Actually, watching folks continue to insist that any queer relationship that isn’t explicitly and overtly romantic or sexual in media is “cowardly” is not only exhausting, but genuinely fucking infuriating.
First, queer coding is not the same as queerbaiting, and queer coding absolutely had and still has its place in all types of art, second, it’s restricting to the types of characters and stories that queer artists can create, especially queer creators who are not out, professionally or at all, and third, your conceptualization of what is queer enough is exclusionary. End of story.
Had a couple conversations recently that led me to realize… There’s sort of a nasty intersection of amatonormativity and misogyny that isolates aro women and shuts us out of media. Allow me to explain.
Aros, let me ask you a question. Have you ever worried that you might be a misogynist, because all your favorite characters are men? Somehow, you just don’t like most female characters. You know all about double standards and misogyny in fandom, fictional women who get absurd amounts of hate for “getting in the way of the slash”, etc., and you try hard not to be that person. You try to love fictional women the same way you love fictional men, but somehow they all annoy you, and you just can’t connect. You don’t know why, so surely the only explanation is that you’re a misogynist, right?
Now, let me ask you another question. How many female characters can you name in your favorite series, who are part of the main group of protagonists, and who aren’t heavily involved in a romantic relationship?
In my case, the only ones I can think of- after thinking this over for the entire day- are Hermes Costello and Foo Fighters. And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are more, but not in any series I really love, and not that are important enough to come to mind.
Everyone knows that women, especially well-written women, are enough of an endangered species in fiction, but it’s so much worse if you’re aro. There’s a reason why most action anime are shounen (made for boys), while most romance anime are shoujo (made for girls). We’re taught that romance is feminine, that falling in love is an unavoidable part of being a woman.
Female characters that get to be independent and cool and live their lives without getting caught up in a romance are such a fucking rarity that even series with relatively well written women fall victim to this (hello, Fullmetal Alchemist), and even female protagonists automatically get romances (hello, Sailor Moon). When you’re someone who’s romance repulsed, that makes it damn near impossible to find any fictional women that you can genuinely like and relate to.
And I know what you’re thinking: “But male characters get involved in romances too!” Yes, but their romances aren’t often major parts of their lives. They don’t take up the majority of the time they’re on screen.That’s why they’re easier for me to relate to, because I can easily filter out romance and still have so much left over, whereas that’s not often the case with female characters.
Men get to be developed characters with love interests, and women get to be love interests with character development. And that’s a problem, not only for all women, but especially for aro women.
Since I’m tired of DMing people all the time about this, gonna make a post about it.
Aromanticism is not a subset of asexuality. You can be aro and not ace. My blog, while for all aros, has a special focus on aros who aren’t ace.
Tagging posts explicitly about aromanticism and not asexuality as asexuality/asexual/ace/etc, especially while not tagging them as aromanticism/aromantic/aro/etc, contributes to aro erasure and the idea that aromantics are inherently asexual, and is incredibly tone deaf when you consider the audience of this blog.
Using my my posts about aromanticism, especially when most of my posts are targeted towards nonace aros, to talk about asexuality without making meaningful additions, is derailing. For example: Using a general post about amatonormativity to share your experiences is one thing and probably okay. Using a post telling bisexual aros that they don’t need to feel bad for their sexual attraction and that they aren’t feeding into stereotypes by living as their authentic selves to talk about your troubled dating experience as a biromantic ace and how frustrated you are with the expectations of sex people have of bi folks is another and very tone deaf. Don’t get me wrong, that is a genuine issue and one you should absolutely talk about, but maybe not on that post.
Please stop doing this. It’s fine if you as an ace relate to a post, but please be mindful about how you’re engaging with aro content. Please stop centering yourselves around our discussions. Your struggles and issues are valid and many of them overlap, but please please PLEASE be careful that you are actually relating to us or boosting our voices rather than speaking over us.
TL;DR - Aro is not the same as ace. Stop tagging aro content as ace. Stop derailing posts about aromanticism, especially those by nonace aros, to talk about asexuality. Please be mindful of how you engage with aro content.
