#not even about arospec in specific just???? platonic friendships exist??????

[bxsmxx]

so there's this new thing called a platonic friendship!!!!!! you guys should check it out!!!!!!

[aspec-writers]

What makes a trope arophobic?

So, recently, I’ve seen some people saying that ‘x trope is arophobic’, and I figured I might as well put my hat in the ring. To do this, I’ll look at several common romance tropes that people might think are arophobic and evaluating them.

Of course, this is all just my opinion! The only thing I ask is that you be respectful :)

Friends to Lovers

So this is actually the trope that inspired this post. Someone claimed that friends to lovers is inherently arophobic. And at first glance, it might certainly seem so: a trope that has the characters go from friends to something “more”.

This criticism is valid, and there are a few ways that this trope can be executed arophobically. (Is that a verb? Well, I’m making it one.) For this example, I’ll use A and B to refer to the characters who are put in this trope, and any character beyond that (C, D, E, etc) will have their roll explained in the story.

Displaying that the bond between A and B is so strong that it must become romantic, or having the bond be the strongest in the story. I don’t think it’s hard to see the problem with this: it indicates that a strong enough friendship has to be romance, or that if characters are close enough, of course it results in romance.  Thankfully, midicating (edit: it’s actually spelled mitigate)this is easy enough: if you want to have a friends-to-lovers plot, but not be arophobic, just have other characters with equally strong (or stronger!) friendships than A and B had before they start falling for each other. For example, say we have two close friendships: A and B, and C and D. If you want A and B to do the friends-to-lovers trope, you should not insinuate that because of the romantic desires, their relationship is becoming better than C and D’s platonic one. Don’t go about showing that A and B are clearly in love because they care about the other person deeply. The solution is, in all honesty, easy. The problem with this trope is that it can devalue non-romantic bonds between people by having the romantic bond be the strongest, or otherwise insinuating that romantic bonds are stronger/better than non-romantic ones.

This goes along with #1, but phrases like ‘A couldn’t help it, they were only human!’ and ‘Well, of course they fell in love! That’s what being human is about!’ and ‘They were so close; how could they not be in love?’, whether coming from a character that’s not explicitly debunked as being wrong by the narrative or the narrative itself. (If a character says that, and then another character debunks them, and that debunking is clearly endorsed by the narrative, it’s not the story being arophobic, it’s the specific character being arophobic)

To summarize: the main problem with this trope is that it can present friendships as less than romance, so to avoid being arophobic with the trope, simply don’t devalue friendships in this way.

Soulmates

Honestly, I shouldn’t even have to explain the problem with this one. There might be a way to present this in a way that doesn’t value romance about everything else, but if there is, I haven’t seen it.

I honestly haven’t read a lot of things with soulmates actually in them, so this is going more off of how it’s always executed than the trope itself. I’ve seen friends-to-lovers dynamics that aren’t arophobic. I’ve never heard of a soulmate story that’s not arophobic.

So: the main problem I’ve seen is that it implies that having a romantic partner completes you and is your other half.

This is cut-and-dry: anything that tries to say anything of the sort, unless it is clearly debunked by the narrative (this is a common caveat here) is arophobic.

It perpetuates the idea that there is someone for everyone, soulmate stories completely ignore arospec people, and they engage in arophobic ideas, including the concept that romance is the best form of intimacy.

Villain Who Doesn’t Feel Love (aka Evil Aro)

No. Just. No.

This trope is so disgusting and there is literally no way to make this non-arophobic. In all honesty, the only time this trope should be used, in my opinion, is by an arospec person with the intention to deconstruct it. Alloros should never use this.

This. Trope. Is. Horrible.

It isn’t like friends to lovers, or even soulmates. It’s so much worse.

It’s important to note that this trope only applies to characters who are evil because they can’t feel romantic attraction, or if they’re the only character in the story who doesn’t.

True Love Saves the Day

No explanation required. The world is saved because of two character’s romantic connection being strong enough to overpower the villains?

Not only is this incredibly likely to dip into Evil Aro (Read: villains are evil because they can’t feel romantic love) territory, it’s also incredibly amatonormative and arophobic, because it’s saying that love is a requirement. Specifically romantic love, but I digress.

We don’t need any more prioritization or glorification of romantic love in stories. We’ve seen it our entire lives, and we don’t need to see any more media insinuating that romantic connection is the best and that if we can’t feel it, we’re somehow missing out on something incredibly important. We’re not.

I might look at more of these romance-oriented tropes later, and I might also look at acephobic tropes, but I saw a post that inspired this and so I wanted to discuss a few things.

I looked at four tropes, and what I’ve gathered is that the main reason a trope is arophobic is because of the way it glorifies romantic love as being the strongest, most important, goodest, and best connection someone could experience. It ignores the existence of arospec people and sends the message that we’re missing something vital to life when we simply aren’t.

We just don’t feel romantic attraction that much, if at all, and it isn’t evil.

It just is.

[elyvorg]

So… I was talking about aspec V3 headcanons? Well then, let me lay down the facts.

Maki Harukawa is on the aromantic spectrum. Yes, even though she explicitly develops a crush on Kaito, and no, I’m not trying to dispute that part.

This is basically canon. Let me tell you why.

Maki is aro

For this, we need to consider the conversation Maki has with Shuichi in the first training session in chapter 4, while Kaito has temporarily disappeared to the bathroom. On one level, this conversation exists to be the only actual meaningful indication* that Maki has romantic feelings for Kaito until she goes and confesses them. Someone like Maki wouldn’t care about asking Shuichi if he “liked” Kaede (in that annoying loaded meaning of the word “like” that specifically refers to romantic attraction) unless she was trying to come to terms with the idea that she also “likes” someone else in the same way, and the only plausible candidate for that is Kaito.

But even more striking about this conversation, far more so than the general implication that Maki would only bother asking this if she happened to be crushing on a certain spiky-haired space dork, is the way Maki approaches and thinks about this whole topic in general. Take a look:

Maki:  “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird. […] Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi:  “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki:  “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

I, as an aromantic person myself, fully agree with Maki that it just seems weird to start romantically liking someone you’ve only just met, especially in a life-or-death situation where surely there’s way more important things to be focusing on. But apparently, most people do not find this thought weird at all – love at first sight is supposedly a real thing that can happen, and something something dangerous situations can bring out more hormones and passion???? sounds fake but okay – and so opinions like mine and Maki’s here are very much outliers.

And not only that, not only does the thought of crushing on near-strangers bewilder Maki to the point of disbelief, but she also can’t even come up with an answer to when crushing on someone would ever not be strange and bizarre. Like the whole concept is just alien to her. She can barely even wrap her head around how “liking” someone in that way even works. The very reason she’s even asking Shuichi about this is because she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling this way about Kaito.

This is how an aromantic person would view this kind of thing. It doesn’t sound even slightly like something an alloromantic person would say in this situation. That’s not up for interpretation – that’s just the truth about these views that Maki is expressing. Again: I’m aromantic. I would know.

Even from a character who then does turn out to nonetheless have a crush on someone, these statements are pretty much as canonically confirmed arospec as you can get short of them straight up using the word "aromantic" or a variant.** And, well, obviously Maki isn't about to go calling herself that. From the way she’s questioning this, she clearly doesn’t realise that her perspective is the outlier, so she’s probably never even heard of the term. Besides, she most definitely has way bigger hurdles to be getting over first in terms of her self-acceptance before she's ever going to particularly care about figuring out labels for her orientation of all things.

Aros with trauma are still aros

Now, granted, I severely doubt that Maki being arospec is what the writers intended to convey. Haha, deliberate aro representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially something more complex than vanilla aro, that's a funny joke. What the writers probably meant by writing this conversation I just discussed is to suggest that Maki is viewing things this way a result of her trauma.

But hey, guess what? Even if it is because of her trauma - and I'm not denying that it probably is - that doesn't make Maki any less aro. Some people are arospec because of trauma, and that's equally as valid a reason to be arospec as without. Maybe Maki would have grown up alloromantic if she hadn't been scouted as an assassin, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the Maki who exists now.

In writing this conversation, the writers were presumably attempting to communicate that Maki is so messed up by having been manipulated and abused and moulded into a soulless killing machine that she can no longer comprehend the idea of how or why anybody (especially not herself) would fall in love with someone when they'd only just met, or even really in any circumstances at all. …And in doing that, the writers unintentionally wrote a character who, as a result of her trauma, is aro(-spec). This is an objective fact about the canon story that does not change just because the writers probably weren’t aware enough about aromanticism to actually realise this.

Aros who feel romantic attraction are still aros

So, of course, Maki does in fact come to romantically love Kaito despite this. That fact becomes very important to her, and me lengthily explaining here that she’s actually arospec is not remotely trying to diminish that. But it’s also very important to me that people realise that Maki’s romantic love for Kaito comes from an aromantic perspective. She eventually chooses to embrace those feelings not remotely because it just feels to her like the natural way things should go, but despite every single conscious part of her insisting that this is weird and illogical and doesn’t make any goddamn sense to even be happening at all. She is not going to suddenly fall into all the boring romantic cliches and stereotypical alloromantic approaches to love just because she does in fact happen to be experiencing romantic attraction. There’s nothing alloromantic about Maki’s crush on Kaito.***

As for the specific flavour of arospec that allowed Maki to fall in love with Kaito anyway? This part is somewhat more up for interpretation because there’s no real explicit indication of this in particular, but I personally like to go with the idea that Maki is demiromantic. It feels appropriate for Maki’s character and trauma to imagine that she can only begin to potentially feel romantic things towards a person when she has an emotional connection with them – when she trusts them and knows that they trust her. It doesn’t necessarily have to take very long – she’d only been friends with Kaito for a handful of days before that telling conversation with Shuichi – and she may not even have to have consciously admitted to herself that she trusts them, but she needs to have that bond. She’s normally so guarded and has such strong automatic barriers up during her interpersonal interactions that seeing most people in a romantic light literally isn’t even an option in her brain.

Maki’s confession of her feelings for Kaito does read as rather strongly demiromantic, I think. She makes a point that this is about who Kaito is and what he’s done for her, before even getting to the part where she admits to having fallen for him. And she says she “fell for” him, not that she was always in love with him or anything to that effect. This happened somewhere along the way during their friendship, because of their friendship, and because of Kaito being his incredible trusting supportive self towards her when she needed it most.

Maki Harukawa is demiromantic, and she’s wonderful.

  ---

[some grumpy Amatonormativity and Aro Erasure 101 footnotes, can you tell I am bitter about this kind of thing]

(* When I say “actual meaningful indication” of romantic feelings, I mean something that isn't just the narrative infuriatingly pointing at things that are actually perfectly platonic in nature and going “ooh look how romantic~!”. Newsflash: worrying about somebody and wanting to rescue them when they're sick and injured and have been kidnapped by someone you think is an evil sadistic mastermind is not somehow proof of romantic feelings. That is a thing that friends do. And on the same note, teaching somebody how to build a crossbow is not some kind of deep metaphor for romance; it is literally just a lesson in how to build a goddamn crossbow. Maki would have done both of these things in exactly the same way if her crush on Kaito didn’t exist.)

(** It's exactly like how characters can be considered canonically confirmed same-gender-attracted when all they've done is show attraction to the same gender****, without them actually needing to explicitly refer to themselves with the word “gay”, or “lesbian”, or “bi” or whatever else. Anyone who tried to insist that was necessary in order for it to “count” would instantly be written off as homophobic. So if that’s the case, then a character explicitly saying something such as “I don’t understand what it means to like someone that way” equally constitutes them being confirmed aro, and trying to argue that it doesn’t “count” without outright hearing the word itself is, guess what…?)

(*** This also inherently means that there’s nothing straight about Maki’s crush on Kaito either, since societally-expected “straight” attraction is allo as well as hetero. I gather that some people in this fandom like to devalue and erase Maki’s crush (and potentially also Maki herself) because they feel that it’s an Obligatory Forced Straight Romance and don’t like that, or something along those lines. Well, good news! It’s literally not that, actually, because Maki isn’t straight.)

(**** …This only applies so long as it actually is very clearly romantic or sexual attraction and not just people deciding platonic affection is totally romantic thanks to the disease that is amatonormativity. Because, you know. That happens. Literally all the time. (Even from V3’s narrative itself; see footnote 1.))

[aroperyton]

oh a popular aro experience/feeling?? that i dont relate to (i feel like every arospec person has at least one of those), is the idea that like, nonplatonic relationships inherently being More than platonic relationships to you is inherently wrong+malicious+amatonormative when i like someone nonplatonically not only is there numerous factors/parts of my attraction towards them, but things i do with them OUT OF ATTRACTION that places it above/More Than my platonic relationships both in importance/priority with the ppl i know And in how i feel about them elaborating;

>if im nonplatonically attracted to someone theres a lot that factors in to it, this person just Existing inherently makes me feel good in this and that and this and that way and when they say my name or call me this or say this kind of thing to me it makes me feel this and this and thinking of them makes me wanna be with them more and think of things id wanna do in the future and being with them only intensifies that and makes me seriously try to plan a (albeit short-term) relationship with them, and that is how they make me feel -but with my friends there isn't any of this, there is no deep underlying feeling and devotion and me being Drawn to and appealed by and positive feelings that makes me want to do things with them, because i'm not attracted to them!!!! if i talk to a person and they seem cool i'll talk to them more cause talking to them's nice and That is IT that is the whole story nothing more nothing less!!!!! i describe this as platonic Attachment moreso than Attraction

>when i am nonplatonically attracted to someone, it's BECAUSE i feel all those aforementioned positive things towards them that DIRECTLY leads to - like, is on the same exact path as - wanting to do/doing shit with them! i wanna kiss em Because i'm attracted to them! i wanna wrap my arm around theirs and hold their hand Because i'm attracted to them! i wanna wrap around them in general Because i'm attracted to them! i wanna call them 8a83 and for them to call me whatever Because i'm attracted to them! i wanna do this and that and this and that BECAUSE i think they are hot and/or cute and they make me feel a way that makes me wanna do that stuff!!!! -but when someone is my friend, i do things with them just for the sake of doing stuff! i don't talk to them cause everything they say makes me go awww and wish we could move in together more, i talk to them cause i like hearing what they have to say and what they have to say is good and they're nice to talk to!! if i wanna cuddle them or kiss them on the cheek/forehead/whatever or be with them physically etc etc etc it's because they are and have been a Good Friend, ie They Are And Have Been Consistantly Good At Talking To Me and handling our relationship (ie saying the right things to me at the right time, ie not Saying 'shut up i hate you!!' when i Say 'im sad :(' /exaggerated, but you get the idea) which results in trust and respect and enjoyment of Our Relationship, IE, Us Talking To Eachother.

>so my nonplatonic relationships Usually (KEYWORD USUALLY!! while its not a kind of relationship i have a lot, i Have had nonplatonic relationships where i'd go to certain friends Before i'd go to my partner for some things and i DO disagree with the amatonormative ever-present notion that your partner HAS to come first and your friends will ALWAYS come last) come first because if i lose them or ignore them to Only spend time with my friends when i could spend it with them etc i am not just losing Someone To Talk To i am losing someone who inherently makes me happy and at ease and enjoying them Because They Are Them, and i am losing this and that and this and that thing to do that makes me happy bc im doing it with Them and able to just stew in how much i like them and how attractive they are -but! as stated before! my friendships are essentially just Talking To Someone and doing things to show youre glad theyre there because of how good talking to them is!! and if i lose them then well shit bro i can talk to fucking anyone else!!!!!! they mightve been someone who i could talk to abt a specific thing i couldnt trust with anyone else or maybe they'd talk in a specific way regarding certain things that was really comforting, BUT AGAIN THATS JUST ME BEING SAD OVER NOT TALKING TO THEM NOT BEING SAD OVER HOW I FEEL ABOUT THEM OR NOT BEING ABLE TO EXPRESS MY ATTRACTION VIA WHATEVER NONPLATONIC ACTION

(worth noting i am alloaro so if some of this reads as my nonplatonic relationships kinda railing off the ability to Do Something Out Of my attraction to them and how Attractive they are instead of just being with them and Them and my Ability to Be with them, there uh. ah. theres a reason for that ;>___>) so u might be reading this and going, oh, clove, that sounds like you're aplatonic! and you'd be right! but this is where it hits a wall cause i HAVE experienced platonic Attraction before. i Have been Drawn to and appealed by and, well, Attracted To someone.... out of platonicness. i Have felt a positive and emotional way towards someone that made me want to do things with them not to show appreciation but just out of how much they made me feel and how i felt about them, but in a platonic way! which might read as 'no homo'-y and we were just awkward friends but 'friends' was Not how we described, or not the sole way we'd describe our relationship, because we were More Than Friends*, but we weren't dating or being sexual or anything nonplatonic, but we weren't just friends, but we'd have recurring issues of ppl thinking we Were nonplatonic and that wasn't the case, but it really was way More than any regular friendship at least as far as we knew, but- so we defined that as a qpr and that was the best way to explain it and to this day i still feel like that explains it p solid even if the definitions for it aren't always the same and some aren't what i'd use for that one specifically, which crosses off another definition for aplatonic past 'i have experienced platonic attraction', 'i have had+wanted a qpr', And! that relationship and the way i felt overshadows how not-attracted to my friends i am and how clear cut the definition between 'friend' and 'not-friend [gayly]' is for me! which crosses out the last thing! so i just. feel weird abt it all. bottom line is that i know people aren't saying this shit for No Reason and if i want affirmation of the concept of 'nonplatonic relationships are more than platonic ones' i don't even have to fucking go outside i can just look literally anywhere that isn't wholly and entirely the aro community dedicated to arospec and aro-related discussion...... but i wish people wouldn't act like/imply that since this is how a lot of aro people feel, that this is not only an inherent intrinsic universal arospec experience/feeling, but that anything different directly goes against other aro people, even if the person in question is. also arospec. BUT MAYBE thats just me being hierarchy_polyamory_luvr_500 and not someone who relates to or particularly Wants to specifically aim for relationship anarchy with all my relationships started and maintained by myself, which is a whole nother post, BUT ANYHOO. don't throw affectionate/attraction-ing/partnering/amorous aros under the bus please lol XD

*ik this is kinda a loaded way to describe a relationship/feelings towards someone but wrt this specific relationship, i mean it in the sense of like.

if this makes sense? it's more than friends, but because it's still platonic feelings, it's just farther along the line of and has more going on than just regular friends, therefore. more than friends+not just friends. but the concept of a nonplatonic 'more than/not just friends' is not lost on me when it's not coming from like, a romance movie, cause -GESTURES AT THE ENTIRE FIRST 3/4THS OF THIS POST-

[midnatt-heronweather]

MY Thoughts this Aromantic Awareness Week 1/?

Aromantic Awareness 2021 February 21st to February 27th

This will probably make no sense to anyone, but since I’ve got no prompts to fill or questions to answer this is what I’m doing.

“Some” people say you shouldn’t talk about these things, and should keep them behind closed doors, I say. Education and acceptance is more important than some stuck up tarts archaic idea of modesty...

but I do agree with moderation of information of course.

I‘ve a few talking points, I’m not going to say how many because it may be more than I originally start out with. , and as you all know I can go off on tangents.

__________________________ First I guess I should Explain the flag and what it means, because, like other LGBT pride flags the colours have meaning

>Green & light green: represent the aromantic spectrum,aromanticism (represented by green); covers all arospec identities (aro, gray aro, lith/akoi, cupio, quoiro, idem, demi, fray, caed, requis, arovague, and others)

>White: for all the nonromantic forms of love and attraction; friendship/platonic, aesthetic, sexual, sensual, emotional, mental, QP relationships, family, you name it [Alternatively some designs include yellow for this, though personally I avoid yellow for visibility sensitivity]

>Gray & black: for the sexuality spectrum, covering arospec acespecs (asexual spectrum ppl) as well as arospec allosexuals __________________________________________________________

1b of this blog deals with an important subject Discovery - basically its a ramble of an attempt to explain how I know I’m Aromantic Asexual   Rather than being specifically dedicated to the Aromantic side of my Identity this one’s a mixed answer because it covers both Asexuality and Aromanticism as it regards to me: So - I see and hear a lot of people ask “how did you discover you were “<Insert sexual identity here>” and I‘ve listened to a lot of AroAce people give their answers which always seem to sound deep.. Well, make my own seem rather pedestrian; decide for yourself, this here’s my answer:

The truth with me is frankly... I didn’t “discover” anything apart from the term itself; I’ve always been this way. Oh yeah, I went through phases trying to make sense of why I didn’t fit the social norm of being a sex mad teen or even slightly interested and not repulsed by the whole thing I asked the questions “am I gay?” “ Am I wired wrong?” Etc. But it’s all the same because it was just... me.

Of course ‘society’ has had its opinions, for years people called me frigid, told me ‘god’ wouldn’t let a creature like me be ‘happy’, because I was... i don’t know, Pagan/fat/geeky/ somewhere in the LGBT rainbow take your pick as to what “creature” referred to, i don’t delve into the small minds of backwards northerners anymore, its a bog of stench. Another thing I was frequently told was that I pretended not to want something because I knew I was too ugly/fat/repulsive to get “it”. Which given what happened to me on my 18th makes me laugh ironically. But anyway...

I formed my own explanation, either just to wave a geek flag or because it was one of their insults -   I’d get called alien (originality was not something that was encouraged at my school as you can tell), so I came up with calling myself Vulcan, with the lack of emotional response and distaste for social norms it ft me

I’ve never “wanted” romance, and the idea of physical contact makes my skin crawl (literally and figuratively) Sometimes I’d stop and ask myself if I’d felt  ‘feelings’ for someone.. Like the books described or like my favourite characters on TV?  That... butterfly ‘love at first sight’ heart racing at the sight of another person, but th answer was always no. I even asked the few people in my life I looked up to, to describe “love” (still do sometimes, but that’s more fic research stuff) and it never registered with me which has never bothered me more than a passing itch would.

I was/ am me and there was nothing I could do about it, and as that was the only way I’d ever known it was/is natural to me. back to the ‘discovery’ part of this rant/blog: I can’t really separate discovering Aromantic or Asexual as terms, and tbf I can’t really say for certain when either clicked into place. As with most important things I discovered I wasn’t alone or an ‘abnormality of nature’ through a hell of a lot of research.

I was in university, going to my first few (good) conventions, and I felt surer, of myself I guess, as cheesy as that sounds. this was when I was around 25 Ironically for me this was not that long after after I’d met Ally Dark fairy goth sister lady that she is and started actually finding reasons to like and trust .. anyone really, and shortly after this we met Heather and I discovered among the other things we shared, she was Asexual too, but she’s... i think the term is actually allo-Romantic, she’s interested in that sort of stuff, loves a good romance story, and all the mush attached  

I’m still defining the parameters of me, as we all do, people change throughout their lives no one stays precisely the same but. I AM Aromantic Asexual and that is one thing that I am quite happy to say will never change.

The Uk as far as I’m concerned doesn’t recognise Aromantic or Asexual people enough, not that the rest of the world does either, because we don’t stand out as far as their concerned, (well. Most don’t ;) ) but we exist, we are valid and despite what some would have you believe we do count in the LGBTQIA and that is my “discovery” rant/blog/ ASAW day 1 post

[therubyjailcell]

Hey, hope you’re having a good day! I wanted to ask if you have any tips for questioning aro/ace-spec ? What helped with figuring it out and stuff ?

hey, i hope you’re having a good day too! and, well, idk how much i can help, but i’ll try my best!

(okay, so, i wrote a whole lot of things, so i’m gonna make a quick summary beforehand)

TL;DR - i realized i was ace p easily, and idk if i can help much, i just kinda realized that non ace peeps had sexual attraction and i never felt that, and that was it. i had to deal however w a lot of internalized phobia for the arospec part, so that might be a more in depth topic? i just ended up having to face the fact that i wasn’t alloromantic and that i not only needed to know people very well before developping feelings, but also that it was rarely romantic crushes that i got, and the discovery of other types of attraction was very helpful.

(more detailed under the cut, TW trauma mention, internalized phobia mention)

huuuh, i realized i was ace p easily, through instagram actually? i didn’t know much about lgbtq+ stuffs, and when i made my insta account, i looked into asexuality first, bc my ex at the time was using the label, and i was curious about what it meant and all that, and then, when i read, i was like “wait, hold up, you’re telling me. that some people. are sexually attracted to other people??? that’s a thing???” and then i just kinda rolled w it and decided that since i didn’t feel any sexual attraction, that must’ve meant i was ace. it wasn’t much of a questioning? it just made sense to me at the time, still does now.

it also probably helped that i didn’t face acephobia at all when i decided on the label? like, where i looked, there wasn’t anyone being an asshole and all that, i looked into inclusionist stuffs, and it actually helped tons, because people said it was okay, and it helped me accept it easily and not get into a whole lot of “oh god, i’m bad” or whatever. i just kinda realized that i was supposed to know what a certain type of attraction was and that all i knew was that i had nothing that fit these criterias, and that’s it!

as for the arospec part, this one’s a bit more complicated to me ig? bc i had quite the internalized arophobia on some stuffs. like, i never thought it was bad for others to be aro, i just went “not me tho” a lot. which isn’t good, but that’s bc i was raised w the idea that romance was the final line and all that, and because i was still processing through a trauma that was on the whole romance and wedding subject. so, yeah, it took me a while to get there? but eventually, i realized that no, not everyone needed to know the people before getting feelings for them.

also, i also discovered all the different attractions that may exist (platonic, queerplatonic, alterous) and i went “wait hold up, you’re telling me that the feelings. when i’m kinda attracted to someone but i don’t really wanna date them or anything, i just. wanna have them around. could be platonic, queerplatonic or alterous? you’re telling me i got all these options???” and it explained so much suddenly! bc a lot of my exes, i liked them a lot, but not in a romantic way, but i didn’t have a word to explain that it wasn’t friendship either, and now i had the word, and it fit. so that helped figuring it out. it also helped to know i had other options than romance, and coming to term with the idea that romance isn’t necessarily the only option, nor the “better option”, and that you can absolutely be happy with other stuffs.

also! it helped that, at the time, i started planning my future again, with my childhood best friend, and that’s when we started to think about getting a little café where we’d also sell and play tabletop games and stuffs. and it sounded really nice, and not at all like i was missing out on anything? yeah.

all in all, keep in mind that i am arospec and that i experience some romantic attraction, it’s just rare? so i can’t speak for people who don’t feel any romantic attraction. and sadly, i’m still working on the internalized phobia, bc sometimes the amatonormativity catches up to me, and that’s annoying, and ngl, i don’t have a lot of ways to help deal w that? also! idk how much i could help if you’re non-SAM (non Split Attraction Model), bc i do experience different attractions, so yeah

if you got any more specific questions (i’m sorry, i ramble a lot, and idk if i even answered any of your questions, i’m so sorry), i’m here! and yknow, feel free to pm me if you feel comfier like that, or keep sending asks - anything is good! idk how much help i can be but!!! you go!!! finding the labels that fit can take a while, and you’re valid for questioning your identity, and i hope you’ll be safe no matter what

[ayy-spec]

Anything to Add?

The final question in this survey was a write-in section for people to leave any additional comments. 113 people responded.

Important/Particularly Interesting Comments

• I hope this goes well for you because you seem nice and if you have any advice for new to the community 15 year olds like me, don't be afraid to share because I'm trying to embrace my sexuality as much as possible but it can be hard when I don't know where to go or turn to to find what I'm supposed to do and where to ask questions and just fully embrass this part of me and it can be hard when I don't even know many if any aspecs so representation is great and it is helpful to hear your experiences and how you handle certain parts, so just keep doing what your doing because it is making a difference [note: 🥺🥺😭]

• i often consider myself more as just aroace rather than aro and ace seperately so i prefer seeing the blue and orange aroace flag over the individual aro and ace flags

• I don't really shorten my identity often with aroace, only when im feeling very romance repulsed and its been a while since I felt romantic attraction. I am a pan-demiromantic asexual. My pan label makes me feel more connected to the lgbt+ community bc it feels like my nonbinary and intersex status doesn't count either. I know I belong in the queer community, but the lgbt+ community is so sexual orientation focused.

• Thank you for having a wide variety of labels to choose from in the options!! I don't see the term aegoromantic very often on things, it feels nice to be known I guess haha

• Thank you for this, i recently started thinking about being in arospec and it was so relieving, all this time i thought something was wrong or maybe i was broken. I'm still trying to learn more about it, and I'm grateful for people willing to teach and help

• didn't realize I hadn't experienced sexual attraction until I finally did and was like "OH, no wonder all my other relationships felt like I was playing pretend"

• I dont often tell people I'm gray aroace. Not because of shame or it not being "as important" (I'm a gay trans dude) but I think because I just feel its a very intimate part of myself, as well as my romanticism and sexuality (in terms of like asexuality) feeling as though it doesn't always need a label. I'm fine just being myself most of the time, a lot of labels can be tricky for myself I think. I'm happy the label exists nonetheless though because Its nice to know I'm not the only one who feels like this.

• I'm queer! But if I'm getting down to the bones of it, I'm pan/ace. Still relearning how to be proud of that, after The Grand Clusterfuck years back.

• even though I would be considered to have an alloromantic orientation, alloace isn't really a term I feel any strong connection or attachment to

• i'd like to add that i do consider myself alloaro and use that label openly but i'd also not consider myself 100% allosexual. i'm questioning my sexuality but even if i do end up feeling more solidly ace-spec i'd still use the alloaro label

• Idk who else does this or if this is interesting enough to write down, but I thought I would! I use Aroace as a label. Other, smaller labels inside that would probably fit me better! Aroace feels too big, like it doesn't *really* define exactly who I am. But at the same time, I prefer using it because more people know what Aroace means (at least compared to myrromantic and myrsexual). I use Aroace so the public can define me. I don't typically use it around my close friends 'cause they already know my idiosyncrasies and where I really am. They already made their own definitions for me, so I don't have to make one for them!

• I'm still figuring myself out, so I leave myself at the blanket terms and hopefully everything'll work out in the end

The rest of the responses are below:

Comments Alerting Me About Typos (that I was then able to resolve)

• There's a typo in your "sexual orientation labels" question, because you have Aroflux listed and not Aceflux, but I didn't want to confuse things so I put Aceflux (which I do use) under Other. I also am polysexual (I flux between polysexual and asexual but I am always aegosexual) but didn't know if I should but it under Other anywhere since it's not an acespec label. I consider my polysexuality tied to me being aego/aceflux though, which is why I mention it here.

• the sexual orientations options are the same of the romantic ones ( for example, there's arovague and arospike in the sexual cathegory)

People Clarifying/Expounding Upon Their Own Identity/Experiences

·  to clarify: i'm unsure whether or not i am demi or aceflux; so i use graysexual since both labels technically fall under that as an umbrella term.

• I’m still a confused gorl and I really only know that I don’t like sex it sexual acts but I do like romantic and sensual acts

• Sex/romance repulsed and I have aesthetic attraction

• I'm also animesexual and fictosexual (and romantic I guess but I don't like using the SAM for myself).

• I have never seen most of these labels, haha, I expect one of them is the one I always forget that's for being aro due to past trauma but people always assume it's romantic/sexual trauma so I don't use it and thus have forgotten it...but that's the essay I'm not usually up for writing: was biromantic but then had several awful life events on top of each other and had a complete breakdown and have been aro since. Unclear if it's permanent but it's been 14 years now. [note: I believe this person is thinking of caedromantic]

• I tend to use the word ace more than asexual because it's shorter, but I don't feel more favorably about one than the other.

• i can't tell the difference between platonic vs romantic attraction, and am unsure if people i have "liked" in the past was romantic, platonic, or a fake stemming from peer pressure.

• Also Gender-Neutral/Agender

• I’m gray-aro but identify more with being biromantic even though I know I’m aro-spec. As for sexual orientation, I’m just completely ace xD

• The fact I'm still trying to figure out my gender makes it harder to pinpoint exactly what my orientations are :( but I usually say I'm queer, and if it's safe: Bi Ace, and if I can get more specific: biromantic grey-asexual

• I also use a platonic label (biplatonic). I use it not in a friendship way, but more like in a QPR way.

• Thank you for doing this! My identity on the aro/ace spectrums has shifted a lot over the years and while I’ve just settled on aroace and queer for the most part, this community is so diverse and under appreciated. People who find joy in/identify with micro-identities are valid and deserve representation!

• I'm still figuring out my romantic orientation but it's looking less allo by the day lmao

• My romantic label is very fluid, but in terms of sexual labels, very sex repulsed Asexual

• Content with just Aspec cause it's difficult to pinpoint anything but cool with both asexual/ace and aromantic/aro

• I think of my romantic orientation as halfway between aromantic and homoromantic

• I'm a polyamorous ace, if there'd be a way to include that sometimes that'd be neat :)

• I am still questioning my identity

• I used to identify as 100% ace but now I have no idea other than that I seem to be pan-ace in some way shape or form so my identity is ???people???

• Sex/romance repulsed and I have aesthetic attraction

• to clarify: i'm unsure whether or not i am demi or aceflux; so i use graysexual since both labels technically fall under that as an umbrella term.

Queer Rights

• Trans rights, baybee 🤠🦂

• I just hope a-spec and aro-spec people will experience less negativity and hate this year <3

• Aspec rights!!

• aspec rights, baby

People Being Nice to Me  (I appreciated this thank you everyone!!)

·  :)

• Have a good day

• Uhhh, cool survey, nice to see a lot of labels.... good job! Nothing I have to add, it was great

• Have fun chief, thank you for your work

• Thank you for creating!

• thanks for the survey! I don't know too many aspec in person so I love participating in things like this about the ace/aro community!

• Thank you for what you’re doing

• just hi :)

• thanks!!

• I really love your blog! Reading your posts always makes me happy :) [note: thank you!]

• Good luck, have a nice day !

• I hope you're having a good day :)

• you're lived and valid af!! have a great day!!!

• Thank you for all your hard work i really appreciate it ☺️

• Drink some water Right Now OP

• Nope, :> hope the best for you.

• Cool survey, 10/10 would survey again.

• 💛

• Have a nice day uwu

• Nope! Have a nice day!

• Thank you for making pride flag edits! They're really nice! [note: thank you!!]

• nope, but this is really cool!!

• ❤️

• Have a good day.

• I think this survey idea is super cool! Definitely a great way to see what sort of aspec people are on tumblr :)

• You are doing the lords work

• Thank you for asking us.

• good luck!

• This is really cute idea :)

• I hope you're having a nice day!

• Good luck in your endevours!

• Thank you for making our community visible!

• Have a good day :3

• Have a good day!!

• Keep doing great stuff!

• Thank you for all the positivity I get from your blog! It's super helpful, keep it up :) [note: thank you!!]

• thanks for doing this. recognition is always nice

• Have fun <3

• Lots of love 💛

• This is a cool project, thanks for doing it and good luck! :)

People Saying They Love Me (and I love you, random a-specs)

·  i love you OP!!!!!

• love you, hope you have a great day

An A-Spec Person Being Rude to Other A-Specs

• If you enjoy sex with your romantic partner then you are not asexual

A Person Who Is Not A-Spec Being Rude To A-Specs

• sweetie im sorry that you're so insecure that you feel like you have to make up new identities to feel better about yourself. if you are a lesbian or bisexual please know that you are welcome in the community, but other than that making thousands of microlabels like this makes a huge joke out of what was once an important and respected group. nobody takes us seriously anymore because of this shit. does labelling your identity like this really help you with anything? demisexual and fraysexual and all this are just fancy words for normal human feelings that everyone has. there is no need to microlabel it.

Other

· [variations of “no” (12)]

• not sure that helps lmao but still hope it does. all the best

• Axolotls (or as I like to call them, asexulotls) are amazing and I love them [Note: the man in question]

• Sorry, I can't remember the names of any blogs that do edits

• Ok random but the colors of the aro/ace flag? The blue and orange one? They’re gorgeous.

• I'm not so sure if I should use the aroace flag, I feel comfortable using both aro and ace flags, but I don't like the colors for the aroace flag :c [note: these are in chronological order, it’s a total coincidence that these comments are together]

• Curious to see where the survey goes

• It would be cool if you could also do some aplatonic-spectrum edits!

• there were fully half of the terms on that list that i had never even seen before. like, everything below litho down to no label was entirely new to me. at some point i will look into those! (but not right now, my brain is full enough at the moment)

• actually had to look up the majority of these orientations. Thank you for the opportunity to learn!

• Gonna reblog and follow and hopefully learn a bit more, about others and myself

Note: The only comment that is not listed in order is the first comment, which I put at the top because I found it the most important. It’s so important that kids and teens have space to explore their identity and learn about themselves. The reason I made this blog in the first place was because I was 19 and working on figuring out my gender and sexuality. Now that I’m a bit older and understand things better, I’m so glad that I’m able to help people in this way. 

I make it a point to be very openly queer in my life and at work because I need LGBTQ+ people, especially youths, to know that we’re here. I’m lucky that I live somewhere that I can be visibly queer and speak about it openly. We are everywhere, and there’s more of us than you think!

Something that I really like about the comments at the top is that they show how diverse we are, and how people use words differently. Some people feel like they’re more aroace than aromantic and asexual separately, and others consider their romantic and sexual orientations to be completely different things.

I definitely relate to the person who identifies are myrromantic and myrsexual with their friends but just says aroace when speaking with people they don’t know as well. I believe a lot of people use different words depending on who they’re speaking with.

[peachfiend]

!!vent post!!

Sometimes I hate how abnormal my aromanticism is. Like- i fucking hate it, Im arospec and its a label i love having and the aromantic community is fucking cool

But the way my identity works is my aro-ness mostly affects the beginnings and ends of relationships, and how i view relationships as a whole

I can turn on and off romantic feelings like its nothing, a crush i dont actively decide to *have* will go away in less than a day. I can be in love with someone and get rejected and never think about it again. I can be in a relationship for a year and told that they only like me platonically and feel nothing. I can have never thought about anything romantic with one of my friends, then they confess and i can turn on that romantic attraction and be in love with them

I have been in a happy and loving romantic relationship for a year now. My boyfriend knows i am arospec

I also have never understood like- how romance and friendship are that different, romance is just a step up from friends

Also, queerplatonic relationships are so cool and thats a type of love i adore (although im at a point where i dont want my relationship with my boyfriend to be queerplatonic, i dont want another relationship on top of them, and i definetly dont want to dump xem)

Just... with all these fucking specifics and how new i am to my identity and the fact that i do feel romantic attraction, its just heavily influenced by other factors, i just feel like im not allowed to be aromantic. Like im diminishing the community by existing within it.

And thats not even getting into how much it all affects my romantic attraction, god. I switch between using gay and queer as labels cause well. Idk o go with what i like

I personslly define gay as "little to no attraction to women"

But because of the fact that aesthetic attraction exists i can never tell if i think a girl (or boy) is pretty or if i like them

Because i can force butterflies and make them real but i dont want to

I just dont fucking know anymore. I want to feel comfortable in being arospec. I want ti feel comfortable in being gay. I want to feel like im not making a community worse by being here.

Just- fuck

[queercondensed]

[Image Description:  A preview of a pamphlet entitled “Aromantic Identity & the Aro Spectrum, with the front and back laid out side-by-side. There is a summary, disclaimer, and helpful resources on the left page and sections titled “Aromantic Terms,” “Being Aromantic,” and “Understanding Aro Identity” on the right. The smaller text is too blurry to read. The entire pamphlet has a dark green, light green, and gray color scheme.]

Aromantic Identity & the Aro Spectrum version 1.1

This is an updated version of an earlier pamphlet on the same subject included in the original run of Queer Condensed. It serves as a basic overview of aromantic identity with definitions, validation for aro, arospec, and questioning readers, explanations of stereotypes, online resources, and more.

Updates are pretty extensive, including a formatting change, addition of “alloromantic” definition, color switch of yellow to gray to reflect the more commonly used aromantic flag, large portions of rewritten text, and minor changes to the suggested resources.

I could not have made this updated pamphlet without help from readers sending in corrections and suggestions. As someone who isn’t aro, the information that @aphobephobe and @kdkorz10211 provided was indispensable. I also want to thank them and @shes-cured for beta-reading it as well.

Click here for the list of all resources and to download the pdf of this pamphlet. If you download or use this, a reblog or link to this post would be much appreciated!

This work is free for noncommercial use as long as credit is given. The original Publisher files can be requested via ask or email if you’d like to edit the pamphlet yourself.

The text can be read below the readmore, formatted in the intended reading order.

Front Panel:

Aromantic Identity & the Aro Spectrum, A Condensed Guide

Produced by Queer Condensed, queercondensed.tumblr.com

Version 1.1

Inside Flap

Summary

Aromantic identity is often lumped in with asexual identity, but the two are very different and deserve separate materials. In this pamphlet we focus on the former and look at what “aromantic” and “aromantic spectrum” means, the many types of love that exist outside of romantic love, some of the struggles and stereotypes of aromantic people, and how unique each aromantic person is from the next. We stress that aromantic people are complex and should not be boiled down to their romantic feelings as they often are.

A reminder: if you are aromantic, on the aromantic spectrum, or questioning your identity, you are valid and amazing!

Disclaimer

Queer Condensed is meant to be a guide, but in no way is anything in our pamphlets definitive. It’s hard to be definitive when you’re dealing with a subject that’s so subjective. Take what you read as an introduction and maybe check out the provided resources or ask people open to taking questions if you want to know more.

 Published on August 12th, 2017

Leftmost Interior: Aromantic Terms

“Aromantic” is an identity that indicates a lack of romantic attraction towards others. Along with this, there’s the idea of the “aromantic spectrum,” or a range of other identities that are similar to aromanticism. Some of those identities are included on this list of aromantic-related terms.

Aro / Arospec

Short for “aromantic” and “aromantic spectrum”

Grayaromantic / Grayromantic

An arospec identity; someone who has infrequent or hard-to-define romantic attraction towards others

Demiaromantic / Demiromantic

An arospec identity; someone who needs a strong bond with another before feeling romantic attraction towards them

Alloromantic

Someone who is not aro / arospec

Queer/Quasi-Platonic Relationship (QPR)* 

A relationship between two people that is not romantic, but stronger or more intimate than friendship

Squish*

An aromantic or platonic version of a romantic crush

Sexual orientation *

How someone identifies in relation to who they’re attracted to sexually; different from romantic orientation

*People who are not aro can also use these terms

Middle Interior: Being Aromantic

Aros and arospec people are frequently forgotten about or misunderstood, even in LGBT communities, but their lives and identities deserve attention.

Society places a lot of stress on the idea of romance and relationships, but that doesn’t mean aro people are without feelings. Many aro people find love and companionship in different ways, including friendships and QPRs. Some aro people even enter into romantic relationships with partners that understand that the feelings may not be the same on all ends. Some aros don’t make connections at all, but that doesn’t make them broken.

Each aro person’s experiences are unique. Some like physical affection, some find that too romantic or simply don’t want it. Some are open and proud of their identity, and for some it’s just a personal trivia fact. Some discover their identity early in life and others realize much later. Some find love in non-romantic ways, others don’t feel any sort of desire for it. There is no “right way” to be aro or arospec, just as there’s no “right way” to be other identities.

Talking About or To Aro People

Aro people are the judges of their own identity. Do not assume or say that an aro person will find the “right person” some day and stop being aro. This implies that the aro person is just going through a phase or can’t figure out their own attraction.

 Rightmost Interior: Understanding Aro Identity

Alloromantic people often question or ridicule aro identities because of a lack of understanding. This usually comes from the belief that romantic relationships or feelings are vital to being human when they’re really not. Not everyone goes about having romantic feelings in the exact same way, so aro people aren’t an abnormality, just experiencing feelings that are uncommon. If it doesn’t bother the aro person, it shouldn’t be of concern to anyone else.

Common stereotypes of aro people include that they are being difficult, they are bad at socializing, they are incapable of feelings, those that have sexual relationships are manipulative, and they are unhappy. Consider that these stereotypes ignore these kinds of love:

* Platonic  * Parental * Sexual

* Familial * Aesthetic * Queerplatonic

These ideas also make it seem like humans can be boiled down to how we engage in romantic relationships, which just isn’t true. Thinking only in terms of who one loves is incredibly limiting and harmful to those who don’t experience certain/any types of love.

Aro and arospec people are in need of kindness and understanding as they navigate a world unforgiving to them, not an insistence that their feelings are wrong. Prejudice and unearned anger are wrong, not them.

Back Panel: Helpful Resources

Aro Glossary

Arospecawarenessweek.tumblr.com/glossary

Aromantic Wikipedia

Aromantic.wikia.com

Aromantic FAQ

Aaceclub.tumblr.com/aromanticism*

More on Romance Repulsion

Romance-repulsed-aros.tumblr.com

Additional Resources

QueerCondensed.tumblr.com/tagged/asexual

Our pamphlet on asexuality has many resources that, although not aro-specific, contain information about the aro community. Check it out for a few more websites to look at!

Thank You!

This updated version of this material couldn’t have been done without reader input, especially that of Tumblr users Aphobephobe and Kdkorz10211

*This blog is no longer active, but the information is still relevant

[xhorass]

one of these days I’ll get my thoughts together and actually write a post explaining why, weirdly enough, ot3s and other poly ships in general are more...accessible? appealing? might be the word? to me as an arospec person (the TLDR is: fuck amatonormativity) but for the moment I’m just gonna rant about fjo/restgard bc it’s my blog and I can do what I want

fjo/restgard actively opposes the idea that you have to put down other relationships of any type and focus on one and one only as the most important. because yeah, I see this shit constantly in fandom, that Jester should be with one or the other because they understand her more, they care about her more, which is shitty no matter what kind of relationship you’re talking about. news flash: even if you only ship one romantically, you can acknowledge the other as a strong platonic relationship! what a fucking concept! (this is not cr specific btw, this is...in every fandom, because again, amatonormativity)

and not only does it do that, but it’s also one of the few ships where the platonic aspect is CRUCIAL to how it works. fjo/restgard doesn’t exist without the Beau & Fjord friendship. it just doesn’t. their platonic bond is just as important, and it’s what makes the three of them just fit together so well

...I cannot believe I am getting annoyed by something so dumb