[short image ID; nine cute drawings of manta rays, all identical except for the colors, which are colorpicked from pride flags. The flags are loveless aromantic, lovequeer, aromantic allosexual, sapphic, polysexual, aromantic spectrum, angled aromantic asexual, demiboy, and cupio. End short image ID]
Hello! I have made a survey to gather data on the loveless aro community, which you can takeHERE. There isn’t a set date for when the survey will be closed, as that depends on how much data I can gather. Results will be posted on this blog.
Both loveless aros and aromantics who do not identify as loveless can participate. Loveless aros will mainly be asked their reasons for using the loveless label, and a few personal opinions regarding the community. Non-loveless aromantics will mainly be asked about their opinions regarding the label of loveless aro. Both groups will be given demographic questions. In the case of loveless aros, the demographic questions aim to find trends within the loveless community, while the same demographic questions for non-loveless aros may serve as a control sample.
Also, as I’ve been asked this before, all people on the aromantic spectrum are welcome to participate, regardless of the specific labels they use.
There currently are more than 700 responses, which I’m really glad for! That being said, I wanted to ask if I could have a bit of help. At this time this survey is only being advertised on tumblr, meaning responses are skewed towards tumblr’s user base, and it’s a bit of an issue in some ways - for example, I am asking where did people learn of the term loveless aro and a lot of people say “tumblr”, which is sort of expected since tumblr users are just more likely to learn about new terms on tumblr.
So, I wanted to ask, could someone who has an aro Twitter or who is into some aro discord boost the survey there? At present time I plan on keeping the survey open at least until Monday, August 2nd. However, if there is a new wave of responses I may keep it open longer. I’d be really grateful if someone could do that
maybe i dont love. maybe i feel passion, and care, and fondness, but nothing you would consider love. maybe i feel love in a way you would never understand. maybe my version of love isn’t the same as yours. maybe my love isn’t even love. maybe i dont love. and maybe. just maybe. im fucking okay with that and dont need to conform to your standards of love. maybe i dont need to feel love.
I know I often talk a big game on here about being loveless and non-partnering and all that, but honestly, I still feel a lot of doubt. I can’t imagine my life in five years, or ten years, or twenty years, and it’s not just for that reason, but that is a big part of it. It’s hard to imagine that I’ll be happy, even though I really do think I would be, because there’s always that creeping thought in the back of my head that whispers that no one can be truly happy without love.
This carries into my writing too. I write a lot of fanfiction, and I like to hc characters as aro, bc hell yeah, and I like to hc them in qprs/poly relationships with each other bc it’s fun and the source material lends itself to it, but I have this aversion to characters ending up alone. Which sounds absolutely bonkers to say out loud, because I’ve gone on many rants about how much I hate that exact trope in fiction,but like… It truly is so hard for me to leave someone out of the ship or polycule or whatever (bc I’m a big multi/polyshipper lol) bc I want everyone to have a happy ending. And even though I knowthat being alone can be a happy ending, that it might be my happy ending, it still feels wrong? bad? sad? to write.
I try to imagine someone in my scenario, or at least what I imagine my scenario might be in a few years: living alone, maybe with a roommate, hopefully a group of friends to hang out with, maybe even a fwb they can make out with sometimes. It’s hard to imagine this indefinitely, that they won’t “settle down” with someone. I don’t want a relationship. I think. Not even a QPR. But every time I say that, there’s a doubtful voice in my head that says, “well, are you sure? Maybe the right person will come along and you’ll want to. You don’t want to be lonely for the rest of your life, do you?”
And that’s the thing. I don’t want to be lonely for the rest of my life, it’s true. But why does that imagined life have to be lonely? Just because there’s no partner for me to devote my life to and share everything with? I don’t want to devote my life to someone. I don’t want to share my space, my life, my bed with someone. I want those things to myself.
The online aro community is very English speaking, meaning language is also English-centric. I think it’s important to remember that at times native English speaking aros and non-native English speaking aros with the same exact experiences won’t be drawn to the same concepts due to language issues.
For example, in my language the word “love” mostly refers to romantic love. “I love you” is a sentence you say to your romantic partner, while you may tell friends and family something that we could translate as “I care about you”. Non-romantic affection is therefore less linguistically connected to romantic affection than it is in English. What in English is the broad “love” in other languages can be split in various definitions. This has implications for example when it comes to terms such as loveless or lovequeer, which were coined in an English setting.
Personally, I consider myself loveless despite this division of love that exists in my language. There have been experiences that have alienated me from non-romantic love. Besides, while my language has elements that English lacks, “love” can still be used as a broad term for all forms of affection in certain contexts. However, while in English I use loveless, in my language I would probably use a different vocabulary to describe myself, if such vocabulary existed (unfortunately, the English speaking aro community is still by far more active and developed).
On the other hand, someone whose native language works like mine may decide not to use loveless due to their cultural context. If your language has multiple words for different kinds of love then you might see them as separate things, while an English speaker may consider all of them different manifestations of the same concept. Some loveless aros have also said they identify as loveless because to them love is a concept too broad and confusing to be understood - in a language with a narrower definition of love, this confusion may not happen.
One of the reasons the concept of being loveless is so hard to accept for some people is that it directly goes against one of the most common kinds of no true Scotsman fallacy around.
A no true Scotsman fallacy is what happens when someone points out that a member of a certain group does a certain thing, and someone else says that actually no true member of that group would do that thing. If someone says “no Star Trek fan likes Star Trek Enterprise”, a second person tells them “actually, I love Star Trek and Enterprise was my favorite series”, and the first says “well, you can’t be a true Star Trek fan if you love that series, you’re just a fake fan” that is a no true Scotsman fallacy.
The previous example was on the more light hearted side, but this fallacy applies to a lot of more serious contexts. Often, it may be used as a way to deny valid criticism of a certain community. “This community has a problem, because some of its members do a harmful thing” will be met with “people who do that thing aren’t really members of this community”, dismissing that concern and shielding the community from any criticism.
It’s also common to claim that people who hurt someone didn’t truly love them. “Your toxic partner didn’t love you, if they had, they wouldn’t have behaved this way”.“Your abusive parents didn’t love you, or they wouldn’t have treated you in such a way”. While at times this can be true, it is also a no true Scotsman fallacy. It claims that genuine love will always be healthy, when that isn’t the case. It’s in fact fairly common for someone to both love you and hurt you. Many toxic parents do exactly this: they love their children, they genuinely do, and they believe they do things with their best interests in mind, not realizing that what they think is for the best is actually damaging.
But many people are uncomfortable with the thought that love can lead to abuse. They will bend over backwards and insist that there couldn’t have been love there. Often, when those children grow up they will struggle to reconcile their feelings for their parents, because they know their parents loved them, they have proof of it, but at the same time they are told over and over that love is always pure, therefore their parents couldn’t have loved them.
Equating a toxic relationship with lack of love is wrong. It’s clinging to the idea that love must be pure, love can’t hurt you, love is always good, love is the best thing in the world. But that’s not always the case. It’s important to realize that love can harm people. Love isn’t negated by harm, and on the contrary, harm isn’t negated by love.
Honestly, the stubborn insistence that love must be good feels in a way so fragile. Like the people who push for it are desperately clinging to this idea as if it will somehow save the world. It’s not the case. Even if everyone in the world became a loving person tomorrow, abuse would still exist. I don’t doubt that it would decrease, but it would still be there.
Being loveless is a rejection of this no true Scotsman fallacy. If love truly is the good, pure power that people claim it is, then everyone should need it. Someone proudly identifying as loveless says that you can be happy without love, and this in turn carries the implication that love isn’t all that wonderful. That it’s just another feeling. That it can be unwanted, and if something is unwanted then it must be because in some way it’s undesirable, harmful, or at the very least uninteresting.
A lot of people when confronted with the idea of being loveless will say that you can’t truly be happy without love. That you can’t be fulfilled. All happy and well adjusted people experience love, because love is good, therefore if you are loveless you cannot be happy or well adjusted. A new no true Scotsman. They will cling to the idea that if you identify as loveless you must actually be deeply depressed, and if they can’t, they will instead start trying to present proof that you do love after all. Does something make you happy? Then you must love it.
Plenty of loveless aros will tell you that no, you don’t need to love something for it to make you happy. Some of us don’t believe that passion, companionship, care, attraction, or many other emotions must necessarily fall under the umbrella of love. Some of us find the whole definition of love to be quite honestly very artificial and nonsensical.
And some of us genuinely don’t feel an emotion we can call love. There are other people whose company make us happy and who we treat with care and respect, but this isn’t accompanied by a feeling that can be described as love. For some of us, companionship is a more rational kind of thing. I enjoy this person and so I will spend time with them and try to make them happy and it will annoy me if they are sad, but I don’t have any overpowering feeling of affection.
Personally, I don’t think you’re a true Star Trek fan if you can’t conceive of lovelessness. Vulcans have rejected the entire concept of emotions as a culture. We all know that they are able of feeling them, or at least most of them can since Kolinahr is a thing, they just decide to put them aside and center their lives around something else. Much in the same way loveless aros, who may or may not feel love, decide to put the societal concept of love aside and live in a different way.
Such terrifying concepts. That love may at times be bad, and that people who do not love you may treat you better than those who do! It’s so much easier to cling to the idea that loveless aros don’t know what they are talking about than to confront the fact that you might have been wrong about love.
Y'all would it be reasonable to make a loveless character who’s also a lesbian? Like she’s very much alloromantic, but she feels really uncomfortable using the word love (and no she won’t ever be comfortable using the word again). While at the same time she’s very gay for her wife and cherishes her deeply.
I’m neither loveless or lesbian, I’m just aromantic (probably lovequeer I dunno). So I wanna know other people’s thoughts on this /gen
Even before I knew I was a loveless aro, I thought the word “fond” was much better than the word “love”. Like saying “I’m fond of you” was more powerful to me than saying “I love you” cos I knew what fondness felt like, while I’ve never known what love feels like.
I’m fond of you, I like having you in my life, I’m so glad you’re a part of my life, you make me smile, etc. Phrases like that mean a lot to me.
I think the biggest disadvantage of aro spaces online (and queer spaces in general) is how American(/English) everything is. I know a lot of aros, me included, can’t fully talk about what love is to them, because the word “love” means something different in their native language. Some of us have different sets of words to express different kinds of affection. I know a lot of aros would want to identify as “loveless”, but find it hard to integrate it in their own language. I know some aros can’t relate to a lot of the experiences people have with amatonormativity and arophobia, because romance and relationships are handled differently where they live.
Your struggles don’t go unseen, you’re not alone <3
This is kind of a personal project of mine! I wasn’t sure if I would ever publish it, but I also really want feedback on it. The main idea was to create a fairy tale with an aromantic character as the protagonist, and make it relevant to the story.
So I made up this little tale about love, beauty, and understanding.
Details are left ambiguous since the goal was to write a fairy tale, also known as something easily reinterpreted and transformed while maintaining the core intact. I wrote it in one go about a year ago and I tried to correct some mistakes before putting it out there, tho some may have slipped under the radar.
A warning before you read, there is some arophobic comments.
Long ago, there existed a beautiful place where riches and splendours lined the walls. Many sought it out, looking for fortune, fame, and sometime love, as the place was rumoured to be inhabited by the most beautiful creatures you could lay eyes upon. But despite all its allure, the place was cursed, few returned alive and even fewer sane. For this place was a trap, laid by a deity that was fueled by mankind’s adoration of itself. Trapped in luxury, surrounded by splendours and even the shadows of past loves, they willingly stayed in the illusion, feeding the creature and making it’s power more potent. With time, the reputation of this place as cursed settled, and instead came warriors seeking to defeat the beast lurking the walls. None succeeded, tempted by what the deity offered them.
One day, a warrior came to seek the deity. They remained unfazed by their illusions and trickery, and finally confronted the entity. They had not come here with the intention to fight it or rob it. But to negotiate, to free its victim and end its reign. The deity was intrigued by this strange person. They had not succumbed yet, but it was only a matter of time as its power was great and it appreciated a challenge. It had corrupted the mind of many already, this one shall be no exception.
It tried appealing to their greed, but the warrior had been a simple labourer, happily satisfied with what few they owned. It tried appealing to their sloth, but they couldn’t imagine a day where they wouldn’t want to create and make things on their own. it tried appealing to their lust, but they remained unfazed as the entity showed them beautiful men and women aplenty. It was growing impatient. It was beauty incarnate, and no one could not love it. Adore it. But it had a trick even the strongest mind could not resist. Invading their mind, it saw the people they cared about, the people they loved. And it took their form. Before the warrior’s eyes, people from their simple life started appearing. Their parents and neighbours, their childhood friends. But the warrior saw through its tricks. For it had rendered them beautiful, perfect, hollow.
It grew frustrated, trying everything in its power to sway them, but they did not falter.
“I AM BEAUTY” it screamed, “and I will make you adore me”
“You are not. You’re hollow. You do not understand true beauty” spoke the warrior.
The deity grew angry at this, and it considered trying to kill them and be over with it. But it’s ego was great, and it had been hurt. How could somebody not love it? Surely they must be a heartless monster. But it wanted, no it Needed to be Adored by All. and so it talked with the warrior, asking them about what they found beautiful. The warrior explained how they found imperfections beautiful, how the quirks of something rendered it unique. They talked about the beauty of actions, of landscapes, of words, of arts. And so the entity tried to lure them with what it had learned they found beautiful. But it never worked.
The deity started following the warrior, obsessed at the idea of making them love it. The warrior was happy with this, as others were finally freed from its reign. Slowly, it became more agreeable, nicer, focusing on actions and words rather than appearances. It took the form of a plain person instead of a magnificent one. It began noticing imperfections and appreciating them instead of trying to get rid of them. It was learning how to love, and it was starting to fall in love with the warrior. They had spent months together, and the deity had fallen completely for them. It had become beautiful in a true way, and people started adoring it for what it was. It did not need traps and illusions to get what it wanted. But one thing still resisted its beauty. The warrior did not desire it. It tried everything to make them love it, but they never would admit to it, and it never felt that they loved it the way others did. It grew frustrated again, being loved by all but the one it loved.
“I am beautiful now”
“You are”
“Then why don’t you love me?”
“I do not love anyone, not my parents, not my neighbours, not my friends, and not even you.”
The entity got scared. It had been right.
“You must be a heartless monster, not loving anyone like you do.”
“I do not love people, but I find them beautiful. I enjoy their company and their presence, their impact on the world and how they make it even more beautiful by existing.”
“Then you do love them”
“I do not. I appreciate them in my own way. Many do not understand how, I don’t expect you to”
“I want you to appreciate me even if I don’t understand you”
“I already do”
And so the deity started noticing how they had been treating it, the gestures, the gifts and the time they had spent together, and it saw that they truly did appreciate it, in this special way that they refused to call love. And it was happy.
They lived happily ever after, spreading kindness and beauty wherever they went.
For Pride Month, we’d like to feature voices of aspec people too often left out of this month and our celebrations! So if you’re ace or aro and are straight, loveless, or don’t identify as queer, please get in touch!
You can DM us here or email us at [email protected] and let us know which article you’d be interested in contributing to.
[ID: Call for Aspec Voices. We are looking for any ace-spectrum or aro-spectrum person who identifies with any of the following: Aspecs who don’t identify as queer –This includes aspecs who don’t identify with or feel included in the queer community for any reason. Loveless aspecs –This includes aspecs who reject, don’t identify with, or don’t experience the word love or the concept of it. Straight aspecs–This includes heterosexual and/or heteromantic ace-spectrum or aro-spectrum people, as well as aspecs who identify as hetero on any axis of attraction. We will be posting three separate articles to show that Pride Month is for all aspecs!
Call for Aspec Voices. Pride Month Aspec Voices! What: Contribute to an article by writing answers to our questions. Why: To showcase the variety of aspec experiences. How: DM or email us at [email protected]↵↵When: - Reach out by June 13 - Responses due by June 23 - Articles will be posted the last week of June. End ID.]
Reasons why someone might identify as “loveless” aromantic
Note: I don’t ID as loveless, this is just a collection of what I’ve seen loveless aros say. Add on if you’d like.
The concept of love has been so intertwined with romantic love to the point where they find two two hard to separate
They don’t believe that love makes us human
They’ve faced abuse by people who used “love” as an excuse for their actions
Every time they say that they’re left out of conversations about love, they’re faced with “love doesn’t have to be romantic” to disregard their oppression or the exclusion they’ve faced (e.g. aromantics are usually left out of “love is love” to represent the entire queer community, and every time we bring this up, we’re always faced with “love isn’t always romantic!!” to erase us, when the phrase “love is love” literally is only about romantic love outside of these conversations)
They don’t believe loving someone automatically means anything, and it’s just too vague for them (e.g. does “I love you” mean that they want the best for you, they just like having you around, or they appreciate you as a person but wouldn’t do anything for you?)
They’re neurodivergent and have always been scolded or punished for not “loving” in a specific way
They’re reclaiming their agency to define love for themselves
They feel that “We can still love!!” isn’t helpful because aromanticism isn’t a lack of anything that needs to be made up for, and they want to be respected simply for not loving
They don’t like being attached to this capitalized concept of love
They have a disorder/disability that limits their ability to feel or understand certain emotions, which may encompass certain forms of love, or the way that they “love” is just so different that no one really appreciates it
Their reasons are personal or not on this list, but still valid
Remember that lovelessness is entirely valid. To not relate to the concept of love, or to simply not love, is okay, and you aren’t missing anything. The reasons why someone might ID as loveless aren’t really our business, so if they say they don’t love, respect that.
Hello! I have made a survey to gather data on the loveless aro community, which you can takeHERE. There isn’t a set date for when the survey will be closed, as that depends on how much data I can gather. Results will be posted on this blog.
Both loveless aros and aromantics who do not identify as loveless can participate. Loveless aros will mainly be asked their reasons for using the loveless label, and a few personal opinions regarding the community. Non-loveless aromantics will mainly be asked about their opinions regarding the label of loveless aro. Both groups will be given demographic questions. In the case of loveless aros, the demographic questions aim to find trends within the loveless community, while the same demographic questions for non-loveless aros may serve as a control sample.
Also, as I’ve been asked this before, all people on the aromantic spectrum are welcome to participate, regardless of the specific labels they use.
“I am not a robot” asserts the aroace pride post, the same kind of one that says aces can still have romance and aros can still have friends and conveniently ignores the complexities and intricacies of those things, and their absence is some corners of our community.
“I am not a robot” because I can still…
Sing? Dance? Pretend? Grow? Change?
None of those things are beyond the reach of a robot. At least not far enough out of reach that you couldn’t be tricked, at least for a while.
“I am not a robot” because if I were you wouldn’t have to care about my struggles. Because if I were I’d stop mattering. Because ‘robot’ and 'human’ are somehow mutually exclusive.
Then ten minutes later we’re talking about AI and would you let a truly intelligent robot vote and would it be possible for a robot to feel pain or joy or sadness. Yes you say, of course, if the robot met your criteria for being a human intelligence, of course it would have rights, of course you would care if it suffers.
Which criteria do I need to meet, to not be a robot in your eyes?
What if I was? What if I turned around tomorrow, opened up a hatch and showed you the wires. Showed you the hydraulic fluid spilling over the floor, and the cables and the tubes and the motors.
What if I opened you up and showed you those things that already live in you.
What if I spent countless hours building ever more complex simulations of a human body, getting every detail of every bone and muscle and every tube and wire.
“I am not a robot” is not for my sake, it is for yours, so you don’t yet have to grapple with the idea that something that doesn’t meet your definition of a human can still matter as much as one.
Did you know, 'not’ is a boolean operator. It reverses whatever you feed into it.
not(“I am a robot”)
not(this.isRobot);
Maybe if I could talk to a person as easily as a machine I wouldn’t need to justify this is much.
if(“I can talk to people”)
“I am not a robot”
if(this.canCommunicateWithPeople){
this.isRobot = false;
}
What if I’m not interested in your ideas of what makes someone a human? Certainly by a lot of standards I don’t pass the test.
if(“I give a shit what you think”)
“I must be a robot”
else
“Does it matter?”
if(this.caresAboutYourOpinion"){
this.isRobot = true;
} else {
this.isRobot = null;
System.out.println(“further querying of this value will result in an exception being thrown”);
}
try {
if(this.isRobot) {
this.isHuman = false;
} else {
this.isHuman = true;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
this.isHuman = null;
System.out.println(“Stop asking that question like it means something”);
I’m thinking about making this a series about being a loveless, aplatonic aro ace. Would y’all be interested in that? I’d like for people to be more aware of how disintegrating and isolating it can be when people use the concept of love to determine a persons worth and humanity.
The survey wanted to gather some information on people who use the loveless aro label, as well as the opinions of non-loveless aros on the loveless label. Both groups were given a set of demographic questions, to see if there are any specific trends in who is more likely to identify as loveless. This first post will focus on showing the results of demographic questions, while results gotten on further questions (regarding experiences and opinions) will be shared in a second post, as a single post for everything would be far too long.
At the start of the survey, people were asked if they identify as a loveless aro, with possible answers being “yes”, “no”, or “questioning”. People who answered “questioning” were counted together with people who answered “yes”. This was because, in order to question calling themselves loveless aros, questioning people had to find the term interesting for some reason, and their experiences can also give insight on who feels attracted to the loveless aro term.
As a last note before going in, the demographic results from non-loveless aros will be assumed to be representative of the general aro community and used for comparison. However, there is still the possibility they may not be entirely accurate, since the number of people who participated is still just a fraction of the entire aro community.
There were a total of 1330 participants. Of this, 57.5% (765) said they do notidentify as loveless aro. 28.1% (374) said they are questioning using the term, and 14.4% (191) said they do identify as loveless aro. I will now present each of the demographic questions, putting side by side the results given by loveless and questioning loveless aros (which I will shorten to just loveless aros for sake of brevity) versus the results given by non-loveless aros. There will be a tl;dr at the end of this post.
