#like fuck sometimes it feels like the focus in validity is somekind of palliative care

[doitforeco]

One of the things I wish the most regarding aro/ace discourse is some kind of overcoming of the early stages of “validity and representation”. I understand that it is a recomforting and important point to reiterate the normalcy of our feelings (or lack of), especially when romance and sexuality are such a prevalent part of how  we define our humanity. But sometimes I feel that our communities have such a emphasis in rehumanizing the individual that it becomes very difficult to discuss the particularly isolating experience of being aromantic and asexual.

There’s the role that sexual and romantic discovery has in society’s construction of adulthood. In the series of milestones that allows us to divide the different stages of life, the discovery and exploration of attraction is always centered. However, aromanticism and asexuality are defined by the negative. It’s never about something you feel, it’s about something that you don’t. So, you arrive to adulthood with this feeling of incompleteness, because the actions (first kiss, first time) that should have been performed to confirm that changing of life-stage are just not there. We have already talked a lot about the infantilization of asexuals, and I think it comes from that: we really have no way to socially think of adulthood without returning to some form of amatonormativity.

It also has a very big effect in your friendships, at least in my case. There is a lot of socialization that we usually tie to sex and romance. Obviously, that depends on the group of people, but there’s this expectation of hook-up culture or romance as common elements of conversation. This not even mentioning the problems of being aromantic/asexual in a capitalistic society that privileges the nuclear family as a form of community.

Idk. I just feel like I would like to hear about the structural, systemic consequences of aromantism and asexuality, and how it individually and collectively affects us more than having to have another discussion about how not feeling attraction is valid and you can always have sex/have a queerplatonic relationship/ continue performing in a amatonormative society.