What can we do besides wordsmith?

[Mark]

14 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

Some links:

Here is the book, which has always been posted in the Shitposting category, and the description was always that it is a satire (however the author has had to put more warnings of its fictional content because people kept stealing their work and treating it as serious/public property (<which is specifically against the rules of the site))

https://www.wattpad.com/341462536-complete-list-of-genders-the-complete-list-of-all

An issue I see with that list is that omits cis gender definitions and includes non binary gender definitions. 

 

14 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

and those flags are all mixed in with bigender and lesbian and aromantic flags. *sarcasm*and don't you just love a gender that melts given the same attention as the trans flags*sarcasm*

Mixing real, though maybe obscure, things with those which are fictional, satirical, parody, etc is a possible way to set up a poisoning the well type of attack.

[assignedgothatbirth]

23 hours ago, Scoop said:

 I think I'm simplifying this down a fair amount but its safe to say all our community building is happening online and that’s not bad thing but it is clearly limiting atm. 

 

So what you're saying is less vocab, more praxis.

Really though, we have a huge lack of meatspaces and its an issue especially for more material matters. I live in the NYC area and on meetup.com I was only able to find one aro group that from what I could tel only had a few members and hadn't really done anything before it got deleted a few months ago. Unfortunately I'm not really sure what we can do to avoid this, since meatspace activism and organizing takes a lot more time, energy, and money than online activism does. I think the best thing we can do for now is try and work aro causes into other LGBTQIA+ orgs- we're probably not going to be able to create a specifically aro org for a while. I know AUREA has just started up, but they're main focus seems to be visibility (Coy's discussed the issues with that here) and it's just a website at this point so that doesn't address the meatspace issue. I wrote a bit more about this issue here- do mind it was more of a rant so it's not edited at all, but it's the general idea that I think is important.

[aro-fae]

Yes to a lot of things said in this thread - I'm so tired of having to keep track of a batch of different flags/terms every few weeks because someone decided to take a dictionary definition literally and decided that their experience could not be captured by such simple words ? I do think having more irl interaction/community building would be helpful, as it would help in removing oneself from the echochamber that the online community often becomes (especially on sites like Tumblr where certain large blogs get a lot more attention and are often held as representative of the community). I don't have any other answers though, because I'm not interested in telling people how they should/shouldn't identify and I also don't know how to create a vast well of aro-representation that would help people of varying aro experiences feel comfortable in the community. 

[Scoop]

11 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

I think the best thing we can do for now is try and work aro causes into other LGBTQIA+ orgs-

This sounds both effective and doable. Already existing organisations and groups have further reach, resources, and people who care. Honestly this is such a simple answer I'm concerned by how it didn’t occur to me. Maybe I solely need that change of perspective haha, less aro-centric progress and more queer progress with the aro cause sprinkled in. 

Actually my friends and I were going thru the Sims 4 update recently with all its many flags and that was enlightening. We couldn’t name a good third of them despite covering a variety of orientations and genders. This sentiment:

8 hours ago, aro-fae said:

I'm so tired of having to keep track of a batch of different flags/terms every few weeks

doesn’t seem to be so aro specific. At least the keeping track part. People are more often than not concerned by what matters to them and their specific orientation. 

I don’t mean to take this conversation away from aromanticism but the question is what can we do other than wordsmith. Maybe the answer should be as simple as: if you're out, be active in you local queer community and if you're not, contact online queer organisations to engineer some aro inclusion. 

[assignedgothatbirth]

On 6/19/2019 at 10:37 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

and those flags are all mixed in with bigender and lesbian and aromantic flags. *sarcasm*and don't you just love a gender that melts given the same attention as the trans flags*sarcasm*

er, im fine with that actually? if gender is a construct than 'weirder' nb identities should be just as valid as the more well-known ones like 'agender'. also....the trans flag gets way more attention than any of the ones you listed because it is far, far more well-known.

 

the biggest problem i have with the plethora of microlabels is how people just coin them and then make a flag and don't do anything else- there's no community or really any discussion about how being that identity affects someone. ive identified with some of these terms in the past! but there's no community for it, so i just kinda forget they even exist. 

[aro-fae]

So if more real-world community building is a solution, how can we go about this? What would we be interested in seeing from LGBT+ organizations that would aid in creating a connected, diverse, and visible aromantic community? It's one thing to ask for inclusion but as someone who is involved with an LGBT+ organization, it would be nice if people could offer ideas that can be budgeted and planned for. Awareness Weeks at best involve some posters and flyers. 

Especially as I feel like we're at a point where most of the community knows what aromanticism is, in terms of dictionary definition, but most people don't understand or even discuss the experience, aka "what being aromantic means". And, as we've seen from this topic and the need to create it, communities can't form around overly specific terminology - there needs to be an emotional experience that resonates with the people who identify as such. 

 

[Coyote]

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

I feel as tho the aro community is trapped in an echo chamber of sorts.

 

How do you figure? If anything, I'd say there's an opposite problem.

 

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

Maybe not agreeing opinions but no matter what platform you're on people do tend to be doing the same things, the same way.

 

On the contrary: about how many new flag designs have come out of Arocalypse?

 

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

I think I'm simplifying this down a fair amount but its safe to say all our community building is happening online and that’s not bad thing but it is clearly limiting atm.

 

Sure, but I don't think "the aro community is mostly digital" is why people are feeling alienated over not wanting partnerships or not having sexual orientations, and while expanding in-person could have benefits, that doesn't really address the specific thing I was asking about.

 

4 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

er, im fine with that actually? if gender is a construct than 'weirder' nb identities should be just as valid as the more well-known ones like 'agender'. [...] the biggest problem i have with the plethora of microlabels is how people just coin them and then make a flag and don't do anything else

 

Agreed.

 

50 minutes ago, aro-fae said:

And, as we've seen from this topic and the need to create it, communities can't form around overly specific terminology - there needs to be an emotional experience that resonates with the people who identify as such. 

 

...I think you may have this backwards. Certainly Simon's (ridiculously amatonormative) terminology suggestions (that delineate between more distant friendlike qprs and closer romancelike qprs, wtf) relate back to some real emotional experiences that resonate with people -- otherwise there wouldn't be people thanking him and saying things in the notes like " Aaaa I really like this a lot. ... And this. Actually makes me feel a lot better. Because I felt left out of even the aro community bc I don’t rlly want a QPR at all."

 

My question is: why are people feeling left out in the first place? What's creating this impression of QPRs as some Master Narrative of How To Be Aro? Where is that coming from? Out of all the aromantics in this thread, how many of y'all even have a queerplatonic partner?

 

[nonmerci]

18 hours ago, Coyote said:

My question is: why are people feeling left out in the first place? What's creating this impression of QPRs as some Master Narrative of How To Be Aro? Where is that coming from? Out of all the aromantics in this thread, how many of y'all even have a queerplatonic partner?

I Don't know for others, but the first time I encounter the word aromantic and do some researches, I find a lot of website saying things like "not feeling romantic attraction doesn't mean aros don't form couples", and then explaining the concept of QPR. Then, I saw people talking about wanting to form QPR, about squishes, but no one about not feeling it (it's not something I need to talk about in particular, and maybe that's the same for others so nobody did). That gives the idea that QPR is a norm.

[aro-fae]

21 hours ago, Coyote said:

...I think you may have this backwards. Certainly Simon's (ridiculously amatonormative) terminology suggestions (that delineate between more distant friendlike qprs and closer romancelike qprs, wtf) relate back to some real emotional experiences that resonate with people -- otherwise there wouldn't be people thanking him and saying things in the notes like " Aaaa I really like this a lot. ... And this. Actually makes me feel a lot better. Because I felt left out of even the aro community bc I don’t rlly want a QPR at all."

It feels like we're saying the same things but in different ways lol. I meant that to me, it seems like people continuously create more specific words because they want all of their experience encapsulated in a few key terms, but this isn't helpful when the original "umbrella" term could just be understood as more diverse. 

2 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I Don't know for others, but the first time I encounter the word aromantic and do some researches, I find a lot of website saying things like "not feeling romantic attraction doesn't mean aros don't form couples", and then explaining the concept of QPR.

I think we may be on to something here - it does seem like any time I try to find aromantic resources, there's a lot of "but don't worry! we can still do this!" This may be an issue of people trying to make aromanticism more palatable/acceptable to non-aros? And I can definitely see how those voices would become the loudest, as people who aren't worried about "outsider" approval wouldn't be interested in making a loud fuss over this stuff. 

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, nonmerci said:

the first time I encounter the word aromantic and do some researches, I find a lot of website saying things like "not feeling romantic attraction doesn't mean aros don't form couples", and then explaining the concept of QPR.

 

hmm. I thought about this again recently while looking at the AUREA website -- the very first section of their FAQ page, the "General Information" section, has 2 questions on queerplatonic relationships (out of 9 in that section total, mostly about aromanticism in general). I don't know about y'all, but I feel like this foregrounds queerplatonic as a very central/general aromantic concept, moreso than other kinds of relationship preferences and types.

[Mark]

 

On 6/22/2019 at 7:30 PM, Coyote said:

...I think you may have this backwards. Certainly Simon's (ridiculously amatonormative) terminology suggestions (that delineate between more distant friendlike qprs and closer romancelike qprs, wtf) relate back to some real emotional experiences that resonate with people -- otherwise there wouldn't be people thanking him and saying things in the notes like " Aaaa I really like this a lot. ... And this. Actually makes me feel a lot better. Because I felt left out of even the aro community bc I don’t rlly want a QPR at all."

 

I'm wondering if Poe's Law is applicable to this Galilean moons based idea. Since it is so ridiculous in several ways.

 

On 6/22/2019 at 7:30 PM, Coyote said:

My question is: why are people feeling left out in the first place? What's creating this impression of QPRs as some Master Narrative of How To Be Aro? Where is that coming from? Out of all the aromantics in this thread, how many of y'all even have a queerplatonic partner?

 

As I understand things, whilst an umbrella term, "queerplatonic" was never intended to apply to all non-romantic relationships or all relationships aromantic people could possibly be interested in.

 

23 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I Don't know for others, but the first time I encounter the word aromantic and do some researches, I find a lot of website saying things like "not feeling romantic attraction doesn't mean aros don't form couples", and then explaining the concept of QPR. Then, I saw people talking about wanting to form QPR, about squishes, but no one about not feeling it (it's not something I need to talk about in particular, and maybe that's the same for others so nobody did). That gives the idea that QPR is a norm.

 

There's 5 Myths About Aromanticism where myth 3 is about "primary partners".
Whilst this dosn't actually do the respectability politics of saying that "aros want normative relationships, just without the romance bit" it certainly could be interpreted that way.
So far as I know there's no evidence to support "Aromantic asexuals typically want that best friendship to be both nonromantic and nonsexual." I don;t think there is any "typical", even for aro aces. The same applying to the previous notion "Instead of falling in love with someone and making that romantic companion the primary partner with whom to share all of those things, aromantic people who desire partnership basically want a best friend or friends who they can have that kind of bond with." Whilst it, undoubtedly, describes some aros it certainly dosn't apply to all. It's even possible that this is applicable to a minority of aros.
There's Myths about aromantics which somewhat presents queerplatonic and romantic as a false dichotomy. 

 

20 hours ago, aro-fae said:

I think we may be on to something here - it does seem like any time I try to find aromantic resources, there's a lot of "but don't worry! we can still do this!" This may be an issue of people trying to make aromanticism more palatable/acceptable to non-aros? And I can definitely see how those voices would become the loudest, as people who aren't worried about "outsider" approval wouldn't be interested in making a loud fuss over this stuff. 

 

I can find this quite alienating. Since these sort of things are often too romance like for me to want to be associated with.

 

18 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

hmm. I thought about this again recently while looking at the AUREA website -- the very first section of their FAQ page, the "General Information" section, has 2 questions on queerplatonic relationships (out of 9 in that section total, mostly about aromanticism in general). I don't know about y'all, but I feel like this foregrounds queerplatonic as a very central/general aromantic concept, moreso than other kinds of relationship preferences and types.

There's also the question: "WHAT KINDS OF RELATIONSHIPS DO AROMANTICS HAVE?" which mentions "queerplationic relationships" in it's short and uncomprehensive list. I also feel that this somewhat conflates "partnered" and "committed". Which brings to mind some troublesome QPR definitions.
I think part of the problem is that the likes of "sexual friendships", "sensual friendships", "(physically) affectionate friendships", "non-platonic friendships", "cuddle buddies", etc don't get mentioned anywhere near as often as "queerplatonic relationships".

 

[Coyote]

5 hours ago, Mark said:

I'm wondering if Poe's Law is applicable to this Galilean moons based idea. Since it is so ridiculous in several ways.

 

Looks pretty sincere to me. If you want, I guess we could ask.

 

5 hours ago, Mark said:

There's also the question: "WHAT KINDS OF RELATIONSHIPS DO AROMANTICS HAVE?" which mentions "queerplationic relationships" in it's short and uncomprehensive list. I also feel that this somewhat conflates "partnered" and "committed". Which brings to mind some troublesome QPR definitions.
I think part of the problem is that the likes of "sexual friendships", "sensual friendships", "(physically) affectionate friendships", "non-platonic friendships", "cuddle buddies", etc don't get mentioned anywhere near as often as "queerplatonic relationships".

 

hmmm. Do you think the answer would be improved if those things were added onto the list?

[Mark]

On 6/24/2019 at 7:59 PM, Coyote said:

hmmm. Do you think the answer would be improved if those things were added onto the list?

Since this is an FAQ a possibly better option would be something to the effect of "There are many and varied possibilities". With a link to a longer article which clearly stated that the examples were not (intended to be) comprehensive or exhaustive then have a paragraph or so to describe these.

[Guest Chandrakirti]

On 6/21/2019 at 6:24 PM, aro-fae said:

Yes to a lot of things said in this thread - I'm so tired of having to keep track of a batch of different flags/terms every few weeks because someone decided to take a dictionary definition literally and decided that their experience could not be captured by such simple words ? I do think having more irl interaction/community building would be helpful, as it would help in removing oneself from the echochamber that the online community often becomes (especially on sites like Tumblr where certain large blogs get a lot more attention and are often held as representative of the community). I don't have any other answers though, because I'm not interested in telling people how they should/shouldn't identify and I also don't know how to create a vast well of aro-representation that would help people of varying aro experiences feel comfortable in the community. 

I must agree here...if Einstein can reduce the complexity of the universe into E=mc2...you know the acronym KISS.

[astriiformes]

On 6/21/2019 at 8:55 AM, assignedgothatbirth said:

 

So what you're saying is less vocab, more praxis.

Really though, we have a huge lack of meatspaces and its an issue especially for more material matters. I live in the NYC area and on meetup.com I was only able to find one aro group that from what I could tel only had a few members and hadn't really done anything before it got deleted a few months ago. Unfortunately I'm not really sure what we can do to avoid this, since meatspace activism and organizing takes a lot more time, energy, and money than online activism does. I think the best thing we can do for now is try and work aro causes into other LGBTQIA+ orgs- we're probably not going to be able to create a specifically aro org for a while. I know AUREA has just started up, but they're main focus seems to be visibility (Coy's discussed the issues with that here) and it's just a website at this point so that doesn't address the meatspace issue. I wrote a bit more about this issue here- do mind it was more of a rant so it's not edited at all, but it's the general idea that I think is important.

 

This has been on my mind as something important as well. Getting connected to other queer people (even ones who aren't aro, but who are good at being aro allies due to having an earnest desire to support the idea of a truly broad-spectrum "queer" community built from people of many different identities) has been pretty revolutionary for me, personally, and I've been thinking a fair bit about how to try to expand those communities and make it clear they're welcoming/bring some of their strengths into online spaces.

 

The other challenge, of course, is accessibility. Even if we succeed in making certain groups more welcoming to aros, people will have barriers to joining them. I've identified as aro since 2013, but I didn't get involved in any queer groups for a diversity of reasons that I know still exist for many other people (and sometimes, still exist for me). In high school I didn't feel safe coming out and also lived in a conservative suburb with few transportation options and even fewer opportunities to get involved with the queer community. In college, anxiety kept me out of queer clubs as the Discourse was really starting to take off and I was worried I wouldn't be welcomed there, and while one of the schools I went to had one specifically for aros and aces, I had a class that conflicted with their meeting time and it wasn't possible for me to check it out. After leaving school, I again was living in the same suburb where I'd lacked options previously, and while I was starting to try to make the trip to the larger city it was near more often as an escape and even sought out a job downtown, I eventually had to abandon the idea of getting more involved with queer groups because my chronic illness made it possible to make the four hour round trip there on public transportation, which was my only option as assorted issues related to neurodivergency have made it so that I still don't have a driver's license (and wouldn't have had a car, anyways).

 

All that, of course, is coming from someone who agrees wholeheartedly that offline communities and activism are life-changing and critical to acceptance and progress on aro issues, but it also means that happy as I am now to be starting to find ways to be more involved in that (though some of the barriers, like my anxiety and chronic illness and a strange work schedule, at the moment, still exist and still make that challenging), I also know what it's like to be on the outside of that, sort of wistfully looking in. Online sources were my only option for aro community and they did accomplish helping me discover and connect to my identity, undeniably. I think talking about how to bring aro issues into offline LGBTQIA+ or even aro or aspec-specific spaces is one step, but figuring out how best to transfer/replicate/provide some of those same benefits to people who have barriers to involvement -- aros in rural areas, disabled aros, aros who feel they can't risk being outed as queer, or any other reason -- in order to help the whole community, as well as to make sure some of our most vulnerable members are included and taken care of and given resources is an important, horizontal priority.

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

I must agree here...if Einstein can reduce the complexity of the universe into E=mc2...you know the acronym KISS.

 

huh? Do you realize what you're saying? Taking an attitude of "just keep it simple" toward this stuff is the exact same attitude you find among people who think the whole concept of "romantic orientation" is too complicated and we should just stick to the system of gay/straight/bi.

[NullVector]

14 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

if Einstein can reduce the complexity of the universe into E=mc2

Simple looking equations can concisely encode a complex structure of relationships between things. The complexity is there, it just needs unpacking. For instance, can you derive e=mc^2 from first principles?  (first principles here means assuming that observers in different inertial frames all see the same speed of light, c, and then making that requirement consistent with known kinematics) And what about the 'm' in that equation? Is it a rest mass, or is it hiding a dependance on velocity?

[Mark]

13 hours ago, astriiformes said:

I eventually had to abandon the idea of getting more involved with queer groups because my chronic illness made it possible to make the four hour round trip there on public transportation, which was my only option as assorted issues related to neurodivergency have made it so that I still don't have a driver's license (and wouldn't have had a car, anyways).

A situation I've encountered is many events are only around two hours long. Which in practice can be closer to 90 minutes "topic time". Thus four hours travelling is very disproportionate.

[assignedgothatbirth]

9 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Oh...another site full of aspies and nit pickers.

I'm old enough and ugly enough to laugh at the complexity of youth and move on to better communities. Bye.

lmao you're the one who got so offended when someone pointed that you don't know what you were talking about that you left the site like...that sounds real emotionally mature compared to us 'aspies'.

but to get back to the original point, you used...a principle from physics to discuss the creations of queer communities- two things which have absolutely nothing to do with each other. i know our society is so obsessed with this false notion of 'science' as the only way to derive truth that people will invoke 'science' like its the word of god constantly in discussions that don't need it but i think we should maybe not do it because it's bad rhetoric and untruthful. if you want to learn more about this 'scientism', i'd highly recommend the following paper: https://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Haack, Six Signs of Scientism.pdf

 

(and, for the record, using disabilities as insults is bad. though i hope most people here already understand that?)

[BlueKumul]

On 6/20/2019 at 3:50 PM, Scoop said:

I feel as tho the aro community is trapped in an echo chamber of sorts.

 

The problem is hardly unique to aromantics. This is why I hate millennial online culture. I've used to debate politics a lot. Soon I've found that there is a leftist echo chamber, a neoreactionary echo chamber, and also a neoliberal/libertarian echo chamber. In any of these, there are people who have legitimate arguments and people who are just motivated by an inferiority complex or repressed anger. I'm fine with some of these people as individuals, but as crowds they are unbearable. Leftist echo chambers will hate you for criticising Islam, neoliberal echo chamber for saying that capitalism encourages bad behaviour, etc.

Gays are another example of an echo chamber, one bloke branded me as a homophobe cos I said that change of sexual orientation might be possible in many cases. There are plenty of Christian testimonies, many of these people might repress their gay urges the way a good Catholic is supposed to repress his desire to eat meat and drink alcohol during Lent. But others seem to be genuinely happy with their "artificial" heterosexuality. What right do we have to judge them?

The aromantic community might have another problem: it's hard to build a community around not doing something. Aromantics don't fall in love. Once one overcomes the anger at amatonormative upbringing, what is left? One thinks about not falling in love no more than about not believing in Leprechauns. However, vegans show such a community is possible. They are based on not eating meat, and what binds them is meatless cuisine. Similarly, aromantics should be interested in finding about the best way to have regular sex without being in a relationship, or reconciling yourself to living without sex.

[assignedgothatbirth]

28 minutes ago, Spacenik86 said:

Soon I've found that there is a leftist echo chamber

 

listen bud if there is one thing that i can say is true about all leftists its that we love complaining about other leftists. it is a remarkably broad term after all- the fact that anarcho-communists and stalinists both fall under that label is pretty wild. so i wouldnt say that there is a single leftist echo chamber.

 

31 minutes ago, Spacenik86 said:

Leftist echo chambers will hate you for criticising Islam

 

again depends on what space you're in. shockingly enough there are still plenty of islamophobic leftists because again, it's a very broad term (though this is going to be true of any group- i dont think that you'll be able to exclude bigots from every group). 

and then there are actually leftist spaces that do criticize islam in a way that isnt islamophobic- generally, from people who are muslim themselves, or once were. you didn't actually specify what those critiques were though, so im not sure i can take you on you're word here. 

 

27 minutes ago, Spacenik86 said:

Gays are another example of an echo chamber

ah yes the gays are such an echo chamber...in fact we're a hivemind that communicates with each other telepathically and we're all in agreement about anything. we have never had a disagreement ever. all communities are identical to one another, regardless of space and time. 

 

37 minutes ago, Spacenik86 said:

What right do we have to judge them?

...the issue with saying 'some peoples sexualities can be forcibly changed' isnt that we're 'judging' people its the very real harm that conversion therapy and abuse cause to queer people.

 

45 minutes ago, Spacenik86 said:

The aromantic community might have another problem: it's hard to build a community around not doing something. Aromantics don't fall in love. Once one overcomes the anger at amatonormative upbringing, what is left?...Similarly, aromantics should be interested in finding about the best way to have regular sex without being in a relationship, or reconciling yourself to living without sex.

that's not a community thing though, it's individual. and i really dont like the way that it implies that all aros want sex? and id say there are plenty of material realities that aromantics face because of how much romantic relationships are tied into the nuclear family. id say two good goals for the community would be the destruction of the nuclear family as the favored social unit from a legal standpoint, and expanding our social safety net so that people who don't have romantic partners don't have to worry about being homeless, or not being able to pay a medical bills, etc. 

 

 

[Coyote]

12 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Oh...another site full of aspies and nit pickers.

 

Presumably you'd also consider it nit picking to ask what the heck you have against autistic people.

 

2 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

What right do we have to judge them?

 

If what you mean is "we have no right to judge them" in the same sense that we'd have no right to judge an abuse victim for not leaving their abuser -- which is to say, that they deserve more sympathy than blame, as people who are being taken advantage of -- then I can see what you're saying there.

 

2 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

Similarly, aromantics should be interested in finding about the best way to have regular sex without being in a relationship, or reconciling yourself to living without sex. 

 

This sounds like you're splitting aromantics in two, between the sexhavers and the nonsexhavers (who "reconcile" themselves to living without sex -- what does that mean?).

 

While I'm interested in pursuing the more general train of thought, why center sex in this?

 

1 hour ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

listen bud if there is one thing that i can say is true about all leftists its that we love complaining about other leftists.

 

lol I think Oliver's on the money here. 

 

2 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

and id say there are plenty of material realities that aromantics face because of how much romantic relationships are tied into the nuclear family. id say two good goals for the community would be the destruction of the nuclear family as the favored social unit from a legal standpoint, and expanding our social safety net so that people who don't have romantic partners don't have to worry about being homeless, or not being able to pay a medical bills, etc.  

 

Relatedly, here's some writing on the nuclear family that I'll maybe possibly get around to sifting through at some point. If anybody else feels like exploring that body of work... it points to a good foundation, I think, for some intercommunity/inter-movement alliances, like you, @Scoop, and @aro-fae were talking about.

[Scoop]

On 6/23/2019 at 4:30 AM, Coyote said:

On 6/20/2019 at 11:50 PM, Scoop said:

I feel as tho the aro community is trapped in an echo chamber of sorts.

 

How do you figure? If anything, I'd say there's an opposite problem.

 

Yeah so 'echo chamber' was absolutely the wrong word for me to use. In the next sentence I say 'maybe not agreeing opinions' which is exactly what an echo chamber is haha. My mistake. I was looking for a way to say everyone tends to create content tailored to the culture of the site they're on — which I believe I said clearly in the rest of the post so I won’t go on.

 

And here:

 

On 6/23/2019 at 4:30 AM, Coyote said:

On the contrary: about how many new flag designs have come out of Arocalypse?

 

You actually both confirm and ended up disproving my statement here. There are no flags coming from Arocalypse, of course not, it's not an image based site. However I did say vocab is likely to come out of here and ykno when I scrolled back further than the current — I think it's about 4 of 5? — threads the next 20ish aren’t about vocab at all. So 1) Arocalypse isn’t trapped in the vocab and language debate like many other areas of the aro community, 2) you can ask: well what is the forum building instead? and 3) it's meant for discussion and it's fulfilling that goal. I shouldn't have been so quick to add it to the list of 'places where people want to do more but are trapped by This Is The Way Things Are Done Here'. Obviously Arocalypse has its own problems — this thread unfortunately went off track and I've seen it happen on other threads also — but the format of the site isn't one of them.

 

This whole response is basically just for you @Coyote haha, I really have no idea where to start with real world community building so thank you for sharing that reading list! Even if it's no help — which I sincerely doubt — it looks fucking interesting.

 

EDIT: when I say scrolled back I mean thru the Aromantic Discussion section, past the pinned threads, and as of the conversations that were happening late last week I think it was like 4 of the 5 ongoing ones talked about or turned to vocab at some point. Science ?

[Guest Chandrakirti]

On 6/28/2019 at 3:46 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

 

Lmao bye bitch, don't let the door hit your ableist ass on the way out!

Very nice....must have hit a nerve.

@Coyote...I'm just sick of folk that miss the point while taking everything down to the atom....did you get the point of what I meant eventually? 

...that the multiple complexities that make up the end point of e=mc2....still end in e=mc2.

But....just keep making three page posts about each line leading up to the end point....(shutters falling quietly)...

 

Life's too short to spend it going round in imbecilic circles so...close my account here!

 

 

 

 

[Mark]

On 6/27/2019 at 5:32 PM, Spacenik86 said:

The aromantic community might have another problem: it's hard to build a community around not doing something. Aromantics don't fall in love. Once one overcomes the anger at amatonormative upbringing, what is left? One thinks about not falling in love no more than about not believing in Leprechauns. However, vegans show such a community is possible. They are based on not eating meat, and what binds them is meatless cuisine. Similarly, aromantics should be interested in finding about the best way to have regular sex without being in a relationship, or reconciling yourself to living without sex.

I think the vegan analogy could work.
However I think your conclusion is flawed. Asexual aromantics exist. Non romantic sexual relationships exist. Not all allosexual aromantics are going to make regular sex (for whatever meaning of "regular") a priority in their lives.