#but loveless aros just Get Things

[lovequeerindigo]

i’m not a loveless aro but i agree with their beliefs

[enbeemagical]

normalize being a little bit in love with your friends

normalize being not at all in love with anything

normalize love being confusing and weird as hell

normalize love not being romantic

normalize love not being

normalize not loving

normalize loving in the wrong way

just. normalize being unapologetically yourself

[weepingfireflies]

no love is literally worthless and the people who act like it has any kind of value are stupid, is it not prove enough that people can go there whole life never feel love or never being loved

I do have to disagree with that a bit tbh. It's really fucking annoying when people act like love is the base of all human development and interaction, and I will bite anyone who tries to peddle that shit, but it's also an Emotion Some People Feel and has inherent worth in that sense. As much as I hate to admit it, alloromantics and non-loveless aros do have a right to meaningful love - the problem I have is when they try to push those ideals onto me. I have emotions, personhood, and relationships beyond love, and no one has the right to tell me my life is "less than" because I don't experience love. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to say love - or any emotion - is worthless because it has value to the people who experience it, even if I'm not one of those people.

And for the record, I do believe most - if not all - people have been "loved" in the mainstream way, or at least have people who care about them. It's obviously not all there is to life, but I guarantee someone cares for you in some fashion (whether it's "love" or not). And it's completely fine to not see this as love, even if the person who cares for you does, but I think it's important to recognize if "not being loved" is something that is just occurring or is actively hurting you. This may not be applicable to you, but I don't want you to feel like you're "alone" in the bad sense.

[arosnowflake]

[Image: Tumblr tags reading '#the feeling was friendship but neither of them had ever experienced it before'.]

what is it about the least canon-compliant aromantic headcanons that makes them the best. like when a character shows no romantic attraction okay that is pretty awesome. but when romance is a big part of a character/plot? oh now we're fucking cooking

[halfdeadwallfly]

how much of my perpetual and intense longing for a romantic relationship is really just a need for emotional closeness + me being touch starved, rather than actually wanting whatever romance is

anyway i'm thinking about QPRs again

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[that-disabled-princess]

I love calling out aphobia. Genuinely. We don't call out aphobia enough, passive or explicit.

Examples of passive aphobia and amato/allonormativity, for anyone wondering:

Implying someone needs a partner or that everyone wants a partner.

Saying "something more" and "more than friends" in reference to getting together. Boy oh boy, do I see this all the time in fanfic. (Other things you can say are "something else", "something different", "other than friends", "in addition to". This way, we're not unintentionally enforcing relationship hierarchies.)

Saying/Implying someone hasn't met the right person yet.

Implying all aros are heartless/don't love (this diminishes platonic attraction/relationships).

Implying all aros feel love (this excludes loveless and aplatonic aros).

Saying aroallos are all sluts.

Implying sex is a milestone people reach.

Implying a first kiss is a milestone to reach.

Enforcing relationships hierarchies, intentionally or otherwise. (This looks like the example above, as well as pitting different types of relationships against each other or saying a certain type of relationship is more important than another.) (Yes, this goes for saying platonic relationships are more important than romantic ones. That excludes aplatonics.)

The only aspec rep in media being the villains/non-human characters/etc. (Disclaimer: Us reclaiming those things is different. I personally love seeing aro rep in non-human characters, but that's just me. Non-human characters being the only aspec rep is the problem.)

Implying all aces are aro.

Implying all aros are ace.

Implying all aros experience platonic attraction.

And much more. The aspec community isn't black and white--that's why it's the a-spectrum.

DISCLAIMER: I am only one loveless aplatonic aromantic and do not speak for the entire aspec community.

[aplarotape]

shoutout to the reminder of The 14th of February showing up on our main's dash because now i know to filter some tags in advance because as someone who's apothiromantic and the current syshost. i don't want it being shoved down my throat if i can help it bc i struggle to leave front often and i know i'll be stuck fronting that day via negative fronting trigger lol

(i mean. what i'm concerned about the most is discord related solely bc i'm an oc fictive and whatnot but. it's the little things that count ig because i still wouldn't wanna personally have to constantly see it either way)

[lovelessrage]

I am once again humbly requesting that aros [although it's an everyone issue I especially see it with others aros] drop the direct link between aromanticism and enjoying platonic intimacy, being friending, wanting familial relationships, loving in other ways, and loving in general [because, reminder, you can be loveless and still have attractions]. It gets really aggravating to constantly see aro identity blanketed and compensated for with "softer" attractions. Not to mention how exclusionary it is to other aros around you.

Aros of all kinds deserve respect. If you value these things and want to share, absolutely do so! Do keep in mind, however, what you label as an "aro thing", and ask yourself if what you see as an "aro thing" is actually just being alloplatonic or allofamilial. It isn't a bad thing to prioritize friendship, family, or other relationships; it just isn't an "aro thing", it's a "your personal happiness".

[nekropsii]

Wild how when I call Shipping Culture oppressively pervasive and awful for any Aro/Ace with the gall to enjoy anything on the Internet, I get called a Fun-Hating Killjoy and told to just shut the fuck up or off myself, no matter how mild or polite my comment is. Wild how when I say a character either is textually Aro/Ace or is easier to read as Aro/Ace than Alloromantic/sexual, people start talking down to me like I'm a child who doesn't know anything, saying "Friendly reminder that Aro(s)/Aces can Date/Have Sex too, just like us Normal People!". As if I don't know anything about my own identity. Wild how when I do either of these things or even just say I'm not into a pairing or uninvested in shipping in general people call me fucking homophobic, even if the (at least popularly perceived - let's be honest, people are wrong half the time) genders of the characters is never once made relevant. Even though their reasoning for me being homophobic is lack of investment in a gay pairing they like, and nothing more. Wild how people throw little baby tantrums at even the gentlest criticism of Shipping Culture, or someone choosing not to engage heavily in it. Wild how they have the audacity to ask, with hostility, what the fuck Aro(s)/Aces are talking about when they say Shipping Culture is hostile to Aro/Ace fans, or ask what's wrong with them when they say that they aren't into Shipping.

It's almost like Bigots don't realize they're being Bigots when they do Bigotry, so just saying you're not a Bigot isn't enough. It's almost like Aro/Ace people know what the hell they're talking about. It's almost like we have a fucking point. It's almost like we're valid in expressing contempt and frustration with the constant expectation to engage with Romance and Sexuality at every waking moment, even if we're Romance and/or Sex Favorable. It's almost like we're tired of getting our identities erased, and we're tired of expecting to "act normal", and we're tired of just taking it when Allos use the Favorable members of our communities as a scapegoat for why they should be allowed to totally erase any of our representation just for their "Harmless Queer Fun" - deliberately, and I mean DELIBERATELY, failing to recognize or acknowledge the character's orientation, and how an A-Spec's personal relationship with and expressions of Love are going to look drastically different from an Allo person's - and call us the Bigots when we even glance in the direction of objection.

It's almost like Allo/Amatonormativity are oppressive forces.

Alloromantics/sexuals are constantly looking for any reason they can to call Aro(s)/Aces unloving, unfeeling, frigid, soulless, cruel. Inhuman. They're looking for any reason they can to call us whiny children, stupid, people who "just haven't found the right one", addressing us only as "Works in Progress", or someone who can have their sexuality corrected with the right stimulus - Conversion Therapy and Corrective Rape are okay when it happens to us, after all. Any reason at all to call us heartless monsters. AlloAces are confused children. They can be fixed. AroAllos are manipulative, unfeeling sexual predators. They can't be fixed - just kill them. AroAces are frigid, mean bitches. They can be fixed. God forbid you're Aplatonic. God forbid you're part of the Repulsed spectrum. God forbid you're one of the Loveless. God forbid you hold any pride in your identity, God forbid you don't keep your mouth shut, God forbid you critique the overinflated importance Allos place onto Love as a concept. God forbid you critique something as asinine and juvenile as fucking Shipping Culture. Do any one of these and you've put a bright red, blazing neon target on your back.

Wild how the only real humans amongst us are the Romance, Sex, and Friendship Favorable who put their head down and mask as Allo, and side with the Allos when their fellow A-Specs get too loud for the comfort of their Allo friend's delicate little fee-fees. After all, Vitriol and Harassment are warranted when an Allo's feelings get slightly hurt that an Aro person says, on their own account, to no one in particular, that they're sick of every tag being 80% Shipping Content. Which is a vehemently evil personal attack, clearly.

Wild.

[sparky-is-spiders]

Okay I'm actually obsessed with the idea of Jon not really feeling the emotions of love or compassion or care or what-not. They want to help because they know its the right thing to do, because helping people matters to them on a moral level, but it was always a struggle to remember to consider other people even before eldritch forces rendered everyone else food. They care because they know they should. They care because they want to be a good person, they want to do good things, but the emotions have just never been there, or Jon has never really been able to recognize them.

Jon spending their whole life trying to be all the things they aren't. The familiar comfort of being an avatar, not because they were always a monster but because they always felt that so many essential parts of being human were already forever out of their reach.

Jon whose monstrous feelings make more sense than their human ones. Jon who has always felt alone, two-steps removed from their peers and the people around them. Jon who struggles to voice their emotions, to even understand them, unless they are coming from this terrible thing growing inside them. Jon for whom emotions have always been a powerful, hostile, alien force. Jon who is constantly reaching for all the feelings that everyone else seems to have and understand naturally. Jon holding their own feelings up to the light and feeling frustrated and empty until they see something else staring back. Jon who has never felt whole or fully present in reality until the birth of the new world, when they are finally perfectly grounded and present.

[creation-help]

The more I engage with the aro community online, the more I feel that we just need.

More.

There's so many different flavors of aromantic and what that means for each person and it's sad to see infighting over what is and isn't valid representation and my advice to upcoming creators is to just.

More. Have more.

Aros who partner Aros who don't, Aros who like sex, aroaces, loveless Aros, loving Aros, Aros who focus on non romantic relationships instead Aros who focus on no relationships and find their own thing. All kinds. The microlabels too - did you even know of some of them? I bet you didn't. There's aromantic people who feel rom attraction only if it's reciprocated and vice versa! There's Aros who can't tell the difference between different types of attraction and so don't label anything. There's aros who only feel attracted after forming a deep bond. Who only rarely feel attraction. Or only under specific circumstances. There's so much variety in aromantic world. Have more representation. Just more.

I'd honestly say this for almost any type of minority rep (though there are nuances to approaching it). Bc when you have more, it's not so much pressure on getting it quote on quote "Right" at once and all your rep isn't riding on one character. Variety is always good. It avoids tokenization and coming across stereotypical

[prototypesteve]

You are your visibility. I know that’s unfair.

Representation matters but representation isn't the end or the beginning.

You can't just post 1,000 Alastor memes and expect banks to make fair mortgages for single people, or expect care professionals to stop trying to cure asexuality.

Representation takes time to execute.

TV seasons take longer to develop than they used to. Books take time to write. Character arcs can take years to play out.

Representation can be deliberately or accidentally misinterpreted.

“So asexuality is when you're bi or gay, but sex-averse? That's what I think I saw in that Heartstopper episode you sent me when Isaac kissed the guy.”

Representation can be deliberately ignored.

“I've never heard of that. I've never seen that in real life.”

Representation can be maliciously dismissed.

“This is a thousand people on the internet telling themselves they're a real thing.”

Representation is a right-place-right-time-right-platform lottery.

“I don't have Netflix or Prime. Never heard of this Has Been Hotel or Heart Starter. I did get that copy of Loveless you sent me, but I've got 17 books ahead of it in my queue.”

Representation can't be exhaustive.

The demisexuals and the aro-allos, and the GenX aces who took decades to discover asexuality was even an option, and the hundred other nuanced expressions of aspec identity that I deliberately didn’t represent here are all sifting through the catalog of ace representation and implied aro representation, looking for something… any evidence they exist.

Representation matters but representation isn't the end or the beginning.

We also need boring old education, advocacy, and presence. You have to keep talking. You have to keep explaining. You have to keep being there in front of real people, with your real life that erodes their bullshit-takes on aromanticism and asexuality.

You are your visibility. I know that’s unfair.

It was unfair for every misrepresented equity-seeking community. The good news is many of those equity-seeking communities have paved the way for us. They taught advocates how to listen, and how to lend their advocacy as long as we’re out there to be listened to, and not waiting around for a critical mass of representation.

[aromantic-diaries]

I manage to stay out of discourse so I haven't seen this firsthand but apparently there's some feud between the favorable and the repulsed sides of the spectrum? Idk this might just be people making things up to get mad about since I've only seen mentions of it but just to be sure I think I should say something

It is true that romance repulsed / non-partnering / loveless / aplatonic aros are often demonized by the allonormative views of society. It is also true that romance favorable / partnering / lovequeer aros are often overlooked or are told that they aren't "aro enough". At the end of the day, there is no winning the who-has-it-worse competition and it is absolutely redundant to try and argue about which specific part of the spectrum struggles the most. There is no right or wrong way to be aromantic, it is a complex identity and all parts of the spectrum should be able to acknowledge eachother's experiences. There is no need for this type of discourse, no winning the argument and nothing to be gained here. We're not all the same and that is fine. It's literally fine and frankly I feel bad for those who insist on fighting over who has it worse. Your own struggle will always feel like the hardest and that doesn't mean no one else could possibly be going through anything. We're all aromantic, we all have our own share of bullshit, we all have a tendency to feel bitter towards those who don't have the same experience as us. That's all.

[genderqueerdykes]

in honor of aromantic spectrum awareness week, i thought i'd take the time to talk about how much my personal life and feelings improved after coming to terms with the fact that i'm aromantic. before i accepted this, i found myself in several romantic relationships where i was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable, and made to feel like i wasn't a good enough partner because i just couldn't do or feel certain things.

i've never enjoyed kissing, and cuddling gets uncomfortable for me within the first few minutes of doing so. even hugs are deeply uncomfortable to me unless i really know and care about someone, and even then, hugs only come when that person asks for them. it never occurs to me to touch people this way, the most you'll get out of me is a pat on the shoulder, back or knee.

i ended up dating several people who were very much romantics, and heavily focused on that aspect of our relationship. it kind of felt like torture to me, i felt like i was being forced to live every day like it was Valentine's Day- every day had to be filled with hours of cuddling, kissing, and telling the other person how much i loved them. while not all romantic partners are like this, it wore on my psyche quickly to be paired with folks like this, because i understood how important it was to them, but i just couldn't keep up the performance.

i thought something was "wrong" with me for years and that i just wasn't in touch with my emotions, or that i was somehow embracing some toxic aspects of my masculinity without realizing. it took me ages to remember that i came out as aromantic when i was much younger, but after criticism from my friends, including a friend who was asexual, i stopped identifying with the label, because i was told that aromanticism wasn't real, and that that just made me an asshole.

nearly a decade and several uncomfortable romantic relationships later, it finally clicked that there wasn't something wrong with me, but there was something wrong with the situations i was getting myself into. sure, i love being partnered- i have a queerplatonic partner that i've known for a decade and have only gotten closer to over time. but we've never been romantic. we don't exchange romantic platitudes, and i realized; i've never been happier with someone else than i am with this person.

why is that?

oh. because they don't expect romance from me. they are also on the aspectrum and don't have a romantic partner, either.

this relationship has brought me more joy than any romantic partnership i've ever attempted to pursue. that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me- i was just looking for happiness in the wrong places. i was miserable not because i'm aromantic, but because i was getting into romantic relationships.

romance can be a source of misery. romance does not inherently make everyone happy. we are not all looking for romance as a species. in fact, chasing it makes many people miserable. too many people spend their lives looking for "the one" that they can kiss, cuddle, hold and say all of those mushy things to when they may not even want that to begin with.

i've never been more at peace with myself since finally, fully accepting that i'm aromantic. i love who i am, and i love how i love. i am not loveless, i experience platonic, queerplatonic and other forms of love. but loveless aromantics aren't miserable, either. we are all embracing ourselves in a way that's true to us. we are refusing to warp ourselves to a society that tells us that we all must have homogeneous feelings.

i am aromantic. i am here. my aromanticism is queer in a society that expects and demands romance of me, and this is true of all aromantics, cis, trans, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, and otherwise. we are here, we are not going away any time soon, and we will not be silent because our identities make some people uncomfortable. we are happiest being who we are.

happy aro week, this goes out to every last arospectrum person out there, appreciate yourselves this week. you deserve it.

[aromanticmina]

The 5 common questions people have about aplatonics

so, I've seen so many blogs on the aplatonic tag having to answer the same questions over and over again, so I figured I could make a list so that people can have an easier time getting to the answers they are looking for! (and apl people can just link back to this post if they're asked one of this questions, if they want to)

What does aplatonic mean?

Aplatonic is a term that refers to the lack of (or experiencing little) platonic attraction or platonic love, it can also mean having trouble forming platonic relationships due to trauma or being neurodivergent.

2. Does that mean aplatonic people don't have friends?

Not necessarily, there are aplatonic people who don't (desire to) have friends or wouldn't label any relationship they have as friendship (even though, to an outsider, some would seem as one), for numbers of reasons.

However, there are some aplatonic people who do have friends, but they're not really close to them/don't feel love for them.

love and care are different things, you can care for someone and want the best for them even when you're not close enough to them to love them.

3. But if aplatonic people don't have friends, does that mean they don't socialize with anyone?

Nope! friendships aren't the only way you can socialize with people. Family, classmates, coworkers, lovers, neighbors, those are all people you have have nice conversations with!

4. Are all aplatonics also aromantic?

Not all of them, while it's true that there are a lot of people who are both aro and apl (see: me), there are aplatonics who are alloromantic (feel romantic attraction) or just don't label their romantic orientation.

(fun fact, the original coiner of the aplatonic label is an alloromantic asexual!)

5. Are all aplatonics also loveless?

Again, not all of them, there is a great overlap between the aplatonic and loveless community (shout out to my loveless apls!), but not all aplatonics identify as loveless.

Some love in a romantic way, familiar way, alterous way (if you don't know what alterous attraction is, I recommend looking it up!) or just in a completely unique but ultimately queer way (hi, it's me, I'm lovequeer).

I still don't really get it...

That's okay, you don't have to understand something to respect it, if you're still curious and want to learn more about us, there are multiple blogs on the #aplatonic tag sharing their different experiences with aplatonicism, you just have to know where to look!

And remember! the Aspec includes the aplatonic spectrum, you can't say you support aspecs if you don't support aplatonic people as well!