#this is a generalization but I’ve found most aros/aces/aroaces are like this

[just-queue]

I love being aroace. I genuinely don’t care if I was born like this or my life experiences + being late diagnosed autistic led me here. It’s fucking awesome.

I also love this community. Most arospec and acespec people are so on board with accepting using these labels for however long they apply. Like we will always tell our relatives it’s not a phase, that we aren’t just “waiting for the right person,” yet are supportive of each other when someone decides the label doesn’t work for them anymore. We all kinda band together in resistance to others who don’t get it, but are supportive when some leave the ranks.

Plus I love that there’s little gatekeeping with the labels. Like there are sex favorable asexual people or aromantic people who love romance books and (I hope) they generally don’t feel attacked by the community. I personally have never had an experience where another arospec or acespec person insists I’m not “aroace” enough. I know there are outliers, but for the most part it’s welcoming.

[jiiamp]

[Rant Incoming]

Sure realizing I was trans hit pretty hard, but finding out I was Aro & Ace had a much larger impact on how I view the world and people as a whole.

I’ve had a trans friend since we were both about 5 years old, and almost a decade later when I found out I was trans too, I had someone to go to about it. He and my best friend [who also turned out to be trans] had gone / were going through the same things I did. We stood by each other and knew what the others were going through.

The same can’t be said for me realizing I was Aroace. As a kid I thought romantic relationships were something only older generations liked, and I thought that was how almost everyone my age saw it too [hence why other kids would also get grossed out during kissing scenes and whatnot]. The kids that did date seemed like weirdos to me, and in my mind my whole friend group was on board with that, WE were the “normal” ones. But once we left elementary school some of my friends started dating too, even one of my closer ones. I don’t know why but I felt so betrayed by her, like we had all been a team and she “ruined” that. Only then did I realize I was the outlier to everything. Other kids were grossed out by kissing because they were kids, and when we hit high school most of them grew out of that. This made me think I was refusing to grow up, everyone else grew out of it, why didn’t I? Why was I so disgusted by the things other people talked about in casual conversation?

Realizing I didn’t fit in even with my own friends made me feel so alone- more than being trans or gay ever really have. I’d heard of and seen trans and gay people as a kid, I’d never learned of any words to describe how I felt towards other people though. The pure disgust I felt about romance and sex was so strong I couldn’t even discuss it because thinking the words felt so gross, much less writing them down or actually saying them out loud. Hell, just reading words like “love” and “kissed” were enough to make me cringe beyond belief.

Thankfully, I learned the words to describe how I felt. If I remember right it’s because my best friend had me do a sort of “mini quiz” to find out my sexuality [since he was questioning at the time]. He said I sounded like I was Pansexual or Asexual, and after learning what each meant I went with Asexual. Later on I would find the term Aromantic and use that instead [not realizing you can be both lol].

Yes I’m trans and gay, but realizing I was aroace helped me better understand the world and why people are so “obsessed” about relationships. My aroace identity is the most complex part of me, the fact that some people don’t see aspec people as queer is insane to me.

My weird aroaceness isn’t a thing of the past either, it’s taken YEARS for me to become desensitized to certain words, and there’s still a lot I can’t handle yet. Being aroace affects my very language itself, how I speak and think. Being gay just makes me have silly fantasies from time to time, and being trans makes me feel like shit from time to time.

Even with my best, most queer, and most accepting friends, I can forget that I’m trans, I can forget that I’m gay, but I won’t ever forget that I’m aroace.

aphobes won't like this one but being aro is the queerest thing about me. yes, i'm genderqueer. yes, i'm a bipan lesbian. and i am infinitely proud of those things. but being aro is the biggest part of my queerness. being aro is the part of me that stares me in the face everyday because it's so prevalent in my day-to-day life. being aro is the thing that has challenged my view on relationships, love, and society- and on the queer community itself. when i just identified as bi/pan, but didnt know what aro even was, i was happy, but i still thought the whole point of the queer community was that romantic love was the goal. being bi is beautiful and radical, but for me, it wasn't what made me rethink society and the actual structures of romance. only when i learned i was aro did i start to learn about the concept of amatonormativity and how to truly fight for queer acceptance, not queer acceptance under the guise of "romance is the goal but queer people shouldn't be excluded from it". so yeah. you can take my lesbianism, hell you can even take my genderqueerness, but you can pry my aro pride from my cold dead hands. not gay as in happy but aro as in fuck you <2

[all-seeing-ifer]

hi, ok, this is kinda weird and out of the blue but im a musical theater student and I've been assigned to sing Astonishing from little women and i need to fill this whole chart about how I personally relate to the song. So first of all A+ for my teacher for nailing it with the character choice for me but before i start rambling to him about the whole Jo is Aroace and Trans Agenda i kinda wanted to have "backup"? not as in he would shut me down but just because I want to be ready when he asks questions and to show him im not alone in thinking this, I was wondering if you have any good essays about this? even like, your own character analysis! im just looking for more opinions and views so I have a strong case

:D oh this is absolutely not weird I actually feel super super honoured that you decided to come to me to ask about it!! Hopefully I can be of help - I’m afraid I don’t have anything in the way of like. actual academia talking about it, because I’ve just never really looked into the academia around Little Women (though that would certainly be interesting to look at…)

I can link you to a few different posts that might be helpful though! It was about time I made like a masterlist of queer Jo posts anyway. Also fair warning some of these are specifically about the 2019 film which may not be super helpful to you in terms of talking about the musical and source material but I’d figured I’d include them for the sake of comprehensiveness.

Posts about the book and earlier adaptations:

An argument for Jo being aroace based on the book

Some moments of trans subtext I noticed in the 1994 film

My list of Jo moments (Joments?) that I think read as incredibly aro (this one actually directly references the musical and the song Astonishing!)

Not specifically an aro Jo post but some of my analysis of Jo and Laurie’s dynamic that was very much informed by the idea of Jo being aro

My argument for Jo being ace based on the book

Examples of moments in the book that can be read as Jo being trans

Analysis of how Jo’s experience (in both the book and 2019 film) mirrors the experiences of many aro people

Posts about the 2019 film:

My analysis of how viewing Jo as aroace fits with the themes of the film

My thoughts on Jo’s motivations in the 2019 film

General discussion of queer subtext throughout different versions, but mainly the 2019 film

Analysis of queer subtext in the film more generally - focused on the reading of Jo as a lesbian so not strictly relevant to what you asked but well worth reading! And y’know. overlapping experiences and all that.

My analysis of the film’s ending in view of Jo being aro

More of my commentary on the film’s proposal scene (not specifically about aroace Jo but that reading is relevant)

An argument for Jo being aroace based on the film (but with some points that are also relevant to earlier versions)

My comparison of different versions of the proposal scene and what gives the 2019 version such an aro feeling

My evidence for Jo being aro based on the film

Another argument for Jo being aro based on the film, again with some points that apply to earlier versions

And of course, what discussion of a classic fictional character being aroace would be complete without a contribution from Mx David J Bradley! Would highly recommend watching their segment in Tara Mooknee’s video on amatonormativity. Again, they deal with the 2019 film specifically but aside from the discussion of the ending most of the stuff they talk about is also applicable to earlier versions, and it’s definitely one of the most comprehensive arguments I’ve seen for aroace Jo! Also it’s where my header image came from, so you know it’s a good video!

Sorry for how long it took me to answer this I hope at least some of this is useful! I found surprisingly few posts about the trans subtext; I definitely have seen some in the past but either they’ve been deleted or it’s just tumblr search acting up again.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

A personal question if you’re comfortable answering: has being aroace ever made it harder for you to maintain friendships?

I’m in high school and being aroace is something that most of my friends never really… accepted. I’ve always been open about being aro/ace and whenever I’ve explained aroromanticism/asexuality, things (at best) got really awkward and they kind of pretended I never said anything about it (telling me and others that I’m straight and trying to “set me up” with other students), despite me always being very clear romantic attraction isn’t something I experience and romantic relationships aren’t something I want right now. That wasn’t just one friend group, I’ve made other friends in and outside of school and it’s been the same. Crushes and dating is something allo teenagers talk about with their friends a lot and I think maybe it helps them relate to each on some level. Not being a part of that has personally made kind it difficult to connect to other people and maintain friendships. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I've generally been pretty that even when I was young most of the social groups I've been part of have had enough other interests or things they talked about regularly that the fact I wasn't personally interested in romance/sex was never really a big deal and we generally found other things to connect over.

I don't know though if the difference regional/cultural, generational (I'm in my 30's, and not sure if kids nowadays are more focused on this stuff since there's a lot of pressure to be) or just pure luck. One thing I will say though is not everyone is like this and every social group has their own dynamic and culture. So even though you've run into this a couple times doesn't mean you always will. Personally I'd recommend trying to find people via shared interests, maybe look into clubs or after school things you enjoy and that way you'll already have a shared thing in common.

If you're comfortable with it, queer/lgbtq+ groups are also an option, and should be a lot more accepting. Most groups are ace/aro friendly though if you're unsure you can always contact them ahead of time and make sure.

Trying to make friends one-on-one rather than join a friend group is another, and then you're finding individual people you can connect with in other ways. Because there really is a lot of ways to connect to people.

As you get older this should get easier too. I know when I was younger, who's your crush or general dating/sex conversations were a lot more common, but now people mostly have other things on their mind.

Finally as to coming out and people just ignoring that, if you're comfortable with it, don't let people get away with that. My general advice for those situations is every time they try and portray you as straight/allo or imply you are, correct them. It doesn't have to be aggressive or confrontational or anything, it can be as simple as them saying 'I think you and x dating would be cute' and you replying with 'I don't date, remember I told you I was aro.' And just do that everytime. Most people will eventually realise you were serious and eventually come around. If they don't then it's a sign they're not a supportive group and you'll probably be better off finding different friends.

I'll throw this out to followers, has anyone else had similar problems? Want to share your thoughts or advice?

All the best, Anon! Good luck!

[aropodcasting]

The Fabled A-spec Post I Keep Saying I’ll Make

Since I’m p aro on sideblog + community terms are unknown to people outside the community (as well as those inside the community due to the wipeout exclusionism on the website circa 2016-onward) so I figured I’d make a quick post to let people know abt some of the things I’ll be referring to!

Terms

Allo: someone who is not a-spec; used in front of -romantic or -sexual (ex. alloromantic) or used as a descriptor (ex. I cannot believe everyone else here is allo)

A-spec / Aro-spec / Ace-spec: abbreviation for the spectrum; A-spec as an abbreviation for the entire spectrum, aro-spec as an abbreviation for the aro spectrum, and ace-spec as an abbreviation for the ace spectrum

-> a note: can be written as a-spec or aspec, but due to screen readers/ what I’ve seen dyslexic a-spec people discuss, I use a-spec. I am not dyslexic nor use a screen reader, so I cannot comment on this, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong

Qpr/ qpp: queerplatonic relationship/ quasiplatonic relatonship; queerplatonic partner/ quasiplatonic partner. Qprs do not have a strict set of rules, and as such are hard to describe. They are not romantic nor sexual inherently, though one could be. A qpr can be committed, married, and non-romantic/ non-sexual; they can look like a romantic relationship; they can include sex and sexual elements; they can appear casual; they can be monogamous or polyamorous; they can occur at the same time as a romantic relationship. They’re very moldable. They are a relationship that, as it comes from the aro community, is not inherently romantic, but goes above and beyond traditional societal norms for friendship (though, friends can do everything a qpr does and not be in a relationship labeled as other than friends). To get a better understanding of qprs, I’d suggest looking into community resources and finding other posts a-spec blogs have made about them. AUREA, or aromantism.org, defines them as “A committed non-romantic relationship that goes beyond what is the subjective cultural norm for a friendship. Levels of intimacy and/or behaviors between the partners involved often don’t fit the conventional standards set by society. Some QPRs can include sex and elements that are generally considered romantic. In practice every queerplatonic relationship is different. Abbreviated to QPR, and queerplatonic (quasiplatonic) partner to QPP.”

Squish: a catch-all term for non-romantic and non-sexual attraction; commonly mistaken for a crush

-> a note: there are many other words for different types of attraction (plush for queerplatonic attraction, swish for aesthetic attraction, etc) but squish is a catch-all and used most often

Peach Fuzz: a qpr that pretends to be romantic/ dating for any reason

Zucchini: an old term that became uncommon after exclusionism became widespread; another way to refer to your partner in a QPR (ex. This is my zucchini!)

Amatonormitivity: The assumption that everyone is looking for a long-term romantic relationship; the assumption that romance, marriage, ‘partnering off’, etc, is the only path someone would want to follow in their life

Queerplatonic / quasiplatonic: an attraction that is ‘non traditional’ and not romantic or sexual. A hard to define attraction that is different than platonic attraction but not romantic or sexual

Aplatonic: Someone who does not experience platonic attraction; also a spectrum called the aplspectrum; can be used as an identifier (ex. demiplatonic, greyplatonic, etc)

SAM: the split attraction model, which serves to split types of attraction (ex. aroromantic and bisexual as two different terms used at the same time)

Non-SAM aro, ace, etc: commonly used as Non-SAM aro. People who don’t use the split attraction model (ex. only identifying as aro/ terms related to aro and not ace/ allosexual)

Oriented aroace: a term for people who are aroace who experience another type of attraction larger enough to label it (ex. Lesbian aroace, pan aroace, etc)

Angled aroace: a term for people who are on the a-spectrum (grey, demi, akoi, etc) and who experience a type of attraction that is not romantic or sexual, and feels significant enough for them to label it (ex. see above, angled omni aroace, angled gay aroace, etc)

Relationship anarchy: the belief that no relationship is better than another; instead of a pyramid of relationships, they’re all equal. Not specific to the community, but often discussed

Romance/ sex repulsed/ averse: someone who does not want romance/ sexual relationships/ actions taken towards them. This can go from feeling uncomfortable to getting triggered by these actions. One can be romance repulsed and not sex repulsed, or sex repulsed and not romance repulsed, or both

R/s indifferent: someone who does not care one way or the other about romance and/or sexual actions taken towards them. One might be unwilling to do romantic/sexual actions because they don’t care, or, on the other end of the spectrum, might do them anyway even though they do not feel any real want to. On a spectrum and can apply in any combination, like r/s repulsed.

R/s favorable: someone who likes romantic/ sexual actions and wants to do them. Again, on a spectrum, and in any combination, like the two above. They might seek out romantic/ sexual interactions, enjoy them, and want a romantic/ sexual relationship, despite not feeling romantic/ sexual attraction

-> a note: be careful! Sex negative and sex positive are used to refer to whether you support those who are sexual or not (ie. sex workers, those who are in sexual relationships, etc) instead of whether you specifically feel repulsed/ favorable. Don’t mix the terms up, as they mean two different things

Voidpunk: a section of punk morals/ aesthetic not unique to the aro community but coined in it. The practice of rejecting ones humanity and reclaiming their inhumanity, specifically only to be used by groups that people use inhuman against; a way to cope with dehumanization from oppressors. Not specific to the aro community (also used by poc, neurodivergent people, etc, and the intersection of multiple identities that are called ‘inhuman’) but popular inside it

Soft Romo: a term used for anyone but most often on the aro-spectrum; for people who like to perform stereotypical ‘romantic’ gestures such as dating, etc. without wanting the high-energy kissing, holding hands, etc. A ‘low-level romantic relationship’, where performing high-level romance is not preferred or just not possible due to different aspects.

-> let me know if there’s anything you would like me to add/ explain!

Symbols

[ID: an image of two hands, palm up. The right hand is on the left, and the left hand is on the right. They are resting on a dark grey blanket, and there is a light blue rug behind them. On the middle finger of the right hand there is a black ring. On the middle finger of the left hand there is a white, almost transparent, ring. End ID]

Black ring: a symbol of the ace-spec community. Worn on the right hand, middle finger. A way of identification/ pride in public w/o displaying flags

White ring: a symbol of the aro-spec community. Worn on the left hand, middle finger. A way of identification/ pride in public w/o displaying flags

Cake: a symbol commonly used in the ace community, either as a joke (ex. This cake is better than sex!/ Cake will always be better than sex) or as a symbol

Arrow: a symbol commonly used in the aro community, drawing on the way the words ‘arrow’ and ‘aro’ sound the same. Similar themes (archers, bow and arrow, etc) can also be used

Ace card symbol: the ace of a card deck, commonly used as a symbol in the ace community. While the card usage isn’t often discussed, I’ve found sources discussing each meaning; Ace of hearts-> alloace; Ace of spades-> aroace; Ace of diamonds-> the ace spectrum Ace of clubs-> questioning. Draws on ‘ace’ and ‘ace’ word play; also used in jokes (ex. I have an ace up my sleeve/ Aced it!)

Yellow roses: a symbol commonly used in the aro community. Symbolizes friendship, using the symbolism in the yellow rose

Purple/ Green: the colors in the ace / aro flags, respectively

Yellow: the ‘color of friendship’. Commonly connected to yellow roses.

-> a note: there are many more symbols in each community; space ace, frogs for aros, griffins, dragons, etc. I’d suggest looking up symbols and finding some more yourself! These are just some common ones I have seen frequently

That’s all I can think of right now, but if anyone would like me to add on things / explain more my ask box is always open and I am always willing to edit. People in the a-spec community, please feel free to comment/ correct things/ add on things you feel like I’ve missed! While I did not do a list of identities, I did not want to leave out identities that are lesser known/ made fun of. Again, my ask box is open. I linked AUREA (linked to the FAQ) above earlier (linked to the home page), which is a great site for the aro community if anyone would like to know more.

[my-strange-attraction]

As an Aro ace I’m getting annoyed that I have to add a THIRD word to my identity loveless just to get the point across Single for life . I really was hoping asexual was going to embody that . But then No , aces can still love so I used Aro but now No Aro aces can still love so NOW ITS loveless Aro ace ?? I am so tired I just want a community of happily single people that will never fall in love why is this so hard to ask for ? I don’t feel safe In an environment where somebody can fall in love with me

On the one hand, I understand your frustration, but also as someone who needed all these extra labels to work up from ace to aroace to loveless aroace in a way that was natural and comfortable to me, I do still think there's a need for them to exist. I know there is a group of people who prefer to not use the split attraction model and are simply aro or non-SAM aro, but I believe there are also allosexual people in those communities as well, they just find their aro label to be the most important one and the only one they want to actively use. The internet is a strange and complicated place, and it is unfortunate we need so many labels to specify subgroups within subgroups, but need them we do, so there's not much to do about it.

On the bright side, outside of the internet, if you meet someone and the them you're ace, assuming they know what it is already, they'll probably make the assumption that you're aro as well because most people don't know romantic attraction is separate from sexual attraction. That's probably a negative for ace alloros but in your situation it probably comes in handy.

Also, about that last part, I've found that people are generally less inclined to have a crush on someone who doesn't naturally give off the signals (elusive social cues, yeah I don't know either) of being someone who could like them back. And if all else fails, you can be blunt about it and say you're not interested whatsoever and that usually wards off any potential people who could fall in love with you. I hope this advice helps, thanks for the ask!

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[ace-thinks]

So I’m not sure,,, at all if this is the kind of asks you’re cool with (if not, so sorry! Just disregard) but: kinda panicking don’t know what to do and who to ask. In 9th grade I came out to my close friends and family as bisexual. I’ve been comfortable with that for awhile. Now, I’m questioning if I’m aro and/or ace, and don’t know? How to go about figuring it out? Growing up I never had crushes on anyone and never thought anything of it. I’ve made out with someone once, but while the experience wasn’t unpleasant, I didn’t really feel anything for it, even though I was close with the person. I’ve had one “boyfriend” (different person) but once we started taking things further than say, things you could do with a friend, I got uncomfortable and broke up with him. I wasn’t upset in the typical breakup way but I was sad because I genuinely liked spending time with him but not in that way? And he didn’t want to be friends after that, understandably. After looking at some things I think I’d call myself sex neutral? Like, I’ll watch porn? But recently I’ve discovered that I just. Cannot. See myself having sex with another person. And I’m starting to think that what I’ve been using to define my bisexuality is just finding people visually attractive? It’s just frustrating because I have no idea how other people feel (obviously) and my close friend who I would usually go to about this made a comment once about demisexuality not being real (ouch) and even though I know she’d be understanding if I approached her about it I just can’t bring myself to talk to anyone irl about it. So any thoughts, recommendations on where to look, or any lovely people who would be comfortable to chat would be amazingly appreciated. So sorry again if this is like, TMI, I’m just overthinking everything and don’t know where to go for an outside opinion.

Hey! First things first, I’m of the opinion that the TMI parts of life are usually the parts that we’re most confused about but we’re also usually too scared to try to ask about them so I try to make this a very safe space - be as forthcoming or as private as you want! No such thing as TMI here~

Okay, now on to your actual question.

_____________

I’ve answered a few questions that are in a similar vein to yours so here are links to some of those:

Questions to consider if you’re trying to figure out if you’re ace.

General tips about not freaking out/overthinking while you figure things out.

Here are some posts that might be helpful:

Signs you might be ace.

Other signs you might be ace.

A personal account from an aroace person that could be very relatable. 

Non-tumblr related resources you could explore:

This is a website that I found very helpful when I was still figuring things out. I especially liked the 3 part series called “Possible Signs of Asexuality” (in the Asexuality 101 section).

There’s also this podcast called “A Ok” that could be nice to listen to. It’s basically just a bunch of conversations with people on the ace and aro spectrums and they talk about their experiences and whatnot and idk it could be nice to hear from other people in the community and it could give you some more insight into your own feelings!

I feel legally obligated to also include AVEN since it’s like the OG asexuality resource but I personally haven’t gotten a lot out of it. It could be helpful to you, though!

Overall my biggest pieces of advice are:

Pay attention to how you feel and try to just go with the flow. Don’t force things and definitely don’t obsess (I know that’s way easier said than done) 

Hear from other people in the community, read other people’s experiences, etc. This could be a good way to decide “Yeah this is really resonating!” or “Hm, none of this is sounding like me” and both of those are helpful realizations.

Lastly, I’m totally willing to chat if you want (fair warning lol). And I’m sure a bunch of other people will be too!

[introspectev]

Merthur.

I do not want to diminish the true devastation a lot of people felt, and still feel, about having this ship not be canon (and how some see it as a bit of queerbating before Johnlock and Destiel made Merthur seem so benign in comparison). I can see where people are coming from. I myself have shipped them in fanfic. In fact, Merthur is what got me into fanfic via Tumblr back in 2014. But can I offer up an alternate view of the Merlin/Arthur relationship for a moment?

Merthur as a QPR.

I doubt this was the intention of the writers either, but as a newly realized aroace myself, I've found quite a lot of evidence to support this view on our beloved medieval dorks. I might make a video essay outlining these evidences because that will be a lot of work but here are my general thoughts on the subject.

One: Merlin, for me, is aroace. He never really shows an interest in romance or sex throughout the show but he has very meaningful friendships with most, if not all, of the other characters. And his love for Arthur is so absolute, its transcendent. Before I discovered the terms regarding aromantism and asexuality, I was quick to hop on that bandwagon in which I declare that Merlin is clearly in romantic love with Arthur. More lgbt+ representation in media is always a plus. And I still think Merthur is a very valid romantic ship. But now, I wonder why Merlin's love for Arthur has to be inherently romantic? Why is romantic love put on such a pedestal? Why is platonic love so diminished by society? Can I claim warlocks and dragons as aro culture?

Anyway...

Two: Arthur and Gwen are a valid ship, too, and I feel like most Merthur shippers immediately dismiss their romance. But personally, I really love Gwen as a character and I love her romantic relationship with Arthur. And what i like most about Gwen is that she knows how much Merlin means to Arthur as well. In this interpretation of Merthur being a QPR, i see Gwen as a character who knows that the bond between Merlin and Arthur as a platonic relationship runs deeper and truer than her own, but she doesn't get jealous or demand that her romantic feelings be more valid than their platonic ones. And I think that's a wonderful thought.

I dont know, man. Am I making any sense? The more I think about it, the more I realize that I've been feeling this way longer than initially thought, long before I even realized I was aroace. It was subconscious, I guess, if my Ace!Merlin Modern AU fanfic I wrote 4 years ago is any indication. I guess... I'm just wondering if anyone else has wanted to interpret Merthur the same way or can see where I'm coming from. Please let me know. Am I just so starved for arospec content that I will literally remake the Merthur ship into the queerplatonic relationship representation that I've been searching for these past 6 months since I learned the term?

Possibly...

Am I going to continue to do this with all my favorite shows and movies from my youth when I rewatch them in the future?

Definitely. :)

[asmoiras-tells]

OK... so I’ve been struggling with my sexuality a lot throughout my adolescence years. I always felt some kind of attraction towards people, I’ve had pleeenty of those so-called platonic crushes over the years, but since most of those crushes I needed to hide from my family/friends/etc. and suppress from my own self because I knew that having some kind of attraction on someone that wasn’t under the cishet-male characteristics would had been another problem I didn’t want to deal with; I mean, my middle/high school years were hard enough while I was faking being cishet, so I knew for certain me expressing myself was only going to make it even harder. —I’d wished I did things different back then, but I had such internalized fear of being treated with “caution” and distaste, that I thought it was better for me to blend in. That’s why, for years, I swore it was just my closeted bisexuality the one that kept me from having a romantic/sexual relationship. That me being in the closet was the reason why I couldn't see myself in any sexual nor romantic scenario.

It wasn’t until a year ago or so that I finally had the courage to “step out” of the closet and came out as bisexual to my sister (who told me she suspected it for a while), and don’t get me wrong, it felt incredibly liberating, but somehow... I noticed I still wasn’t feeling any stronger attraction towards others. I mean, I would feel aesthetically, platonically attracted to people, and even fantasize about them or slightly get aroused at some points, but never to the extent of having the innate desire or attraction to actually pursue doing anything with them; I was more than fine by just looking at them or having them in my life.— Just like I’ve always felt, so “maybe,” I thought, “maybe, I came defective on that matter or,” I doubted, “what if I’m just faking it, confused, trying to seek some attention, just like most people told me I was doing so.”

I talked about this with the people I trust the most, and while my best friend swore I was indeed aroace, my mother told me it was only my lack of any experience in the subject , “you’ll change your mind once you fall in love.” Note: I was in a relationship at that time which ended after a couple of months because, even though they were perfect and I indeed liked them, I wasn’t feeling like everyone says it supposed to and felt like I was being unfair with them and their feelings. I couldn’t help but think something was wrong with me, but after doing a bit of research and a while of introspection, I came across with the bi-aroace community, and I finally found where I fully stand. I wasn’t the only one feeling that way, I wasn’t “broken.” It made me feel relieved, confident, so-like-myself; I don’t have the exact words to express it... it’s just great!!

I tried to find an official bi-aroace flag, but there’s none yet... so I wanted to propose(?) one which we, bi-aroaces, could show our pride with. It’s inspired by the general oriented aroace flag made by @biaroace and the proposed bi-aroace flag by @queer-coloured-glasses.

Meaning of the colours:

BLUE (#161639): I used the same hex colour code as @biaroace for our aroace-ness.

GREY (#5e5360): I decided to go for a mix of the greens [#a8d478 and #3aa63f] used in the aromantic flag and the purple [#810081] used in the asexual flag to show our affiliation with the wider aro-spec and ace-spec communities, including the aroaceflux spectrum (like mine.)

PURPLE (#9b4f96): I used the same hex colour code as in the bisexual flag for our attraction to both similar and different genders, a.k.a. our bi-ness.

WHITE: I decided to keep it instead of replacing it for the “bi-purple” to represent our wholeness and allosexual partners/allies.

TEAL GREEN (#36aea0): I kept this one the same colour code as in @biroace and @queer-coloured-glasses flags for our nonromantic/nonsexual attraction, like platonic, aesthetic, sensual, alterous, attachment, squish, queerplatonic, etc.— and nope, it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s my second favorite color nor that it fits perfectly LOL

Gosh, now that I re-read this post, I kinda vented a lot on this one. I apologize if it’s a lot to read, I wasn’t expecting it to be that long. Sorry about that 7n7r

Anyhoo... what do you guys think?

[queenangst]

hey!! if u don’t mind me asking how did u know u were aro/ace? like i’m lowkey is going “is that me” bc i don’t really get what romantic/sexual attraction is supposed to feel like ... but on the other hand what if i’m just yk not understanding my own feelings or haven’t experienced it yet or whatever idk hopefully this is phrased somewhat in a way that makes sense

Sure! 

I actually talked about this with some friends who were asking on my Discord about a week ago, so I hope you don’t mind me copying and pasting this discussion!

As a note: some of what I share below is personal. This is my personal life so I’ve kept it vague, and I don’t want to share details or involved parties online. You are 100% welcome to ask me more about a specific experience, but I may or may not share.

What I went through in my self-discovery doesn’t apply to everyone. We might share some experiences, we might not. 

To clarify my identity again: I’m aromantic asexual. I do not experience attraction at all, and I am culturally sex-positive/sex-neutral, and personally sex-repulsed. And I am out—my parents, family and friends, etc.

If you’d like to ask questions about these specific parts of my identity that I don’t go into detail in this post, please feel free.

(Also my identity journey went something along the lines of: straight, questioning/no label/allosexual, demisexual, asexual.) Also, sometimes on my blog casually I will describe myself as “ace” for both aro/ace or use “ace” as an interchangeable term for “aspec,” but this is not wholly accurate, it’s just the way that I sometimes use it because I am ace and I can do that.

being ace (my experience): 

Figuring out ur ace sometimes is kinda hard bc 

1) there is a spectrum 2) it's really easy to get caught up in ur own expectations/society 

because asexuality is a lack of attraction, sometimes it can be really confusing, and we end up trying to find something that’s not actually there. (or that may be there but different than what is heteronormative).

one of the main reasons i really figured it out was bc i dated someone, and i was not attracted to them romantically or sexually in any way at all. 

i didn't reciprocate the feelings even during the relationship - i tried to convince myself that it would happen but just never did, and i was uncomfortable (red flag) a lot about affection. 

my advice also is if you're thinking about romance/sex/relationship and it makes you uncomfortable/you can't picture yourself in the future (i.e. when you're older)/it happens forcefully instead of naturally that is, imo, a sign that you're aro/ace/respective aspec identity

now. i do not advise doing what i did. actually i strongly do not advise anyone to force yourself into a relationship or into any situation if you're unclear about your own wants and boundaries. most of all, listen to yourself. if something is making you uncomfortable, consider what about that experience is uncomfortable to you.

edit for clarity: obviously i didn’t know i was aroace at the time of entering that relationship, and it was not malicious intent on my end or “deception,” rather that i didn’t know myself then as well as i do now.

also to my one point (shown below) about "picking someone" tbh in hindsight i just think it's funny i have this really clear memory in elementary school where i was talking to my friend about crushes, and she asked me if i had a crush and i said no. so she asked if i had to have a crush on someone who it would be, so i was like "i guess this guy or this other guy?" basically because i thought they were funny/nice to me

also in hindsight after discovering that, here are things that i experienced that tipped me off:

 - making excuses* (i want to focus on academics, i don't want a relationship right now but maybe later, i haven’t really found someone i liked) - putting myself in a box/label to fit what other people thought (i have to like this person) - guessing about attraction (i guess if i had to be attracted to someone, i would be to this person) - repulsion/dislike* (i don't mind talking about/reading about other people's romance/sex lives, but i don't want to do it myself)

*asterisk is because like i said before, asexuality is a spectrum. and also some of these reasons are perfectly valid if you are attracted to someone! maybe you really do want to focus on academics or you don't like physical intimacy as a preference and that's valid too. edit for clarity: some aces are sex-positive and some aces are sex-repulsed. and some are neutral. 

btw, if you are aspec, you can still be attracted to people! it will just be a different experience from an allo person.

you don't have to have a label if you're unsure or if you don't want one or really any other reason, because your identity is your business and we discover new things about ourselves all the time. it’s okay if a year ago you thought you were gay but now you think you might be ace after all or vice versa, etc; that doesn’t invalidate your feelings or your experiences. there is no rush and no race.

also if you want to learn more about asexuality! for yourself or in general: 

AVEN: Asexuality Visibility & Education Network

https://www.asexuality.org/ 

Asexuality: An Overview/FAQ

AVEN Forums: Questions about Asexuality questions about asexuality, check out the other various aven forums too bc lots of people share their experiences and ask questions there.

I hope this helps someone! If you resonate with anything I wrote above, I would encourage you to do more research about asexuality. 

[aro-culture-is]

so im aroace and the ace part of my identity is more 'important' to me (bc im more open to romance than i am to sex), yet i feel more, like connected to the aro community? and i like to interact with aro pride/posts/art/etc. more than i do with ace stuff, and idrk why? is that weird?

hmm. I guess, my instinct here is to say that you may want to look for different ace blogs than you currently follow, or frankly you may be at a point where you don’t feel the need for support from the ace community, but feel that need still for the aro aspect of your identity?

I don’t know you, obviously, so this is just pure speculation from a stranger. I’m not ace, and I don’t know what has been going on most recently in the ace community, but I know that fya’s (@/fuckyeahasexual) latest arophobic blunder (you can see my response @just-aro) has probably caused a number of aroace people to pull away from or clutch tighter to the ace community.

It’s not exactly weird to feel like one part of your identity is more important, nor is it weird to interact less with the community for that identity than others. Identity and community correlate, but are not the same. I interact somewhat sparingly with my non-sam aro community on tumblr because I’m not comfortable following minors with unlisted ages or otherwise younger than 17-18 as a 20yo*. Of the few non-sam aro blogs I’ve found, however, most fall into that category. However, it’s a very important part of my identity. It could, thus, be that the demographic of who you follow/interact with is different for each community.

There is also the matter that aces and posts about asexuality do, unfortunately, tend to get more interaction from aphobic individuals outside of the community. My experience on this blog has been that the more a post of mine can be interpreted as being an asexual post, the more likely I am to encounter exclus. This is not to say that arophobic blogs don’t exist or anything, but that acephobic blogs are more interactive with the general ace community, vs arophobic blogs tend to, ime, target alloaros.

I know this is long, but I hope that I hit at least one topic that could be contributing!

*I apply this especially due to the fact that I talk not infrequently about mature topics on my aro blogs. They can follow me and engage with me, but that’s on their terms, and I have to assume they consume my content at a level appropriate for themselves.

[aropippin]

hello this is a long post, sorry. don’t feel like you need to read it.

this may be incoherent, it’s kind of a mind dump and to be honest i’m a little tipsy writing it. this is probably a little tmi and no one is asking for this explanation but it’s something that’s been lingering in my mind for a while. also i talk about things through the lens of summer vs. fall vs. spring because i was in college for most of this and that’s how our semesters worked (and how i categorize time).

i feel a little bit of an elephant in the room since returning to tumblr (now more than ever since i’m online more frequently than i have been for a couple of years) when i talk about certain things in my life and particularly my boyfriend. 

the last time i was really active was over three years ago. at that time i was still 100% identifying as aromantic and asexual (i’ll say aroace from here on out), it was something that was very important to my identity. i very actively talked about it on here and it was an active part of who i was. i very genuinely did not have any interest in dating and experienced pretty much no attraction to people outside of aesthetic (and a lot of that went hand in hand with my dysphoria, i saw other men and wanted to look like them). at this point i was sex repulsed and honestly pretty romance repulsed as well. 

i’d be identifying as aroace for at least four or five years after breaking up with my high school boyfriend (put a pin in that thought). i was very stable in that identity including through questioning my gender identity and that first few months of me knowing i was trans.spring of 2017 was interesting because i developed a crush for the first time since i was  freshman in high school (so it had been like five years). i won’t go super into it, but for the first time i was interesting in pursuing a relationship. it was something i thought about a lot and i liked him a lot. in the end, it kind of fizzled out after a couple of months but we’re putting a pin in this too. 

after it ended i didn’t think about it too much. this was the point that i publicly started transitioning. when we came back around fall of that year, i noticed a shift. i wasn’t really attracted to anyone nor did i really want to date but i was jealous of my very close friend. this was maybe seven months into her relationship at the time and i was jealous of her boyfriend because we had spent so much time together the previous year but it felt like i was barely seeing her. i thought i might have had a crush on her and even told a few close friends that i thought i did but to this day i’m not really sure. i had similar feelings growing up (middle/high school) with my close female friends. i think i really was looking for attention, not in a negative way but just in general; i saw that other people had people looking at them and liking them and i wanted it too. and to be fair, i got a little bit of attention at parties from girls it was super affirming to me and felt great.

at this point i felt like i couldn’t really identify as aromantic anymore but i still felt very asexual; the lines were very blurry but that’s kind of where we were at. well late next spring me and the guy who didn’t work out last time agreed to actually try and date. to be honest, it was a hit or miss experience; he just wasn’t really int he place to date but we wanted to give it a try. the biggest takeaways were that it was barely romantic and 0% sexual but it was a relationship and 100x healthier than the last one i was in. in the end, we just decided that it wasn’t working and we’d be better as friends. i ended it and didn’t expect to be in any other relationship any time soon. i was wrong.

within like a month of breaking up with that guy, i met my current boyfriend whose name is josh. we met fall of 2018 at band. we talked a couple of times at camp but it wasn’t a big thing and then at our second party, he got crossed and i spent a lot of time taking care of him (and he spent a lot of time soft flirting with me). i had been a little fixated on him during camp, which is generally how my feelings towards people (platonic or romantic) had manifested in the past but it wasn’t a Thing until he started texting me afterward. i had such a strong response.

it was a interesting time that i won’t go super in depth with, but he wasn’t out at the time and i wasn’t sure he was into guys. i quickly found out that he was and that he was into me. and i ended up being into him. it was a very strange experience for me. i had dated two guys before but both of those were slow burns, we were friends and hung out and then months later started to date. but with josh i had met him and within about a month we were dating. it was messier and more complex than i’m getting into but it happened. and i was more than okay with it, i was happy. pretty early in i sat him down and told him how sex repulsed and that i had some traumatic dating experiences in the past and he was very open and supportive of however this needed to go.

but like, not to be tmi but within a month of dating we had sex (both for the first time) and while it wasn’t great to begin with, it wasn’t the traumatic experience that i thought it would be. and it generally only improved over time. i got much more open about it and we figured stuff out together.

okay, so here’s the pinned thought. in high school i dated a guy for two years. at this point i was not aware that i was trans so this was a “straight” relationship. he was terrible to me for a lot of it. to be fair, i was dealing with a lot of dysphoria that i couldn’t place however he was pretty constantly pushing my boundaries on what i felt comfortable with physically. he would either freeze me out or just get upset if i didn’t want to do things he wanted to do and would even do this while i was having a panic attack and couldn’t function out of fear. he and his friends made fun of me and called me frigid and a prude and said that our relationship was meaningless because we didn’t do enough physically/sexually. i left this relationship pretty fucked up and that’s without taking the dysphoria i was dealing with into account. he continued to be emotionally abusive to me for years after that.

and if i’m being honest, i think a lot of that played into my feelings and identifying as aroace. i think the majority of it was because of my traumatic experiences but my dysphoria played into it too. and honestly i hate that. i feel like i betrayed all of the people that i used to talk about it with when i stopped identifying that way, but it got to the point where it wasn’t something productive in my life anymore. 

if i were to psychoanalyze myself and go into micro-identities, i’d say i probably still exist on both the ace and aro spectrums. i really have such limited physical attraction to other people and i really don’t know that i could identify it really as sexual attraction. and even romantically, i still think that i probably experience some level of being aro but i don’t think either term serves me anymore. they used to be important, they made me feel safe and understood which i desperately needed, but now they don’t.

i don’t define my sexuality in any strong terms. i’m queer. i say i’m bi for the functionality of it, but in the end i’m just not straight. i’m into people, gender doesn’t play a big part in it, and that’s just kind of where i’m at. i know this was long and convoluted, but some part of me felt that it was important to talk about the shift i’ve felt over the last few years. i feel guilty because aro and/or ace people often times are faced with people saying, “oh you’ll grow out of it” and i feel bad for playing into this narrative but it’s where i’m at. especially after transitioning, defining my sexuality became a lot less important to me because i was more comfortable with myself.

anyway, mostly unrelated but i am not changing my url (i have a brand to maintain) lol and pls like this if you read to this point

[dwindlingashesburnt]

This is for Nonbinary November, I'll reblog this post with a link to the person who came up with this ask game and with a link to the blog I mention in a later question

1) Which labels do you use? I use nonbinary, trans, agender. I also use aroace but that's not really relevant to this month!

2) What are your pronouns? Honestly who knows. I use they/them, I MAY be interested in xe/xem but I don't know yet because I haven't been able to convince anyone to use those pronouns for me when I'm fine with they/them - it's possible the first time I heard someone refer to me as "xe" I'd realise I hate it. Or, realise I love it. Anyway rn I use they/them

3) How old were you when you came out to yourself as nonbinary? 15 or 16? I think 16

4) What's one thing you'd like to tell your younger self? hey I know you don't think you like yourself rn but I promise that's not true, you're okay, and when you figure out the real reason you're uncomfortable everything will make so much more sense. You'll be okay, there's nothing wrong with the situation or with you

5) is there a myth about nonbinary people that annoys you the most? Okay. As an agender person I would be part of the party benefiting from this I guess, but a lot of people seem to assume that there's only three genders: male, female, and agender. And that nonbinary is just a synonym for agender. This is obviously incorrect and even though I'm kind of mildly, guiltily glad that I'm not among the nonbinary people omitted by this assumption, it still pisses me off immensely because it's so dumb and it's just further bigotry and bullshit. Luckily this is one myth that seems to be almost entirely due to lack of knowledge rather than actual malicious intent!

6) is there a nonbinary celebrity you look up to? Nope, celebrities don't exist as far as I'm concerned.

7) if you're out, how did you come out? I'm out to my friends - I came out via a rambling, thinking aloud monologue to one friend then to all of them in a more coherent but still rambling announcement during a chat. I am also out to two of my family members but I honest to goodness can't remember how I came out - I do remember one hysterical conversation with my dad in which I was irrationally convinced he wouldn't love me anymore if I changed my name; I hope to fuck that's not how I came out to my dad and brother

8) is there a gender-related pun you like? Nah. I like all the misplaced my gender and traded my gender for x jokes though

9) Do you have friends who identify as nonbinary, too? Nope! Most of my friends are cis, a minority are binary trans people. I wish I had fellow enby friends

10) Do you have a favourite lgbt+ character? Are we talking canon or fanon? I love Crowley and Aziraphale because we can dump a whole lot of lgbt+ stuff on them: aro and or ace, gay, bi/pan, male, trans, nonbinary/genderweird....I also like some takes on nonbinary Beezlebub, but only some. Specifically the ones where they're not particularly evil/malicious but are most definitely a dick, because that feels very humanizing somehow which is nice.

11) Lgbt, lgbt+, lgbtqa+...which one do you tend to use? The last one, though if I'm tired and I've already used that once in convo I'll use lgbt after because it's less effort to say/type and they know what I mean

12) how do you explain the term "nonbinary" to people who have no idea what it means? Badly! With a lot of "um" and "uh" and eventually saying "well it's when you're not 100% male OR 100% female only"

13) Tell us a fun fact about yourself! (Gender-related or random) I used to be able to understand French and German pretty well but lost this a few years after leaving primary school

14) How did you find your name? I found my name several years before I even realised I was nonbinary. I was using a baby names website to look at potential names for a story I wanted to write, and was looking at unisex names "because it's more convenient cos then I don't need to change it if the character's a girl or a boy". Sure mate, sure, whatever you need to tell yourself

15) If you're in a relationship...? N/A

16) Do you prefer partner, datemate, significant other, something else? I like all of those? SO is a bit long to say though and datemate feels very playful, I think I'd say that to tease my partner if I had one but not seriously. So. Partner

17) A piece of advice for questioning kids? If you're really stuck, start in very broad categories and look at what you're NOT, then gradually close in on what you are. Like, do you identify as male? Do you identify as female? Work from there in more detail eg if your answer to female is "no" and male is "wobbly hand gesture" then you can either say hey, good enough, or start looking at smaller labels and stuff

18) Which flag(s) do you use? To be honest I mostly just use the aro flag, on the basis that being ace doesn't feel that big a part of my identity, being agender feels like too much of a given to celebrate/take pride in, but the aromantic flag is very pretty

19) Any tips for bad days? Take care of yourself, fall back on your support network, see if there's any small thing you can do that will help boost your confidence

20) Do you have a favorite nonbinary blog on tumblr? Not sure if it counts but I love the corvidwritingprompts blog because the prompts are inspiring and hilarious, and I love the normalisation of neopronouns and nonbinary people

21) Feminine, masculine, androgynous...or none of those things? I'm comfortable with long-ish hair but tend to aim at more masculine-androgynous clothing to try and balance out any chance of people happily assuming I'm a woman. I love button-ups

22) What are your three favourite things about yourself? I have very nice, straight shoulder length hair which I love because it's pretty, I personally think it's pretty androgynous, and I don't really have to do anything to make it look good. I like that I'm a person who likes making things and doing things to show people I like them. I like that I'm a pretty fucking average height, it's much nicer than when I was tallest in my year, and I am also generally happy with my height it's good

[shades-of-grayro]

i really hate how the aspec community is at each other's throats lately but i feel like it's such a recent thing. a year ago this just wasnt happening and then suddenly this person comes along and starts pitting alloaros against aces. before the blog quiet-times was around no one had any issues and then suddenly theres all these problems magically appearing out of thin air. i've identified as aroace for 3 years and been on tumblr for much longer (1/?)

and i NEVER saw any of these issues that they bring up constantly. i think that yeah some people are terrible but at this point it's a such a small portion of the community that it just doesn't matter but they make it seem like its everyone but they're just trying to get tumblr discourse points. it doesn't help that theyre so violent towards aces and constantly attack anyone who disagrees with them. (2/2)           

sorry for the rant but i just had to get this out and you were the only person i felt i could tell this to. and i didnt want to post about it on my blog because i'm genuinely afraid of them attacking me and sicking their deranged followers on me            

I can definitely relate with not wanting to directly confront that particular user. To be fair, I don’t think they genuinely hate aces, but they do seem to see everything as black-and-white, and when they say “aces” (as in “aces shut up”) it does tend to mean “people who disagree with me”, as they seem totally fine with aces writing to agree with them (and not okay with allo aros disagreeing, the couple of times it’s happened).

--

I will say that when you say “a year ago this just wasn’t happening” that’s not actually true, though I believe that’s your perception of it. A year ago this was actually at its height, and I took a two-month hiatus from tumblr exactly because this was happening (see: Feb. 2019 Carnival of Aros). Though the voices that used to be the loudest and angriest are much quieter now, I think because they’ve gotten a bit more involved in activism and have found a productive outlet for that (understandable) frustration.

I’d say this current environment has been building for about the past two years, though the lack of allo aro representation within the aro community has been an issue that’s been on my radar since I joined this blog five years ago. So I think the feeling of “this is just popping up now” is probably just that you managed to avoid noticing it until now, not that it wasn’t happening.

--

I also want to affirm that there are significant intracommunity issues that allo aros face, even if you aren’t seeing the ones that quiet-times is complaining about. I’ve personally heard other aces say some nasty things about allo aros. Honestly my biggest criticism with the issues that are brought up most often (by everyone, not just quiet-times) are that they’re like... the least serious of the issues that could be addressed?

Like, the kind of issues I’ve seen are aces saying things like “well allo aros have hookup spaces like tinder and dances so do they really need aro community spaces?” and “If we invite allo aros into this space, then it’s going to turn into a hookup space and I won’t feel safe”. I kid you not - other than the paraphrasing, these are real things I’ve heard irl aces say.

But then the issue I see talked about most is mistagging which is like... 1) no longer an issue, 2) it’s mostly non aces doing it, and 3) half of the posts they target aren’t mistagged they just don’t get it. Why is this what they’re focusing on? (And sometimes straight-up made-up issues like “aces stealing aro terms” that were created by aces in the first place smh.)

And this weakens their argument in the eyes of people like you, because when all the things you see them complaining about are questionable at best, you stop believing them.

--

Then my second issue is that they (and again, I mean multiple people here), act as though being allo aro makes them immune to being acephobic, or that since they perceive aces as oppressing allo aros, it’s not possible for them to be acephobic, which just... isn’t true (and I think they know that?).

Like a lot of the criticisms of queeragamic were uncomfortably close to the classic “asexuality is tmi; don’t tell me about your sex life.” Which... you can complain about the word without... saying that? Thanks?

Speaking of queeragamic, there was also a lot of generalizing that ALL aces will immediately flock to that word. Which, if they stopped telling aces to shut up for one minute and engaged in a conversation with them about the term, they’d realize that the vast majority of aces (at least within the circles I talk to) dislike the word queeragamic, meaning they’re fretting (and harassing people) over nothing. And it’d be a whole lot less stress on them honestly.

--

I will say that whatever nonsense has been happening lately with allegedly ace people trying to join allo aro community spaces is pretty messed up. I say allegedly because it’s so ridiculous that I have a hard time believing that the people pulling this actually believe the things they are saying - it just seems like they want to make allo aros feel unsafe and/or stir up community drama. Which seems like something that a non-ace/aro aphobe would be as likely to do as a misguided/hateful ace person.

--

Lastly, I highly recommend just blocking people or taking a break from tumblr. I don’t take my own advice when it comes to ace and aro intracommunity issues (until someone devolves into sending me anon hate), but I really recommend that you do so. It will be so much better for your mental well-being.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

I’m 19 and I’ve started to looking into aro/ ace and I think I am one. And I wanted to ask you... how do/ did you identify you were? Like I realised I wasn’t interested in sex nor dating & when all my friends would talk about it I’d feel strange. I was hoping you could give me some advice? If not that’s fine . I’ve been reading your blog and it feels like a breath of fresh air. Thank you. :)

For me personally a big part of figuring out I was aroace was realising the attraction I was experiencing was actually squishes (a platonic attraction where you want to close to/important to the person you’re attracted to) and that it wasn’t romantic or sexual attraction at all. (And this kind of came from realising it wasn’t typical to not want to date or be in a relationship with the people I was attracted, or to not be bothered when they dated or were attracted to other people.)

Another thing that helped me a lot in figuring things out was reading experiences of other ace and aro people and realising how relatable a lot of it was. And I found myself thinking a lot, ‘oh, is that not how it is for everyone?’ And then just like learning the different types of attraction, and separating things out (like the difference between sex drive and sexual attraction) and being able to label my own experiences and figuring out what I was experiencing and what I wasn’t.

I definitely recommend Asexuality Archive for people questioning if they might be asexual. Especially their 3 part Possible Signs of Asexuality series (which you don’t have to match everything on). But also there’s a lot of stuff in there Asexuality 101 section you might find useful. 

For aro stuff, I’d recommend the arocalypse forums. And they’re a great place to find aros talking about being aro, and have pinned threads on aro experiences, including signs of being aro. 

Other tumblr blogs are great too, I find most blogs on here generally all have pretty good info, and people like to share their experiences on there too. 

Good luck, Anon! And thank you!