and can not only be content without it, but in fact very happy without romance

And thus they hate the Jedi, because an entire culture (even a fictional one) that is aro/ace-normative is an affront to them

[buckyeagan]

Really sick of family members rolling their eyes when I express my disinterest in a relationship. They always say I don’t want one yet. No, sorry. You know I’m aroace I don’t want one. End of story just respect it.

[heartless-aro]

i wanna hit amatanormativity with a bat until it’s smashed to pieces. i think that would be fun

[scretladyspider]

Asexual and aromantic are not “spicy straight trying to be special LGBT”.

This argument, much like “you’re not really bi/pan if you are with someone of the opposite gender”, asks for visibly performative queerness then ignores the inherent queerness in these experiences.

If being straight is being allosexual, heterosexual, heteroromantic, alloromantic, and cisgender, all at once, then a person only needs to not be one of these to call themselves queer if they want to.

This always ruffles feathers, but..cishet isn’t the inherent opposite of queer.

Allosexual — not ace or under its umbrella

Alloromantic — not aro or under its umbrella

cisgender — aligning with your gender assigned/designated at birth

Heterosexual— sexual attraction to the opposite gender

Heteroromantic — romantic attraction to the opposite gender

If all aces and aros were cishet, which we’re not but just for the sake of this example, how would this detract from the queerness inherent in asexuality and aromanticism? Each are complex spectrums of a fundamentally different experience than the world teaches us we should have.

Aces, aros, and bi/pan people in “straight passing” relationships are often lumped into cishet as a way of delineating “not queer”, regardless of other factors. But this dismisses queerness and asks for specific, unnamed perimeters to be met for it to be recognized.

When presented with ways that experiencing little to no sexual attraction, or little to no romantic attraction, are in fact in opposition with the expectation for everyone to have both (allonormativity and amatanormativity or amanormativity respectively), people don’t accept it. Or rather, they don’t accept it as a thing on its own. Sometimes this means getting treated as if you’re just trying to be edgy, as if proclaiming you’re part of a marginalized group gives social media clout or something. Other times it’s just not treated as enough on its own by other queer people.

This happens in ace and aro spaces too. Cishet is used often as shorthand for “not queer”, directly pushing away aspecs who may be cishet and also ace and/or aro. It doesn’t seem intentionally exclusionary, but unintended exclusion is still exclusion.

This reflects, also, the expectation of performative queerness that is thrown at bi and pan persons both in and out of queer spaces. There are also many aces and aros who are bi and pan, and who may or may not be cisgender.

The reality however is there is no way to “perform” queerness that is satisfactory to all who demand it. The result this odd sort of existence where when one appears queer “enough”, that is used as weaponry against them, but when it isn’t, it’s used to exclude queer people from queerness.

And the real kicker is asexual and aromantic are enough. Bi/pan folks are still their orientation regardless of what their relationship looks like. Gender is it’s own thing, separate from the others, but related because this all ends up being a pile of queer identity spaghetti.

Regardless of how queer a person appears to you, or if you understand their individual experience… Ace is enough. Aro is enough.

The demand for performative queerness is used to try to defend from harm, but it ends up attacking anyone not visibly queer enough to the beholder.

We need to be more explicitly inclusive — especially in our own spaces, but also outside of them when talking about how queerness operates. If someone else’s queerness makes your idea of queerness more complicated, that’s not a bad thing. Learn from that, and let them be.

If you see someone is ace or aro and then see they’re more like you than you thought they could be, or that they don’t engage with it how you expected, that’s not a reason to be exclusionary. It’s a reason to try to expand what you include in your idea of queer.

Once, you needed someone to include you to feel comfortable in your queerness.

Set your ego aside and extend a hand to those you don’t quite understand. Be inclusive. Especially if someone’s relationship to their queerness challenges what you thought was possible.

thank you for reading if you like this please consider contributing to my moving expenses, there’s $425 to go and anything and everything helps

you can also find my blog, my links, my socials, read/listen to interviews, or just say hi here on my linktree

thank you again for reading and remember to be inclusive! Other queer people are not your enemy. have a nice day!

[ugly-anarchist]

Occasionally I will be reminded that people REALLY don't like aromantics. I came across some "writing tips" in my recommended posts and it said things like "love is a universal constant" "every story needs romance" "make a tragedy by killing off a character before they can find their one true love" etc and just... Alright.

Guess I'm a tragedy and I exist outside of the universe :)

[snakegentleman]

I think the thing I hate most about amatanormativity is that I’m just supposed to accept that my friends will value me less than their romantic partners. I have been told a lot lately that it is normal and expected that my friends with partners will naturally want to spend less time with me. Even very close friends, and I just don’t think that’s right. I’m on both the aro and ace spectrums and it seems like unless I find a romantic partner, I will always be second priority in any relationship I form, and that is a really uncomfortable place to sit in. I want my friendships to be just as close as my potential romantic relationships, and everyone around me seems to think this is unreasonable

[yeehawpim]

it IS just silly to compare human and animal behaviour like there's a moral lesson, but reading that crows are "socially monogamous but genetically promiscuous" has stuck with me lol

[panaceatthedisco]

The more amatanormative/allonormative posts I see about how Charles feels about Edwin, the harder I start aro-truthing him

[angryaromantics]

I went to someone's wedding yesterday who is very important to me. Her vows included things like, "I wouldn't want to spend my life with anyone else but you," and "you're my favorite person," and "I feel like we share a brain." I think these things were there almost exclusively because she googled how to write vows, but honestly, I found it pretty hurtful.

Like, the way spending your life with someone only counts if it's in a romantic relationship. The way it's not just okay, but expected for you to single someone out in front of all of your friends and family as your favorite of the bunch. In any other situation, that would be considered rude (high-school mean girl behavior).

The reality of the way we view romantic relationships as so much more than platonic relationships is just....inescapable at weddings.

[professor-beaker]

No cuz tell me why heteronormativity has ruined normal social interaction. I told my mom i met a guy dressed as batman at a halloween party (i was dressed as the riddler) and her first response was "aw, its like a hallmark movie" Excuse me????

[communiteee]

Community feels like such a fundamentally aromatic show

-friendship is constantly put first, over and over again. In 2x15 Early 21st Century Romanticism, nearly all the plotlines focus on friendship. Troy and Abed go home together after the dance instead of the romantic interest. The great "I love you" at the end of the day is from Jeff to the study group. Britta and Annie help each other grow (Britta learns a lesson on assumption/egosim, Annie's worldview is expanded). All of this on a Valentine's day episode.

-throughout the show, romantic/sexual relationships are brief or not endgame. It doesn't matter if they're endgame or not, all that matters is the connection and growth (or humor) that they provide, which is anti-amatanormative (if I'm conjugating that right) because they are as natural as the friendships and get far less screen time. Jeff and Britta sleeping together is a funny plot twist in the final episode. They stop immediately upon discovery BECAUSE IT'S WHAT THEIR CHARACTERS WOULD DO!!! Character is not sacrificed for a convenient romance.

-Troy and Abed are the closest thing in the show to a romantic relationship that lasts a significant amount of time, and that is secondary to their friendship. You know the saying "your spouse should be your best friend?" They are like best friends who happen to be spouses - and not even canonically. They are fundamentally queer in that they experience their friendship in a non-amatanormative way.

-Even though Trobed is the closest thing to a romantic relationship, the actual dynamic that underpins the show is between Jeff and Abed which has zero romantic connotations whatsoever. They are two guys who learn mutual respect and grow from each other. They parallel each other (raised by TV, absent parent, seeking connection, etc) and are consistently the ones to truly understand the other. They are both the protagonists and they are friends. This is the "main" relationship.

[heartless-aro]

“You don’t want to fall in love? That’s so sad. Don’t you want to be happy?” Well you see, my beloathed, I am happy already because I actually find joy in different things than you, since I am my own person with my own thoughts and experiences. I spent 10 minutes today watching a spider preen itself and I was having the time of my life. I have experienced joys that you will never understand, not because you are unable to but because you refuse to understand. So kindly fuck off.

[scretladyspider]

Demisexuality exists under the asexuality spectrum because it describes an experience of rare, conditional sexual attraction which only occurs under the circumstances of a close bond. While it’s true many people don’t know they’re demisexual, not everyone is demisexual.

((btw if you like this please reblog this crowdfunding post!!! It’s time sensitive. please and thank you!))

Asexuality, under which demisexuality is housed, describes an experience of little to no sexual attraction. Aces (short for the asexuality spectrum, also abbreviated as acespec) may or may not be aromantic - meaning they may or may not experience little to no romantic attraction. Allosexual means someone isn’t ace, and alloromantic means someone isn’t aro (similar shorthand for aromantic spectrum, also abbreviated as arospec). Here when I say “allo(s)” I will be referring to example persons who are both alloromantic and allosexual.

Demisexuals don’t have sexual attraction at all to anyone without a close bond. It is also only felt towards that person because of the circumstances required to experience sexual attraction. The sexual attraction here doesn’t happen outside of these conditions.

This isn’t the same as experiencing sexual attraction regularly (as an allosexual, not ace, person) but choosing not to act on it before emotional trust is established. Sexual attraction and action can be intertwined, but they don’t have to be.

People always think “sexual attraction and action aren’t the same” is about asexuality and sex favorable aces— and it absolutely can be. But I think most of the time it applies to allosexuals, who don’t act on most sexual attraction they experience, as it’s part of everyday life. I think this is why so many allos don’t understand that demisexuals truly don’t experience sexual attraction at all to anyone until a close bond, if then. They see “oh, that person, like me, waited to have sex until there was trust. Sexual attraction here must mean having sex.”

For the demisexual, sexual attraction is a new, distinct experience, as it only occurs under a specific bond. If a demi is alloromantic and attraction forms towards a romantic partner, it may appear that the act of sex is tied to romantic love, or ‘waiting for the right person’.

This ‘proves’ to the allo, who doesn’t understand that the demisexual didn’t have sexual attraction at all before a bond with the person in question, that demisexuality is about waiting for the right person, but experiencing sexual attraction regularly, as they do. The allo is also assuming the demisexual “just needed to meet the right person”. But the demisexual is only experiencing sexual attraction to the person in question, and not in the everyday manner that the allo is describing in their dismissal of demisexuality. Here the allo is projecting their own experience of waiting to have sex onto what the demisexual is trying so hard to describe. The allo ironically believes action and attraction must be linked, and simultaneously that everyone has sexual attraction (is allosexual).

The reason has to do with allonormativity, amatanormativity, and compulsory sexuality. Both the demi and the allo have been taught that everyone has romantic and sexual attraction, that whether it’s okay to have casual sex is gendered, and that most people don’t have casual sex. To the allo outside looking in, there isn’t any need to differentiate the experience when sex is finally had, because they were just waiting to be in love to have sex. The demisexual isn’t different from them in any way whatsoever in this view because everyone has sexual attraction they don’t act on.

This misunderstanding is also often gendered, specifically in a way that’s cisheterosexist and that reflects ideas of purity culture - namely that all women* wait to have sex and don’t really want or enjoy it, all men* need sex, and that women exist to provide sexual pleasure. (*men and *women are used here to demonstrate the false idea where gender can only align with sex designated at birth. This ignores that presentation doesn’t equal gender and that trans and nonbinary people do exist. This transphobia is common with those who dismiss asexuality).

Asexuality and demisexuality also force the allo to consider that some people they find attractive will never feel the same way, which is a painful ego blow, as part of allonormativity is that someone’s worth is tied to whether they are sexually attractive to other people.

These misunderstandings are a result of not wanting to challenge that internal status quo. People will do anything to keep from being uncomfortable, even if it’s hurting them. But these misunderstandings don’t erase the spectrum of asexuality, or that demisexuals exist within it.

There are people who will never experience sexual attraction. There are people who don’t experience sexual attraction at all unless they form a particular close bond with another person. It’s not about allos, and many allos get very offended about that. But being ace, no matter if sexual attraction is ever felt, or if the ace is favorable towards participating in sex, is not about allos. It’s just not. Being ace is a fundamentally different way of experiencing and interacting with a world in which sexual attraction is expected.

This doesn’t mean that waiting to have sex is wrong. This is to say that there is a fundamental difference in waiting to have sex and not experiencing sexual attraction except under a select circumstance, and then only experiencing it in that limited way. Asexuality and everything housed with in it, including demisexuality, will challenge how you think about sex and sexual attraction. That will not be comfortable. But consider that it’s not about you. Because if everyone were demisexual, we would live in a very different world.