#romance repulsed aro culture

[aro-culture-is]

aro romance repulsed culture is being forever mad bc one of ur favorite characters tags is just like 80% people shipping them with other characters

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[unrestrainedbalderdash]

Sex-repulsed asexuals and romance-repulsed aromantics deserve £100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 for everything

[citnamora]

Growing up is realizing you don't hate shipping, you just really wish the execution of it was less amatonormative

[romance-repulsed-culture-is]

romance repulsed aro culture is feeling isolated from the rest of the aromantic community because apparently you’re a minority within a minority… it’s also never quite knowing how to cope

(and I��m not ace, so that’s just another level of isolation that’s hard to ignore)

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[shiutsu]

It always feels like that,especially when they're denying all the facts you've stated.

[transgenderism-horror]

Sorry but in what world kinky aces are more validated in the ace community

[canonically47]

Now I'm curious. What do you think is and isn't an appropriate shipping age gap? (not mad, just curious) Like, how many years before it becomes icky?

well it also depends on the age range. let’s go with minors first

i think the minimum required to start dating should be something like 14, i feel like anything below that is just. crazy

14-15, 15-16, 16-17, 17-18 are i think the appropriate gaps. like that’s your maximum/minimum (goes both ways) this is just because i cannot see myself dating someone two years older and especially younger than me. i AM aro but i still find it weird. i guess the maximum is two years, so 14-16, 15-17, 16-18 is the maximum i’m willing to go in both reality and fiction

so now with adults...

18 - max i’m willing to ship them with is 21 (goes both ways)

19 - 22

once we’re in 20 territory i think we can expand that up to four years (questionable) so 20-24, 21-25, 22-26, 23-27 but tbh this is still pushing it to me. so when you have ships like 22-28 i’m out of there

30s are more loose, 5-6 years are okay-ish. in no way am i gonna pair up someone in their 30s with someone 18-20, mid 30s with mid 20s, late 30s with late 20s. so even tho dan x alec is legal for example, i’m still icky on it

i don’t really do much shipping from this age forward bc usually adult couples are already established and i roll with them, which is the reason i’m meh on some ships including adults, but like whatever we like middle age yaoi and yuri here

so 40s and 50s can fw each other, and then we can get crazy with 10+ years from 50s forward idk thats not my business

TL;DR - minors should be shipped with those around two years their own age, 20s go with 20s, 30s go with 30s, 40s+ do whatever idc

[cluster-c-pds-culture-is]

tw Sex, Romance, Dating AvPD is avoiding the crap out of conversations most of your peers have had with their parents, about sex, about romance, about dating, about life, and it was a bad move and put you in a bad place so, please, talk to your parents about these things, everyone who's not me! (and me)

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[aro-culture-is]

Romance positive + romance repulsed aro culture is feeling disconnected from other aros for not hating all romance stories but feeling disconnected from allos for never being able to connect those stories to real life

*romance favorable if you're referring to your relationship to seeing romance, romance positive if you are saying romance is morally good thing, due to the history of those terms wrt sex positive movements vs sex favorable aces.

[arolesbianism]

Sigh. It begins (being forced to see the worst aro hcs I've ever seen in my life because ppl have a talent for finding the absolute worst characters to be their token aro hc)

[entropy-sea-system]

Hate when ppl are shitty abt pda..

[romance-repulsed-culture-is]

Romance repulsed culture is struggling to even connect with your aro firends because they are romance favorable/ hopeless romantics. (No shade I love my friends but I just wish I could like... Not feel left out of the conversation when it inevitably turns to shipping 😭)

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[genderkoolaid]

i haven't really been able to figure out yet if i'm aro in some kind of way. i feel like i'm "romance-repulsed" but i'm not relationship-repulsed? i like being in a relationship if it's basically best friends. and maybe there's a commitment there. and sex? but Romance i don't want any part of. is committed relationship = romance? i don't actually know. maybe i'm just autistic lol.

i know you can "do romance" in all kinds of ways but a lot of what is designated as Romantic or Romance i don't want any part of and it kind of makes me want to shrivel up. i've had people tell me this isn't aro and others who tell me it is.

Being romance-repulsed but still wanting some kind of relationship is totally normal! I'm pretty much the exact same way.

Aside from the general difficulties of figuring out whether or not you don't feel something, romance is highly culturally defined. And, on top of that, alloros tend to get VERY uncomfortable when you start talking about being aro, especially if you also feel sexual attraction. And this results in them allo-splaining to you how every feeling you have is actually secretly romance and aromanticism basically doesn't exist.

If you feel uncomfortable or annoyed with a certain thing because of its assocation with romance, that's a sign of romance repulsion. For me, I realized that my personal distaste for certain fanfiction tropes was because they were so extremely, undeniably romantic, and I felt it was unrealistic and intrusive. But I also like kissing and hand-holding and dates, as long as I know the other person knows it's not romantic. Romance repulsion looks different for everyone.

If the term "aromantic" helps you understand yourself, and connect with a community you find affirming, then you can call yourself aro/arospec. Even if your aromanticism is influenced by other things, like neurodivergence. "Doing things seen as romantic makes me want to shrivel up even though I still enjoy relationships" is a very aro experience.

[qpr-culture-is]

aro (somewhat romance repulsed) qpr culture is yearning for a deep relationship but in the most platonic way possible; a qpr with a close friend that you trust deeply and don't need to do any of the inherently romantic things with them

[amorous-apothipl]

i wont lie to ya, i think we're goin' too hard on the aros.

i am a culprit of this, don't get me wrong. i understand the rationale behind it. aplatonicism is heavily related and in proximity to aromanticism (and other aspec communities). it also is a great example of a culture who (most often) puts friendship above any other sort of relationship; one, too, that advocates for the normalization of friendship being an important part of anyone's life--regardless of whether they're in a romantic relationship or not.

i've noticed that we, as aplatonics, are pushing for the normalization of platonicism and friendship as optional. that, as well as pointing out how prevalent it is in our societies, sometimes causing stress or harm to an individual's wellbeing with us wanting to challenge how much it is brought upon people.

and i think we're toxic with how we approach the aromantic's ideas. we see them as doing bad unto us. i think it's because they're so concentrated and readily available, easy to point out as something aplatonics might be against or averse to.

aromantics are not our enemies. they are not trying to go against us. they are not trying to stamp us out.

they are just trying to exist in a world where romantic desire and relationships are the end-all be-all of *life*. an example: if you aren't married by the time your deathbed arrives, you're seen as pitiful, unfulfilled, wasted, among other things.

they're trying to find a place where they can explore their aromanticism and relationships and their feelings regarding that. for many, that's going to involve reevaluating how they were taught to think about friendship: as second to having a partner. that's not something we should take away from or denounce, for we are doing the same.

aplatonics are trying to find a place where we can explore our aplatonicism and relationships and our feelings regarding that. for many, that's going to involve reevaluating how we were taught to think about friendship: as something everyone wants, does have, and should have.

i think we should work to understand their ideas, how aromanticism and it's culture work within someone and their life, and how we can accept their viewpoints without tearing them down just because it doesn't explicitly disclaim that they're alloplatonic and aren't against aplatonicism.

our ideas play together. both romanticism and platonicism are major heads within the social world, both having their strangleholds over the population.

please keep this in mind going forward. be nuanced when talking about the aromantic's ideas. be nuanced when talking about the aplatonic's ideas. understand how we are both communities of which highlight the domination of the two forces and use that to your advantage.

TL;DR (Please still read though!)--------------------------------------

aros point out how romanticism works against us

apls point out how platonicism works against us

these ideas are both valid, and work together

apls rag on aros too much just because they're easy to point to as a perpetuation of platonormativity

aros's "platonormativity" is most often just a deconstruction of how they've been taught to see relationship, them getting more in tune with how they wanna do their shit (just like we are)

don't denounce aro ideas and lives on the basis of it not being congruent with your own ideals and how you may think it goes against apl ideas

critically assess aro ideas with an understanding that it might not be for you and you're allowed to interpret the work as you wish, perhaps even trying to understand it from your own apl perspective

Thanks for reading! Feel free to add you own ideas for or against any/all of my points; I feel this is important to how we go forth as a communities.

I come at this from the perspective of a romance ambivalent aromantic and platonic repulsed aplatonic.

[jugsjules]

As a romance-repulsed aro, the idea of someone spontaneously combusting into romantic feelings towards me is an existential threat I walk around with every day. But it’s not just the feelings themselves that fill me with dread. It’s a cultural position I am immediately thrust into when confronted with romantic attraction.

In a society where romance is seen not just as something pure and good, but as an innate part of what makes us human, to respond to romance like a slug shriveling under salt is to immediately become something impure, morally bankrupt, monstrous and inhuman.

To express aromanticism, especially to be outright repulsed by romance, to experience it as discomfort, alien, or violating, is to immediately find oneself in a deeply vulnerable position outside of society. There is no room in our culture for the words “romance makes me feel uncomfortable, and I would prefer not to be exposed to it whenever possible.” There is no language for setting boundaries where romantic affection is off the table, permanently. This is not a sentiment society knows what to do with, because according to society, this is not a thing it is possible for a human being to feel.

Even among romantic folks who know aromanticism, and accept it, tend to misinterpret me when I express it. Rather than seeing me being completely exposed, out on a limb, vulnerable and nervous, they view my feelings through the lens of a toxic masculinity that is in fact diametrically opposed to my aromanticism. I become “afraid of commitment” or “emotionally unavailable” or other euphemisms for male chauvinism. Because they come from a worldview in which their romantic feelings are an innate, assumed thing, good and right, they are incapable of recognizing the deep emotionality and risk of my saying “i don’t feel comfortable with this.” I, a well of emotions, a thing soft and bare, am transformed into a caricature of something overly proud, overly stoic, callous to hide its cowardice. They don’t even notice that their actions have made a giant insect of me, scrabbling about in the bedsheets.

To be a romance repulsed aromantic is to know that the right to love romantically is a thing that has been fought for, died for, a precious thing for queer people. And yet I stand, queer, outside of it. Am I only allowed a shallow sort of pride, the kind found in bathroom hookups, tongue-filled kisses with friends after midnight, unwed and unassimilated?

No. To think my pride is shallow is yet another facade painted over me. My sexuality is fought for. My aromanticism is fought for. And the way I move through the world as I see fit, head high, exposed, is full of a depth no less beautiful for the fact the world does not know it.