#i tend to identify more with my ace label than aro

[cherryp0p224]

~General ROTTMNT HC’s~

Here, I’ll be posting my personal headcanons for rottmnt. Over time, I’ve noticed a lot of traits within the characters and certain quirks that I’ve associated with ideas that would fit the boys and other characters perfectly.

(I’ll be adding onto this whenever I have new headcanons)

Headcanon #1

Both of the disaster twins use contacts. As seen in the episode ‘Air Turtles’, Leo wears protective glasses (glasses used for athletes to see better without harming their vision), which means his vision is possibly impaired. As for Donnie, we all know Donnie used to have glasses when he was younger, but since glasses can be a huge boundary when in battle, both of the twins decided to switch to contacts so they could still see when fighting

Headcanon #2

Splinters vision is just as bad as his two sons. Splinter sees things a little blurrier than everyone else so when he sees his sons, instead of identifying them by their features, he identifies them by their colors, hence why he calls them by their colors (Blue, Red, Purple, Orange). When he was still Lou jitsu, he had some glasses, but I feel like he had them designed to fit his movie star look, so while his glasses are for seeing, he had still wanted them to look good. Teen Lou jitsu and Leo are the same thing Fr

Headcanon #3

Donnie doesn’t do too well with emotion nor does he seem to interested in romance, so the first thought that came to my head was ‘ARO/ACE DONNIE’. Aro/Ace : having little to no romantic or sexual attraction. I do still believe Donnie could fall in love, the feelings just wouldn’t be as intense as it is for those who are neurotypical

Headcanon #4

I think Mikey definitely has ADHD. Mikey tends to be very impulsive and wild when he’s fighting. In fact, he’s so impulsive, Donnie made him an inflatable suit so he wouldn’t get hurt because this boy is a loose canon. He also seems to be very hyperactive and can’t keep his focus on just one activity, hence why he has so many hobbies like cooking, drawing, skateboarding, and other things. We gotta love this ball of energy

Headcanon #5

Raph has GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). We all know this poor boy has a lot of anxiety and always stresses himself out when it comes to his family. Due to carrying the weight of his family on his shoulders, he tends to stress out a lot, but when you stress out a lot, your brain finds it a custom and a normal occurrence, so anything that might start up the slightest bit of stress could possibly turn into a full blown panic attack (I know cuz I’ve got GAD :((). He also overthinks A LOT

Headcanon #6

Casandra has gotta be nonbinary/gender-fluid.I headcanon Cassandra using she/they pronouns, why? While cassandra is presented as female in the show, she seems to be in touch with both her masculine and feminine side and I definitely think that if someone were to refer to her as a boy, she would not give a flying fuck, she just doesn’t seem to care for gender labels and you gotta love that

Headcanon #7

Sorry to the people who don’t ship this, but I see April and Sunita as a lesbian couple. In Tmnt 2012, April was placed in more as a love interest for Donnie, but it was just so forced and his obsession with her was concerning. In Rise, April poses more as an older sister for the boys and her relationship with Donnie is so sweet too. Instead of April and Donnie being lovers, Rise decided to make them best friends and they’re dynamic is something I am in love with. Rise April doesn’t really seem to have much of an interest in men, nor does she seem to be interested in having a boyfriend period, but I have noticed that she seems more interested in creating a bond with other girls (like Taylor and Sunita). When Sunita was first introduced, she was presented as just beautiful (flowers along with a beautiful background) and the way she was presented was how April perceived her, we were looking from aprils point of view. So, in conclusion, I think the girls a lesbian, argue with me if you’d like, I stand by this

Headcanon #8

Casey Jones is most definitely a trans man. The first time I saw this boy on screen, I pointed to the tv and said ‘That is a trans man’. Now where Casey came from, I have no idea. I’m not sure if he was birthed out of Cassandra or if he was a dumpster child found by Cassandra, but either way, something about Casey caught my attention that made me come to this conclusion. Ofcourse we know Casey is a teenager, but it seems like he hasn’t yet hit the full point of puberty, he’s got little scruffs on his chin and I’ve noticed his voice does crack a bit (which I love. I would die for him) but I think he has these traits because he’s still in the process of transitioning fully. In all honesty though, I have a crush on this boy, I’m down bad bro, I wish there were more fics for him

[canonically47]

Hi, hope this finds you well :) If this question makes you uncomfortable,feel free to not answer it and I apologise in advance,I am genuinely not trying to cross any boundaries. Im somewhere under the aro/ace umbrella and I think I might be aro, and i was wondering how youve realised you were an aro aceflux lesbian. (I'm autistic and it's hard for me to differentiate between diff types of attraction) again,if this is an inappropriate question ,I apologise.

hi!! thank you for the question and dw i can definitely answer this for you :3

my aceflux & lesbian identity is one i don’t think about as much. i’d label myself as a sex-neutral ace, i kinda switch between being favorable and not

so since you think you might be aro, i’ll just say some aro experiences of mine

i used to have a ‘crush’ on a boy all the way from 1st to 4th grade, until one day in 4th grade i and another girl that liked him asked him which one of us he likes more. he said he liked her more. i instantly got over him, like you could snap your fingers and that’s how quickly i was like “oh oki!” i wasn’t upset, jealous, anything, i just immediately got over him. that’s definitely a memory i associate with my identity.

i forced myself to have crushes on people because i was close to them or thought they were beautiful all over the course of the last past couple of years. from my online best friend, to random classmates. boys, girls, neither, both, didn’t matter.

i used to label myself as bi and pan (different times in my life) because i romantically cared for people equally. which i now realize is not at all

the reason i still identify as a lesbian to some degree is because, you guessed it, i still have some degree of attraction to girls. i feel much more comfortable around girls because of my experiences with boys. nothing bad has happened per say, i’m fine; they just tend to fall so fucking quickly, bro. and i know it feels very ignorant to say this, but i just wish boys would leave me alone, i wish people didn’t have crushes on me. i consider myself fairly attractive both physically and mentally (wow so modest i know! but trust me it took a long time for me to think like this) and i tend to attract. way more allos than i would like

i also, like, hate the idea that romantic relationships are the '''ultimate''' relationship. i think everyone should whether allo or not, but the relationship hierarchy thing is a direct result of both amatonormativity and heteronormativity and it is so tiring ouvhrgrgrv

sorry if this isn’t too coherent but i hope i helped a bit! if you have any questions you can shoot me a dm no worry! :3

[bloomshroomz]

I think I'm aroallo?

CW: sex mentions, talk about aroallo stereotypes

I think I'm aroallo. I've been identifying as aroace for a while now, but I keep saying to my girlfriend, "I feel like I might not be asexual after all." I've been saying that again and again for months. Her response is always, "You're probably not."

I don't question my aromanticism at all. It's one aspect of my identity that I'm very sure about. But my asexuality, on the other hand... I don't think that I'm really ace. I feel like I've been clinging to the asexual label because of the assumptions people make about aroallos. Being aroace is one thing, but being aroallo is a lot harder for me to accept.

People tend to assume that aroallos are always hypersexual, or always loveless, or always prioritize sex above all else when it comes to their relationships with people. And all of those things are valid experiences, but they don't apply to me personally.

I've been trying to put it into words... People think that a lack of romantic attraction necessitates an amplified sexual attraction. Like just because I'm aro, I must be "more sexual" than other allosexual people. It seems like people think sexuality has to be "balanced out" with romance. But I'm not particularly sexual; I'm just not ace.

Tangentially related, this idea that "no romantic attraction = amplified sexual attraction" also seemed really prevalent in SAM discourse a while back. One of the big arguments people used against romantic orientation labels was that they were "oversexualizing" sexuality labels or "reducing everything to sex" by separating the romantic aspect from the sexual aspect.

I'm talking about the people who would say shit like, "Why would you call yourself biromantic instead of bisexual? Are you implying that bisexual people only care about sex?" when they saw a biromantic ace. That sort of "logic."

And the implication with that argument is, if the tables were turned (i.e. they were bisexual and aromantic), it would be appalling to them. And it was especially paired with the assumption that sex - romance = oversexualized, in whatever way "oversexualized" may be defined. Lots of sex negativity mixed in with the discourse.

On another note, I've voiced my disdain for the Attraction Layer Cake elsewhere before. There are a lot of problems with it, but I'm going to focus on the "Crimson" part specifically: the crimson layer is the only option if you're aromantic without being asexual. That and "Red" I suppose, but the red layer could describe any allosexual orientation, whether aromantic or not.

Crimson is labeled as aromantic sexuality, which is a problem in and of itself. It should say aromantic allosexuality. But that's not the part I take the most issue with. I hate the description.

"The purpose of relationships is primarily sexuality. Romance is not specifically desired."

Again, there's nothing wrong with prioritizing or emphasizing sexuality. But that's not an inherent aspect of being aroallo, and it doesn't describe me personally. The primary purpose of my relationships is emotional connection. Sex is just a cool thing that I may or may not do with people.

Also, "relationships" is vague. Does it mean relationships in general, regardless of whether they're romantic, platonic, etc? In that case, that's a huge generalization of the many types of relationships aroallos may have.

Or does it specifically refer to romantic relationships? In that case, that's also a huge generalization, because it assumes aroallos will have romantic partners, and it implies that it's only okay to have sex with people if you're also romantically involved.

Aromantic people also have to deal with a lot of explicitly negative stereotypes. Manipulative, abusive, cruel. I feel like these assumptions get amplified when you're aroallo specifically. A lot of people think that explicitly wanting sex, without explicitly wanting romance, automatically makes you a horrible person. I'm too exhausted to even delve into these stereotypes.

All I'll say is, there's nothing wrong with wanting sex, and there's nothing wrong with having no desire for romance. Sexual attraction doesn't need to be "justified" via romantic attraction, and sex doesn't need to be "justified" via romance. As long as everyone is consenting and upfront with their intentions, whose business is it anyways?

I'm not 100% sure if I'm allosexual. But after months of saying, "I don't think I'm asexual after all," I think it's safe to say that I'm not aroace. Maybe I'm greysexual at most, but eh. Whether I'm allosexual or ace-spec, there's one thing I'm certain of: I'm more aro than I am ace, if I'm even ace-spec at all.

I'm sitting here sort of feeling... Out of place. Like, everywhere. I'm a romance-indifferent aroallo, who isn't heavily sexual, but still enjoys sex. It's sort of isolating, I guess. It would be reassuring to see more people with similar experiences.

Slightly unrelated, but my primary special interest is Littlest Pet Shop, and I love putting these little guys on pride flags. So, here's the aroallo flag with a bunny on it. Makes me happy despite all the confusion and conflicted feelings

[that-disabled-princess]

Hey uhm... if you don't mind, I have a question for you. I saw in one of your recent posts that you're a fellow non-SAM aromantic. Are you out to anyone irl as aro? If so, how did you explain the whole labeling your "sexuality" (as in, general orientation) without actually labeling your sexuality? Because I kinda wanna come out to my best friend as aromantic and I'm not sure how to do it. I have thought about coming out as aroace (as my experiences are a lot closer to ace than allo) but I'm not really comfortable with the ace label as I simply don't know if it's really accurate. Plus, I'm afraid my friend would miss that I'm aro and just call me ace whenever the topic of orientation comes up (without any bad intentions but still). But I also don't want my friend to assume I'm sexually interested in people.

Do you have any advice, perchance?

(Unrelated to that, I'm happy I found another physically disabled non-SAM aro on here)

Hi! Sorry it took me a minute to answer this, I wanted to give this ask a thoughtful answer.

I am out to irl people as aro. My best friend and my immediate family are the only ones I'm really out out to, though. I don't tend to take the time to explain it unless I actually need to because... you're right. It is so, extremely difficult explaining what being aspec means and all the little nuances of the a-spectrum.

I don't think I ever properly came out to my family either until this year. Just... made some aro jokes and let them assume whatever they wanted. I stopped coming out with every new update a couple years ago. My family is supportive and accepting, and our mom doesn't pressure us into any sort of relationship or anything like that.

Clarification: When I say "family" here, I mean my immediate family only. We're not even gonna touch my extended family.

Now, I did identify as aroace for a bit before realizing I wasn't exactly asexual. But my aromanticism has always been a bigger part of my identity, so as far as I can remember, dropping the asexual label wasn't a huge deal to anyone.

At the beginning of January, though, I did try to explain the concept of being aro without being ace to my family. Since my sibling is aroace, I'm not sure they (my sibling) really got it, but they did accept it. I explained that sexual and romantic attraction are two different things, and that you can feel one without feeling the other. We were running an errand, so it was a bit of a... rushed explanation.

If I'd had more time to explain the differences, though, these would've been some of the examples I used:

First off, one-night stands are a thing. You don't have to be romantically attracted to someone to be sexually attracted to them or to have sex.

You can also have a crush on someone without wanting to bang them.

Therefore, sexual and romantic attraction can be felt separately and are two different things, and alloaces and aroallos and non-SAM aces and aros are valid.

As for your concern about others assuming you're sexually interested in people: for me personally--and I've seen other non-SAM aros talk about this--my aromanticism affects the way I experience sexual attraction. I experience sexual attraction, but not Like Allos Do. My romantic orientation is aro, and my bisexuality is also aro. In a way, it is much closer to the asexual experience, only none of the acespec labels feel right. I don't know what being non-SAM aro is like for you, though, but it sounds like your experiences might be similar, so maybe this explanation can help?

And as for coming out as something you're not... The want to do that really is something, huh?

I'd say it's better to be honest if you're in a safe enough place to do so. (And this is coming from someone who originally came out as a lesbian due to internalized biphobia.) Be honest with your friend and be kind to yourself. Let your friend know that you're still working through some stuff and still figuring things out. If they're a good friend, they'll understand that.

I hope this is helpful and that everything goes/went well, love 💚💚

[entropy-sea-system]

I thought I'd talk a bit about being analterous as I don't often talk about My atertiary identities separately other than apl and afamilial.

Anyways, I should probably start by saying I don't actively crave an emotional connection just for the sake of it. It often involves friendship for a lot of people which already repulses Me. I happen to have emotional connections to My partners but its not about friendship, its about sex and in a few cases also romance bc Im demiromantic and allosexual.

A big reason I realised Im analterous is because people often said thats the attraction type behind qprs, and eventually I realised I didn't want a qpr but just thought I did bc a lot of other aros seemed to, and I felt like I'd be seen as 'aphobic' if I refused to want a relationship that aros and aces came up with. I also was unfortunately feeling like I had to have nonrose attraction to seem 'normal' and 'not sex obsessed' as an alloaro.

When I first heard of alterous attraction, it was kind of defined in a very vague way like 'not being sure if you have a (romantic) crush or just want to be friends', and that didn't make sense to my brain, as I would later realise, its bc Im arospec and apothiplatonic and those are simply not emotions I can feel like to a stranger. And friendship? I literally can't feel that towards anyone.

I define alterous attraction as being an attraction connected to wanting an emotional connection with someone (though of course, one can also have the attraction without being favorable to alterous relationships). My brain often lumps all the nonrose attractions as being something that has no relevance to me, and especially with terms that arent as used in larger society like alterous, I struggle to explain why I am like this.

Additionally, when people talk about feeling alterous attraction or a qpr (though that tends to be more associated w queerplatonic attraction these days) (I am also aqueerplatonic and qp repulsed though) I feel grossed out by it. I don't personally want to hear about it due to my repulsion.

In the past when I questioned if I had a nonrose crush it always ended up either being intrusive thoughts or Me repressing a sexual crush. I learned of things like squishes long before I knew I was aro because I formerly identified as demirose and even after I stopped using that label at one point, I still looked obsessively through AVEN forums where a lot of aces talked about having squishes.

I will admit that with acespec I have some sort of sexual orientation OCD where I have intrusive thoughts that Im 'really' ace when I don't identify that way, but thats a whole other topic. Its kind of distressing for Me to feel that but anyways. Explanation for why I was rather often looking at those forums.

I assumed I had the capacity to have squishes. I felt kind of creepy and genuinely kind of distressed that I was incapable of caring for people as a friend when multiple times, I thought I was having friendship emotions but it turned out to just be sexual attraction. Of course, people can have both emotions at once but I could kind of tell tht I had never even had the platonic attraction emotions, but didn't label it until i realised I could be apl.

I felt like I was obligated to like people in nonrose ways, because it made Me feel arophobic and acephobic, and anti-relationship anarchy, and selfish if I were to say no. But I'm glad I realised Im atertiary, because I'm a lot happier when Im not forcing Myself to have and like nonrose relationships. I'm content with my sexual and romantic-sexual relationships, and also content with the idea of not having any relationships, if at some point that becomes the case for me.

Also, I never ship alterous ships for example, I used to think I did but it was just me shipping characters romantically and/or sexually but thinking I needed to label the emotional care as alterous? And also its worth noting that I'm pretty much an analterous person with no alterous attraction who is alterous repulsed. This will not be the experience of every single person with these identities.

Also, seeing as how people often position alterous and qprs on a created romantic-platonic binary it just irks me that some people act like romantic and platonic are the only attractions ever. Especially when they ignore SEXUAL attraction, like its not romantic OR platonic but ppl act like it doesnt exist when they force the platonic-romantic binary on labels such as alterous and queerplatonic.

Also, I happen to have sexual intrusive thoughts about people, due to hypersexuality and OCD, that I don't like having. Sometimes, I tried to use tertiary/nonrose attractions as a coping mechanism for this by trying to say 'No, I only feel platonic/alterous/sensual/etc. for this person' even though I didn't, and was mistaking emotions like happiness or literally the rush from getting narc supply (NPD) or attention, and being touch starved, sometimes even just being triggered by people acting overfamiliar with Me, for nonrose attractions.

This is not so say nonrose attractions are unhealthy, but the way I conceptualised of them back then was. It's astounding to me that people think my atertiary identity is what's unhealthy when forcing myself to seem allotertiary was what was unhealthy for me.

At one point, when I was initially with a few of My current partners, I kind of felt the need to split every emotion I had about My partners into being a nonplatonic nonrose attraction, even when I knew I was apl. That was kind of unnatural to Me personally as a way to label My emotions. Because it wasn't any attraction other than sexual.

The way people talk about sexual attraction as fleeting and meaningless influenced this as well. I feel a lot of emotional care and enthusiasm towards people I am sexually attracted to, and I only like sexual relationships that are long term and involve affection. This made Me feel like it couldn't JUST be sexual attraction because people around me, even in aro spaces that included alloaros, acted like sexual attraction can never include these things.

Maybe thats just how people who either are alloromantic and/or are allotertiary feel because they label anything thats not 'I want to have genital sex' as some attraction other than sexual. But thats not how my sexual attraction works. I support people whose sexual attraction is not that deep/is fleeting or does not involve much emotion or desire for long-term involvement, and those who engage in casual sex. I just want people to acknowledge that thats not the only way sexual attraction and sexual relationships, especially nonromantic ones, can be.

Actually, anaesthetic was the third atertiary label I found myself realising I am, but I though I was aestheticflux. However it turned out that I am just completely atertiary. Also I think at one point that. It got kind of too much of a cognitive effort for me to want to classify my attraction into so many nonrose types. It made me feel kind of split apart and dissociated from my identity personally.

Anyways, this was a lot and I meant to just talk about My analterous experience, but all My atertiary identities seem to be tangled together in ways that mean they aren't very separable. I think I did only realise Im analterous around the time I realised Im completely atertiary, but it was also very linked to Me realising I'm aqueerplatonic.

Anyways, I'm also realising that maybe I feel My atertiary identities are all interconnected in a way that means I see a lot of them as lumped together for Myself, and how much I talk about them tends to depend on the percieved way I find societal norms regarding relationship types to be antithetical to My way of existing.

(-Rift)

[bilesproblems]

I have a question, that I hope is in no way disrespectful I'm just lost and new to these terms...

can you explain mspec lesbians/gays?? I do much better learning from someone rather than a google result, I want to be educated ^^;

And, another question, would it be okay for myself - someone who primarily identifies as a transmale - to not want to date someone who identifies as a lesbian? Or is that bad? I in no way mean to be disrespectful when asking this, I am genuinely curious since I am just. not. attracted to the idea of dating a lesbian as a transmale,,,/gen

Of course! An mspec lesbian/mspec veldian/mspec gay is a lesbian, veldian, or gay, who is also on the multi-amoric spectrum.

Some starting definitions:

A lesbian is someone who's gender is femininely aligned, neutrally aligned, xenically aligned, or unaligned, or connected to one of those alignments in some way, who is attracted to femininely aligned genders and may or may not be attracted to neutrally, xenically, or unaligned people. This attraction is usually exclusive but it isn't always. It is heavily WLW connotated. This is a shortened version of the definition for the sake of brevity.

A veldian is someone who's gender is masculinely aligned, neutrally aligned, xenically aligned, or unaligned, or connected to one of those alignments in some way, who is attracted to masculinely aligned genders and may or may not be attracted to neutrally, xenically, or unaligned people. This attraction is usually exclusive but it isn't always. It is heavily MLM connotated. This is also a shortened version of the definition for the sake of brevity

A gay person is anyone who is attracted to genders of their own alignment, exclusively or not. This is slightly MLM connotated but isn't exclusive to any gender.

Mspec means attracted to more than one gender.

Multi- and Bi- also mean attracted to more than one gender, however they specify a type of attraction (the difference being, a heterosexual homoromantic is mspec but not multisexual). Bi as a prefix tends to be connotated towards attraction to men and women but doesn't necessarily mean that.

Pan- and Omni- both specify an attraction to all genders, however pan tends to also be an attraction regardless of gender or not factoring gender (although it doesn't have to be) while omni includes gender as a factor.

Poly- is an attraction to multiple genders, typically without factoring gender, and typically not to all genders.

So, since this the mspec lesbian blog, I will explain mspec lesbians, but it also applies to mspec veldians and mspec gays if you change the words.

There are many ways to be an mspec lesbian. The most common I've seen is split attraction. While some argue that lesbian isn't compatible with the SAM if you aren't aspec, that's bullshit and they're morons. Aro lesbians, ace lesbians, and aroace lesbians prove lesbian doesn't apply to both romantic and sexual orientation at the same time, and it's some gold star mental gymnastics to exclude biromantic lesbians and bisexual lesbians because they're only a lesbian in one form of attraction.

There's also my way of doing it: not being attracted to men or (solely) masc-aligned people at all but recognizing elsegender people as not being the same gender as women and therefore, since they are included in lesbian attraction, I can be mspec and a lesbian. Pan and omni lesbians who use it this way tend to use pan and omni to refer to all genders included under lesbian attraction instead of to all genders period.

Some people don't have split attraction and are attracted to men, however they experience attraction towards masc genders very infrequently or weakly compared to their attraction to women and potentially elsegender people. They may feel they're right between being a lesbian and being mspec, so they use both labels to communicate that. Y'know how graysexuals exist because they feel attraction, but they feel it so weakly or infrequently they almost feel asexual? That's how some mspec lesbians are!

Speaking of the asexual spectrum... Some people identify as mspec lesbians because of being on the ace or aro spectrums! I can't list all the ways that would work but we aspecs do experience attraction and favorability in different ways than allos, so those experiences can influence what labels we use.

Some people may also be bigender and use the "genders like and unlike your own" definition of bi.

Finally, there's the fact that lesbian formerly included ALL wlw and adjacent folk, and it was radfems, TERFs, and gold star lesbians who forced mspec women out because they were "tainted by men." Some mspec women wish to reclaim this historical usage and use it non-exclusively

Plus some mspec people may reclaim lesbian because it's been used to erase their mspec identity, so they take it back by embracing being mspec and a lesbian.

As for you not wanting to date a lesbian: that's okay! It's up to you as a person to decide who you're comfortable with. For some enby folk, they don't wanna be included under lesbian and they don't have to be. If you are uncomfortable dating someone who calls themselves a lesbian, don't date them! You don't have to! I wouldn't wanna date someone who called themselves monosexual because I am bigender. I'd feel misgendered too. The inclusion of transmascs in lesbian attraction or who can be lesbians isn't forceful. It just "you can be part of this if you want" and not "you HAVE to be included in this!!" Lesbian is very much "exclusively wlw" connotated, and connotations are important parts of language. Like, shiny vs dazzling. Clever vs cunning vs manipulative. They may all mean the same thing by a definition but beyond that definition they have a meaning that's harder to define. You will never be in the wrong for your discomfort including yourself in lesbian attraction due to being transmasc and the connotations of lesbian. It's only wrong when you start dictating who can or can't be a lesbian or who lesbians can be attracted to based on your discomforts.

[aro-rambles]

You wanted asks, right? I as fellow non-SAM aromantic / "just aromantic" actually have a question about the non-SAM label for you (only answer if you're comfortable though, no pressure)

What made you identify with the non-SAM aro label? I'm curious to hear other non-SAM aro experiences.

Also, if you come out to other people as aro (if you're out to anybody), how do you explain being non-SAM?

Have a nice day : )

hehe yes I wanted asks thank you!!

so like I think I started identifying with the non sam aro label because at some point I noticed that people tend to care more the ace part of aroace and I was like noooooo im aro >:( but now it's more because I think being aro is much more relevant to me than being ace like it has a bigger impact on my life.

anddddd I kind of gave up on coming out as non sam aro because the one time I tried to it took SO LONG, I explained like "it's like I'm aroace but just aro" (making it very clear that this is very specific to my experience and not all non sam aros would say theyre aroace, tbh i wouldnt even say im aroace but here we are) and the person I explained it to seems to have internalized the aroace part but not the just aro! so yeah I don't really come out anymore, I just say whatever is more convenient? like yeah sure I'm gay whatever

microlabels are tough, specially non sam aro because you can't really explain being non sam aro in general in a more specific way than "see im aromantic but I'm not asexual and I'm not allosexual either" because anything more specific wouldnt really be an accurate description of the label itself, more of personal experience, you know? and even then "not asexual but not allosexual" probably still doesn't describe all of us accurately. it's. complicated.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

Hope it’s ok to post this here. I currently identify as aroallo but I am still questioning my aro identity. When I was a kid I would have “crushes” with all the butterflies and stuff but in hindsight I think it was more a desire to be their friend rather than romantic partner.

So I guess I am just really confused about romance, in particular how it is different from like a really close and probably exclusive friendship. I know that alloaces exist who don’t want sex in a romantic partnership so I don’t think the sexual part is what makes it different. Maybe I just want a QPR? Or “friends with benefits”? Or perhaps I am in just in some sort of deep denial of any actual romantic feelings I have and I’m just completely allo? I don’t see a lot of aroallos out there talking about their experiences so I feel like I’m doing something wrong. Am I overthinking this? I don’t know :(

Yeah, you're far from the only person who's had trouble with this, Anon (even outside of ace/aro spaces), and it's a fair question. The line between romance and platonic friendship isn't easy to distinguish for everyone, or easy to define. (And there are some identities built around that like platoniromantic, idemromantic, quoiromantic and the concept of alterous attraction.)

Generally speaking what makes romantic attraction/feelings romantic is that it feels romantic. And that's not very useful to someone who isn't sure if they're feeling it or not, but often there's a specific romantic feeling people can identify. And it makes them want to connect with people in a romantic, so being in romantic situations, or being in a relationship defined as romantic.

Romance also tends to be a situation attraction. People who experience romantic attraction will have situations or scenarios they see as romantic (growing old together for example), and will feel a desire or pull to be in situations like that with the other person.

Sometimes the line between romance and platonic friendship is very blurry though, and some people can experience a mix of the two. If that's something you want to explore, some labels I'd recommend looking into are:

Idemromantic: Someone who categorizes relationships as romantic or platonic but experiences no internal differences.

Platoniromantic: When someone experiences no difference between romantic and platonic attraction.

Quoiromantic: An umbrella term that means actively dis-identifying with romance/romantic attraction/romantic orientation or not seeing it as a sensible/applicable category. Or finding romance/romantic orientation/romantic attraction non-sensical, inapplicable, inaccessible, etc. (There's a good article on quoiromanticism here)

Alterous attraction: An attraction that isn't wholly romantic or platonic, but may contain elements of both. If you look at platonic and romantic as binaries, alterous is a non-binary option.

Another thing I'd recommend looking into are squishes, Anon. These are completely platonic crushes, but they can feel very similar to romantic crushes and include a lot of similar symptoms.

Usually people experiencing squishes want to be important or want to be close/friends to the person they're attracted to, but it doesn't feel romantic at all.

As for what you want, you can want anything regardless of what attraction you may be feeling. So I'd really recommend trying not to worry too much and just trying to ask yourself as honest as you can what's appealing to you? You can also try different things out and see how they go if you want, as well.

This is a lot, don't feel like you have to have everything figured out right after reading all this. Let information sit, let yourself process things. And feel free to look into a research what looks interesting. Sometimes just because of the ineffable nature of romance, these things can be a bit subjective and there can be some overlap in ways of identitfying. So don't tie yourself in knots worrying about getting it exactly right, 'this works for me' or 'this is a useful way for me to label myself' is pretty good when figuring out labels and identity.

Could you secretly be alloromantic? It's possible, but my experience is that alloromantic people--while they may have a hard time sometimes describing or explaining romance--often don't have a hard time identifying if that's what they're actually feeling. Though again these things are a bit subjective, and the most important thing I'd suggest is to keep asking yourself what makes sense to you.

You're not doing anything wrong, this stuff can be incredibly confusing to figure out.

Feel free to send in another ask if you have more questions or want anything elaborated on. But hopefully this is helpful.

All the best!

[trisockatops]

Being “Older” But a “Younger” Aro

This is my submission for December’s Carnival of Aros, “Getting Older” hosted by roboticanary! As an aside, the Carnival of Aros doesn’t get many submitters or hosters and could use more love, so if you’re aro, please think about joining in!

.

[Edit after I’ve finished: this is a very stream of consciousness piece, so I hope it makes enough sense!]

Though I feel old and weighed down by the world, I’m not really that old. But in the queer community, especially newer communities like the aro or nonbinary community, we tend to label people as “elders” really young. It helps that these communities are seemingly more online than off, where a lot of teenagers and young adults are. And when you discovered such an identity as a teenager and got to grow up with and watch the community evolve for a decade or so, you can easily feel like some sort of elder in the community.

With the aro community, I’m kinda of feeling the opposite. Though I’m 31 and have been involved in the ace community since I was a teenager (back when the aro community was still pretty firmly a subset of the ace community and hadn’t really managed to establish its own, separate community spaces yet - though there was a firm line that aromanticism was a different identity than asexuality), I wasn’t always aro.

I am caedromantic. I used to identify as pan/biromantic until trauma (abuse) ended up cutting my romantic attraction away.

Though even this happened pretty young (began exploring calling myself caedromantic around 21/22), my journey into the aromantic community as an aro rather than an ally was pretty slow. Though aspecs have always been welcoming, there is stigma against being aspec due to outside factors like trauma, and for a long time, this caused me to feel more like an invader than a member of the aromantic community.

For a long time, I felt oddly split down the middle. I preferred to simplify and ID as most others to aromantic rather than specifically caedromantic for ease and privacy. But a part of me couldn’t help feel like I was co-opting the aromantic identity. There are, after all, a lot of common aromantic experiences that I can’t really relate to.

Being asexual certainly meant I never related to my allo peers growing up. And I was both asexual and what one might think of as a “late bloomer” - at least compared to my peers. I knew around 10/11 that I was different from my peers when they started calling celebrities (and sometimes classmates) “hot”, the word dripping with a feeling I couldn’t name or understand but knew was something I could not relate to. For a long time, I thought of myself as having a “nothingness” because I was lacking something everyone around me seemed to have. But I didn’t have to come head to head with being asexual until I was around 16 or so and actually started having romantic crushes (of which, I couldn’t understand wtf I was feeling because I still knew it wasn’t the same as what my peers all felt, until I found AVEN and the word for people like me).

Still, though. Even being on the outskirts of my allo peers, that was an asexual experience. Not an aromantic one. I still eventually developed crushes. I know what romantic attraction feels like. The world of romance, though I’ve never been a strongly romantic person in personality, is not a stranger to me. I know what it’s like, so that sense of confusion and otherness that other aros grew up with isn’t something I can relate to. I always feel like I don’t belong when these conversations come up, even though it’s now been a decade or so since I experienced any romantic attraction, feelings, or inclinations.

Thus I rather waded into the aromantic community as compared to boldly diving into it, as I had with the asexual community.

But, the more time passes, the more my aromanticism settles on me, and the more I want to be a part of the community and show my pride. So, over time, I’ve gotten more involved. I ran (maybe will pick up again?) an aro/ace ask blog. I started following aro bloggers and creators. I spent time on Arocalypse. I volunteer for both AUREA and the Carnival of Aros now.

Which is how I’ve ended up being an “older” aro but a community “young’un”.

I started writing this post with my relationship to the aro community in mind, but now that I’m wrapping this up, I realize it’s also about my aro identity as a whole, and how I’ve accepted it more and more as I age. It’s easier to be a part of community when you can accept that you have a place there, and that claiming space, you are adding to the community - not detracting or stealing from it.

Thank you to all the aros who helped me along this journey, even just by staunchly being yourselves (or struggling to be yourself but being honest and vulnerable about it and showing me that I’m not alone). I hope that as I continue to age and grow, I can provide this sort of example and support to aros of any age coming to realize they are aro and/or trying to come to terms with being aro.

[aparticularbandit]

Hi again Bandit, thank you for your reply to my ask.

I sent my original ask because I don’t know any other ace people outside of myself, and I’m not out to people irl, so I’ve never had a chance to ask another asexual person about their feelings when it comes to reading sexual scenes in fanfics.

I identify as ageosexual too! I asked how you feel reading sex scenes in reader insert type fics because when I read them, I don’t (or can’t) picture myself in the role of ‘reader’. My mind automatically inserts a character into the ‘reader’ role to make it into a character x character visual in my head. Because the thought of imagining myself involved in any sort of physical intimacy/sex scenes is so repulsive to me. But I didn’t know if I was the only person that did that, or if it was a common thing.

I never know how to explain my identity because my aceness confuses me a bit when it comes to labels to help describe myself. I’m not aromantic because I would definitely be open to a romantic relationship with a woman or a non binary person. And obviously I’m asexual but the characters I am ‘attracted’ to in fics are only ever women. So does that mean I’m a biromantic lesbian asexual too? Or would I have to be interested in men also to be biromantic? (I’m not interested in men at all in any way)

No problem! Labels are confusing and complicated and navigating all of this own your own without a support or someone to talk about it with is HARD. I did a lot of my learning on my own, too, which meant a lot of playing around with labels and not feeling quite comfortable with them because it can be hard to find one(s) that fit with your experiences! And it's so hard when you don't have someone else to talk to about all of it! I'm honored you're talking with me, tbh.

You do not have to be attracted to men to be biromantic. Bi usually refers to being attracted to two or more genders, so women and non-binary, being two or more, counts!

You can use that label if you want, if you feel it fits you best, but I would be careful with it. I know that there are a lot of people who would question the term biromantic lesbian because there's a lot of discourse over lesbian as a term being used solely for women who are attracted to other women. Historically speaking, that isn't true. The term lesbian - historically speaking - has also included bisexuals, and there's a post that actually went really in-depth on this with sources and everything; I've reblogged it before but my tag systems are. Actually not bad, but I've had this blog for years so trying to find one specific post in a lot of them is. rough. (This post is close to what I'm looking for in terms of historical context, but it's not the exact one. I can try and look more later and find it! I'm just. not in a reliable place to do so right now, unfortunately. If I do, I'll post it again so you can see it!) So I would use the term biromantic lesbian with caution because it can cause unwelcome reactions (the past couple of times I've brought it up, I've gotten questions about it that I don't answer because frankly I shouldn't have to defend my labels. I'm okay deleting and blocking unwelcome Nonnies, but if you're not - like, I want you to be aware there are potential risks in the label. Oddly enough, no one has asked about lesbian asexual, but I guess that's another thing).

I tend to use asexual in most company, because that's a term that's easy to explain without having to get into the messy complications of romantic orientation and what it means and why I use biromantic instead of panromantic (I liked how this post differentiated between the two and found my experiences lined up more with bi than pan, as my attractions to different genders is. different. I'm a sensual ace, which means I still want to kiss and make out and stuff, but I don't want to do any of that with guys. Just. No). Being able to clarify that you aren't aro is good if you're seeking a romantic relationship, even if you're not sure where on the romantic spectrum you fit or what label applies the best!

And that's the thing - labels are - they're fluid, you know? Finding a label that fits can change throughout your lifetime as you find ones that fit your experiences better (or as your experiences change), and that's fine! You should never be afraid of trying a label on, finding it doesn't fit, and switching to a different one, and you shouldn't have to worry about using multiple as a way to try and explain yourself when you find that one, on its own, doesn't fit.

And if you can't find a romantic orientation label that you like, you can always use alloromantic, which really just means that you aren't aro (like allosexual vs. asexual - doesn't mean attraction to all genders, just means you're definitely attracted to at least one gender).

[my-strange-attraction]

Toying around with the idea of calling myself queer as my main label rather than aro, ace, or aroace. Like I still identify with my aspec labels but I’m not really vibing with how constrictive they can feel at times, especially when I introduce myself as one of them. Idk I think my journey from demigirl to agender to genderfluid to eventually genderqueer has taught me a lot about the power of labels as a social tool rather than merely as self identification. Both uses of labels are important to recognize, but I think tumblr tends to put a certain emphasis on the latter, and I’m realizing that the former is more important to me as a person than I thought.

[aro-culture-is]

being young, autistic and possibly in the arospec is very confusing. i like putting labels on myself so i can organize my thoughts properly, but since i'm still a kid (turning 14 next month) i haven't had much experience with romantic attraction so i can't really determine my identity. like, i'm pretty sure i experience romantic attraction, but i don't think i'd like ever being in a relationship (the idea of it sounds cool but the reality sounds like it sucks). my experience kind of fits with lithromantic, but i worry that i only feel this way because i'm young and too immature

hi,

I've talked about this before but... the pressure folks feel to "get it right" the first time, especially with identities? It's honestly a huge anxiety piece driven by the perfectionism school pushes, and realistically... the only people who care tend to be those who I'd advise not listening to anyways (like acephobes, for example).

I started identifying as aroace when I was about your age. I'm 21 now. I have never wavered on my aro identity, but... I was a late bloomer on sexuality. I'm not ace. That started to be a thing in my late teens, like, extremely rare where I felt fine being ace still at 17, and only shortly before I turned 20 did I drop the label completely. And... the worst I got was a few questions from those who knew less than I'd anticipated - "wait, you can be aro and not ace?", or "wait, what does aro mean then?"

That said - you can also chose to interact with the communities of identities that feel good to you, and not label yourself. That's totally fine and valid too. Ultimately, labels are just... words. I liken them to clothing - sometimes, a favorite shirt that you've owned for years might not fit as well anymore, but still be comforting and you keep wearing it anyways. Sometimes, you buy dress clothes that you like to wear in special occasions - even some, maybe you only wear when you're alone - and the rest of the time, they hang in the closet. Some fit perfectly but that doesn't mean you like them or wear them willingly. And - sometimes you layer up.

To bring that back directly, if you're worried you're (maybe) lithromantic only because you're young or immature... does it actually harm you to try it on? If you don't want to, you don't have to. It won't affect anyone but you. You could also try a layer up - maybe aro or aro-spec feels more comfortable right now, and that's okay. Maybe you'd like to take the broadest approach - queer - and leave it there. Or maybe you'd rather wait. They're all options.

I can't tell you who you are. I just hope this helps you to feel comfortable exploring it, and to know that as cliche as it might feel, it will be okay.

(I answer more questions like this in the tag "am i aro")

- mod kee

[jankwritten]

i just saw somebody do this and it made me want to do it as well. For me, these headcanons are largely subject to the AU that I'm writing or the version of canon that I'm working with (PJO versus HoO versus ToA etc. etc.) so some of these may contradict!!!! and that's okay baby we love them anyway. the idea is from @/s3okj (I'm not entirely sure if they're okay with being tagged). Also this got really long so I'm putting the actual HC under the cut SORRY

(some of) my lgbt pjo/hoo headcanons

Percy: bisexual almost always, though he also fluctuates between being aromantic/asexual or some blend therein. I also tend to hc that he forms really close, non-romantic bonds with people that are often misconstrued as romantic (Grover, Piper, Nico, etc. etc.) but that he is polyam which makes it fun when he's trying to explain who is his boyfriend/girlfriend versus his nonromantic partner.

He uses he/him pronouns more often than not, but sometimes he winds up with he/they pronouns (or even he/they/she pronouns) in AUs where he leaves camp for some time to himself and meets some mortals. I think that if asked, he would describe himself as genderqueer/genderfluid. I do usually headcanon him as AMAB.

Annabeth: I almost always hc her as biromantic asexual. That is in part because I hc the Athena cabin in general to have a predilection for asexuality ngl. I HC that she doesn't necessarily identify as polyam, but that she is okay with being in a polya relationship, she just only tends to keep maybe one or two romantic partners herself in that case.

This one is actually very new in that I've not used it in any writing yet, but now I hc that she is a trans girl and uses she/her pronouns.

Grover: TBH I don't write him as much as I should, considering. I would say he's...biromantic but heterosexual? I think? That's kind of where I'm leaning, I think that he labels himself that way but that he's only really ever had a crush on one boy, and then he met Juniper and it was game over for him.

Again, I've never really written him, so I haven't had time to develop any "non-canon" HC for his gender. In my head he's a cis male who uses he/him pronouns.

Thalia: I love hc Thalia as aroace but with a tendency to form QPRs with people because of her feelings of being abandoned by her mom. I think that she cares really really deeply for people, but that she's never really experienced what people always describe as "love".

Thalia in my mind is very "just call me whatever you want to call me", but she DOES like when people pull out the non-she pronouns. I hc her as a cis female.

Nico: My boy! Nico to me is homosexual but biromantic. sometimes he's biromantic asexual (can you see a trend with these so far hm it's almost like I ~project~) but more often than not he's allo. I think he just loves so much sometimes that he doesn't really know what to do with himself (he's polyam in my HC as well which I think he'd be scared of), not to mention the fact that he wasn't really raised in a way that let him explore identities etc. I think that he doesn't realize he's biromantic because he didn't realise that the way he experiences romantic attraction could be different from the way he experiences sexuality (I also HC that either Will or Percy is the one who taught him the language to differentiate). OH AND HE'S ALMOST ALWAYS DEMISEXUAL!!! I nearly forgot about that one.

He is the one who flip flops most consistently between being trans and cis, it really genuinely just comes down to the story I'm telling at the time. He goes by he/him no matter what, he finds they/them pronouns uncomfortable (for himself) but is more than happy to help his friends experiment with pronouns.

Will: now THIS BOY. is truly the most unpredictable he could be really just any thing in any given story (except straight, normally he's not straight). I think that he really enjoys the blanket term "queer" and feels very comfortable with that as his label. He's almost never aro/ace, but he'd be comfortable in a relationship with an ace person. I do hc him as polyam sometimes.

He is almost always a trans man in my writing, even if it's not explicitly or implicitly stated. He uses he/they pronouns, though the "they" days are pretty rare and he will tell people if that's his preferred pronoun that day. He also has an ATROCIOUS sense of fashion (that's not a gender/sexuality hc I just think it's funny to dunk on him).

Piper: Another very recent addition to my average HC, but I do see her as biromantic. I think that she'd identify as asexual, but that she's like "Eh" about it, like she's fine either way, she just uses the label kind of as a way to say "I probably won't ever initiate this kind of thing". I also HC that she doesn't realize that she's ace until after her relationship with Jason. I do also think she has a preference for women, but is okay dating men too.

I get very she/they lesbian vibes from Piper. She identifies as nonbinary and LOVES playing with fashion as a means to express herself. I think that she and Percy are fucking killer at coming up with GNC outfits for one another.

Jason: oh, another one of my BOYS okay. So Jason is another one of those ones that kind of fluctuates a lot depending on the story I'm telling. I think I'd say that like Nico, he's homosexual but biromantic, but with WAY more of a penchant towards aro/ace vibes. He's almost always demisexual, and I think he struggles a lot with his attraction to women - I think that he'd feel like a horrible person for a while after he figures out that he's romantically but not sexually attracted to women, because he gets it in his head that that means he's misogynistic/inherently abusive somehow. I tend to HC that he's always known that he was attracted to men but he's always ASSUMED that he was attracted to women as well, and that's where his views of himself get challenged the most, in his relationship with Piper. I also hc him as polyam, but very selectively so - he would only be okay with dating a select few people. He wouldn't mind if his partner had other partners, though.

For a long time Jason was just a cis he/him male in my head, but recently I've been persuaded to the HC that he's trans. I think that it's another thing he's just always known about himself though, like ever since he was a little kid he's always known that he's a boy. Most of the time when I write him he's still cis, but in more of my recent stuff (and hockey AU) he's trans.

Frank: Again, I don't really write Frank as much as I should, considering. I think that he's never really put much thought to his identity, but that he wouldn't necessarily call himself straight either. He's not necessarily asexual, but he's not entirely not, either, and it's kind of the same for his romantic attraction - he's not necessarily into people, but at the same time, he does on occasion "catch feelings" for people (like Leo or Hazel). I think that he's very comfortable existing in his definitively grey-area. I think when someone asks what he is, he says, "I dunno," shrugs, and moves on.

I get cis male he/him vibes, but again, I haven't written much of his character, so that could change. I do think the idea of him identifying as agender could be interesting, like maybe sometimes when he shifts animal forms he's not a male animal and he feels the same way when he's in his human form. That could be interesting.

Leo: here's a fucking doozy. Leo is the most homophobic bisexual guy you will ever meet /hj he's like. So unaware of his attraction to men that he circles around to being weird and an asshole about it, like he's trying so hard to not see that part of himself that he shits on attraction to males in general, all while drooling over his best friend's biceps on the reg. So I DO think that he's bisexual (sometimes he's even just flat out gay) but it would take a pretty drastic thing to happen for him to realize it.

This dude made attack helicopter jokes until Jason or Nico dropped it on him that he's trans one day fr fr. Leo is such that eighth grade bully kind of vibe in my head when it comes to sexuality and gender, he's the kid who's soooo repressed and in the closet that he lashes out at any hint of the LGBT just so people will never attempt to associate it with him. I do think that once he gets his head out of his ass about it, he would identify with he/him pronouns (and privately use it/its pronouns with Festus, though I feel like that's more of him being a downer on himself and removing his own humanness on the days when he's feeling particularly Disconnected from people, ala the Tism. This is not to say that I view it/its pronouns as dehumanizing, I just think that that's how Leo would use them against himself, does that make sense?). So yeah, Leo's an asshole cis male he/him "I don't use pronouns" typa guy /j.

Hazel: I think that she's pretty solidly straight and allo in my mind, but she's also the kind of person who is VERY close to her female friends, to the point that it's sometimes misconstrued as attraction. I think that she's just a very physically affectionate, friendly kind of person and that that reads, in some situations, like she's coming on to people. I do think that's she's very well read on LGBT stuff, and that she kind of was even before Nico came out to her, like I feel as if during her time at Camp Jupiter no matter how limited it was, she discovered some myths with LGBT topics and it FASCINATED her.

She would experiment with pronouns all the time, but I think that she's, at the end of the day, a cis she/her female. I do like to think she's comfortable with any pronouns though, and will sometimes introduce herself with he/him pronouns around kids he suspects might be trans.

Reyna: Reyna is yet ANOTHER character I don't do enough with. I think that she's very firmly aro/ace but that she's constantly at war with herself over the aro part of it, because she experience very very deep platonic bonds with people, like Jason. She's convinced that that is romantic love, even though if anyone asked if she wanted to marry Jason/kiss Jason etc. etc. she'd immediately say no. I think she would eventually settle on idenifying as an asexual lesbian and then just never date anybody ever.

For some reason, I do see Reyna as trans. I think that maybe she didn't realize until on Circe's island or something (i can't remember enough of her canonical past rn to really piece together a proper headcanon) but that she is a trans female who uses she/they pronouns.

Rachel: I guess I kind of have no HC for Rachels sexuality? I'd say ace, because of the whole oracle thing, but I also believe that that was just a copout for Riordan to not have to pursue a love triangle with her anymore so fuck that at the same time. I just think that Rachel is Rachel and she's doing whatever the hell she wants to in that funky cave of hers.

I can see her being genderfluid for some reason, maybe the whole artsy side we see during the canonical books. I just like genderfluid characters alright, sue me.

[thatone-churro]

say what you want about online environments and shit and queer interactions and whatever. tbh, being open about my sexuality and interacting with other queers has actually made me feel better about being an asexual lesbian.

for a long time, i was under the impression that you either were asexual or not. and that meant you either felt attraction or you didn’t. the only time i had ever heard of someone being ace and something else was being aro/ace, and even that had an identical definition to me.

it wasn’t until i began interacting with more queer people online that i began to learn that asexual was not a solid black-or-white label. you have no idea how surprised/excited i was to find out that the term “asexual” can be applied with another term. don’t get me started on discovering the asexual spectrum.

but despite finding out that asexual labels worked like that, i still felt sort of out-of-place. even ignoring the overwhelming amount of aphobes (and the surprising amount in the lgbtq community itself), having a label with my asexual label (first biromantic and later lesbian) felt odd. not because i wasn’t comfortable with the label; it’s the only one i’ve felt completely comfortable with yet. rather, it felt odd because i had never met/seen/heard of anyone who identified as asexual and something else other than aromantic.

i know it’s always made a big deal that spaces, even online, for queers to interact with each other is important, but i didn’t really get it for a while. i mean, yeah, i understood why it was important, but i just didn’t feel it until i had a personal experience to tie it to.

since i’ve been more open about my sexuality online and putting myself in these open & accepting environments, i’ve begun to find more people who identify like me (or at least with asexual+some romantic label). i’ve met people who were asexual because of some sort of trauma, but also because it just doesn’t appeal to them anymore, or also because even if they’ve never done it, they don’t care to.

the more people i’ve seen like this has made me feel more secure in my identity.

being able to meet and interact with other ace people who identify as different things and for different reasons really matters to those questioning their identity or those who feel odd about it.

it’s also why asexual representation in various ways is so important to us. if we’re not already being erased or ignored or being told we don’t belong in the lgbtq community even by other members, we get either no representation or iffy, if not just straight up awful, representation that follows the worst stereotypes. we’re portrayed, especially those of us that are sex-repulsed (and especially those of us who are sex-repulsed solely because it doesn’t interest us), tend to be portrayed as “broken” or “monsters” for the protagonist to fix or do what i used to: assume aromantic and asexual are the same thing or think asexual means experiencing no attraction ever.

asexuality is a spectrum and we’re diverse even in that. we exist in all kinds of forms. being asexual isn’t wrong. being anything on the asexual spectrum for any reason doesn’t make you odd or broken or invalid. you’re allowed to be ace and still be other things. labels aren’t black and white and you aren’t forced to have only one.

[somearoshit]

Ok so I can't decide whether to keep or drop the ace label and I'd like to hear other aros thoughts on the situation

So for the first 19 years of my life I felt 0 sexual attraction whatsoever and bc of that identified as ace. But after having tried a romantic+sexual dating relationship I learned that I'm super sex favorable (perhaps have felt a bit of sexual attraction too?? thats tbd) and my "ideal" relationship would be friends with benefits.

Bc of all that I now relate way more to alloaros than I do to aroaces. I don't really id with the ace community like at all now? Like 90% of the content/experiences just doesn't apply anymore. And I feel like if I tell people I'm ace then they'll read that as me saying I'm "off limits" which just isn't true. So I've been thinking about dropping the ace label.

But then on the other hand, I'm definitely not allo? Or at least not completely? And so I feel like sometimes using the ace label could be useful for describing certain experiences. And I don't want to perpetuate the myth that all aros are ace, by only iding as aro but then describing "ace experiences"

And on top of all that my aro identify takes highest priority for me, but people tend to focus on my ace id and ignore my being aro, which pushes me to drop the ace label. But then I don't relate to alloro, allosexuals only alloaros, so ???

I just keep going back and forth on keeping the ace label or just going nonsam/unspecified

Tl;dr - discovered I'm very sex favorable and relate way more to alloaros now than aroaces, not sure whether to drop the ace label or not

I would really appreciate hearing from other aros (specifically nonsam aros and alloaros), be it advice or similar experiences

[gryphills]

positivity: cishet ace people are valid!! just not queer

I disagree though, and I really think excluding aces from queer spaces is not the way forward! At what point does someone become "queer enough" to be permitted? Who decides this?

I'm going to work under the assumption that you're Not here out of malice, so I'll preface this with that absolutely none of this is written in a tone of aggression, I'm just passionate :-) /gen

I'll break down the way I see it for you: there are 3 main orientations, yeah? Your Gender, your Sexual orientation, and your Romantic orientation.

Most people don't distinguish their sexual or romantic orientation from each other, because either they're the same, or they just don't bother - it's easier to just label one of those and leave it at that - being bi, or gay, or whatever.

If you're Ace or Aro then you tend to think about that distinction a little more than other people might. You might realize that those 2 orientations don't line up - "Oh im actually an ace lesbian" or "Huh I think I'm bi but also Aro" and this is fine and valid, yknow? and we'd probably both agree that in those two situations those people are queer.

So say we have a cis ace/aro in front of us. They aren't heterosexual or heteroromantic. They can't be - in the same way that non-binary people aren't cis. A non-binary person isn't a woman or a man, and therefore.... isn't a woman or a man - they aren't binary. An ace/aro person isn't attracted to the same gender or the opposite - they aren't any more straight than they are gay. And they are queer and belong in queer spaces, because they aren't het.

Hopefully that at least makes sense and you can agree!

So let's take one of those orientations away. Now we have a Cis, Heteroromantic Ace person. Or maybe a Cis, Heterosexual Aro person. If you tell me that these people aren't queer, then you're now saying that one of those orientations doesn't matter, or is not valid. By saying that the people who identify this way aren't queer, you're both invalidating their identity and also buying into heteronormativity - if you aren't experiencing any attraction, why do you consider that straight? Why is being straight the default in your mind?

If you don't think ace or aro people can be queer, then you Literally Can't respect their identities or believe they're valid. I would encourage you to do some introspection on whether you Actually want to support ace and aro people or whether you're more interested in gatekeeping the community. The only Ace and Aro people who aren't queer are people who don't want to identify as such, and all ace and aro people who would like to identify as queer Are.

Genuinely, I hope this helps, and that you have a think on it! I don't know why you felt like you had to come into my inbox, but I do genuinely hope that this is helpful to you and that you might come away from this with a new perspective. I don't see any point in trying to tear down the queer community from the inside when there's so many people on the outside already trying to do just that - We might as well not do the work for them.

Sincerely, an extremely queer person (though I would hope my words have weight regardless of what the nuances of my identities are)