Alloaro stands for Allosexual Aromantic! Occasionally its said Aroallo (Aromantic Allosexual) but the order doesn’t necessarily matter so long as the point gets across. Alloaro’s are aromantics who feel sexual attraction! Anyone who is aromantic and who also feels sexual attraction (including certain identities on the ace spectrum such as demisexual or greysexual) may choose to identity as alloaro.
Its important to remember that the term alloaro was created so that aromantics have a way to differentiate themselves from asexuals. Its a common misconception that aromantic is an asexual identity however that is not the case at all. Aromanticism and Asexuality are two very different things, and occasionally they might overlap with Aroaces however this is not always the case. Not all aromantics are asexual and not all asexuals are aromantic!
The alloaro experience is vastly different from aces and aroaces and its extremely important that we acknowledge that. The aspec community needs to be a welcoming place for all aspec identities, and that includes alloaro’s!
If you’re an alloaro reading this, you are more then just valid. You aren’t broken or heartless and you aren’t just someone who wants to “sleep around”. I know its difficult sometimes to feel at home when even your own community ignores and demonizes what makes you unique. We can change that though. We can make our voices heard.
Happy Aromantic Awareness Week, to my fellow Alloaro’s esspecially. No Romo
This is a message to all us aro’s out there. This week is about us. Its our time to shine and kick amatonormativity in the shins! I take a lot of pride in being aromantic and you should too. We aren’t broken or heartless, we have emotions and goals and lives. We are more then just a valid part of this community, we ARE thie community! So happy Aro Week yall, and as always, No Romo
Today, we are officially launching aromantic-official! Our goal is to raise awareness and organize events for people across the aromantic spectrum.
Who are we?
We’re a collective of aromantics who came together through Arocalypse, an aro-spec forum and Discord server. Each of us comes from a different background, but we are all eager to contribute to the aro-spec community. Over time, we have all started personal aro blogs where we write from our own perspectives. This has led to an increased presence of active aro-spec blogs on tumblr, but we recently realized that there are few, if any, blogs doing large-scale organization and outreach for the aromantic community. Many blogs that once served this purpose are no longer active. Furthermore, the aromantic community is still in its early phases, and is still quite small and ununified. There are many aro-spec or questioning folks who may feel that they do not have a clear place to turn for advice, resources, or community support. For this reason, it was mod Magni’s idea to create a new blog to provide organization and outreach for the aro-spec community. Ze brought this up on the Arocalypse server, and the other mods were quickly on board. Thus, @aromantic-official was born! You can learn more about us individually or find our personal blogs through the mods page, and through our upcoming mod intros!
What are our goals for aromantic-official?
Our overall goal is to organize events, provide community outreach, and boost aro voices. We would like to provide a central hub and resource for aro-specs, those who are questioning, and allies of the community. To achieve this, we have several other objectives in mind:
Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week: This event began in 2014, originally taking place in November (shortly following Asexual Awareness Week), but has grown and evolved over the last few years to stand more on its own and be more inclusive. As the original @arospecawarenessweek account appears to no longer be active, we intend to help promote this event in the future to ensure its continued success. The annual date is the week after Valentine’s Day. Aro-spec Awareness Week 2019 is February 17th to 23rd, so look to us for more information about that in the future!
Education/Resources: We want to keep an organized collection of information about aro terms and issues! We currently have a Resources page as well as a Glossary!
Surveys: In order to collect more information about the aromantic community, we are creating and updating a collection of surveys which can be found here.
Advice/Discussion: We want to reach out to the aro community, so we want to give people the opportunity to come to us with questions so that we can provide information or advice to the best of our abilities. Feel free to ask us questions! We have posted an FAQin order to more easily facilitate productive discussion about aro-spec identities and issues.
What now?
In recent weeks/months, the aromantic community has entered a renaissance period. Despite constant external pressures and a lack of resources, this fledgling community has begun to thrive more than it has in several years, with important but civil intracommunity discussions cropping up day by day. With a bit of organization and outreach on our part, we hope to foster continued discussion in this way, and hopefully create more awareness for aro-spec issues outside of our small community. We are embarking on this journey to boost the voices of aro-spec people and raise up our community, and we invite you to follow along!
Congrats@aromantic-official on your launch! I look forward to seeing what you do for the community.
The idea that we all have a fixed sexual identity has created a toxic environment for learning about asexuality and aromanticism, Attraction is far too complex to be constrained within the Western labels created to define (and pathologize) our experiences.
An absence of sexual and/or romantic attraction does not imply that a person has “no attraction” or desires lifelong solitude. Attraction functions on multiple levels and in a multitude of ways.
•Sexual attraction: sexual desire based on attraction to another person
•Romantic attraction: desire to form a romantic relationship based on attraction to another person
An absence of these forms is not an absence of attraction. Relationships also dont have to be sexual/romantic.
The idea of “romance” itself is a social construct relative to how Western society has defined courtship practices. “Love” (an equally complex, yet broader, concept) should not be conflated with “romance.” Romance should not function as an expectation of a “healthy” relationship.
The naturalization of (hetero)sexual and (hetero)romantic expectations (that this form of sexual/romantic attraction and desire are natural and “normal”) came to be as a result of colonialism. What society sees as human “truths” are largely accepted products of violence.
Recognizing how a societal expectation has become naturalized (rather than just accepting it) is important because it’s important to ask why things are the way that they are when what is now understood to be “natural” negatively constricts the complexity of human experience.
Shout out to aros who didn’t realise they were aromantic for a long time. Aros who got in and out of romantic relationships before they knew they were aromantic, or tried for ages to have crushes and lead life like the world seemed to expect. Shout out to aros who felt guilty, isolated or lonely because they didn’t understand they were aro. Who felt different but didn’t know why. Shout out to aros still working through those feelings now.
We all have the right to feel comfortable and at peace with our aromanticism. I hope things get easier for you soon.
when you talk about queer love, remember the queer love that isn’t romantic.
queer love can be two best friends who support each other through their transitions and go to pride together each glowing with admiration for the other
queer love can be siblings confiding in each other about the difficulties of growing up queer in a small town and still texting each other every day when they finally move away from home
queer love can be queerplatonic partners caring deeply for each other and redefining what a relationship can be
queer love can be a group of friends who bond in middle school, realize years later they’re all gay, and laugh and smile when they reminisce together about how far they’ve come
queer love can be a community coming together to give food, shelter, and unconditional support to a teenager who’s been rejected by his family and has nowhere to go
queer love can be two mothers supporting their daughter as she changes her name and buys the clothes that truly express her gender for the first time
whatever form it takes, queer love is life-changing and revolutionary.
“how can you be intimate with someone if you’re aromantic??”
sharing secrets, trusting them with your life, telling them about that stupid thing you did when you were 14 and haven’t told anyone else since, being there for them any time day or night, talking til three in the morning, letting yourself cry around them, sharing grief, sharing joy, getting excited about the things they’re excited about just because you love to see them so happy about something
an aro positivity post that lists ways to be intimate with someone that doesn’t alienate the touch averse and people with no/low empathy
Enjoying stuff and vibing in the same place, being quiet and not talking to each other but still enjoying the company, laughing over memes or youtube vids till 2am, srsly the list goes on and on
i dont want a partner, like thats nothing i could really “do” or w/e, but theres some practicality that im missing out on. like, id like to get a hug and watch tv leaning against someone on the couch rn. other times, cooking for 2 is easier and would be nice
I’m reminded every day how little awareness there exists around different aro/ace terms so forgive me if you know this already, OP!
But for those of you feeling like this, feeling like you’re destined to be alone because you don’t fit into the amatonormative relationship structure that society at large and within the queer identities deem “normal”? You’re not. You’ll have friends that will mean more to you than anyone else will ever understand, for one. But you can even have the committed partnership of amatonormative relationships if that’s something you want.
Queerplatonic relationships (sometimes called quasiplatonic relationships when used by het-aligned aros/aces) are committed partnerships founded on trust and platonic feelings, rather than romantic or sexual feelings/attraction like an amatonormative relationship would be. It can look as simple as long-term roommates who start adopting pets together and include each other in their own plans, or as complicated as getting legally married and adopting children together. It involves work and communication like a romantic relationship does, but relationships can be so much more than just romantic.
alloace and alloaro positivity!!! y’all are wonderful ✨
[exclusionists/aphobes/terfs DNI]
[ID: 4 images of the handshake meme. In all 4 images, the two people are labeled as “alloaces” and “alloaros.” The text over the handshake is different in each image, and they read: “Being LGBT+ no matter what gender(s) they are attracted to”, “deserving respect regardless of relationship status or type”, “being important parts of the aspec community”, and “loved and cherished by me”. END ID]
February 21-27 will be a week dedicated to the aromantic community, raising awareness, spreading aro positivity, sharing aromantic stories, and uplifting aromantic voices. I can’t wait!
You know what. I never see a post like this, so shout out to alloaro mspec men specifically. Your love is so queer, you’re not predatory I promise. Your love deserves to be celebrated.
lowkey forget that most people are not even remotely aware of what asexual and aromantic mean as queer identities. like when i remember that i, myself, thought i was literally the only person in the world who didnt want to be intimate with anyone, i think of how many other people think they’re all alone.
im so excited that alice oseman is in charge of one of the most genuine and fun shows out there, and that they are acearo themselves, and will be putting the utmost care into her ace/aro characters
there’s still so much further to go but i am so hopeful that their work will be the start to more aromantic and asexual characters who are fully fleshed out and celebrated so actual people belonging to these groups can feel seen, can feel supported, and feel validated :)
shoutout to intersex aros and aces we really do deal with too fucking much. from being told our bodies invalidate our orientation, to being told our orientations exist only because our bodies are “wrong”, to being alienated from and isolated in intersex spaces, etc etc it’s a lot and im rooting for all of us.
Shout out to aro lesbians this ldov - regardless of what anyone says, your lack of romantic attraction doesn’t make you any less of a lesbian, and this day is yours too!
Hello, alloaro mlm. I’ve heard that there aren’t a lot of positivity posts for you, so here’s one. Even if there were, you still deserve another one.
For far too long mlm have been viewed as predatory, and when people add their horrible assumptions of arospec people to that, it all just gets worse. But you are not predatory, you are not a bad person for having no interest in romance and still wanting to engage in sexual relationships. Sexual relationships can still be good, beneficial, and not harmful, all without romance.
Also, you are not defined by your orientation or relationships. Humans are expansive and complicated. One aspect of your life need not define your entire being and decide whether or not you’re a good person.
You’re allowed to enjoy being alloaro, you’re allowed to enjoy sex(or any other kind of non romo relationship), you’re allowed to be attracted to men and like it. There is nothing inherently cruel or disgusting about who you are.
You are the only one who can define you and only you can speak for yourself truly, and you are good.
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.
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.
Aro people don’t have to love more (or at all) to make up for their aro-ness. There’s nothing lacking and therefore nothing to make up.
Aros can choose for themselves what love means for them, what other relationships mean for them and whether those are things that are important to them or not, based on what feels right for them.
A relationship is whatever you define it as. Whether actions are romantic, platonic, ambiguous, unlabeled or something else is determined by your intent and how you define it.
You and your partner(s) define these things for yourselves, nobody else gets a say.
Just found out that green is associated with aros because it’s the opposite of red which is considered the “romance color” :0 that’s so cool, did y’all know that?
Lmaooo my dad just told me my aromanticism is a phase and i just haven’t met the right person AND that I’m too young to know aromantic bingo is filling up
