#especially am interested in fellow aces and aroaces

[istilldontunderstand]

So this might be weird, but I'm genuinely curious 🧐 tw: talking about genitals⚠️

Just got polls and I need to ask y'all smth.

Pls (JUST if you feel safe sharing) specify your answer in tags or comments:

1) what did you answer

2) why do you think like that

3) what sexuality you are

Specification:

Do you find them attractive in a sense of either "they look good I wanna look at them and appreciate their beauty" or "they make me aroused I wanna do stuff with them"?

I generally see bodies as very weird although pretty at the same time, but I never focused on like down there😂 oh this is so weird, if this makes you uncomfortable just disregard pls...

[twosoulss77]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you are allowed to have a favourite ship, canon or not, out of a particular show.

Shipping is just a way for artist and what not to explore different dynamics, or even their own. That’s why I believe we should let people enjoy what they like, without forcing our own image of a certain spectrum into them. Especially cause shaming those people, for trying to explore their identity through art, might cause actual harm to them or cause them to not enjoy doing what they like anymore, bc of hateful comments from someone who hides behind a fake identity to hate on a fictional ship, which in itself it’s a very sad and pathetic way to live, but just cause your life is miserable doesn’t mean you need to make others people’s life miserable you know. Go touch Grass when you feel like being a dick!!!

As an AroAce fellow with no desire for a sexual relationship, I applaud and adore all those people making content of my fav husbands, let it be a fics smut or just normal fluff, I love it all SO MUCH Hazbin Hotel ep 5 changed my whole chemistry, and Say what you will about radioapple / appleradio, but I will always be entertained by the idea of Lucifer angrily doing acts of kindness for Alastor because it's what ‘Charlie would want’, and Alastor being a stupid ‘Bambi’ and try to wiggle himself out of it at the beginning, but then realise that he actually doesn’t mind the king of hell company at all. Both slowly growing to actually tolerate and maybe even like being around the other. Exchanging snarky remarks in a more playful way, playing music together, telling dad jokes, hating on the same delusions glorified iPad …like there is so much potential there that it’s crazy how much it pisses people off. It might be cause I am a sucker for Enemies to Friends to Lovers, but by God if that isn’t the best trope.

I know there will be some smart people out there, that are gonna be like “Alastor is ace”, but so are half the people who ship him!!! I hate when people make assumption on us, on who and how we want to love. I might not be interested in participating in sexual stuff myself, but that doesn’t stop me to explore my own ace-spectrum with these two characters, who if they wanted to could and would kiss each other, Cause for one I says so, I have the power to make that happen *insert hysterical laugh* And second It was confirmed that Alastor is a repulsed Ace, but would also be down to date someone if they were strong asf, (Confirmed in a stream, take that with a grain of salt) still makes this ship more possible than others.

Al being Aroace, doesn't mean he can't date or have sex, he's just not all that interested in it, but that could also derive from the fact that he hasn’t found the right person yet, so it doesn’t feel important to him yet. (fun fact aromantic wasn't the part of my struggle accepting that I was aroace it was actually accepting I was ace bc of my hyper sexual tendencies)

Also Alastor being aro just makes radioapple infinitely more funny to me, or any relationship with him for that matter. He is just this 7 feet tall demon with zero interest in romance, but always managing to find himself having beef with someone, possibly a guy, and act like he is either about to kiss or kill him XD

I really needed to get this off my chest and I absolutely mean every thing I said in here. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but you'll be surprised to see how much happier you will be when you stop focusing on what other people are doing and instead focus on what you like.

Thanks for listening 😊💜

[r0-boat]

One off headcannon concept:

Deity/God of love x ace/aro spectrum!reader

Cw: angst, unrequited love, one-sided love. Enemies to one-sided love, never returned one-sided affection.

(reader is on the Aro/Ace spectrum, And they are still finding themselves)

This God has no name so it can be interpreted in a lot of ways!

Hi I am on the aroace spectrum. This is from my point of view please don't kill me aroace community.

Coming back into the mortal world blends into society All his brothers sisters aunts and uncles have done this already.

So, the rumors are true? Humans do not need us? Some of his kin have blended wonderfully into human society and become highly successful. I mean, it's pretty hard not to. They are gods, after all. But He isn't so willing to submit his godlike title.

He was quite an arrogant fellow. So when he found out his powers didn't exactly work on you, he was not happy... He had heard of mortals with the power to be resistant to his weapons no matter how dangerous, no matter how potent. You are the first he had seen and possibly the first of many... So he studied you... It was not hard, especially when He overheard you trying to find a roommate, and he applied.

You hated him... Anyone would. At least he pays his bills on time, but you cannot stand how he would set you up with dates!

A lot of the dates were bland but not bad. And as time went on the two of you started to get relatively close... Underneath his confident, cocky arrogance that made you scratch up walls, he was pretty chill.

The last straw was when you went out with one of the people he picked, and they treated you horribly. He had a big smile coming to pick you up, only to see you crying on the sidewalk. His heart felt heavy when he saw you, knowing he had helped you prepare for that date. Hell, the two of you even had fun...

The car ride was silent on the way home. Usually, you yelled at or told him how the date was, but this time, you were silently staring at your phone, your eyes red from crying.

That's when he decided to give up on finding you dates. He finally learned that love isn't something you force. And even then, he comes to terms with the truth that some mortals are not capable of experiencing sexual and romantic love. But he decided to stay in the human world only because he liked your company.

All is well from a lot of talking and a lot of apologizing and a lot of silence, Your relationship is slowly repaired. And after that, all was okay. The two of you honestly were attached to the hip partners in crime your group of friends would call you.

But then things started to get weird. He would feel this ache in his heart when guys or girls would come up and talk to you. It felt wrong. He felt protective, possessive, and jealous.

What was not to love about you? Every little thing you did made him smile. But what took his heart You were awkward at first (even more endearing in his opinion) but once you broke out of that shell to him you were like gold. you are funny. And you were a natural people magnet. Everyone liked you. You are sweet and caring, You had strong morals yet, You were not opposed to learning more and changing your opinions. He could go on and on... Even the little things you did that was normal for mortals He was captivated by because the small ways you did it was so interesting. You are not perfect, no human is. But it somehow just made you more attractive.

Once he realized that he was the one who fell in love. It wasn't something out of happiness or confusion but fear and sadness and immediate acceptance. To him he knew 100%, that he fall in love with someone who could never love In the same way in return. He is desperate for the hide feelings because if you find out, he's afraid you might never talk to him again. But at the same time, he wants to support you and do everything for you because he loves you and wants to see you at your best. And he wants to be there for your worst. He generally cares for you, And he won't let his selfish feelings get in the way of that.

So he will continue to stand beside you. It hurts. But that's okay. He's content with this.

[aromantic-luigi]

hi there!!! my name is almond (he/him), this is an aromantic positivity blog ive decided to make

i am aroace and while i do think that theres a severe lack of ace, aroace and aspec representation and education as a whole i feel like aromantics especially lack representation. this blog is a way for me to show more aro pride and make myself (and hopefully other aros) feel happier and more recognized!!! 💚🤍🩶🖤

this is intended to be a safe space for all aros - loveless aros, arospecs, alloaros, aroaces, questioning aros, romo repulsed aros, aros in romantic relationships, aros who want romantic relationships, everything else and all in between <3 i will not tolerate ANY aphobia on this blog whatsoever!! aphobes will be blocked immediately

proship/comship will also be blocked on sight

More about me/this blog under cut

About this blog

i plan on posting about a lot of stuff on this blog regarding aromanticism! i imagine ill mainly be reblogging posts, though i may make my own positivity posts, character headcanons, flag icons, art, etc.

my askbox is open for anything!! questions about aromanticism, your own experiences, your own headcanons, requests for flag icons, silly comments, etc :] although im not great at answering asks in a timely manner i will try to answer every ask to the best of my ability!

(for flag icon requests: only requests for flags under the aromantic umbrella will be used, sorry!! a combination is fine though (for example: alloaro/lesbian, aroace/gay/trans, aro/bi and the like are all acceptable as long as it still includes some sort of arospec flag). no real people, no fandom blacklist. if im not comfortable with it i wont answer the ask)

About me

as stated before, i am aroace :] sex repulsed ace and.... confused with romance. ive had a very complicated relationship with my aromanticism and went through a LOT of denial, though after learning more about what aromanticism really means, im prouder than ever to say im aro. which is part of why i made this blog! i hope that through sharing my experiences and positivity i can also help some fellow aros who struggle with their identities<33

i am also in a romantic relationship with another aroace person. neither of us know what the fuck romance is but we love each other and i think its great<3 i love my partner in a way that im not sure is romantic but is nevertheless deep and meaningful. our love is romantic but also not but also very romantic see.

why luigi? ummm. i like luigi and hes green

my other blogs if youre interested:

@walnutcookie (fandom/personal blog)

@two-trucks (mainly reblogs)

tagging system:

#my posts - posts that are made by me, not reblogs of others

#💚 icons - flag icons ive made

#💚 colorpicked - colorpicked flags ive done

#💚 requests - requests ive done (icons, colorpicking, etc)

#💚 talking - my own text posts

#💚 asks - replying to asks

#💚 submissions - submissions from others

#💚 art - my own art

[prince-liest]

I found your AO3 a few weeks ago and i have been INCALCULABLY obsessed since then. As a fellow aroace your work is one of maybe three things i've found in my LIFE that Gets It:tm:. I've experienced more catharsis from your fics than nearly anything else in my life. Particularly since I've also dealt with a really shitty one sided pining relationship I couldn't and didn't want to reciprocate and got severely screwed when I had the audacity to say no. Thank you for sharing your work, it really means a lot.

Ahhhhh, this kind of thing is always so delightful to hear! There's a unique kind of bitterness that I experience from this pervasive attitude that if a person (or character, since a lot of it is indeed what I see in fandom) is ace, or especially aroace, that it's kind of a tragedy for anyone interested in them (or something for that character to compromise on), without really addressing what it feels like from the other side or considering that you can still have a positive and meaningful relationship with someone who's aroace and not interested in you - which is wild considering the historical backlash you see against, for example, the concept of friendzoning! It just feels like it all tends to get brushed aside a bit more when it's no longer framed purely as women getting unwanted attention from straight men.

Anyway, a lot of 666 was also cathartic for me to write as a result, haha. Vox and Alastor are fucked up for a plethora of reasons that have nothing to do with the state of their relationship, but that made it easier in a way to approach the more aroace-specific aspects! I'm really glad that you found it meaningful for yourself as well, I really, really am! <3

[aroaceconfessions]

While I still sometimes find myself favorable towards sexual interactions or intimacy, when it comes to building relationships (of any kind) I must admit that the way fellow aro and/or ace people perceive me is so calming in so many ways, compared to allo folk.

Sure, I can find appreciation in allos’ attraction towards me, however, being aroace- I fundamentally do not understand it.

And because of persistent societal norms, it can be difficult to judge whether I present any value for a person without said attraction - I’d much prefer someone would honestly and respectfully say “hey, I honestly am just attracted to you and that’s about it” and figure it out from there, but that forwardness is often looked down upon.

And it makes building relationships that I want difficult, tiring and sometimes very painful, especially when attempting to build a closer relationship with an allo person.

But when I know someone is lacking in sexual/romantic attraction towards me (or that attraction doesn’t dominate their curiosity), and still appreciates me, still interested in my company, puts effort into communication and is supporting whatever relationship we’re having- it feels like a goddamn blessing.

[aceadmiral]

Continuing on the theme of community memory and my place in it, I feel like it’s somehow my responsibility to keep bringing up our history of exclusion and elitism and so today I bring to you something I have wrestled with for a long time: If you use the “sunset” aroace flag, the signal you send to me is that you are no friend of mine.

Now, listen: I am neither trying to nor interested in analyzing this through a lens of guilt or blame or what-have-you. Considering what I have to say and deciding to stop using it is not going to leave you “tainted with sin.” Hearing me out and deciding you don’t care how I feel and you’re going to keep using it anyway is also a choice you can definitely make.

But flags are symbols. Symbols that are meant to unite groups of people, bring them together as one community. In general, I view the more “microlabel-y” flags as contrary to this purpose but ultimately harmless. I have criticisms of some of the more popular ones, but I also recognize how symbols can be extremely intertwined in someone’s identity and so I try to just suck it up. But because I believe the most ethical thing to do generally is to let people have whatever flag they want, please believe me when I say I am not making this criticism lightly.

Creating a symbol that does not reference ace or aro symbology—in fact, explicitly does the opposite—is a statement that you do not want to be in community with me. Clarifying that that symbol is not even for all aroaces but specifically just for those who experience it as one, inseparable identity (i.e., the default mode of sexual orientation in society), for me, takes it from “misguided” to “Asexual Elitism, The Flag™.”

This is important because it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I’ve been seeing a marked increase in people expressing elitist views on all manner of platforms (tumblr, AVEN, Wordpress, Discord) and even in more than one language. This trend is alarming to me, as is the lack of people pushing back on it. That said, I don’t think it’s being done with malicious intent per se, and in particular I think most of the “sunset” flag users were just like “oh cool, a flag for aroaces” and didn’t really think about it any deeper than that.

I suppose this means I have done my job too well. I have worked, and not alone but with scores of my fellow aces and aros, for years to make space for non-”default” expressions of asexuality and aromanticism, even and especially ones that are not my own. And I can even see how a person could who is closer to the “default” might feel that all the attention is going to others in the community and when are they going to get the spotlight? That’s a valid concern; you shouldn’t ever feel like that.

But it is not okay to respond to that perception by trying to retreat into some even-more asexual fortress where only True Asexuals are allowed to be. And some of the people who are retreating to this fortress? As far as I can tell, they’re flying the “sunset” flag.

So. Thanks for hearing me out. I will repeat from the top: I am not here to assign blame or dictate commands to you. Do what you want! But I thought you should know what you’re communicating to me when you do.

[demibkdkstan]

*** Long Post ***

Sometimes I envy those who automatically are able to understand and identify their sexuality, like gay men who have always had crushes on fellow guys from childhood, or lesbians who looked at the pretty girl at the playground and wanted to kiss her, because for me every step of my sexuality has been due to honest curiosity of how something works and research.

Like I started out thinking I was straight and simply did not develop crushes much on people. Then I got into a relationship with a man and I got to have sex, I got to experience romance with this beautiful person who just goddamn listened to me, truly listened unlike most of the other people in my life.

But I got to a point where I didn't understand why we always ended up having sex. I had points where I'd look at this beautiful, wonderful man and I wouldn't find anything physically attractive about him despite wanting to have sex with him. I got to the point where I didn't understand why we couldn't just kiss. I got to the point where I had satisfied my curiosity about what sex was and so didn't have much of an interest in repeating the same experiment over and over and over again.

It wasn't until I read stories that had demisexual characters, stories where I realized that an Ace person isn't just someone who doesn't sleep with people, isn't someone who just never finds someone attractive, isn't an emotionless, non sexual robot, and I got it. This label made sense, this label explained parts of me that were so natural to me.

Then the more and more I read I realized, if I can have sex and a relationship with a man despite not finding anything other than the bond we have sexually attractive, what is the difference between thinking the girl with green hair at the store is pretty and not wanting to kiss her from the guy jogging without a shirt on that sure is nice to look at but also doesn't make me want to kiss him.

I'd never stopped to consider females as a potential interest of mine because despite having dreams about kissing my best girl friend (the space is intentional) I didn't automatically want to sleep with all the girls around me, so those were obviously just dreams and not my sexual attraction.

Some soul searching and more research later I realized I am Biromantic, I've just never allowed or looked for the emotional bond I'd need to develop with other girls before because since I so infrequently got crushes or even cared about dating and no one around me wanted me to consider girls as a dating interest it didn't seem like something that was even possible.

But I couldn't be Aromantic, because I had dated. I did have the desire to eventually get married and I knew what romantic attraction felt like -

Or I thought I did, until I dated my second boyfriend. He'd been a long time friend, he was a great guy, he had so many common interests, he was even a really, really sweet romantic! But I just, I never felt the spark. I could hug him, I could talk to him all day, I could have dates at museums and just have such a great time- but if you asked me if I wanted to kiss him, if you asked me if I wanted to marry this man, if you asked me if I ever felt the need to sleep with this man, the answer was no, it would always be no. Some of these things weren't even things I realized I was even feeling at the beginning of our relationship, but they were what eventually caused us to break up.

Cue my realization that I was somewhere on the Aromantic spectrum. More time spent looking up definitions and labels and reading others experiences and I realized, Demiaros exist too.

So now I have many labels, many sides and ways to express myself. I'm Aroace constantly but especially when I'm comfortable with my own existence. I'm Demisexual but Cupioromantic when I'm looking for a relationship. I'm Demiromantic if I'm just looking to hook up. I'm a Biromantic Ace if I'm looking for that special someone to bond with.

They're all me though, and I honestly love the variety. I love being able to describe myself in so many different ways. I love being able to share the knowledge, and the researching and the soul searching behind knowing this, but sometimes I envy the ability to just say I'm gay, and not need to explain, to yourself, or to anyone else what that means.

[shatouto]

i have a sudden need to ramble (cw eating disorder ; repressed asexuality )

i used to think that this was because i am an artist since childhood: i genuinely can’t tell if a person is ‘hot’ if i just look at them. i can take notes on their features. i can find the shapes of their face interesting or uncommon. but i don’t get ‘hot’. i do find a person beautiful but only after i’ve known something about what they do, e.g. an actor who’s rly talented. if irl people, then i def only get crushes on ppl based on competency. (i have loved my childhood friends for years because he’s just so, so, soooo kind and sensitive and good at art and photography; i crushed horribly on this fellow actress in a theatre festival i participated in for One (1) week; i fell so hard for this girl in college who was AMAZING at giving dynamic presentations; then again for a boy who’s just rly adorably dedicated to the debate society he founded; etc. and all those time, it was more romantic than sexual.) i have never been able to articulate this and as a teen ive always felt confused and left out as hell when my friends gush over idols, all that. i briefly learned about demisexuality and thought that it fit quite well, but i didn’t look more into it out of some unexplained skepticism. generally i tried to conform; it took me a while to copy my surrounding’s reaction at conventionally attractive people to pretend i have the same capacity to perceive ‘hotness’, but the truth is i never really do.

it doesn’t help that my parents were horribly judgmental to other people’s looks and while they were polite on the outside, they were always making very mean remarks about their own friends behind their backs (i have trust issues for this reason; always worried my friends actually think im ugly and bad, like my parents do). they did that to my own friends as well, always criticizing even the friends of mine that they ‘approved’, especially this ex-best friend of mine who was fat and generally gender non-conforming - to the point where i was absolutely terrified of being anything like this person, even though they were my closest friend at the time. when this person came out as nb aroace, i was so frightened that i stopped contemplating demisexuality altogether. around that time also, i got sucked into the “anti-sjw” hole and i shut down every attempt at exploring my general non-conformity. in college, studying abroad and in a new environment, i berated myself for not being able to keep up with parties or ‘hook up’ the way my coevals could - i just felt very very sapped by those socializing activities. being alone in a crowd is tiring. somewhere amidst all this i went into a period of hyperfeminine presentation in hopes of grounding myself in conformity and also pleasing my parents - which gradually aggravated my deep-seated body image issues, dysmorphia, and finally full blown anorexia.

as i recovered and got out of that phase, got back into gender studies, i began to find myself. i was honestly very hesitant to consider asexuality when someone suggested it to me again. i have always been very very romantic and more or less touchy-feely (or as touchy-feely as a repressed kid brought up asian could be, lmao); i refused, for a long time, that i could be somewhere on the ace spectrum. even as i recovered, i was so deathly afraid of being a ‘snowflake’. i’ve only very recently accepted the fact that i do not experience sexual attraction the majority of the time. even romance; i can’t imagine romance without a long trusting friendship. ‘hot’ means nearly nothing to me at all, be it in the sense of ‘conventionally attractive’ or ‘inspiring sexual arousal’ (somehow). regardless of the label, that’s the way i am, and i can reject the label but i can’t force myself to feel things i don’t feel.

i wish as a teen somebody had told me that it was okay to be unsure and contemplating, and that i did not have to care about how narcissistic abusers judge people. i don’t know why im typing all of this out but i guess we all need introspection sometimes. i don’t know why im posting what i typed but i guess i feel the need to be perceived sometimes. at least this way if it resonates with someone, that someone wouldn’t feel alone as i did, hopefully.

[ironwoman359]

as an ace individual, I wanted your opinion. Ace Roman and Aro Remus - good aspec representation or perpetuating the idea that aspecs are broken/not whole? - sincerely, a fellow conflicted aspec

Oooh, interesting question. While I can see how, if done poorly, an Ace Roman and Aro Remus would perpetuate some harmful stereotypes about aspec people, I personally am very fond of this headcanon, especially when it comes to canonverse stories, and here’s why:

Roman and Remus are not broken, they are simply two pieces of one function. When they split, Roman got some things and Remus got others. And while if you as a whole individual are aro, ace, or aroace you are still whole and complete and not less than, Roman and Remus are part of Thomas. And Thomas is not aro OR ace. His attraction is both sexual and romantic, and as the side responsible for attraction split into two, it makes sense that one side would get the romantic part of attraction and another would get the sexual part. 

It makes even more sense when you consider that Remus is mostly made up of thoughts, feelings, and traits that Thomas considered ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ in his development. And while his attraction to men on all levels was something he struggled with, I don’t find it difficult to imagine that young character!Thomas first repressed any and all sexual thoughts, but tried to keep romantic thoughts and shape them towards what he thought was “acceptable.” He was raised Catholic, after all, and the puritan attitude towards sex can (not always, but it can) result in unhealthy repression no matter who you’re sexually attracted to.

All that to say, I find it extremely possible, even likely, that when Roman and Remus split, Remus got all the sexual energy, both positive and negative, because Thomas perceived all sexual energy as negative, while Roman kept the romantic feelings because Thomas perceived those as positive, even if as he grew he tried to repress who he had those feelings for. 

[rotten-zucchinis]

some reflections on making sense, apparently only to myself

This post was written for the July 2018 Carnival of Aces on the topic “Now and Then” [call for submissions] [roundup of posts].

I’ve been out as asexual for so long that I forget sometimes that people don’t know what that means. I don’t mean strangers, because I’m still constantly having to explain things to people in all sorts of contexts that there’s no way that I could forget that. But I’ve had these conversations for many years with people in my life who apparently still don’t get it. And I’m also increasingly aware that people in various radical communities can’t be assumed to have had any exposure to ace anything. 

I’ve been at this so long, making sense of my own life, experiences, and all sorts of ideas and concepts, that I forgot sometimes that other people aren’t on the same page with me-- that they wouldn’t even be able to locate the page, let alone read it if they could. I’m very much not new at this anymore. But that means, I’m not speaking the same language as most people I interact with. And too often, I forget that.

Having the discursive tools of the ace community has been really powerful and has helped me make sense of myself and much of my experience. But a big part of that power for me comes from the way these things can integrate into and/or reshape other discursive contexts I occupy-- contexts that are already geared toward fundamentally changing the society in which I exist and dismantling the power structures that sustain it. The flip side of that, though, is alienation from a lot of people. There aren’t a lot of other people who can share in that.

For the most part, I’m kind of only making sense to myself.

moments of context

Recently, after my sister came with me to participate in a Pride march, it came out that she had no idea that I was aromantic [like this], despite basically my entire life of not dating anyone, and my doing significant non-romantic (non-sexual) relationships. And perhaps more importantly, despite the many conversations I’ve had with her about QP stuff and about family members not taking my relationships seriously because they’re not romantic... That’s not exactly what I’d call “easy to miss”.

And my mother apparently didn’t know that I was sex-averse, which led to some interesting dinner-table conversation with questions that I think other people were not comfortable hearing being put to me or with me having to answer. My mother has attended workshops (plural) that I’ve facilitated and panels I’ve been on where I’ve discussed these things. I don’t understand how she didn’t know. So I have to wonder what it is that people actually take from my explanations.

The other day, someone I know in person who’d recently got a copy of my relationship anarchy / shiva zine [here] mentioned looking forward to reading it, but phrased that in such a way as to suggest they thought there was a lot of substantive content to grapple with. As this is someone I know through anarchist spaces and who’s very well-versed in all sorts of radical political theory, my first thought was that they must not have looked over the zine because I doubt there’s all that much content that would be new, other than perhaps details about Jewish stuff (and my family). But on second thought, I realised that they might not have more than a passing familiarity of the concept of asexuality and had probably never encountered words like amatonormativity. And I was left to wonder, how would a text like that read to someone who hasn’t been steeped in ace community discourse?

When I table at zine faires, that zine doesn’t tend to get picked up by people who aren’t already familiar with ace things... I always have other educational materials... and on the occasion the title strikes someone’s fancy who’s new to asexuality, we have a conversation about it first, and I make sure they have other reading materials. And yet, I sill don’t know what people are going to make of that. I really have no idea what people will take from my words.

some reflections

Back when I first came out as asexual so many years ago now, my aromanticism was just part of my asexuality in such a way that it didn’t immediately need to be articulated. 

It took me a while to claim “aromantic” or (very dark) “grey romantic” (and not just because this was before we had the language of “grey”-- and before AVEN’s triangle had a gradient). These things are complicated [like I’ve discussed before]. But I knew right off-the-bat that I wasn’t interested in dating and also that I was interested in (and had been doing) significant non-romantic (and non-sexual) relationships. And these were asexual things for me. As I’ve discussed before [e.g., here in response to someone], aromanticism has always been part of asexuality for many aces, in a way that asexuality is not part of aromanticism. So I came out as asexual, and had a lot of people not believe me for a long time [e.g., as I’ve discussed before here]. But I never felt the need to come out as aromantic in the same way, because people already knew how I was doing significant relationships and were already giving me a hard time for it-- it’s not like they didn’t know. I’d assumed it was obvious, and ground I thought we’d covered.

My earlier years within asexual/ace community were a time before there even was a non-ace arospec community-- our ace language was necessary for that to come into existence later on. And while the ace community was quite deliberately set up to fit neatly into contemporary sexual orientation politics, it was still a time before “attractions” were mapped onto compulsory “orientations” and “identities” as a matter of course [as I’ve discussed here], which are constructed as independent of each other [as I’ve discussed here] in the neoliberal nightmare appropriation version of the split attraction model. (It's not that people didn't call themselves romantic and aromantic-- ace of hearts and ace of spades are old-school community symbols-- because they did, and people used terms like gay-A, bi-A, straight-A. But a lot of us didn't use such labels and there wasn't an expectation that they're somehow necessary in the way there is today... albeit with somewhat different sets of labels.)

We’ve now moved into a context where it’s socially relevant to create hyper-specific identity labels [as I’ve discussed here], where something effectively becomes sacrosanct through articulation as an identity [as I’ve discussed here], and where it’s horribly taboo to recognise how systems of marginalisation act much more broadly than just on internal “identities” [as I’ve discussed here] or “internal experiences of attraction” [as I’ve discussed here]. (These are very anti-materialist times...)1

And we’ve now had time to see things like the assimilationist clawing back of things like QP relationships into “romance light” [e.g., as I’ve discussed here] or meagre attempts to side-step the issue of resisting the assimilationism via troubled concepts like “aplatonic” [as I’ve discussed here].

And these are things I’ve had to resist, both in my own life and as I interface with ace discourse in various places. These are things that not everyone wants to resist. And that means, I’m often very much not on the same page as many fellow aces around me-- especially as those who tend to regularly participate in ace-specific things. (There are of course aces next to whom I don’t seem so “out there radical” but I mostly encounter them in other spaces, spaces more explicitly about changing the world, spaces that don’t view liberal ideals as avenues for liberation. And it’s far too infrequent we have the opportunity to speak about our liberationist ace agendas.)

Because I’ve been involved in ace community for so long, it’s hard to keep track of how things shift-- (of the many a’s relevant to my life,) when did the A that defined my existence shift from “asexual” to “aroace”? And what was that change? It wasn’t *me* changing-- it’s not like I ever changed how I do intimacy and relationships-- it was the discursive landscape that changed.

But I am cognisant that the discursive landscape I reference is the discursive landscape specifically of the ace community. To the outside world-- to people who didn’t understand the diversity of what asexuality could mean-- the only changes were in opening up orders of possibilities: the change of it becoming possible to be so many more things. I guess despite my efforts to provide adequate explanations to people in my life, I was never able to make people understand more than the reductive definitional shell of asexuality. We were never speaking the same language.

And I am reminded of years ago when I first had conversations with family members about being neither a woman nor a man-- before I had the language of non-binariness. I had to use a metaphor with shiny and fuzzy cows, in which I am tree. I would have thought those would have been memorable conversations. Apparently not. People can forget what they can’t assimilate, what doesn’t make sense. But eventually, when the language caught up and became something they could access, they were able to remember, even if they still deadname and mispronoun me. Even if they don’t really understand what it means.

At this point, I’ve spent so much time thinking through ideas that it’s almost hard to have a conversation-- something comes up, and then I have to do so much explaining. Heck, when I wanted to explain textual intimacy to someone, I ended up having to write more than ten thousand words *before* I could even start [e.g., here].

Having the discursive tools of the ace community has been really powerful and has helped me make sense of myself and much of my experience. But a big part of that power for me comes from the way these things can integrate into and/or reshape other discursive contexts I occupy-- contexts that are already geared toward fundamentally changing the society in which I exist and dismantling the power structures that sustain it. The flip side of that, though, is alienation from a lot of people. There aren’t a lot of other people who can share in that. 

For the most part, I’m kind of only making sense to myself.

I don’t know how much of that is new, and how much is just a new recognition of the degree to which I always was only ever making sense to myself.

Footnote:

1  cw for anti-ace hostility

This anti-materialist framing is what makes it possible for The Discourse TM to even make sense. I’m not interested in talking about that specifically-- I’ve written before [here] about how things like people’s experiences with homophobia and heterosexism don’t divide up neatly according to identity let alone by “experiences of attraction”-- but there’s a change in the shape of some of the general anti-ace hostility that I think is worth mentioning.

We’ve seen a radical shift since I was a teen: When I was in high school, people gave me death threats and told me to kill myself at least partly because they could tell that I was asexual and none of us knew that was a thing [e.g., as I’ve written about before]. Now, people are harassing high school students, giving them death threats and telling them to kill themselves (online) at least partly because they’re asexual and everyone involved knows that’s a thing. Fortunately, that kind of harassment tends to be largely online, but there’s a parallel here that is striking.