I dont know if I’m misunderstanding this or not but I think if you’re attracted to each other, kiss, have sex, get married and have kids you cant really call it platonic anymore
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re asking with good faith here, though I hesitate to do so because the second half of your comment is a bit rude. But I’m going to assume that was unthinking/unintentional.
You are misunderstanding. The whole point here is that the norm that says “you can only x things with romantic partners, not friends” is harmful. The point is that you can pick and choose what goes in the relationship. If people are in something that fully meets the social expectation for a romantic relationship (including in terms of having romantic feelings for the other person/people), they’re not going to call it queerplatonic. Queerplatonic is specifically for relationships that don’t meet the social norms for either friendships or romantic relationships.
[Text from screenshot: in response to azariphale, @imaginationhyperload said: people can occasionally have sex even though they’re not sexually attracted to each other. I guess the definition of the relationship depends on the attraction?? End ID]
I think you’re trying to be helpful, but I already responded to azariphale, and to be quite frank, your suggestion basically amounts to policing the words people can use to describe their relationships.
What a particular set of people decide to label their relationship is determined by them, and them only. You seem to be suggesting that if people have sex while experiencing sexual attraction, that they cannot label their relationship queerplatonic. This is incorrect and harmful. The word queerplatonic has always and will always be open to people who experience sexual attraction to and/or have sex with their partner(s).
[Text from screenshot: @imaginationhyperload said: Um no that’s not way I was saying at all. I was pointing out that people don’t need to be attracted to each other to have sex. That’s pretty much it.]
Well besides that you also said “I guess the definition of the relationship depends on the attraction??” in response to someone who said “if you’re attracted to each other, kiss, have sex, get married and have kids you can’t really call it platonic anymore.”
Which to me sounded like you were saying if you have sex, whether or not you can call your relationship queerplatonic depends on whether or not you are sexually attracted to your partner. (Which, as I said, is false.)
But, taking you at your word that all you meant to say was that you can have sex without experiencing sexual attraction, why would that be relevant in this context? This person isn’t saying people can’t have sex without attraction, this person is policing people who have sex and feel attraction. So why are you defending something entirely different from what’s being attacked?
Ace and aro communities have a bad habit of excluding members of our communities that are seen as delegitimizing our identities in the eyes of bigots. People having sex with queerplatonic partners they are sexually attracted to? People whose lack of interest in sex or romance is related to a physical or neurological condition? Loveless aros? These kinds of folks are seen as acceptable sacrifices for the rest of our community to get validation. Our community says “we’re not like them” because we think it’s going to protect us, but it doesn’t.
When you say “people can have sex without being attracted to the other person” in response to someone invalidating people who have sex and are attracted to their queerplatonic partners, that’s a “we’re not like them” defense. It’s not good enough, because it leaves people behind.
I’m not faulting you, specifically, for this. This is a pattern and part of our community culture. I want us to do better. We can stand with these more vulnerable members of our community without trying to cut them off to save ourselves. We can do better. I’m askingour whole community to do better.
Edit: probably too late, but please don’t reblog this version of this post.
I dont know if I’m misunderstanding this or not but I think if you’re attracted to each other, kiss, have sex, get married and have kids you cant really call it platonic anymore
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re asking with good faith here, though I hesitate to do so because the second half of your comment is a bit rude. But I’m going to assume that was unthinking/unintentional.
You are misunderstanding. The whole point here is that the norm that says “you can only x things with romantic partners, not friends” is harmful. The point is that you can pick and choose what goes in the relationship. If people are in something that fully meets the social expectation for a romantic relationship (including in terms of having romantic feelings for the other person/people), they’re not going to call it queerplatonic. Queerplatonic is specifically for relationships that don’t meet the social norms for either friendships or romantic relationships.
[Text from screenshot: in response to azariphale, @imaginationhyperload said: people can occasionally have sex even though they’re not sexually attracted to each other. I guess the definition of the relationship depends on the attraction?? End ID]
I think you’re trying to be helpful, but I already responded to azariphale, and to be quite frank, your suggestion basically amounts to policing the words people can use to describe their relationships.
What a particular set of people decide to label their relationship is determined by them, and them only. You seem to be suggesting that if people have sex while experiencing sexual attraction, that they cannot label their relationship queerplatonic. This is incorrect and harmful. The word queerplatonic has always and will always be open to people who experience sexual attraction to and/or have sex with their partner(s).
Something I’ve been seeing a lot in posts including aros lately is this: its positivity most of the time, but then they say “aros and alloaros!” And that’s fine, I guess. But why do people separate aros and alloaros as if, at their core, they’re not the same thing? They’re not doing that for aces (although please correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m not ace and not immersed in the ace community) aromantic (aro, not ace) people ARE alloaro. When people differentiate between aro and alloaro as if they’re two different identities, it feels like theyre saying aros are also ace at their core unless stated otherwise. And that is NOT the case. If you’re saying aro when you mean aroace, then you need to re-educate yourself on the aro identity. I’m tired of
We all know the push at the start of last year. We wanted to be recognized. We wanted to be talked about. We wanted to be taken seriously. We helped change the popular definition of aromantic to be “little to no romantic attraction” to include more people. But at the beginning of last year, there was another push. A push to push aros who have romantic attraction out of their labels.
It started off pretty small. Individuals getting sick and tired of “aros and arospecs” but getting told they were using arospec wrong when they claimed this identity for themselves. “Arospec is for anyone who is on the aromantic spectrum! Including aromantic people!” Then why are you calling us that. Then why are you using it to distance us from your community.
I am using that word because you called us that, to make us seem like we aren’t one of you. You gave us a label, thank you. But also, fuck you for trying to take it away. I get told again I can’t use it that way. I give up, I have no label, and I feel isolated.
Thanks, aros.
The argument continues. I call myself aro. I get told that the word only means no attraction ever. I get told it’s not my word. It’s not my word. I get told I don’t belong under that identity. I get told to use arospec. I dont want to use arospec, you told me I was using it wrong. I start hearing things you dont realize you are saying.
“Arospec is for the whole community, use that if you want to talk about the community as a whole. You aren’t aro. Don’t call yourself that. Aro is not an umbrella term, and arospec doesn’t mean you. It’s not your word.You have no language. The common language we use to refer to ourselves and you isn’t for you. It’s not yours.You can’t call yourself what we’re calling you, and you can’t use the only word we use to talk about the community.”
Again, I have no label, I feel isolated. But this time, I get angry. I get PISSED. I stand my ground, and I defend us. I flip the script, aros get pissed, and then… And then. The post. The damn fucking post.
A word lost to discourse: greyromantic. “This is what you are.” This damn post was sent to me every time I talked about being shoved out of the aromantic community. “Look! There is a word for you!” This damn post was sent to me every time I talked about being told my language was wrong. “You can use this word instead! No need to use ours.” This damn post was sent to me any time I brought up the treatment of partnering and sometimes-romo aros. “Why don’t you just use this word instead? See? We’re listening to and supporting you.” This damn post was used again and again and again by people who HAVE NO PLACE to tell me what my identity can be.
This post specifically was used to talk over me. This post was used to silence my voice. OUR voices. This post was used, primarily by aros who have never experienced romantic attraction, primarily by aros who will never fall under this umbrella, to tell me what I am. To tell me what I can and cannot be. To tell me that my language was wrong and I cannot use the language I had been using for myself.
and I won’t fucking use that label.
So what labels do I use? What label do I like? Why do I like them?
I go by romo aro. It was a private word me and my microcommunity had been using this whole time, that by the end I started promoting and making content for. This is my favorite and preferred label, because it can cover anyone who fits outside of the stereotypical aro alignment. Sometimes-romo, romo favorable, partnering, polyaff/polyam, queerplatonic aros, aros who enjoy romo content. and Anyone who would’ve been shoved under that “arospec” umbrella instead of aro. This word is inclusive, this word is radical, and this word can mean me, no matter what that means for me in that moment.
I use this word mostly because it is the only label that no one else forced onto me, and I will never force it onto anyone else. I prefer it because it is, and always has been, mine. I always had a choice, and it never belonged to anyone else. This word is mine, and I will not let anyone take it away from me.
I also use aro. While people kept arguing against me, for I while I just dropped talking about my identity as a romo aro altogether. I went by aro because it was easier and because it can be an umbrella term. The definition started shifting to mean “little to no romantic attraction” and I am forever grateful. This is a word I’ll keep, because no one forced it on me, and because people told me I couldn’t. Using this word was an act of defiance, and using this word was an act of belonging and assimilation. And now people recognize that this word can also belong to me.
And finally… I use arospec. It took me months (and by months i mean about 7 to be able to comfortably use it again) but this word was the first word I identified with. Public perception of this word has shifted, and people recognize that it can mean multiple things. People recognize that arospecs are allowed to talk about their experiences under this label, including how aros have wronged them. Slowly, people are able to recognize that this was a word used for aros to distance us from themselves, and that this was the first word a lot of us had. This word is a good label, and while it started as a reclamation, now it’s solid identity that people can recognize as being separate and different from the umbrella term. And that’s really really good.
I want to say I don’t hate the creator of that post. I don’t hate aros and greyros. But you NEED to start listening to romo aros and arospecs.When we say something is hurting us, people need to believe us and learn to start recognizing damaging language. And there CANNOT be tolerance in the aromantic community for people who will talk over people- especially aromantic minorities. And the aromantic community as a whole HAS to shut down and learn to STOP telling people if their identityandlabelisvalid or not. I HAVE to stop seeing people in my notifications saying that my words are wrong. It HAS to stop. There was a mass exodus of arospecs last year around this time. My whole microcommunity is gone, and a huge portion of the community is missing, with most aros not even noticing. We HAVE to fix things for them. We NEED to make sure that will never happen again. We NEED to make sure that arospecs of all sorts belong.
This community does not have the time or space or numbers to be exclusionary and perpetuating erasure. It’s needs to stop. It’s time to start listening to arospecs. It’s time to start respecting people who have long since been ignored. It’s time the aro community takes a stand with us.
The aro community has grown, but it’s time to start doing more than what passive little it has recently learned to do. It’s time. Grow more. Take a stand.
This is completely right. When I started this blog, there were absolutely no resources for aromantics who weren’t strictly no-attraction. And since then I have seen pushback against aromantics who do.
The most important thing about a label is not what it means to other people. The most important thing is what it means to you. None of us experience life the same way. None of us experience attraction the same way. None of us experience non-attraction the same way. We don’t even experience the things we see and hear and taste the same way, let alone something as complex as the hormones that our brains sent hurtling throughout our circulatory systems.
I am reblogging this in solidarity for people who don’t feel comfortable identifying as grayromantic or arospec rather than just aro. Your journey is your own. Your self belongs to you, and you are not hurting me or anyone else by using a different word to describe yourself. You are not hurting non-attraction aromantics by using the same word. You have my support.
Continuing from my previous post on the aro community’s obsession with creating labels instead of addressing root issues. This time, I’ll be talking about sexuality, and/or lack thereof.
Those of you who have been active in the aro community within the past six months or so are no doubt familiar with the way asexuality is seen as the default for aros, leading those of us whoaren’tasexual (such as myself) to start advocating for ourselves more, and being firm about who we are. We’re allo aros, we’re here, and we’re going to make a place for ourselves. That’s all fine and good, but that leaves those who don’t quite fit into either box sort of left behind.
The fact is, as mentioned, asexuality is seen as the default for aromantics. You can’t just say you’re aro and have that be that, because people can, and will, assume that you’re ace. If you’re not ace, that’s so unusual that you’d better have a way to describe it! Are you straight? Gay? Bisexual? What do you mean, you’re “just” aro? Oh, so you’re a non-SAM aro, then?
In reality, everyone’s sexuality is their own business, and they shouldn’t have to disclose it to anyone, or have any specific labels if they don’t want to. For some people, they may not know exactly what their sexuality is, or they may not want to say what it is, or they may not care what it is. They should be able to say they’re aro, without any assumptions being made. Aros should be able to have, and talk about, whatever sexual attraction they do or don’t experience, without being pressured to lay out an exact description of what specifically they “are” to everyone else. Aro, as an identity, should come with no assumptions about sexuality.
Allo aros, in many ways, aren’t describing ourselves as such because we love the term allosexual. We’re describing ourselves as such because we’re tired of being assumed to be asexual. Any little bit of not fitting in with the ace community, imo, is enough to be welcome with us. But the way things are happening makes it come across as if you have to be either strictly allo or strictly ace, which leaves aros who don’t quite fit in those boxes feeling excluded*. Thus terms like non-SAM or neuaro are coined, and sure, those can be helpful to some… But they’re still clunky and overly specific terms that not everyone wants to use, yet they still feel forced to, because if they don’t, guess what’ll happen? Yup, you got it. They’ll be assumed to be ace.
“Aro” should be enough. Aro shouldn’t come with any assumptions about sexuality. But it does, and instead of coming together to change things so that asexuality is no longer assumed to be the default, the aro community is more focused on coming up with terms to describe aros who aren’t Aroace™, and then subsequently bickering about said terms. We need to address why these terms are necessary, rather than arguing about them and piling on more and more fancy bandaids that ultimately change nothing.
*Aces, don’t you dare try to use this as an excuse to criticize the allo aro community and our self-avocation. Don’t you dare try to silence us again, I’m not having it. If you have a problem with the ace/allo binary, then you need to start dismantling the whole system that led to its existence, not paint over one end and call it a day.
Dear Asian Americans who do not support #blacklivesmatter, or the protests and demonstrations in Baltimore and other parts of the country, or are condemning the protesters for being violent,
You are wrong, and you are being racist.
If you think the deaths of these victims are justified, then you you need to reexamine your humanity, and ask yourself why you have no empathy for these victims.
If you think this has nothing to do with you, then you need to reexamine the history of racism in this country, because I promise you white supremacy hates you too.
And if you think violence is not the answer, then you need to reexamine your own history, because your ancestors did not become free from colonization through peaceful protests. They waged a violent and bloody war against their oppressors, so you could have the privileges you do today. Do not dishonor that struggle by saying that Black Americans today have less of a right to fight back than your ancestors did then. Black people are being murdered in the streets. And you can stand with them, or against them.
Alright so the survey on aro community needs from this post got 30 responses, and with it all being long form I don’t expect to get many more.
So what I’m going to do is give summaries of common themes and answers above the cut for people who don’t want to read through a bunch of text, and then I’m going to put individual answers under the cut for folks who are interested. Please note that these are all anonymous survey answers, and they do not necessarily reflect my opinions. I encourage people to have/start discussions around the topics brought up here so that we can work towards having a mutually fulfilling and cohesive community.
Summary:
What are the community needs of alloaros?
More recognition and visibility both within and outside of the aspec community, aro specific spaces where no one will assume that they’re ace and where they don’t have to be bombarded by ace content, safe spaces to talk about their experiences with sexual attraction, and a wider community acknowledgment that ace and aro don’t mean the same thing.
What are the community needs of aroaces?
Separate aroace spaces, space and language that allows them to express the interconnectedness of their aro and ace identities, a recognition of the diversity of aroace experiences including the experiences of oriented aroaces and aro leaning aroaces, spaces devoid of both sex and romance, and less infighting between the aro and ace communities.
What are the community needs of non-SAM aros?
New language that doesn’t enforce the use of SAM as a norm and that doesn’t enforce a SAM/ non-SAM binary, more recognition of aromantic as one whole identity, more inclusion of their identity within aro spaces, and having the ability to label themselves as aro without being asked what their other identity is .
What are the community needs of greyro/ aro-spec folks?
Specific spaces where they can talk about aromantic attraction, more recognition and visibility both within and outside of the aspec community, more greyro/aro-spec specific resources and content, and a larger platform within the aspec community to discuss their experiences.
What are the shared needs of these different subgroups within the aro and arospec community?
Increased visibility, spaces free from amatonormativity, safe and unbiased shared spaces for all members of the aro/aro-spec community, separation and distinction from alloaces, more in-person spaces, and a building of understanding and acceptance between the different community subgroups.
How do we meet all of these needs within an online space?
Better and more formalized tagging systems, creating more forums, chats, tags, etc, that are specific to different aro and arospec subgroups, creating more variety in online aro spaces generally, giving equal online spaces and platforms to all aro subgroups, and having open and polite community discussion about our needs within online aro spaces.
How do we meet all of these needs within an in-person space?
Use inclusive language,allow for smaller sub-communities within larger aro and aspec groups, provide resources for small, lesser known identities both within groups and at pride, push for more aro inclusion in wider queer spaces and create safe and respectful discussion spaces where everyone can voice their needs
How do we reconcile conflicting needs?
Civil and open discussions, try to find solutions instead of just arguing, and create separate spaces for subgroups when needed while continuing to maintain larger general spaces for discuison and community building.
Perisex trans people the height of your allyship to intersex people cannot be tacking the I onto LGBT, you have to do *more*. Because as an intersex trans person it can be so fucking isolating in the trans community, intersex people are treated like analogies rather than people. Intersex people deserve better than being your proof as to why non-binary people exist. Not all intersex people are non-binary and you’re erasing their identities and objectifying them for Trans Disk Horse points. Or somehow acting like intersex people are lucky because they got to be “born non binary” (ya know, completely ignoring the forced surgeries and discrimination), ignoring the trauma we experience. Acting like cis intersex people somehow get treated better by other cis people and are “allowed” to be masc women/fem men while perisex trans people aren’t. Ignoring the unique dysphoria intersex people experience, cis or trans (dysphoria is not a Trans only thing!! It’s intersexist to say that!!) Perisex trans people calling us “birth defects” of our agab/cagab and telling us it can’t be an important part of our identity. Assigning afab/amab language to us and expecting us to have the same lives and dysphoria as other trans people. Acting like trans intersex people don’t fucking exist and can’t make arguments ourselves or speak for ourselves. Ignoring intersexism is careless at best and life threatening at worst. If there’s any perisex people who should be able to empathize with intersex people it’s perisex trans people. Our experiences overlap, and trans intersex people deserve a safe space. Trans intersex people are not hypothetical, we are real and we are silenced and erased from our own community. Do better!!
(Perisex/non-intersex ppl can and should reblog but don’t say anything)
Self reblogging Everytime it’s relevant which it ALWAYS IS
