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.
Alright followers, it’s time for some real talk. I haven’t been very active on here because I’ve been trying to make this post for quite some time, but it’s been hard for me to write. This is extremely personal for me, but I need to put this out here though because a post like this could have helped me a lot several years ago. Before you go on reading I’d like to go ahead and add a content warning for depression and attempted suicide.
…but you’re not sure how to go at it. Maybe you don’t know much about aromantic people, or you don’t know if your representation is respectful. This post is meant to be a primer on how to go about making an aromantic character for your story.
This is a fairly long post with multiple sections under the read more. How much of it will be useful to you depends on what you want to write. I’m writing this post as something that could be helpful to an alloromantic writer who plans on making an aromantic main character in an original novel, but of course different writers making different kinds of stories won’t all need to think about the same things nor do the same amount of research.
The post is organized in the following sections:
Part 1: Building your character’s identity - a series of questions you may ask yourself when creating an aromantic’s character identity
Part 2: Relationships - summary of the main types of relationships aromantic people can have
Part 3: Arophobia and amatonormativity - summary of the kinds of discrimination and struggles aromantic people face
Part 4: Bad representation and negative stereotypes - what aros don’t like to see in fiction, especially about ourselves
Conclusions -…conclusions
Resources - some links to websites and articles you may use to do some beginner research
An important thing to note: I am writing this post as a single aromantic person. Not everyone in the aro community may agree on everything. Furthermore, while I have given a quick rundown of many topics, this is hardly a complete guide. Research is your friend.
Part 1: Building your character’s identity
One thing to keep in mind is that aro people are very diverse. There isn’t one single way to be aromantic, quite like there isn’t a single way to be gay, or bi, or trans. Here’s some things you may want to think about when building an aromantic character.
What is their specific orientation? An aromantic person is someone who experiences little to no romantic attraction. Often, it’s used to indicate someone who feels no romantic attraction whatsoever. However, there are also people who feel romantic attraction very rarely, in an unusual way, or don’t know whether they feel it or not. These people are also part of the aromantic spectrum. A (partial) list of some common arospec identities includes:
demiromanticism: feeling romantic attraction only for people one has already formed a strong emotional bond with
greyromanticism: only feeling romantic attraction in very rare occasions, or feeling a very weak form of it
quoiromanticism: an identity characterized by not knowing or understanding the difference between romantic attraction and platonic feelings
cupioromanticism: not feeling romantic attraction, but still desiring a romantic relationship
apothiromanticism: a subset of aromanticism where one is repulsed by romance
lithromanticism / akoiromanticism: two names for an identity where one can experience romantic attraction, but doesn’t want to act on it, or where the romantic attraction fades if it is reciprocated
nebularomanticism: an aromantic identity that is tied to a person’s neurodivergence
freyromanticism: feeling romantic attraction only for people one doesn’t have a strong emotional bond with, with the attraction fading once someone gets close to the other person
More about aromantic identities can be found in the Resources section at the end of the post.
Are they asexual or allosexual? An aromantic person can be aromantic and asexual (aroace, for short) or aromantic and allosexual (aroallo or alloaro, for short). If your aromantic character is asexual, you may also want to figure out where on the asexual spectrum they are. If they are allosexual, you may want to figure out what their sexual orientation is.
Also, there are some people who don’t label themselves as either aroace or aroallo. These people may call themselves non-SAM aro (SAM -> Split Attraction Model). A non-SAM aro may be technically asexual or allosexual, but decide that they don’t want to define their sexual orientation, or think that their sexual orientation is less important to them than their aromanticism.
What are their feelings on romance? Some aromantic people are romance repulsed, that is, they find romance to be upsetting. There are also however aromantic people who are romance favorable, who think romantic gestures/relationships are nice and may want to participate in them themselves. There are also people who just don’t care either way.
Keep in mind, romance repulsed people may find themselves upset by seeing other people acting in a romantic way with their romantic partner. This isn’t a sign that that person doesn’t want others to be happy, nor is it a sign of homophobia if the relationship they are witnessing is a same gender one. They have issues with romance as a whole, not with the people involved.
Keep also in mind, romance favorable people can be aromantic while also enjoying romance and (at times) wanting to participate in it. Aromanticism is about not feeling romantic attraction, not about what actions a person does or doesn’t take. An alloromantic person can daydream about their future wedding day without being in a relationship or having a crush, right? An aromantic person can also daydream about themselves in a fancy white wedding dress without being romantically interested in anyone.
Now, things aren’t always simple. The intensity of repulsion different people have for romance may vary, with some people being mildly annoyed by it and some being strongly disgusted. Some people may be romance repulsed one day and favorable the next, with their feelings changing depending on the context. Some people can enjoy romantic fiction but not care about romance in real life. Some people have no problem with romance in general but become extremely repulsed when they are the object of romantic attentions. It’s not as simple as saying this person is romance repulsed/indifferent/favorable, some people’s feelings can be extremely complex.
That being said, it’s alright to pick a simple description for your character and go with it. People who are universally romance repulsed/indifferent/favorable exist, so it’s alright to create an aromantic character with “simple” feelings towards romance.
Are they partnering? An aromantic person can have or desire a relationship, but not everyone does. An aromantic person may desire a romantic relationship (even if they don’t experience romantic attraction), or a queerplatonic relationship, or a friends with benefits kind of relationship, or other forms of relationships. On the other hand we have nonpartnering aros, who don’t want any kind of committed relationship.
And out of the aros who do want a relationship, some may be interested in all the types of relationship I mentioned, while others are interested in only one specific kind. Aros can also be monogamous or polyamorous.
Do they love? This may sound like a strange question if you aren’t familiar with the aromantic community. There are some aromantic people who have a lot of love to give, who love their friends, families, pets, hobbies very intensely and powerfully. Lovequeer is a term indicating the rejection of the way romantic love is seen as the most powerful or important form of love, and instead choose to redefine what love means for themselves.
We have, on the other hand, loveless aros. Loveless is a term that indicates complete rejection of the concept of love. A loveless individual can decide that they don’t want to call any of their feelings love, no matter whether they technically fit the definition of love or not. While a loveless aro may still experience very powerful feelings of affection (that they simply decide not to call love), some loveless aros don’t experience feelings deep or powerful enough to call them love. If you don’t understand why would anyone decide to call themselves loveless, I suggest you go down to the Resources section.
Do they feel other types of attraction? Romantic and sexual attractions aren’t the only ones that exist. Other forms of attraction include:
platonic attraction: being attracted to people in a “friend” way, having a strong desire to form a platonic bond with someone;
aesthetic attraction: being attracted to people’s looks, without being interested in sexual acts, simply admiring them;
sensual attraction: wanting to do sensual actions with people (such as cuddling, caressing, kissing), without progressing into sex;
alterous attraction: a form of attraction that cannot be described as either romantic or platonic;
queerplatonic attraction: a form of attraction different from romantic or platonic attraction that may be connected to the desire of entering a queerplatonic relationship (more on queerplatonic relationships in Part 2).
An aro person can experience every type of attraction listed above, or they can experience no form of attraction at all.
Consider also intersection. Aromanticism can intersect with other sides of someone’s identity. Factors such as other queer identities, gender, race, disability, neurotype, age, religious background, class, all of these may influence the way someone experiences aromanticism.
Furthermore, the aro community online is very focused on American perspectives. Aromantic experiences in other parts of the world may differ wildly from those of American aros. An aromantic from the USA will have to deal with a very different set of expectations and cultural norms and language surrounding them than an aromantic from Bolivia, or from Armenia, or from Indonesia.
In the Resources section I have linked some discussions relating to intersectionality. That being said, if you are interested in writing a story about real life discrimination more research may be needed depending on how familiar you are with your character’s identities.
Part 2: Relationships
As I said, some aromantic people are nonpartnering, and they don’t wish to have any kind of committed relationship. They may still desire friends, but don’t want a partner of any kind. These people deserve representation too, so keep that in mind. Do write about nonpartnering aromantic characters!
Other aromantics do wish to have a relationship. This can be because they want a long lasting, committed partnership. They can also experience other forms of attraction that are not romantic - sexual attraction, for example, but also platonic attraction or sensual attraction, to name some. Also, some arospec people can experience romantic attraction on some occasions and decide to act on it.
Here are some examples of common types of relationship an aromantic person may be in.
Queerplatonic relationships
Queerplatonic relationships are committed relationships that are not romantic in nature. This definition may seem vague, and it’s because it’s meant to be. Queerplatonic relationships can take many different forms depending on the needs of the people involved. Both aros and allos can enter a queerplatonic relationship, but they are more common when at least one partner is aro.
Making a list of all the forms a queerplatonic relationship can have is impossible, but here are a few example for inspiration:
two (or more) people who don’t have romantic feelings for each other, but have decided to live together and form a family together;
two (or more) people who have decided to live together, whose arrangement looks more like roommates than a family unit;
two (or more) people who have a non-romantic sexual relationship;
two (or more) people who don’t live together but have a very emotionally intimate relationship;
two (or more) people who are “best friends”;
two (or more) people who have a long distance, emotionally intimate relationship.
A queerplatonic relationship may or may not include any of the following, depending on what the people involved want:
living together;
having children;
adopting pets;
sex;
cuddling;
hand holding;
kissing;
pet names;
(platonic) dates;
(platonic) marriage.
A queerplatonic relationship can be monogamous or polyamorous. The same person can have different queerplatonic relationships with different characteristics with different people at the same time. Some people can also have both queerplatonic and romantic relationships at the same time.
Overall, if you want to write a queerplatonic relationship, just go wild. This is literally a build your own kind of relationship. The only thing to keep in mind is that it’s explicitly meant to be a non-romantic relationship. I guarantee that your aro readers will vibrate with excitement at any mention of the word queerplatonic.
Sexual relationships
Some aromantic people may have non-romantic sexual relationships. This can include friends with benefits arrangement, sexual queerplatonic relationships, or someone they only know in the context of sex. Aros can also have casual sex of course, but here I’m focusing more on committed forms of relationships.
An important thing to remember is that these relationship aren’t shallow or predatory. One person can have non-romantic sex with another while also respecting them deeply, or caring about them. You can have the best of friends also happen to have sex with each other. You can also have two people who aren’t really emotionally close, they just happen to enjoy having sex together, but also strongly respect each other.
Friendships
I don’t think I need to explain what a friendship is, as that is fairly universal. What I want to underline is that the idea of friendship being a shallower or less important type of relationship than romantic relationships is something aros tend to universally resent. Give your aromantic character friendships, and don’t be afraid to make them as intense and powerful as you would write a romantic relationship. Just, without the romance.
(And honestly, give your alloromantic characters deep and powerful friendships too)
Romantic relationships
Some aros want a romantic relationship, while still being aromantic. One possibility is that they are an arospec person who experiences occasional romantic attraction and they have decided to act on it. We can also have people who do not experience any romantic attraction, but still decide to participate in a romantic relationship. This could be because they enjoy actions typically seen as romantic, or because they feel other types of attraction (such as sexual, alterous, etc.) towards their romantic partner and a romantic relationship can satisfy their needs well enough.
Now… If you are alloromantic, you may think cool! I know how to write romantic relationships! But it may actually be tricky to handle aromantic characters in romantic relationships. Think about it: would an aromantic person who feels no romantic attraction have the same kind of experiences within a romantic relationship than an alloromantic person does? Probably not. Even if your character can feel romantic attraction, if they are arospec, they may have a very non-alloromantic relationship with it.
Some examples of things to think about:
if your aro character experiences romantic attraction, are they also going to act on it? For example, a romance repulsed person may experience romantic attraction, but still have no desire to pursue a romantic relationship;
if your aro character gets into a romantic relationship, do they like all of the things typically part of a relationship? For example, your character may hate kissing, and ask their partner not do it. Or, if your character doesn’t experience romantic attraction, they may be uncomfortable with the words “I love you”. Your aro character could be down for every romantic gesture in the world, or they could have peculiar boundaries;
if your aro character does not experience romantic feelings, does this cause conflict? Your aromantic character could feel insecure due to not being able to reciprocate the feelings of an alloromantic partner;
if your aro character’s partner is alloromantic, how do they feel about their partner being aro? Are they accepting and supportive of their partner’s identity, or does it make them feel insecure? A very supportive alloromantic partner is what many aros would like to have, but in reality this isn’t always the case.
Consider also that aros may get into romantic relationships with other aros. It could be simple coincidence, or it could be your aro characters feel more at ease with an aro partner.
Note: if your aro character at some point falls in love, please make sure the audience understands that they are still aro. Have your character say that they identify as an arospec identity. If your setting doesn’t allow for modern language surrounding identity, find another way to unambiguously describe it. Otherwise your readers may not realize that you were trying to write an aromantic character.
So far I’ve talked about aros who are in a relationship because they want it. It’s also possible for someone to enter a romantic relationship because they are pressured into it, or because they feel that they are broken for not experiencing romantic attraction and are trying to “fix” themselves. It’s similar to how gay people who struggle with internalized homophobia may force themselves into an heterosexual relationship, or be forced into one by their family.
As you can imagine, these kinds of relationships can be damaging and traumatizing for the aros involved. If you decide to portray something like this in your story, do your research and consider sensitivity readers, as it’s a subject that should be handled with care.
Vague relationships
Not all relationships have neat and well defined boundaries. Confusing kinds of relationships also exist. Relationships that may be platonic or may be romantic, relationships in between friendship and queerplatonic, friends who are in love with each other but prefer to remain friends rather than romantic partners. The division between different forms of relationships is inevitably artificial. Sometimes a relationship can’t be defined in any specific way other than “we like being around each other”.
Part 3: Arophobia and amatonormativity
Arophobia is discrimination against aromantic people. Amatonormativity is a pervasive societal assumption that everyone will be happier in a committed, romantic, monogamous relationships, and that everyone must look for such a relationship. Amatonormativity doesn’t only hurt aromantic people, it’s harmful to everyone, from polyamorous people to gay people and yes, even to allocishet people.
Now, if you are alloromantic, writing a story about arophobia isn’t going to be easy. If you plan on writing accurate, realistic representations of arophobia as the main focus of your story you will need a lot of research, and you’ll still likely get something wrong. You can write a story about arophobia, if you really want, but it’s a subject that some would prefer be talked about by aros.
That being said, knowing what arophobia looks like is useful for many types of stories and many contexts. If you don’t want your story to be arophobic, you will want to know what arophobia is. You can also, if you are writing a story with realistic oppression dynamics, have instances of arophobia without it being the main focus of the story. Some common arophobic sentiments include:
thinking aromanticism is an illness that needs to be cured (note: for some (but not all) aromantic people, their aromanticim is connected to a trauma or mental illness. This doesn’t make their aromanticism a sickness. These people’s identity is as real as any other, it’s not necessarily unhealthy, and it should be respected);
thinking being aromantic makes someone unable to love entirely (note: some aromantics, as I said before, are loveless. However, saying all aros don’t experience love erases the experiences of those who do love. An individual aromantic saying they, personally, identify as loveless is very different from an alloromantic making the broad statement that all aros are loveless);
thinking being aromantic makes someone evil, morally bankrupt, a “psychopath”, or otherwise dangerous;
dehumanizing aromantic people, saying aros are less human because they don’t feel romantic love;
doctors and therapists denying necessary meds to aromantic people because they believe their aromanticism is a negative side effects of said meds;
doctors and therapists giving unnecessary meds to aromantic people because they believe their aromanticism is a symptom of something that must be cured;
in the context of allosexual aros, thinking they are inherently sexually predatory;
pressuring aromantic people into entering a romantic relationship to “cure” them or make them see how good romantic relationships actually are;
thinking an aromantic person is missing out on something fundamental, reacting to someone telling you they’re aromantic with “I’m sad for you”;
reacting to someone telling you they’re aromantic with “it’s just a phase” or “you haven’t met the right one yet”;
thinking teenagers cannot identify as aromantic, or that there is a minimum age requirement for people to be aromantic;
thinking aromanticism is a fake identity, an internet fad, or a “white people identity”;
thinking an aromantic person in an aromantic relationship is being unfair to their romantic partner due to not being able to feel the same way their partner feels;
thinking an aromantic person in a romantic relationship is not really aromantic;
thinking other forms of relationships an aromantic person may have aren’t as important as a romantic relationship could be;
thinking romance repulsed aromantic people are homophobic;
exclusionism, claiming that aromanticism is not part of the queer umbrella or of the LGBTQIA+ community.
These are general, common statements, but keep in mind the shape arophobia takes may also depend on intersection with your character’s other identities, or with the expectations of your character’s culture.
Your character may also struggle with internalized arophobia, believing themselves to be broken and thinking any of the above mentioned things about themselves.
Amatonormativity is something I actively encourage everyone of all orientations to think about and deconstruct. You reading this are affected by amatonormativity, even if you don’t realize it. And many stories which claim to be free of discrimination towards queer people are still very amatonormative. Some examples of how amatonormativity manifests include:
putting romantic relationships above all other types of relationships;
believing people cannot be happy without a romantic partner;
people staying in toxic relationships because they believe it’s better to have a bad partner than no partner at all;
marriage and relationships in general being seen as a natural stepping stone, with people who aren’t interested in them being seen as immature;
pressuring people to find a partner even if they don’t want one;
polyamorous relationships being seen as dirty, perverted, “basically cheating”, or abusive;
polyamorous relationships not being seen as legally legitimate, no options for marriage between polyamorous people;
friendships and other non-romantic relationships being cast aside in favor of dedicating one’s entire self to a romantic partner;
on a legal level, many legal benefits that extend to romantic partners not extending to other people. These can include: not being able to extend your insurances to friends or certain family members, not being able to allow friends or certain family members to visit you at the hospital, not being able to receive tax exemption for living with a friend when married people will receive it for being married;
single or polyamorous people having a harder time adopting children;
single or polyamorous parents being seen as damaging towards children.
Part 4: Bad representation and negative stereotypes
Now that we’ve gone over this, you may ask alright, where do I start? Which identities and experiences do I give priority to? What tropes and stereotypes should I avoid?
Which identities and experiences do I give priority to?
Any. Literally any. First, because no aro experience is more important or legitimate than any other. Second, because it’s not like aro representation like… exists. I can count on my hands the amount of aromantic characters that are present in mainstream media, and most of them didn’t even say the word “aromantic”. Most of them are characters who are canonically not interested in relationships, but whose authors probably didn’t even intend to make aromantic to begin with.
So just go wild. If you want to write fanfiction about an aromantic headcanon, you likely already have a basic idea of your character’s identity. If you are building an OC from scratch, just go wild. You think it would be interesting to explore queerplatonic relationships in your story? Go for it. You think your character could be a bisexual aromantic who is also romance repulsed? Sure, write them. You are interested in writing about the experiences of a Chinese lovequeer aro living in Beijing? If that’s a story you want to tell, tell it. You think the word aegoromantic sounds really neat and want an excuse to put it in your book? Make that character aegoromantic.
Just, maybe don’t make all your aros the same flavor of aro. Be creative. If you have multiple aro characters, write diverse experiences.
What tropes and stereotypes should I avoid?
This is a harder question than it seems. Part of this is because like in all things, people who match stereotypes do exist. There are plenty of flamboyant gay men with a lisp, and they aren’t a problem, the problem is when this is played for jokes, shown as a negative things, and assumed to be true of all gay men. Some people may tell you, for example, don’t write your aromantic characters as feelingless robots, but some aromantic characters do act like that, and they’re not at fault for happening to fit what some see as a stereotype.
Also, stereotypes are formed when the same thing is repeated over and over. The flamboyant gay man with a lisp is a stereotype because countless media portrayed gay men that way. It’s harder to point at aro stereotypes, because as I said, we don’t really have much of any media depicting us to begin with.
What I can do is give you a list of tropes that aren’t necessarily arophobic stereotypes, but that the aromantic community as a whole tends to have issue with. Not every individual aro will have issues with every trope I listed, we’re not a monolith, but these are tropes I have seen enough people complain about to be reasonably sure a good chunk of the community is bothered by them. Some of them are more on the harmful side, some are more annoying. Some of these may be alright depending on the context of your story, others are always seen are distasteful.
Bad: equating love and morality. This can manifest in many ways. For example, you can have a villain be declared a villain because they don’t love. Or instead you can have a character be absolutely despicable, but the narrative will treat them as redeemable for no other reason than loving someone. This feels very alienating to aros. It sends the message that we are also villains for not being able to love, that we are unredeemable in some way.
Note that substituting romantic love for love in general won’t fix things. It still villanizes loveless people. Besides, saying not loving = being a villain is a false equivalence to begin with. Do you want to destroy people you don’t love? Do you believe hurting someone is alright so long as you don’t love them? Do you think that everything you don’t actively love is worthless and below you? If you don’t, then why would you write a story where someone is evil just because they are loveless?
This doesn’t mean your villains can’t be aromantic, by the way. You can totally have aro villains! But give them a reason for being a villain that doesn’t boil down to “this person happens to not love people therefore they are bad”.
Bad: love as cosmic reward. You know how at the end of some stories you find out that every single character is now married? How you end up with couples that don’t really make sense given everything else that we saw, but still got together because otherwise there wouldn’t have been anyone to pair them with? How the only people who don’t get a partner are antagonists who are getting punished by the narrative?
Yeah, that isn’t nice. I think it’s obvious that an aromantic person won’t like a story where romantic love is the ultimate reward for everyone, and the only people who don’t get a partner are assholes who don’t deserve good things. It’s very amatonormative, and it tells aros that they will never experience the kind of happiness a romantic couple will have.
Bad: love is what makes us human. The prime example of these narrative is stories where a robot/alien/something learns how to be human, and the defining moment of their journey is that they fall in love with someone. That’s what cements the idea that they are human. This entity’s other feelings and emotions, their passions, their thoughts, none of that is treated as enough to consider them human, only romantic love can grant them that title.
This sends the message that if you don’t feel romantic love, then you are not human. It dehumanizes aros. And again, swapping platonic love in for romantic love still carries the risk of dehumanizing loveless people. I would say, if you want to write a story about an entity learning what it’s like to be human then love can be part of their human experience, but try not to make it seem as the only or the most important part of it.
Bad: people who want sex without romance are predatory. This is fairly self explanatory. Basically, a narrative where someone is into sex but not romance gets treated as inherently predatory, manipulative, immature, shallow, is a narrative that hurts allosexual aros. It’s also sex negative in general.
I mean, sure, you can have bad people who are also promiscuous. You can have some sexist fratboy who uses women for sex kind of character. But if you make that character allosexual aromantic, then it sends the message that that’s just what being alloaros is like.
Bad: not believing people when they say they’re not romantically interested. This for example can involve two people being very close, other people claiming they must be dating,the two people denying it, and the other people implying that they don’t believe it and the two people must have actually romantic feelings for each other as they are “too close” for a platonic relationship. Or also someone saying they are not interested in another person, and a friend insisting that they actually are. Usually the narrative will show that the characters where actually in denial about their feelings and the others were right in assuming there was a romantic interest.
This is hurtful because it echoes very common experiences for aros, where we are not believed when we say we don’t care about someone in a romantic way. Alloromantics will often deny the idea that we have a platonic relationship with someone, saying we must actually have romantic feelings (especially in conjunction with heteronormativity and the assumption that men and women must be attracted to each other), or that we are “too close” to the other person for it to be platonic.
It’s also extremely entitled to assume you know someone else’s feelings better than they do, in general.
Bad: people who don’t want romance are immature. Self explanatory. This feels rather painful, as it implies that aros are inherently immature. A subset of this trope is having a character claim they don’t want romance, and then having them settle with someone as a form of character growth. It infantilizes aro, and reinforces the amatonormative idea of romantic love being a necessary part of becoming an adult.
Note: romance as character growth isn’t always arophobic in itself. A queer character getting over internalized queerphobia and learning how to embrace their sexuality isn’t arophobic. A traumatized character learning how to trust a partner as they heal isn’t arophobic. What is arophobic is, specifically, writing off all characters who don’t want romance as immature and broken.
Bad: sex inevitably leads to romantic interest. A typical example of this trope is friends with benefits who enter a sexual arrangement thinking they won’t develop feeling for each other, and then they do. The narrative often frames this as inevitable, something that was bound to happen, and the characters should have seen it coming.
This is not true, first of all. Non-romantic sex happens all the time, and developing additional feelings only happens occasionally. It’s especially annoying for aros, because generally speaking aros won’t develop any romantic feelings for sexual partners. Furthermore, some alloaros see the idea of a sexual partner starting to see them in a romantic life to be a sort of nightmare scenario.
Controversial: platonic soulmates. I’m saying this is controversial because I have seen some aros who enjoy the concept, so I wouldn’t call it straight up bad, although many people in the community are very vocal about hating this trope. For the unfamiliar, a soulmates fantasy setting involves everyone having a soulmate they are destined to meet, often including elements that tie soulmates together (the classic red string of fate, or having your soulmate’s name on your body) or a sort of reward for finding your soulmate (such as people seeing the world only in black and white before meeting their soulmate).
The concept of everyone having a fated romantic soulmate is obviously not something many aros will like. Some authors try to make the setting less hostile to aros this by adding the concept of platonic soulmates, a sort of fated best friend kind of thing. Many aros don’t actually appreciate this. For starters, it often feels like a minimum effort kind of thing, with platonic soulmates never being expanded upon. Personally, I find soulmate settings more annoying if I see platonic soulmates mentioned - with a regular soulmate setting, I can suspend my disbelief enough to pretend this is not dystopic as hell, but if I see platonic soulmates I feel like the author is trying to force me to enjoy the setting.
But mostly, platonic soulmates don’t “fix” anything when it comes to nonpartnering and loveless aros. It implies everyone must have a fated partner of some flavor, that you are incomplete without this partner, and it excludes people who are perfectly happy being on their own.
Controversial: power of love storylines. This I’m listing as controversial because, in my opinion, it highly depends on what you are trying to do. Power of love storylines are basically those stories where love is shown to be the greatest force in the universe and the only thing capable of stopping the bad guys. Now, if you have a story that states that the power of romantic love is the most powerful thing in the universe, many aros who read it may find it anywhere from alienating to annoying.
Then again, if you are specifically writing a love story about two star crossed lovers whose love manages to endure the circumstances keeping them apart, then the whole point of the story is to show how strong love can be. Is that arophobic? I mean, depends. If you are writing a story about, for example, a gay couple whose love overcomes the homophobic environment around them then no, that’s not arophobic at all. I feel context is very important here.
Take also stories where instead of the power of romantic love we have the power of friendship being what will defeat any villain. This is a story that can simultaneously alienate loveless aros but also be very validating for those aros who feel platonic love in a very powerful way. It’s complicated.
Basically, I believe this is a type of story that can hit some very conflicting representation needs. It may be simultaneously validating for minorities who have been told their love in some way lesser and alienating for certain aros. I can’t say never write these stories because they are all bad, just be aware they’re a type of stories some aros will not be drawn to.
Conclusions
I hope this post was informative to someone. If someone has questions or complaints about something I wrote, you are welcome to point it out to me. If it turns out I put wrong information here, let me know, I’ll be happy to correct it.
And I also hope I haven’t intimidated anyone after reading this. Yes, writing about minority groups you are not familiar with will often require learning and research. Yes, it’s very easy to get things wrong. But I believe that so long as you are genuinely doing an effort, then that is something to be rewarded. Your aro representation may not be perfect, but you should still write it!
Start small, if you fear you don’t know what to do. Write down a bullet point list of thoughts about an aro character’s identity. Write one page long brief stories from an aromantic POV. If you have aro friends, you can ask them for feedback. Or find an aro beta reader. You can also try to write short fanfiction and post it explaining you are trying your hand at writing aro characters, and that you would welcome any feedback by your aro readers.
If you are curious about some aspect, or want somewhere to start doing research, check out the Resources section below. In alternative, going through the aromantic tag on tumblr can also help you get more familiar with the community.
Resources
**Note: all these resources are in English, and as such they are more representative of Western, especially American points of view. If you want to write about aromanticism from a non-Western perspective, I encourage you to seek out more resources. If you speak a language other than English, I encourage you to look for aromantic resources in your language**
General resources
AUREA website - AUREA is an organization focusing on aromantic people, you’ll find plenty of stuff on their website including glossaries, explanations, and articles written by and for aromantic people. Definitely a good resource if you are interested in learning more about aromanticism
Glossary of aromantic terms - a glossary including various aromantic identities and terms used by the community
aro-comics-@aro-comics is a blog held by an aromantic artist depicting some of their experiences and struggles
The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project-@theaceandaroadvocacyproject aims at raising awareness about both aromantic and asexual people, with focus on certain US states. Their website has plenty of articles and interviews, while their tumblr blog has more infographics
Carnival of Aros - Carnival of Aros is a blogging carnival. Each month a theme is proposed, and each month various people blog about their thoughts and experiences around a certain theme
Intersectionality
**Note: while these articles being up important points, further research is advised if you plan on tackling realistic themes of intersectionality in your works**
Carnival of Aros: March 2021 - March 2021 theme for Carnival of Aros was Intersectionality and Inclusivity. You can see here a roundup of submissions and discussion on how aromanticism can intersect with various identities
Carnival of Aros: January 2022 - January 2022 theme for Carnival of Aros was In-Between Spaces. You can see here a roundup of submissions and discussion on how aromanticism can connect to other sides of people’s identity
Relationships
The Aros Left Behind: the Arospec - AUREA interview with three people who experience romantic love or engage in romantic relationships
My QPR - AUREA article including various testimonies of aros who are in or want a queerplatonic relationship
Carnival of Aros: October 2021 - October 2021 theme for Carnival of Aros was Friendship. You can see here a roundup of submissions with people talking about how they view friendship
Carnival of Aros: August 2021 - August 2021 theme for Carnival of Aros was Well-being and Amatonormativity. You can see here a roundup of submissions discussing how amatonormativity can impact life
Loveless aros
I Am Not Voldemort - essay by K. A. Cook which can be considered the “birth” of what would later become the concept of loveless aro
Loveless aro survey - part of the results of a survey I held, includes a list of reasons people have for identifying as loveless and various loveless experiences
I’d recommend watching Jaiden Animations newest video! It’s all about aromanticism and asexuality (mostly aromanticism) and I found myself relating to it an awful lot. It’s honestly so validating to see a person I’ve been watching content of for years come out as aroace and I feel seen for once. I think she explains the basics of it very well and tackles amatonormativity and some misconceptions. And I’m also really glad to see an aroace person clearly separate the aro from ace while validating both sides ngl. I hope all the allos watching her content will be educated lol
Oh! This is one of my favorite panels in the comics. Archie’s line here cuts deep, as any aromantic person who’s had close friends and family invalidate their experiences like that could tell you. But what really shines here in my opinion is actually Jughead’s reaction–that expression, the obvious hurt, anger, and betrayal (shoutout to artist Derek Charm). A lot of stories, even without an aro character, would drop lines like Archie’s; very few would so deliberately and clearly place him in the wrong. It’s not shown here, but Archie apologizes immediately after this, and Jughead brushes it off. That apology really matters to me. The writers (someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure this is one of Ryan North’s chapters!) clearly put some thought into this.
This entire chapter is actually one of my favorites. The plot, to be brief for those who don’t know, is Jughead and Archie getting lost in the woods–it’s supposed to be a chance for the two of them to hang out, but Archie’s using it as a chance to pick up girls at camp, which is what leads to their argument. What I like about this chapter is that Jughead’s disappointment and frustration with Archie, his best friend who barely spends any time with him that isn’t somehow related to his crushes, is treated seriously–it’s Archie who’s in the wrong here, and I think so many aros relate to this situation.
Sorry for jumping on your post! I just think that if Jughead is one of the only aro characters we’ve got, we should talk about him whenever we get the chance!
I play this choose your own adventure game “Choices” and they have a canon aro-ace character (who says so himself right before this I just didn’t get the screenshot) and I’m kinda losing my mind!!!! + when you’re creating your character and choosing the options for your love interests you get: male, female, both, or none. So your character also get the option to be aro/ace and I’ve never seen this in a game before this is amazing!!!choi
i saw this!!! it’s such a good game and i screamed when i saw it
A couple weeks ago, Jaiden Animations on YouTube released a video titled “Being Not Straight,” in which she came out as asexual and aromantic. Instantly, my social media feeds were flooded with people saying that thanks to this video, they had realized that they too were ace, aro, or both.
Now, examples of aro/ace people in media – both real people and fictional characters – are still few and far between. Our representation appears infrequently enough that I’ve noticed how this flood of realization always, without fail, follows. When Todd on Bojack Horseman realized he was ace, so did many Bojack Horseman viewers. Same with Florence on Sex Education. When we see someone on screen learn what asexuality or aromanticism is, and the response is an overwhelming, “I just realized – me, too!”
I love this response, but it also makes me a bit wistful. Because it means we’re not there yet. Most people still don’t know that aromanticism and asexuality exist. They only get the opportunity to learn when it shows up, rarely, on TV or the internet. If we didn’t have these examples of aro/ace media representation, they might never learn.
I think the fearmongers will look at this trend of “character talks about their identity, and then people come out as that identity” and say something like, “This means that if we talk about queer stuff, then it will make my kids decide to be queer!” It’s the supposed logic behind all that legislation that bans discussions of gender and sexuality from classrooms – if we don’t talk about it, then it won’t exist.
But that’s not true. Knowing that queer people exist doesn’t “make” you do anything. It reveals that there are options. Media representation of queer people doesn’t make straight people “decide” to be queer. It gives queer people the opportunity to realize that they are queer, and it gives straight people the opportunity to learn that queer people exist. That’s all. And that “all” can make a world of difference.
There’s a joke that goes, “Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?” The answer is, “Mount Everest – we just didn’t know it yet.” It’s better when we know.
