Even though I’m aroace, I recognize that I have the passing privilege of an allohet. In the vast majority of scenarios, I don’t get harassed, threatened, or “corrected” for my orientation. There are some who aren’t as lucky as me. Especially because I’m romance-favorable. I can’t relate to the “ew love” of aro meme culture or the “love makes you complete and human” from allo culture.
It’s like a firepit to me. I want to make a campfire to roast some marshmallows, but my lighter works differently. It’s not broken or bad, just doesn’t make fire often. I strike it over and over, but it rarely makes any sparks, and a spark doesn’t mean the log will catch flame. I look to my left; there are loads of people with fire and toasted marshmallows. I look to my right; there’s a smaller group who don’t have fire, but some don’t want marshmallows and others think marshmallows are gross, so they don’t need a spark. I know that I don’t need toasted marshmallows to live, but it would be nice to have.
It’s reading romance negative posts online and simultaneously seeing the image of a “whole” person with a partner that sometimes makes me think I don’t belong anywhere.
Congrats Jaiden!! I’m so proud that she was able to come out publicly :0
And to anyone who found out about Aros and Aces through her video, Welcome!
The a-spectrum has been pretty looked over for a long time with many not even knowing we exist. It’s a very common story for aspecs, even I only discovered the identity a few years ago!
I’m so glad such a large youtuber (and one of my favourites) has been public with their aspec identity. Hopefully this will lead to many more aspecs discovering a refuge in this community. I mean the aromantic tag was in the top 5 for a while, everyone say thank you to Jaiden :P
The aspec community is here to welcome anyone who needs a refuge, even if you do find a different label later down the line.
There’s lots to discover and learn in this community so if you’re interested have a look around and learn something new :D
I want to say that such a big youtuber coming out as aroace is such a step forward in representation in general of course, but also specifically by using the rainbow flag and only ever portraying those two identities as unquestionably being part of the LGBTQ+ community in her video, a huge step forward for the general opinion to properly consider us part of the community since it’s unfortunately a “debate”. She really reaffirmed our belonging in the community and that is so impactful.
ADSBJHTHE NEW JAIDEN ANIMATIONS VIDEO ABOUT BEING AROACE GOT ME CRYING MAN,,,, dude she perfectly articulates almost my entire experience growing up aroace im gonna lose my shit I’m so happy, this never gets talked about
tbh says a lot that the hate and rudeness I’ve gotten as a black aroace on this blog has been from mainly white lesbian exclutionists who are submerged in often raciallly insensitive and radical asexual and aromantic exclusion.
they just chose to ignore how my race and my asexuality is very deeply intertwined.
To anyone who heard lgbt slurs this holiday, directed at them or not, I’m sorry you had to go through that. I know it feels horrible hearing your family speak like that
You are notworth less than any other person. You are amazing and beautiful and absolutely valid ❤️❤️❤️
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”
These days most of my friends are in long term partnerships or married, but for a while there I was the Go-To Relationship Guru in every social group. I would look at these relationship /issues/ and say, “Have you talked about it with them?” or “Yeah that’s toxic why are you together,” or “Have y’all heard of boundaries?” and it seemed like such common sense. I couldn’t believe (often, I still can’t) that these solutions were so far from most people’s First Thoughts.
In hindsight it makes a hysterical sort of sense - without romantic or sexual attraction confusing my brain/heart connection, I could approach relationships like a puzzle: here a missing piece, there a mismatched edge. There the final word, here a good strategy for next moves. Solve for x, you just need their number.
A few years ago I worked at a sex shop for a summer (a long story for another post). I was really, really good at it, which has always made me laugh - here I am, resident adult virgin, giving better advice and making more sales than almost everyone else on the team. I loved the job, actually. I wanted to transfer when I moved, only there weren’t any shops near me. But it also felt like a horrible cosmic joke, with my lack of romantic relationship-ness as the punchline. How could it be possible to know so much, to have so much training and experience in interpersonal relationships on all these levels, and still to suck so badly at creating those connections in my life?
This only occurred to me as a probably byproduct of my aroace ™ experience, what, yesterday? Two days ago? I’m talking I’ve lived on this planet for 26 years this go around, and it genuinely did not occur to me that the clarity with which I’ve always approached relationships might not be part of some broken byway in my brain but in fact a good thing, a natural extension of my aspec identity.
It’s the little things that feel the most revolutionary.
Yes, this kind of thing happens to me all the time. It’s like people forget how to communicate when romantic feelings are involved. The rules for basic social interaction don’t change in romance, so I’m not sure why people have so much trouble setting boundaries and expressing themselves with romantic partners when they don’t have the same trouble with friends. It seems like it should be so obvious that it works the same way.
I’ve been told I’m something of an elder in this community (at age 26, which is…a bit wild, but I’ve always been 70 at heart); so I’m opening up my inbox for questions/comments/suggestions/remarks/cries of despair/etc!
It’s my Friday night and I’m spending the evening with copious amount of pizza, cherry coke, and rum, and drafting up my next few posts. I’d love some company!
I’ll delete any hateful messages, but otherwise I’m not shy and open to talking about basically anything :) Cheers!
Signalboosting this since I know a lot of teens follow me who are hungry for content from people older than them, and for the excellent Spock gif.
