[ID: The meme is the old dude from Up, labelled “me,” pinning a badge, labelled “ASPEC HEADCANON,” on the sash of the boy, labelled “every character I like,” and saying “I would like to award you the highest honor I can bestow.” End ID.]

[ID: A 4 panel meme. Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, labelled “aphobes,” holds up a card that says “if you don’t experience romantic or sexual attraction then you must be a robot.” Yuugi, labelled “me,” smirks and holds up a card, then turns it to reveal it says “robots are awesome.”  In the last panel, Kaiba is blown away, screaming. End ID.]

[ID: A three-way-handshake between “ace/aro ppl,” “nonbinary ppl,” and “neurodivergent ppl” over the common shared experience of “wanting to see real human rep in media vs. thinking robots/aliens/etc. are fuckin sweet.” End ID.]

[ID: A hand labelled “Aces, aros, and demis who don’t feel like doing another 20 minute TED Talk that day” slams down on a button that says “‘I’m just not interested in a relationship right now.’ :^)” End ID.]

[ID: The first panel shows a little baby, labelled “Alloromantics learning aromanticism exists and is not a subset of asexuality,” in front of a chessboard and throwing its hands up in the air with pride.  The second panel zooms out to show a huge buff robot whose head is a computer (totally filled with ancient wisdom), labelled “Aromantic allosexuals,” reaching down to pat the baby on the head. End ID.]

With prevalent sex negativity and essentialist ideas of orientation & sexuality, aros often face invalidation and stigma for their sex drives and/or sexual behaviour.  Check out these aro perspectives on sex: https://taaap.org/2022/02/25/asaw-22-sex-favorable-aros/   and     https://taaap.org/2022/02/26/asaw-22-allo-aros/

[ID: Captioned “people: what if people use you for sex and you never have a romantic relationship,” depicts Skeletor from Masters of the Universe pointing and laughing, labelled “me, an aromantic: joke’s on you, I’m into that shit.” End ID.]

[ID: The meme depicts “aromanticism,” written in the aro pride colours, stereotype vs. reality. The pic labelled “Stereotype” is in greyscale, showing a miserable person holding their head in their hands and going “I’ll never fall in love…” The pic labelled “Reality” is in vibrant colour, with a cool shark in the background, and shows a joyful smiling person wearing sunglasses, giving a thumbs-up, and going “I’ll never fall in love!” End ID.]

[ID: The “is this a pigeon” meme.  "Alloros" points at “romance” and asks, is this… -personal growth? -a redemption arc? -character development? -mental health recovery? -the meaning of life? -a solution to my problems? -the foundation of my self worth? -my only conversation topic? -a happy ending? -an interesting plotline? End ID.]

[ID: A cartoon goose akin to the one from Untitled Goose Game holding an aromantic flag in its beak running away from amatonormativity in the form of several police cars labelled “when will you finally get married?”; The One™,  “just give love a chance”; soulmate AUs; “something more”; “you’ll change your mind eventually”; and romance subplots. End ID.]

[ID: Fred from Scooby Doo unmasks a villain, “the trope of romance supposedly magically turning someone into a good/better person." Fred says "Okay gang, let’s see who this really is” and pulls off the mask to reveal “the arophobic idea that not being in love makes someone a bad/worse person.” End ID.]

[ID: How to apply clown makeup in four steps.  The first is white face paint, “I ask my aromantic child how their love life is going.”  Next is the eye, cheek, and lip makeup, “I pressure them to answer me when they don’t have an answer.”  Then the clown wig, “I tell them their singleness is wrong and prioritize my want for grandchildren over my child’s happiness.” In the final step, they put on their clown nose and say “I’m such a great parent,” and the transformation into a clown is complete. End ID.]

The joke of amatonormativity is on all of us, and it’s never been funny.  Here’s a brief primer on how and why, the interaction with racism & other forms of marginalisation, and Why Your Sex Positivity Needs to be Anti-Amatonormative: https://taaap.org/2022/02/21/sexposcon-poster-amatonormativity/ 

[ID: Three versions of the silent protector meme, saying “alloros think it be like either one of these” over the first two.  In 1, “romance” protects “alloros” from “all problems in life” & in 2, “being aromantic” protects “aros” from “all problems in life.” The third is captioned “when it’s actually like this” and photoshopped so the silent protector, “aros,” is no longer in front of the happily sleeping child, “alloros,” and both are being pelted by “amatonormativity”. End ID.]

We at TAAAP envision all orientations and relationship structures equally esteemed, which requires intentional community building not centred around romantic-sexual couple units!

[ID: In all caps, “Fuck relationship hierarchies, All my homies hate relationship hierarchies.” End ID.]