#not demiro ace culture

[demiro-ace-culture-is]

hello, it is i! the admin of this blog!

while i am not as active as i once was, i still id as both demiromantic and asexual! shoot some questions my way and i might answer em

that's all for now!

[demiro-allosexual-culture-is]

Demiromantic non-ace arospec culture is wishing we were more represented in the demiromantic community instead of demiromantics being assumed to be demisexual or asexual

[aspec-culture]

Aspec culture is being delusional ace but being confused about not being aro. Until you find out about demiromantic and realising, THAT explains a lot. It's such a relief to find out that I'm not weird, and that there's enough of us out there to even have a name for it. This is why I love the aspec community.

♡ ♥

[screampotato]

The point of dating is not to commit yourself to someone for life. The point of dating is to FIGURE OUT if you like the person enough to take the relationship further.

Please, young folks - especially aspec and arospec youngsters, but really this applies to everyone - do not fall into the trap of feeling obliged to pretend feelings you don't have, or feeling obliged to stay together with someone you're dating.

Dating is try-before-you-buy. You are ALLOWED to say "I'm just not feeling it" after a while, and you are not insulting anyone by doing so.

aro-spec culture is getting into a relationship with your friend to see if feelings happen (their idea) and being scared that you’re going to insult them by being aro-spec since you know it means you probably aren’t going to end up falling for them

.

[artsyaech]

a masterlist of [thing] culture is... blogs!

[PT: a masterlist of [thing] culture is... blogs!]

part 1: orientations and general queerness

queer - general

@queercutlureis

@gay-culture-is

aspec

@ace-culture-is

@aro-culture-is

@autospec-culture-is

@aspec-culture

@questioning-aspec-culture-is

@quoicultureis

@qpr-culture-is

@aroace-culture-blog

@aro-ace-culture-is

@angled-aroace-culture (run by meee)

@tertiary-attraction-culture-is

@omniaspec-culture-is

@aego-culture-is

@aegoromantic-culture-is

@demisexual-culture-is

@demiromantic-culture-is

@aroace-autie-culture-is

@plato-repulsed-culture-is

@atertiary-culture-is

@cupio-culture-is

@demiro-ace-culture-is

@demiro-allosexual-culture-is

@polyam-aro-culture-is

@greyromantic-culture-is

@aplatonic-culture-is

@apl-culture-is

@aspec-sapphic-culture-is

@gray-culture-is

@arospike-culture-is

@abrosexual-culture-is

mlm

@achilleancultureis

@mlm-culture-is

wlw

@lesbian-culture-is

@sapphic-cultureis

mspec

@mspec-gay-culture-is

@bisexual-culture-is

@bi-culture-is

@pan-culture-is

@mspec-culture-is

@gaybian-culture-is

@omnisexualcultureis

@neptunic-culture-is

@uranic-culture-is

[vampire-fanboy]

actually on the topic of erasing characters identities and such what the hell is peoples issues with aroace characters?

like holy shit we all agree its bad and horrible to change a characters orientation....... until theyre aroace

why? hm? why is that? why is that suddenly okay?

(just now added a "read more" bc this became longer then anticipated lol oopsie)

and you fuckers always try and beat around it too like "oh i think think theyre xyzromantic but still asexual!!!" "i think theyre actually demiro not just aro!" and SO ON when said aroace character has not shown any interest in anyone anything ever attraction wise

and before anyone says anything. YES. I FUCKING KNOW BEING AROACE IS A SPECTRUM. I KNOW SOME ACES FEEL ROMANTIC ATTRACTION AND SOME AROS FEEL SEXUAL ATTRACTION. I KNOW!!!

Why do i know? BC IM FUCKING AROACE SPEC idiots

im grey-ace demiro, so dont even fucking try and argue with me people are just using aroace microlables "just for the sake of hc's" NO!! you are ERASING characters identities!!

asexual and ace-spec are not 100% the same aromantic and aro-spec are not 100% the same its a spectrum for a reason, theres microlables for a reason, and some people literally just feel fucking zero attraction point blank period! and you have to fucking respect that!

ugh i swear

and another fucking thing people always go "oh there isnt a shipping problem in fandom culture there isnt anything wrong with shipping culture you just hate fun!!" and i BEG TO FUCKING DIFFER

people ONLY EVER CARE ABOUT SHIPPING IN FANDOM!!! EVER!!!

It is so fucking hard to find normal ic things about characters without someone pulling some bullshit ship out of their ass just... BECAUSE!!! BECAUSE THEY CANT FUCKING CONSUME AND INDULGE IN THE MEDIA LIKE A NORMAL PERSON UNLESS ROMANCE IS INVOLVED!!!

ugh whateverrrr this turned into a rant and i dont wanna do that, im super tired i dont care enough to write an essay

[dykepuffs]

Two people I saw IRL today - That I trust and respect their opinions - said that choosing to describe myself as stone rather than using a word coined by someone (knowingly) on the ace spectrum is acephobic.

So, is it? I feel very attached to stoneness- both culturally and on a purely practical level - but if I'm accidentally communicating something that I don't mean to communicate, then obviously that's a problem. And I know that words move fast and have regionally-bound meanings, so not to get attached- Certainly, never to be more attached to words than to the community they represent.

(I've rambled before about how I don't really get where I fit on the ace-demi-allo spectrum or the aro-demiro-alloro spectrum because nothing seems to describe how I feel either but, is that in itself acephobia too?)

[mordcore]

the word aromantic was invented in 2008(?) on the AVEN forums. non-limerant was a thing with the same meaning in the last century but apparently didn't catch on?

and idk why we didn't split off before but it seems that after the years-long terrible discrimination against aces and aro on the onlines died down somewhat and the groups were regrouping somehow the aro community came back strong. presumably alloaros went like hello we exist also. i was not analyzing stuff as it happened i was just happy that aros were saying cool and smart things and to be a part of that. it felt a bit like being on trans tumblr in 2015 just that presumably people are a bit older. in both cases it's not the first time a community about this identity has existed, but it was a new forming of one with many people doing philosophy about it and questioning the hegemony and asking all kinds of new(seeming) questions and sharing unique perspectives that none of us had shared or heard before.

i dont remember much about what the acecourse was like besides widespread general hostility towards anyone aspec, the same "arguments" over and over ("aces are basically straight"/"aces arent oppressed"/"aspec is appropriating autistic terminology" etc. applied to aros as well by those who had heard of us at all.), the destruction of the fun this community had been and many of our words ("zucchini", the ♠️ for aroace, ♣ ?, ♦ demiro and/or demiace and ♥ alloace/"romoace", more stuff i forgot) and online culture (there used to be an askblog that started as a joke about all aces secretly being dragons and it became an ongoing interactive roleplay experience with worldbuilding and lore, idk if anyone else remembers it).

I watched the asexual and aromantic communities get eaten away at by exclusionists and proto-TERFs and queer people making fun of microlabels and people who talked about how they just wanted all of us to stop dividing ourselves so much and people who decided that the concept of the Split Attraction Model was homophobic and people who flooded the ace and aro tags with porn and--

Well, you get the point.

But now a lot of people on this site don't know about ace culture and modern history, so here's some stuff you should know about:

The Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) was started in 2001 by asexuality activist David Jay as a forum and educational space about asexuality.

A Carnival of Aces, which is a monthly blogging carnival on ace topics, has been taking place since May 2011 and has included such topics as coming out, non-traditional relationships styles and polyamory, asexual education (which I hosted), and labels and microlabels.

The Split Attraction Model is one model for talking about sexual and romantic orientation that splits out those two orientations, allowing individuals to describe sexual attraction/orientation as distinct from romantic orientation (e.g., aromantic bisexual, heteroromantic grey-asexual). While this model is primarily used by people on the ace and aro spectrums, it can be used by anyone who wants to discuss or describe sexual orientation as being separate from romantic orientation.

The AVEN triangle (or asexuality triangle) is a black and white or greyscale triangle that originated from taking the Kinsey scale and extending it down into another axis to address/acknowledge the range of attraction between what's on the Kinsey scale (allosexuality) and no sexual attraction (asexuality). It's generally presented as white at the horizontal line at the top and then black at the point at the bottom, often with a gradation of shades of grey down to the bottom.

Microlabels are specific (sometimes very narrow) labels for sexualities, romantic orientations, and genders. While these are not aro- or ace-specific, they were often associated with those communities because there was a culture of having nuanced conversations about narrow definitions, often by people couldn't find something that fit their experience in the standard L, G, B, or T lexicon. Demiromantic/demisexual, cupioromantic/cupiosexual, and quoiromantic/quoisexual are all examples of micro-labels.

The ace ring, a black ring worn on the middle finger of the right hand (generally) is a symbol of asexuality that some ace people wear. It originated on AVEN in 2005 when people were looking for a symbol that was rather covert.

Cake has also been an ace symbol, mostly from the idea that ace people agree that cake is better than sex. It used to be common to see a drawing of a cake with the ace flag colors.

The ace of (heart/spades/clubs/diamonds) has at times been used as a symbol for different ace spectrum/aro spectrum combinations. Ace of hearts is generally agreed on as alloromantic asexual and ace of spades as aromantic asexual (aroace or aro/ace). Ace of clubs is sometimes for grey-romantic asexual and ace of diamonds sometimes for demiromantic asexual, but those are less common.

Dragons were also associated with the ace community, at least on Tumblr. I'm less certain where this one came from (theories include that they're mythological creatures the way ace people are seen to be or that it's because there were headcanons that Charlie Weasley was ace).

[demiro-ace-culture-is]

Demiro-ace culture is getting most of the way through a video game before figuring out what romantic interest you want to pursue and having to start a whole new playthrough if you want to do it.

this is why i play monster prom over and over again

[elithearoace]

Just made a demiromantic bracelet tell me what bracelets I should make next!!

[magic-is-something-we-create]

i have the list in the thumbnail document but if anyone's wondering here are the members of all three camps:

AroAllo:

Lakia (Demiro Lesbian)

Iggy (Aro Gay)

Orev (Aro Bi) (side character in whispers who has captured my heart. im love them)

Gab (Greyro Bi)

Veratrum (Aro Bi)

Ano (Aro Lesbian (insofar as aliens with weird genders and sexes can be labelled thusly)) (from the Lost if that wasnt clear from the alien note)

Izak (Aro Pan)

Xiv (Aro Bi (with a leaning towards women)) (side character in goddess-touched. she/her)

Fen (Aro and whatever the equivalent of gay is for. wasp genders) (xe's from the second arc of TMS (and xir pronouns may not stay xe/xir im still undecided in how i want to approach xir culture/its interaction with the rest of the ehlverse))

AlloAce:

Dusk (Ace Gay)

Ember (Demisexual Bi)

Oak (Ace Lesbian)

He Who Loves The Air Too Much (Ace Het (being ace is why he matures into a woman eventually, as is the case for all Deepfolk women)) (dont question why a deepfolk is on here <3)

Sig (Ace Bi) (side character in goddess-touched. he/him)

Viola (Ace Lesbian) (she's from deity complex thats why u dont know her)

Beta (Ace Bi)

AroAce:

Annie

Katya (lorelei's sister that she lives with)

Autumn

Slate (Grey on both counts) (one of gab, annie, and andy's younger brothers)

Actaea (doesn't realize it)

Aralian (they could technically do parthenogenesis but im not doing that on screen cause it feels like a hate crime even if i myself am ace) (the Champion from the Lost)

Hunter (also from deity complex. yes this means the entire cast so far is ace. they/them)

Penn (Demi on both counts) (side character in TMS. they/them)

the Collector (side character in whispers. just a little old man with an interesting hobby :) don't worry about it :))

Ash (Grey on both counts, gay on the few occasions he feels attraction)

so i got a great idea for a series of aro week illustrations over the weekend ft all of my alloaro, alloace, and aroace characters (aka 3 illustrations) and i REALLY like the idea

but

crucially

all three together adds up to 27 characters

even just the alloaro one is 9.

i cannot possibly finish even just that one before the end of the week

[aro-culture-is]

Demiromantic ace/quoisexual/questioning/non-SAM (I switch between these labels a whole lot if you couldn’t tell) culture is having a very solid idea of how your romantic attraction works but knowing very little about your sexuality, somehow.

.

[trans-aroace-culture-is]

Transmasc possibly aro\demiromantic ace culture is spending weeks obsessing over video game characters only to realize that most of your headcannons are you projecting on to characters

I’ve headcannoned so many characters as trans or otherwise lgbtq+ at this point that it’s actually hard to find a character that I like and haven’t headcannoned as lgbtq+ lol

[demiguy-culture-is]

What is a grayaroace??

I guess this came up since it's on my personal info post - I'll gladly give a simple overview

Just to fully break this down for everyone in case someone hasn't ever heard this term/parts of this term..

This is going to be a rather simple info post, so I'll attach a few resources here and there if you want to further explore the various labels.

Aromanticism

Aro, or aromantic, is an umbrella term and as defined by the LGBTA Wiki is "a romantic orientation defined by a lack of romantic attraction"

This does NOT mean that aromantic people or people who exist on the aromantic spectrum are love- or emotionless. They can still feel and experience love in various forms.

People under the aro umbrella, can still be sexually attracted to others.

People who do not exist under the aromantic umbrella are alloromantics

Resources:

@aromantic-official

@aro-culture-is

Asexuality

Ace, or a asexual, as defined by the LGBTA Wiki is "a sexual orientation defined by a lack of sexual attraction"

People under the ace umbrella, can still be romantically attracted to others.

People who do not exist under the asexual umbrella, are called allosexuals

Resources:

@asexual-society

@ace-culture-is

---

Being aromantic and/or asexual is does not need to be a binary thing, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Being either/or can be an experience that exists on a spectrum. There are many sub-labels

E.g. (THIS IS A NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST)

- Aroace, when you identify with both the aro AND ace labels

- Grayaro, a general term for being on the aromantic spectrum

- Grayace, a general term for being on the asexual spectrum

- Grayaroace, general term for being on the aro AND ace spectrum

- Demiaro, "a romantic orientation on the aromantic spectrum defined as someone who does not experience romantic attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone"

- Demiace, "a sexual orientation on the asexual spectrum defined as someone who does not experience sexual attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone "

- Demiaroace, BOTH demiro and demiace

ETC.

---

I hope I've covered the basic info about the labels.

I personally ID as grayaroace (I also use demiaroace, but I like to keep it more vague just because of how much it really fluctuates)

[demiro-ace-culture-is]

!!! im so happy for you!!!!!

every time someone steps out and says who they are, the world gets a little brighter.

I've been thinking back on my aroace journey lately... it was exactly a year ago (November 16) that I first heard of asexuality & aromanticism through Alice Oseman's book, Loveless. And while reading it I related too much to the main character, Georgia (an aromantic asexual girl), who goes through her own questioning journey. It was after reading this book that I decided to do my own research about these terms and after going through a lot of grief, doubt, pride and acceptance, I can finally say this is who I am!

It's been almost a year since I embraced the labels "aromantic asexual" and I couldn't be more grateful to have finally found the vocabulary and language to describe my experiences and identity.

If you don't know me yet, I'm June and I'm in the aromantic and asexual spectrums. I am aroace. I'm whole, valuable and beautiful just the way I am. I couldn't be more grateful to have found these wonderful communities 🥺.

[archerofchaos]

None Attraction, Left *very specific people*

The life of a demiromantic asexual