For a while now, I’ve been planning on doing a post about QPRs. Y’all requested this for a long time, so here it is: my thoughts and opinions on QPR terminology. Included inside: a history lesson, discourse opinions, and a call to action. Also, minimal salt (this time).
TL: DR;
The phrase “more than friends, but less than a romantic relationship” and similar phrases need to stop coming anywhere close to QPRs. Because of coinage and other historical factors, QPRs cannot be defined as simply a romantic friendship nor should they be. The aromantic community as well as alloromantics should be careful about how they define QPRs, as defining them incorrectly causes division in the aromantic community as well as isolation for some aromantics. Education about aromantic issues and history and strong community ties can lead to prevention of terminology issues and create a more unified and strong community.
I know a lot of aroace people are afraid of getting older because they worry about being alone for the rest of their lives, but honestly? I’m so excited to be old and aroace?
I’m nonbinary, and I’ve met older trans and nb people, and every time I meet an older trans person who’s happy and successful it makes me so hopeful and excited. But I’ve never met an old a-spec person. I’ve never seen a happy successful aro/ace person in their 60’s.
I’ve met a few older people who, after talking to me about a-spec identitys, said they might be aro/ace, but I’ve never once met an old person who identified as a-spec when I met them.
And that’s why I’m so excited to be aroace and old. I’m absolutely delighted by the fact that someday, for some young a-spec person, I will be that old person who’s like them. Who they can look at and say “they’re aroace and they’re doing okay, so I can be okay too”.
60 years from now I want to give young a-spec people something I never got. The ability to have elders in their community. People they can talk to about what it means to grow old, and live, and be a-spec in an society so focused on sex and romance who know what they’re talking about because they’ve been through it themselves.
This is one of the reasons I work so hard at everything I do. I’m determined to be that aroace elder who is healthy, fulfilled and full of happiness. I’m determined to do it, so that some day, 50 years down the road some teenager who only just realized they were a-spec will meet me and think “here is my prof that I can grow old and be happy”
As a community, we need to make more of a conscious distinction between platonic and queerplatonic. As a nonamorous person, if I want to discuss platonic feelings and relationships, I don’t want that to be confused with queerplatonic ones becauseofamatonormativestandards.
In the aro community’s effort to stress that QPRs are a completely viable relationship type (which they are), I feel like it is sometimes quick to overlook platonic bonds. As in, not queerplatonic. Platonic relationships (like friendships), while for some people they may have a lot in common with queerplatonic ones, are a separate but equally important thing. Treating queerplatonic relationships like stronger or more intimate forms of platonic relationships is both aggravating and damaging to me as a nonamorous person.
I want my platonic relationships to be valued as something that can be incredibly powerful and meaningful for me despite never reaching QPR status, as whatever feelings lead to QPRs are ones I have concluded that I do not feel. As a nonamorous person, friendships are my strongest bonds, but that does not make them any weaker or less intimate or important than queerplatonic ones.
We need to make the effort to distinguish between platonic and queerplatonic relationships/feelings as two separate things, not as two points on a scale of intimacy. To do otherwise leaves nonamorous and aplatonic people behind and makes me, personally, feel even more othered for not wanting yet another kind of committed relationship that seems to sometimes be expected of me.
We all know the push at the start of last year. We wanted to be recognized. We wanted to be talked about. We wanted to be taken seriously. We helped change the popular definition of aromantic to be “little to no romantic attraction” to include more people. But at the beginning of last year, there was another push. A push to push aros who have romantic attraction out of their labels.
It started off pretty small. Individuals getting sick and tired of “aros and arospecs” but getting told they were using arospec wrong when they claimed this identity for themselves. “Arospec is for anyone who is on the aromantic spectrum! Including aromantic people!” Then why are you calling us that. Then why are you using it to distance us from your community.
I am using that word because you called us that, to make us seem like we aren’t one of you. You gave us a label, thank you. But also, fuck you for trying to take it away. I get told again I can’t use it that way. I give up, I have no label, and I feel isolated.
Thanks, aros.
The argument continues. I call myself aro. I get told that the word only means no attraction ever. I get told it’s not my word. It’s not my word. I get told I don’t belong under that identity. I get told to use arospec. I dont want to use arospec, you told me I was using it wrong. I start hearing things you dont realize you are saying.
“Arospec is for the whole community, use that if you want to talk about the community as a whole. You aren’t aro. Don’t call yourself that. Aro is not an umbrella term, and arospec doesn’t mean you. It’s not your word.You have no language. The common language we use to refer to ourselves and you isn’t for you. It’s not yours.You can’t call yourself what we’re calling you, and you can’t use the only word we use to talk about the community.”
Again, I have no label, I feel isolated. But this time, I get angry. I get PISSED. I stand my ground, and I defend us. I flip the script, aros get pissed, and then… And then. The post. The damn fucking post.
A word lost to discourse: greyromantic. “This is what you are.” This damn post was sent to me every time I talked about being shoved out of the aromantic community. “Look! There is a word for you!” This damn post was sent to me every time I talked about being told my language was wrong. “You can use this word instead! No need to use ours.” This damn post was sent to me any time I brought up the treatment of partnering and sometimes-romo aros. “Why don’t you just use this word instead? See? We’re listening to and supporting you.” This damn post was used again and again and again by people who HAVE NO PLACE to tell me what my identity can be.
This post specifically was used to talk over me. This post was used to silence my voice. OUR voices. This post was used, primarily by aros who have never experienced romantic attraction, primarily by aros who will never fall under this umbrella, to tell me what I am. To tell me what I can and cannot be. To tell me that my language was wrong and I cannot use the language I had been using for myself.
and I won’t fucking use that label.
So what labels do I use? What label do I like? Why do I like them?
I go by romo aro. It was a private word me and my microcommunity had been using this whole time, that by the end I started promoting and making content for. This is my favorite and preferred label, because it can cover anyone who fits outside of the stereotypical aro alignment. Sometimes-romo, romo favorable, partnering, polyaff/polyam, queerplatonic aros, aros who enjoy romo content. and Anyone who would’ve been shoved under that “arospec” umbrella instead of aro. This word is inclusive, this word is radical, and this word can mean me, no matter what that means for me in that moment.
I use this word mostly because it is the only label that no one else forced onto me, and I will never force it onto anyone else. I prefer it because it is, and always has been, mine. I always had a choice, and it never belonged to anyone else. This word is mine, and I will not let anyone take it away from me.
I also use aro. While people kept arguing against me, for I while I just dropped talking about my identity as a romo aro altogether. I went by aro because it was easier and because it can be an umbrella term. The definition started shifting to mean “little to no romantic attraction” and I am forever grateful. This is a word I’ll keep, because no one forced it on me, and because people told me I couldn’t. Using this word was an act of defiance, and using this word was an act of belonging and assimilation. And now people recognize that this word can also belong to me.
And finally… I use arospec. It took me months (and by months i mean about 7 to be able to comfortably use it again) but this word was the first word I identified with. Public perception of this word has shifted, and people recognize that it can mean multiple things. People recognize that arospecs are allowed to talk about their experiences under this label, including how aros have wronged them. Slowly, people are able to recognize that this was a word used for aros to distance us from themselves, and that this was the first word a lot of us had. This word is a good label, and while it started as a reclamation, now it’s solid identity that people can recognize as being separate and different from the umbrella term. And that’s really really good.
I want to say I don’t hate the creator of that post. I don’t hate aros and greyros. But you NEED to start listening to romo aros and arospecs.When we say something is hurting us, people need to believe us and learn to start recognizing damaging language. And there CANNOT be tolerance in the aromantic community for people who will talk over people- especially aromantic minorities. And the aromantic community as a whole HAS to shut down and learn to STOP telling people if their identityandlabelisvalid or not. I HAVE to stop seeing people in my notifications saying that my words are wrong. It HAS to stop. There was a mass exodus of arospecs last year around this time. My whole microcommunity is gone, and a huge portion of the community is missing, with most aros not even noticing. We HAVE to fix things for them. We NEED to make sure that will never happen again. We NEED to make sure that arospecs of all sorts belong.
This community does not have the time or space or numbers to be exclusionary and perpetuating erasure. It’s needs to stop. It’s time to start listening to arospecs. It’s time to start respecting people who have long since been ignored. It’s time the aro community takes a stand with us.
The aro community has grown, but it’s time to start doing more than what passive little it has recently learned to do. It’s time. Grow more. Take a stand.
This is completely right. When I started this blog, there were absolutely no resources for aromantics who weren’t strictly no-attraction. And since then I have seen pushback against aromantics who do.
The most important thing about a label is not what it means to other people. The most important thing is what it means to you. None of us experience life the same way. None of us experience attraction the same way. None of us experience non-attraction the same way. We don’t even experience the things we see and hear and taste the same way, let alone something as complex as the hormones that our brains sent hurtling throughout our circulatory systems.
I am reblogging this in solidarity for people who don’t feel comfortable identifying as grayromantic or arospec rather than just aro. Your journey is your own. Your self belongs to you, and you are not hurting me or anyone else by using a different word to describe yourself. You are not hurting non-attraction aromantics by using the same word. You have my support.
Continuing from my previous post on the aro community’s obsession with creating labels instead of addressing root issues. This time, I’ll be talking about sexuality, and/or lack thereof.
Those of you who have been active in the aro community within the past six months or so are no doubt familiar with the way asexuality is seen as the default for aros, leading those of us whoaren’tasexual (such as myself) to start advocating for ourselves more, and being firm about who we are. We’re allo aros, we’re here, and we’re going to make a place for ourselves. That’s all fine and good, but that leaves those who don’t quite fit into either box sort of left behind.
The fact is, as mentioned, asexuality is seen as the default for aromantics. You can’t just say you’re aro and have that be that, because people can, and will, assume that you’re ace. If you’re not ace, that’s so unusual that you’d better have a way to describe it! Are you straight? Gay? Bisexual? What do you mean, you’re “just” aro? Oh, so you’re a non-SAM aro, then?
In reality, everyone’s sexuality is their own business, and they shouldn’t have to disclose it to anyone, or have any specific labels if they don’t want to. For some people, they may not know exactly what their sexuality is, or they may not want to say what it is, or they may not care what it is. They should be able to say they’re aro, without any assumptions being made. Aros should be able to have, and talk about, whatever sexual attraction they do or don’t experience, without being pressured to lay out an exact description of what specifically they “are” to everyone else. Aro, as an identity, should come with no assumptions about sexuality.
Allo aros, in many ways, aren’t describing ourselves as such because we love the term allosexual. We’re describing ourselves as such because we’re tired of being assumed to be asexual. Any little bit of not fitting in with the ace community, imo, is enough to be welcome with us. But the way things are happening makes it come across as if you have to be either strictly allo or strictly ace, which leaves aros who don’t quite fit in those boxes feeling excluded*. Thus terms like non-SAM or neuaro are coined, and sure, those can be helpful to some… But they’re still clunky and overly specific terms that not everyone wants to use, yet they still feel forced to, because if they don’t, guess what’ll happen? Yup, you got it. They’ll be assumed to be ace.
“Aro” should be enough. Aro shouldn’t come with any assumptions about sexuality. But it does, and instead of coming together to change things so that asexuality is no longer assumed to be the default, the aro community is more focused on coming up with terms to describe aros who aren’t Aroace™, and then subsequently bickering about said terms. We need to address why these terms are necessary, rather than arguing about them and piling on more and more fancy bandaids that ultimately change nothing.
*Aces, don’t you dare try to use this as an excuse to criticize the allo aro community and our self-avocation. Don’t you dare try to silence us again, I’m not having it. If you have a problem with the ace/allo binary, then you need to start dismantling the whole system that led to its existence, not paint over one end and call it a day.
squish - sort of like a crush, but platonic instead! the terms exact meaning has fluctuated over time, so sometimes this might refer to platonic feelings in a non qp way (friends and not a qp relationship) but sometimes this might be how someone refers to the attraction they feel that makes them want to pursue a qpr!
for example, I have a squish on someone! I’d like to be in a qpr with them, and then we would be qpps!
qprs are a lot more subjective in definition than romantic relationships tend to be! as long as the relationship isn’t romantic/isn’t fully romantic, you can call it a qpr, so play around with your qp dynamics in shipping! have fun and I’m so glad this is starting to take off more!!!
Wanna just add a little more vocab!
Plush - Like a squish, but instead of it being platonic feelings in general, it’s specifically a desire for a qpr with someone. Not as widely circulated as squish and a much newer term, but more specific if you wanna go for that.
Zucchini - A relatively outdated term for a QPP, but you’ll still hear some aros (especially older aros) use it to refer to their QPP, and tbh I think we should bring it back. It was cute af.
I’m also not entireeely sure squish’s meaning has fluctuated? As far back as I can remember it’s always been used in a general way, I think the only real change is that some people use squish to not refer to qp attraction/desire now that plush exists as a term? But even then I think that’s a minority as it’s not as widely circulated. Don’t quote me on that though, because I’m too tired to go digging up on history at the moment.
Hey polyam mspec aros! *Puts a piece of candy of your choice in your palm*
I know it can be tough, feeling like you’re giving mspec and polyam folk a bad name for ‘falling into stereotypes’ due to your aromanticism. You’re not at fault for those stereotypes existing, nor do you hurt anyone by existing as you do; you’re simply living as your authentic self, and that’s to be celebrated! You’re a valuable part of both communities, your unique perspective and experiences is a good thing, and if you haven’t found peace with yourself and your identity yet, I hope you do soon.
Aros with a complicated relationship to love are like. I love love. I hate love. I am ambivalent towards love. I am full of love. I am at war with love. I don’t love at all. There is joy in the word love. There is pain in the word love. I am reclaiming what love means to me. Love will never feel at home on my lips. What IS love? Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No more.
Shout out to aros with a really weird relationship to the concept of love that don’t quite fit into labels like loveless or lovequeer. I think we’re neat.
Coming from your aro buddy here. It’s going to be okay if you discovered that you are aromantic. It will be okay. Even if you’re 100% sure that you are. I know that not all of you are feeling comforted by realizing you’re aro- and why wouldn’t some of us be unhappy? Society puts so much pressure on youth to seek out love and emphasizes so much that romantic love is what makes us human, that its easy to forget that its possible to be happy without it. Its easy to slip into the mindset that you are either never going to be happy, or that you are not human at all.
Youcanbe happy without it. Its possible to live a meaningful life without a romantic partner. And you don’t need a romantic partner to know that you are not alone.
Hello! I have made a survey to gather data on the loveless aro community, which you can takeHERE. There isn’t a set date for when the survey will be closed, as that depends on how much data I can gather. Results will be posted on this blog.
Both loveless aros and aromantics who do not identify as loveless can participate. Loveless aros will mainly be asked their reasons for using the loveless label, and a few personal opinions regarding the community. Non-loveless aromantics will mainly be asked about their opinions regarding the label of loveless aro. Both groups will be given demographic questions. In the case of loveless aros, the demographic questions aim to find trends within the loveless community, while the same demographic questions for non-loveless aros may serve as a control sample.
Also, as I’ve been asked this before, all people on the aromantic spectrum are welcome to participate, regardless of the specific labels they use.
There currently are more than 700 responses, which I’m really glad for! That being said, I wanted to ask if I could have a bit of help. At this time this survey is only being advertised on tumblr, meaning responses are skewed towards tumblr’s user base, and it’s a bit of an issue in some ways - for example, I am asking where did people learn of the term loveless aro and a lot of people say “tumblr”, which is sort of expected since tumblr users are just more likely to learn about new terms on tumblr.
So, I wanted to ask, could someone who has an aro Twitter or who is into some aro discord boost the survey there? At present time I plan on keeping the survey open at least until Monday, August 2nd. However, if there is a new wave of responses I may keep it open longer. I’d be really grateful if someone could do that
you know replacing blind reverence of romantic love with blind reverence of platonic love really Not It
okay elaborating on this a bit: this post is specifically about the aro community’s tendency to go “We can still love! Just not romantically!”, and the assumption that all aros have/want meaningful platonic relationships (be they in the form of friendship, a queerplatonic relationship, or something else) and that we will always place more importance on those platonic relationships than alloromantics do. Which is just… Not It.
For the record, I’m not saying that you can’t bring trends like this up: aros, in general, definitely prioritize platonic relationships in a way alloromantics usually don’t. We can talk about that without constantly adding disclaimers for the aros that do not feel this way. We can generalize a bit. That’s fine.
It becomes a problem when this idea, the idea that we all place an extremely meaningful priority on our platonic relationships, becomes one central to the aro community, to the point where it’s assumed to be universal. When it’s not. It’s just not.
And then there’s the “we can still love!” attitude that the community tends to have. A lot of ‘mainstream’ (as mainstream as you can get with aro identities, anyway) arospec content focuses on our abilities to love platonically; comics, stories, etc. are all about how much we love our friends ‘despite’ being aromantic, about how we love our family, about all the forms of platonic love we can still feel. There is rarely any mention of aros who have a complicated relationship with ‘love’ in general, of aros who struggle to form and maintain relationships, of aplatonic aros, of everything in between and beyond that. There are a million and one ways to be arospec, and yet, we are so focused on dispelling the stereotype that we can’t love, that we’re heartless monsters, that we’ve been pushing the same one narrative over and over and over again, to the point where we’ve started to forget that it’s not the only one.
Even in the aro community, love is romanticized to the point of reaching a mythical status, when in reality, it’s nothing more than an emotion. That’s it. Love is not the arbiter of humanity. And I think that a lot of the aro community has unconsciously internalized the idea from an amatonormative society that love is, in fact, what makes us human, and that, since we cannot love romantically, we need to be able to love platonically in order to fill that ‘hole’ left in our humanity. (Or at least the hole left in our lives by the absence of a romantic partner.) When the truth is that we don’t need to justify our humanity to anyone: we are human by virtue of being born human. We have nothing to prove to anyone.
This overwhelming focus on platonic love is not a new problem by any means, but during and post-Valentine’s Day it’s become prominent enough that it’s really starting to leave a very bad taste in my mouth, so I had to get this off my chest.
I run a prominent group blog, The Asexual Agenda, and one of our goals is to promote insightful commentary. Although we are an ace blog, we regularly promote and discuss content from the aro community as well–including allo aro stuff. If you have some commentary, and would like people to see it and talk about it, I’m here for you, so let me know.
This is an especially great opportunity if for some reason you want the attention of people in the ace community. For example, we recently hosted a collection of aro complaints about ace communities.
If this offer interests you, then I have another post with further details and caveats. The most important detail is that I can promote you in two ways: link to your content, or host it. Message me and we can discuss our approach.
And although I’m emphasizing that this offer is open to aros, naturally it is open to aces as well.
