QPR Misinformation Is Not an Appropriate Vehicle for Aro Community Building

[Mark]

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

I was sure that QPRs was originally an aro term! I mean, I never thought about it because I personally don't care about how a word was created

I always suspected a strong ace input. Because of the likes of "Queer Platonic Relationships can be sexual". Which is oxymoronic.

 

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

I agree! I mean, I think it is very important for aros to feel safe in ace places if they want to go there. But I know that even if I am ace, I don't go on ace spaces, not because I don't feel sage but because I don't think it will be useful for me (basically, I identify as ace because I don't feel sexual attraction, but I don't see that as having a huge impact on my life, let alone my identity; while I feel that aromanticism has an impact on my life choices). I would be glad to see more aro communities!

With allo aros having no reason to want to go into ace spaces in the first place.
But we can find ourselves having to do so. Because that's where most of the aro resources, still, are.
 

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

Also I don't get why we are focusing on making ace communities safe place for aros, and not LGBT and society in general (because I guess that, for instance, a bisexual aro also have a lot of problems for joining busexual communities,  or at least I sometimes saw bi-aro complaît about it, but we don't adress this issue as we do with ace communities).

Exactly.

[TripleA]

I mean this whole argument of who came up with it first is pointless, it sounds just like a petty argument some 6 year olds have to avoid getting into trouble. 

 

As was said before, I think we should just focus on making a healthy community for aromantics which isn't full of arophobic allosexuals and asexuals alike. Personally, I think QPRs are only that important in the AroAce community for aces, alloaces have romantic relationships, us aros don't. I believe it's much harder to find someone as an aromantic than as an asexual (especially alloromantic asexuals, not saying dating isn't hard for you guys though).  I tend to always find people who are in this community (especially on tumblr) who shame allosexual aromantics like myself just because we cannot feel this 'pure' romantic attraction they can. I've also had shit from my ex for this too, and it's really isolating. 

 

I think a lot of AroAce communities are very ace biased, AVEN being the biggest example, but I can understand that bc it's just Asexuality Visibility Education Network. Other aroace communities claim to be inclusive of aces and aros equally but there's so much hyper romanticism in some of them that you have to question if they're really a space where aros who are romance repulsed/romance negative are really thought about. This is why I prefer using Aromantic specific sites and groups like this one. 

 

Also, reparations isn't the thing aros need imo. Aces and aros don't need reparations; they weren't mass murdered like the jews. I just want to be treated as a human being and to be at least considered when people make ace and aro spaces, like if we were to make a discord server for example, have a pda/romantic/lovey-dovey channel just for alloromantics and romance positive aros to enjoy whilst not making the rest of us uncomfortable. That sort of thing. 

[bydontost]

57 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I'm getting mixed information on this. The note on the repost says "she deleted for reasons related to the discourse and a busy life," and I'm not sure which is more accurate. 

I'm sure this could have contributed too, but when that repost surfaced, she said that she deleted it because of errors - I'm not sure how big a role it played in the decision

 

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

I misremembered what exactly was in that preface note, and I've messaged the reposter to clarify. Hopefully you're right and we can get that all cleared up. In the mean time I've scratched that one off the list. Did I get anything else wrong?

I should have said that I know she didn't ask, bc I talked to her (aphobephobe) about it when the repost came up. other than that I think it's all okay

 

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

Expectation? No.

alright 

[AUREA]

On 12/14/2019 at 1:43 PM, eatingcroutons said:

Seriously though, AUREA cites the original coiners of the term and a comprehensive etymological history.

 

We do, in Basic Terms in the Glossary there's the Queeplatonic Relationship entry and at the bottom there are links to the website where the coining took place and a link to @Coyote's Genealogy of Queerplatonic post on Pillowfort.

 

20 hours ago, Coyote said:

Anyway, AUREA has been brought up a couple times now, so that's got me thinking, maybe I should ping @AUREA and ask for an official response. Or, alternatively, they do have those monthly "What's been going on in the community?" posts that it could be slotted into. Dunno how much of an audience they've built up for themselves yet, but hey, could be worth a shot.

 

Should anyone be interested in words used in the aromantic community and their meaning and history, we put together the Glossary with links to posts where such words or phrases were first used if possible. This is the case with the Queerplatonic Relationship entry too. This thread shows that the topic of the origins of QPRs is still one that aromantics are interested in talking about and we'll link to it in January's Whats's Going On post.

 

3 hours ago, sennkestra said:

Unfortunately as far as @AUREA, detailed aro community history (including the adjacent history of things like queerplatonic) with sources is actually something that don't really have much on in their resources yet, especially one that really explains the issues mentioned here (although that's understandable, because it's a missing resource almost everywhere). Does anyone know if there's a best way to nominate resources for the site (or at least the periodic "what's going on" linkspams?) I think some of the posts like the original Queerplatonic Geneology post might be good to include somewhere, and I also have another post about the history of early aro community spaces (c. 2010 to present) that I'm putting together at the moment. That might be easier than trying to start from scratch.  (I'll shoot an email over eventually, but figured I'd ping them here as well in the meantime)

 

You can always reach us through the e-mail, contact@aromanticism.org and we'd be grateful for tips about interesting topics, like that post about early aromantic community history for example

We don't have any resource collecting aromantic and aromantic adjacent history in our Resources section, because there doesn't exist a single comprehensive resource on this exact topic that we could lead people to. When it comes to the history of words, we collect the history of that in the Glossary where possible, so that people can have contact with the source. This is the case with the Queeplatonic Relationship entry and at the bottom there are links to the website where the coining took place and a link to @Coyote's Genealogy of Queerplatonic post on Pillowfort.

[Magni]

I see I was mentioned by things and I feel irritated and obligated to respond. 

 

On 12/17/2019 at 8:15 PM, Coyote said:

not to mention @Magni's reiteration of "it was coined by aroaces."

I would like to point out, I prefaced my statement with "from what I understand," linking to where I'd seen it, and if anything was asking for correction if I was misinformed rather than spreading misinformation.  (and I did not respond further to the conversation bc I left for a halloween thing then was busy with a 15 page paper that weekend so by the time I had time for it, I'd forgotten/it was less relevant/had lost track of conversation.)
 

On 12/17/2019 at 8:15 PM, Coyote said:

for example, I've also seen it with aplatonic

This is also linking to a post I made....I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make with this or why you cited this post as evidence of it?  Like, I feel almost offended, especially because I do identify with aplatonic/aplatonic-spectrum/demiplatonic (just posted a thing for carnival of aros explaining my experience with that which does kinda influence how I independently define it).

I copy-pasted the definition from AUREA & included the link, which then has link to the original coining (which tbh reading through that thread is confusing and seems to get off topic).  Is it because I said it was coined by neurodivergent aroaces?  That's what I've seen on multiple prominent posts:

1. "Used mostly by neurodivergent aros...."

2. "for aromantic people"

3. "for aromantic people"

 

Like, the posts I read if anything only mentioned it being for aros, I remembered that it like other things was sourced from AVEN so I said it originated with aroaces, and mainly was mentioning that part since I'd only copied the one definition rather than both and still wanted to acknowledge the fact that it's related to neurodivergent experience.  Like, maybe all the other posts I'd seen aren't accurate but it's not like I was just making stuff up, why would you use my post with only 27 notes as an example of this misinformation when all three of the posts I just linked have well over 1,000 notes and would be what's mainly spreading the misinformation?  (it almost feels like you're seeking out stuff to criticize about me..... @Coyote

I do not like interacting with you, you're the main reason I don't go on the forums much anymore bc interacting with you is exhausting, and you know maybe part of why you get so much pushback is you're irritating to deal with and it always feels condescendingly argumentative such that people are inherently inclined to disagree with you).

 

Oh also, we did see reply to that post and got an ask about it elaborating on other definitions/aspect of aplatonic and am planning to post/reply to that at some point (but like I only just got done with final exams, things take time and energy and focus)

 

***

 

On 12/11/2019 at 10:40 AM, bydontost said:

1. rewriting history sounds like a conscious effort (especially paired with the title with "revisionism" and "aro reparations"), this all seems to me more like misinformation due to the lack of access to reliable sources. people probably induct that since it's talking about a blurry line of friendship and something else, and not about sex, it came from aros, not aces. even in this 2013 post you cited the person says "oops, i'm sorry, i didn't know". so i'd take this into account

2. i agree with this "A lot of aros have been hurt by amatonormativity in the ace community. In the context of this hurt, they are looking for affirmation of their identities and experiences as legitimate, valuable, and important." and yes, with the lack of information about the origins of qpr, i can see why aro people want to fight for what they perceive as stolen history, want to have some of this history

 

Big agree on this.  (Disclaimer: the following is intended as elaborating on this train of thinking/why people feel this way....not saying it's factual origin etc but explaining a perspective, don't get mad at me for being factually inaccurate on some nuanced wording thing)

1. Like, intuitively and etymologically, queerplatonic being based more in the blurry lines of friendship/platonic implies a relation to more aromantic experiences.  If someone's alloromantic ace, and in a romantic non-sexual relationship, then that can just be called a romantic relationship? Whereas if an aro person is in a queerplatonic relationship, there's not really another term.  

2. even bigger mood; like, genuinely, the more alloromantic aces I met irl after starting college, the more alienated I felt from the ace community, in large part bc of amatonormative things they said or did.....and there's stuff online too but in general easier to dismiss online stuff whereas getting it from people irl makes it all the more alienating.  And like, online, all I saw in the ace community was people talking about stuff relating to dating while ace and stuff, which I could not relate to, and felt alienated by, and is also part of why it didn't make inherent sense to me for queerplatonic to be tied to ace stuff more than aro stuff bc it feels more logically linked to the aro side of my experiences.  And like....there's a general sense of feeling left behind in invisibility by the ace community, which I think does generally contribute to these feelings.

 

 

[sennkestra]

I think I might try to respond with a little more nuance in the morning, but in the meantime, a few quick thoughts - first, can we please try to avoid personal insults and stereotypes about other groups of people (including both the people in this thread, and alloromantic aces)?   I know that criticism can be really hard to take, especially if you start realizing that you were misinformed by sources of information you thought you could rely on, but sometimes part of growth is being able to step back, take a deep breath, and realize that yeah, maybe you were mistaken about certain facts. That doesn't have to be a big deal - it's a learning experience all of us have to go from at some point, and you're already taking the first step in that direction by joining the conversation here.

 

As far as the additional context for where you were getting your information from, thank you for sharing it - it helps to explain the situation and I think to also help identify some more of what is behind the trend. But I think it also illustrates the point that @Coyote was trying to make, which is that this misinformation is so pervasive, and also why it's so important to try and bring attention to exactly what's incorrect about it, and what the actual reality is.

 

Part of the reason that Coyote has been putting in the work to gather these histories and explanatory sources is exactly so people in the future will have access to histories that you didn't, and won't accidentally fall into the same trap.

It's not that it's not understandable how people accidentally assume that things that resonate with aros must have come from aros, or that people don't always fact check things - to err is human. But the thing is, the fact that something resonates with aro people doesn't mean it didn't also resonate just as much with other types of people as well. And sometimes, those people come up with concepts for themselves first, that we in the aro community later find useful. When that's the case, I think it's worth getting the history right - both out of respect to the people who have articulated concepts that have become so useful to the rest of us, and also out of respect to the actual history that the aro community actually has, which often gets obscured in favor of some of these mythologies that sound nice to so many people but just don't hold up under investigation. 

Also, I'm guessing this was probably rushed out and you may not have given it a lot of thought, but I want to make it really clear that when ace people (romantic or otherwise) are talking about queerplatonic relationships, they're talking about the exact same kinds of "queering the boundaries of what a platonic relationship can be" kind of relationships that other aro people are. They are not actually talking about normative romantic relationships at all. Whether you intended it or not, I worry that the comment above seems to imply that alloromantic people don't need or are incapable of queerplatonic or other platonic relationships just because they also have (at least in theory) the option for romantic relationships - which uncomfortably reflects common assumptions that QPs are some kind of second-class choice for those who can't do romance, or that alloromantic people are somehow incapable of having intimate platonic relationships - both of which I want to push back against. 

 

[Magni]

Perhaps wording a bit harsh bc emotions, but like....I don't consider that personal insults? If I dislike someone and find them stressful to interact with then I will express that/don't see why I should hide that.  I find most forum discussions exhausting and stressful, if I'm addressed and I see it I feel compelled to respond and keep responding even when it's time consuming and stressful and it pretty much always ends with me feeling upset rather than satisfied.  If you're gonna refer to a post I've made, especially in context of disagreeing or expressing disapproval with it, then I would like to know so I can defend my perspective if feel the need, but ideally would be not doing so to start with.  And I tend to dislike people I only ever have negative interactions with, and get increasingly irritated the more I interact with them.

 

re: second part about queerplatonic etc

a) I did put a disclaimer above that part saying it was explaining a frustrated perspective and wasn't being delicately worded and fact checked

b) was less that alloromantic people can't do qpr's but more that....comparatively, the need for such a term seems more inherently implied by aro experience? (idk if that makes sense)

c) I'll admit I'm probably a bit bitter due to ex-irl friends claiming they understood and reflected my emphasis on friendship only to contradict it with their actions.

I'm gonna close this tab on computer to try and avoid checking it bc I'll just upset myself increasingly more and feel compelled to respond to what I see, so don't expect me to respond further bc I don't want to.

[Coyote]

Hi, Magni. I remember that you don't like long stuff, so I'm going to put your part at the top and try to keep my replies very short. If they're actually too short, and if you come back, you can let me know if I need to explain myself more, okay?

 

One thing I want to say first: Out of the people whose posts I linked as examples, you are the first Arocalypse user to come here and respond personally, and I think that's very brave. I don't know if that'll come off as condescending too, but I was gonna feel bad if I didn't say it, so. I'm putting it out there that I recognize and appreciate that.

 

 

10 hours ago, Magni said:

This is also linking to a post I made....I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make with this or why you cited this post as evidence of it?

 

• The point that that post is an example of is "people say incorrect things about the origins of other words, too."
• I encountered the post while I was on that blog looking for something else.
• Then, here, I needed to pull an example, and that was one that I knew about.
• I feared that you might take it as a sign of something if you saw it, but I decided to take that risk.

 

10 hours ago, Magni said:

Is it because I said it was coined by neurodivergent aroaces?

 

Yes. I am afraid that is incorrect.

 

10 hours ago, Magni said:

That's what I've seen on multiple prominent posts:

1. "Used mostly by neurodivergent aros...."

2. "for aromantic people"

3. "for aromantic people"

 

Thank you for the additional examples.

 

So as I was saying: People make these incorrect origin claims about more than just QPR. What's different about the QPR misinfo, I've noticed, is that people talk about it in terms of aro-ace community relations, and I haven't seen people do the same with "aplatonic" or any other terms.

 

10 hours ago, Magni said:

you know maybe part of why you get so much pushback is you're irritating to deal with

 

I'm well-aware of how I'm perceived.

 

10 hours ago, Magni said:

things take time and energy and focus

 

Of course.

 

In any case, if you do come back, and if you have the time and energy, I have a question for you.

 

 

*****

 

 

17 hours ago, bydontost said:

I should have said that I know she didn't ask, bc I talked to her (aphobephobe) about it when the repost came up. other than that I think it's all okay

 

I will leave that one scratched off the list and the rest of the list as it is, then.

 

 

*****

 

 

16 hours ago, AUREA said:

This thread shows that the topic of the origins of QPRs is still one that aromantics are interested in talking about and we'll link to it in January's Whats's Going On post.

 

Cool. You can include the contextualizing links from October/November or just leave that part out. Either way, it's also important to note that this thread has already inspired a new post on Tumblr. 

 

 

*****

 

 

Note: I consulted with some other people earlier about wording, and someone pointed out to me that instead of "revisionism," technically, a more accurate word would be "denialism." Currently still thinking about how to revise the post title and header language in light of that. "QPR Denialism" doesn't sound quite right, since "QPRs" aren't what's being denied... "QPR Ace History Denialism"....? "Ace History Denialism"....? Haven't settled on anything just yet.

 

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

Honestly, I'm still confused as to what the exact purpose of this thread is.

 

You've established that QPRs were coined by aces. You've established that misinformation about this subject is a problem, particularly on Known Horrible Website Tumblr Dot Com. You've called out specific individuals for the grave sins of a. not knowing things nobody told them and b. wanting to discuss their community without constantly having to owe everything to a community that continues to hurt them to this day. You've said that denying the history of QPRs won't do anyone any good.

So what, then, is your solution? What do you want us to do? What is your solution for those who are tired of having "ACTUALLY sweaty, the ACE community invented (everything about the aro community)" held over their heads at all times?

 

I agree that misinformation is bad, and I understand using examples to illustrate your point. But I haven't really seen a lot of positive action coming from this thread; So far, it just kind of seems like a way to make people, especially particular individuals, feel bad. Yes, we KNOW aros owe our pitiful, meaningless existence to the great deeds of the ace community. Yes, we KNOW we're horrible monsters for not showering the ace community with praise at every moment. We know, we know, we know. What do you want us to do about it? And what do you want them to do about it?

[LauraG]

1 hour ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Honestly, I'm still confused as to what the exact purpose of this thread is.

 

While many of you commenting on the thread do know about this issue already, there may be other people on arocalypse who don't. I think part of the purpose of Coy's initial post, and this thread in turn, is to try to get ahead of the misinformation to prevent it from spreading more. Yes, it's happening on Tumblr, but at least half of us here are also on Tumblr and I'd imagine that the rest of arocalypse's userbase also contains some Tumblr users who might unwittingly spread misinformation here.

 

1 hour ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

We know, we know, we know. What do you want us to do about it? And what do you want them to do about it?

 

I'd handle it the way you'd handle any other misinformation. If you see it, correct it if you're able. If you've unwittingly spread it? Make a correction. Again, this may be what a lot of people commenting on the thread are already doing.

 

1 hour ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

What is your solution for those who are tired of having "ACTUALLY sweaty, the ACE community invented (everything about the aro community)" held over their heads at all times?

 

Being tired of this makes a lot of sense. My suggestion? Don't mention who coined the word. If someone's tired of people telling them that ace people coined the word, spreading misinformation is not going to help that. It's just going to prompt people to come on their posts and tell them the one thing they don't want to hear - that aces were actually the one to coin it. If people just don't mention who coined it, no one is going to mention the ace community. And if for some reason they did make some comment about terms coming from the ace community without prompting, that would be inappropriate (and you'd also be justified in telling them so).

[nonmerci]

31 minutes ago, LauraG said:

Being tired of this makes a lot of sense. My suggestion? Don't mention who coined the word. If someone's tired of people telling them that ace people coined the word, spreading misinformation is not going to help that. It's just going to prompt people to come on their posts and tell them the one thing they don't want to hear - that aces were actually the one to coin it.

That was what I was going to say.

I mean, I'm glad that I learn the term was created by aces people because learn in new thing is cool, and because I get now it refers to platonism  (I think platonic relationship were supposed to be not sexual?)

But really,  what does it change for me? Nothing. It doesn't change the way I see the term, the way I use it, or anything. In fact I'm actually surprised to see how much it is a big deal in the aro and ace communities, because I personally don't care as long as nobody stops me from using it. Or as long nobody came like "hey we invented the term so you as an aro, you owe this to us", because we don't. That may be ly very praticable point of view, but I think terms are invented because they are useful and reflect a realiy, so for me it just happened to have been created by ace people, but if they haven't some other people would have.

[LauraG]

34 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

I mean, I'm glad that I learn the term was created by aces people because learn in new thing is cool, and because I get now it refers to platonism  (I think platonic relationship were supposed to be not sexual?)

 

Well, QPRs being coined by aces shouldn't be taken to mean that they need to be non-sexual. In one of the early posts introducing the term (dated 2011), s. e. smith says "The key feature is the idea of being deeply connected to someone, without a romantic element (though a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual)."

 

What the word "platonic" actually means widely varies from person to person in the aro and ace communities, and also outside of them. Not all usages of it are intended to mean "non-sexual." (Which yes, is very confusing.)

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

Alright, let me rephrase what I meant: I definitely agree that misinformation is a problem. I do think that people should stop claiming QPRs were not created by aces, and I think it is good to spread awareness, especially given that a lot of people genuinely don't know any better. I also agree that "just don't mention who created QPRs if it's not relevant" is fair enough.

 

What I take issue with is the initial way this issue was framed in this thread. I feel like the initial post was very negative, more of an accusation than a PSA. It felt very much like specific individuals were being "called out"; Some of these individuals, like Annest, do not use the forums and therefore wouldn't be able to defend themselves, while others, like Magni, shouldn't really have to defend themselves and may find doing so stressful.

Speaking especially as someone who has very deep, personal experience with the ways the ace community (especially allo aces) has hurt aros, to me... It just feels kind of like a repeat of that. To storm in here saying, "The aro community is doing A Bad, and you need to stop!!" without acknowledging why this is happening, without saying "I understand your hurt and I hear you," without saying "Here's what you can do to help," without giving any sort of positive end at all... It just feels like finger-pointing. Oh, how shameful the aro community is, once again committing sins against our great ancestors. How terrible. Thanks? And..?

[sennkestra]

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

But really,  what does it change for me? Nothing. It doesn't change the way I see the term, the way I use it, or anything. In fact I'm actually surprised to see how much it is a big deal in the aro and ace communities, because I personally don't care as long as nobody stops me from using it. Or as long nobody came like "hey we invented the term so you as an aro, you owe this to us", because we don't. That may be ly very praticable point of view, but I think terms are invented because they are useful and reflect a realiy, so for me it just happened to have been created by ace people, but if they haven't some other people would have.

 

I think that's one of the points we're trying to make! It shouldn't be that big of a deal to just go back and correct small references to either correctly cite the origins of terms (whether it's from aros, aces, queer communities, academia, or wherever else) or to just focus on who currently uses and not mention anything about coining or origins at all. We don't want to anyone to stop using these terms (which were often created precisely because their founders hoped they would be useful to as many people as possible) - in fact I personally would love if many of them became even better known!

I think one of the things that can make it hard (and which coyote mentions directly in the original post) is that I think there can be a sort of instinctive fear response, esp. for people who constantly hear lines of thought from other sources (*cough* especially tumblr and everything influenced by it *cough*) that coining a term => owning that term forever => being able to tell everyone else not to use it - and who then assume that acknowledging that someone else coined the term, means that someone else will control it, and that someone else will tell them they can never again use it. I want to make it very clear that we don't want to imply any of those things - we're not out to police who can use the term, or what communities it can be associated with. We just want people to try not to spread incorrect information.

As far as specific calls to action, here are my more specific suggestions:

First, in your own writing: If you choose to talk about where a term was coined or where it originated from, do a little research to double-check where it actually came from. If possible, look for citations and check actual primary sources when possible

• @Coyote has already put together a history (with all important links to original sources!) of queerplatonic and some related terms that are also popular in aro communities. Taking 15 minutes to familiarize yourself with this information now will help you have it at the ready when you need it (and a lot of it is also a fun romp through a lot of aromantic community and adjacent histories)
• If you aren't sure where it came from, or don't want to get into the complicated intertwined history of aro and ace communities, just don't mention any of it!
  • Instead, consider phrases like "x phrase is popular with aro communities" or  "aro communities talk a lot about the concept of y" etc. as a way to emphasize the importance and connection of the term to aro communities without having to make any ahistorical claims
  • Also, while not strictly as outright incorrect, I would still recommend avoiding phrasing like "x is an aro community term" or "y is an ace community term" if you can, as it can carry problematic implications of ownership among terms that were often invented specifically to be shared, that can easily be avoided by using alternative phrasing like I suggested above. While it can sometimes be harmless, it's fraught enough that I'd still personally go with other ways of phrasing things (especially since it's such an easy small change)

Second, I would take time to educate yourself about the histories of queerplatonic and some related terms if possible, so that you can recognize misinformation when you see it and not get fooled or confused.

Thirdly, it would help even more to try and gently correct misinformation when you run across it in the wild, and to share links to more accurate citations or suggest alternative phrasing. 

[sennkestra]

10 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Speaking especially as someone who has very deep, personal experience with the ways the ace community (especially allo aces) has hurt aros, to me... It just feels kind of like a repeat of that. To storm in here saying, "The aro community is doing A Bad, and you need to stop!!" without acknowledging why this is happening, without saying "I understand your hurt and I hear you," without saying "Here's what you can do to help," without giving any sort of positive end at all... It just feels like finger-pointing. Oh, how shameful the aro community is, once again committing sins against our great ancestors. How terrible. Thanks? And..?

 

@Jot-Aro Kujo have you had a chance to read the original essay that was linked in the beginning of this thread? It specifically sets aside space to talk about some of the reasons that this might be happening, and to acknowledge that a big driving factor behind some of these conflicts are the mutual hurts between various parts of ace and aro communities. This is just one segment:

 

Quote

 

A lot of aros have been hurt by amatonormativity in the ace community. In the context of this hurt, they are looking for affirmation of their identities and experiences as legitimate, valuable, and important. They want to hear more aces say “Amatonormativity in the ace community is not okay.” They want to hear more aces say, “The ace community has sometimes failed aros, hurt aros, overlooked aros, spurned aros.” They want to hear more aces say, “Aros deserve better.”

 

And you know what? All of those things are true.

 

This is the implicit yearning underlying QPR revisionism.

 

So I am making this post in order to point out this one very important thing:

By practicing QPR revisionism, people are not actually addressing what they’re trying to address. And I am not just railing against “the ends justifies the means” here — I’m saying “these ends are important enough that people should try using more effective means.” Instead of fixing the ace community, the actual effect this has is that that now, some aces associate aro advocacy with speaking over others about their own life experiences, denying aces our own history, and objectifying other people as a means to an ends. This does not serve the actual goal.

 

And that actual goal is important. I want to see & contribute to progress on that goal.

 

 

If you (or others in the thread) haven't had a chance to sit down and read the whole linked post, I think that might help to understand where this is coming from - the brief summary in the original posts was obviously incomplete because, well, it's a summary, and it's hard to condense ideas into a couple sentences without leaving a lot of important things out. I think the hope was that people would actually read the original post, with it's more nuanced discussion, and additional context (and perhaps even prompt people to engage with the other community discussions already happening there, in order to promote more cross-community discussion).
 

I agree that more specific calls to action might have made things clearer, but I think that one of the hopes of opening additional conversation here was that we might also be able to brainstorm and crowdsource additional suggestions for ways to help - because as was mentioned upthread, while just making factual suggestions is a start, it isn't always effective when individual corrections are often just ignored or responded to with hostility - which is why we want to start figuring out if there are additional steps that we, as a community, can take in order to help prevent the spread of misninformation (or even to proactively spread accurate information).

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

6 minutes ago, sennkestra said:

 

@Jot-Aro Kujo have you had a chance to read the original essay that was linked in the beginning of this thread? It specifically sets aside space to talk about some of the reasons that this might be happening, and to acknowledge that a big driving factor behind some of these conflicts are the mutual hurts between various parts of ace and aro communities.

 

 

I have, yes, but the post and the thread come across very differently. The post is fine; The thread feels like an inflammatory attempt to shame the community and to call out users from a completely different platform. That's not cool.

[Mark]

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

I mean, I'm glad that I learn the term was created by aces people because learn in new thing is cool, and because I get now it refers to platonism  (I think platonic relationship were supposed to be not sexual?)

That's certainly its dictionary definition and colloquial English usage.
Does anyone know when it started to be used to mean "not romantic" and "not romantic, but possibly, sexual".
 

1 hour ago, LauraG said:

Well, QPRs being coined by aces shouldn't be taken to mean that they need to be non-sexual. In one of the early posts introducing the term (dated 2011), s. e. smith says "The key feature is the idea of being deeply connected to someone, without a romantic element (though a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual)."

At that time there was no "aro community". Possibly it even predates any "aro ace community".
Thus I think the "...can be sexual" bit is aimed at "sex positive" aces rather than allo aros.

 

1 hour ago, LauraG said:

What the word "platonic" actually means widely varies from person to person in the aro and ace communities, and also outside of them. Not all usages of it are intended to mean "non-sexual." (Which yes, is very confusing.)

It has a narrow enough definition to appear in dictionaries as either "non sexual" or "non physical". (The latter including the former.)
Slang or jargon uses or words are often confusing, especially outside of the context they were coined. Doing this so as to make a word its own antonym is likely to be really messy.
There's no actual reason for the aro community to use the same jargon as the ace community.

[LauraG]

45 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

The thread feels like an inflammatory attempt to shame the community and to call out users from a completely different platform.

 

Can you elaborate on why it feels like that to you? I'm personally not reading that from Coy's initial post that started the thread. And in the rest of the thread, it seems to me like Coy is responding fairly calmly to some confrontational responses to the original post.

 

I realize that different people read things differently though, so I want to understand where you're coming from here.

[sennkestra]

43 minutes ago, Mark said:

That's certainly its dictionary definition and colloquial English usage.
Does anyone know when it started to be used to mean "not romantic" and "not romantic, but possibly, sexual".

 

The sense of "non-romantic" has been around since long before the internet; the ways that society tends to conflate both romance and sex mean that platonic often gets use to mean lack of sex, lack of romance, or lack of both somewhat ambiguously and interchangeably. As far as the use of not romantic, but possibly sexual, I'm not sure. I see it so rarely that I've never really looked into it.  You can see examples of that ambiguity in definitions like these. (also, since queerplatonic is a seperate word that usually requires being given a definition anyway, I don't see it as an urgent problem) 

 

Quote

At that time there was no "aro community". Possibly it even predates any "aro ace community".

 

Actually, both aroace and more general aro communities both predate that post! For specifically aroace communities, the aromantic thread on AVEN and the Aromantic-Asexuals community on forum-motion were created in 2010, a year before that post was made. And in bigger news for the wider community that year, the National Coalition for Aromantic Visbility was also launched that year, with a focus on providing space for all aromantic people, not just ace ones. Aro communities on other platforms like tumblr, livejournal, facebook, etc. were also getting their start by mid-2011. These formal networks were also outgrowths of more informal communities and social circles that were a bit older than that even.

Also, while there's no reason that the aro community (or any specific people in it) need to use terminology that other communities like ace communities or queer communities use, sometimes it's nice for those of us who don't mind sharing to not have to reinvent the wheel  

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

24 minutes ago, LauraG said:

 

Can you elaborate on why it feels like that to you? I'm personally not reading that from Coy's initial post that started the thread. And in the rest of the thread, it seems to me like Coy is responding fairly calmly to some confrontational responses to the original post.

 

I realize that different people read things differently though, so I want to understand where you're coming from here.

 

Like I said, there's a lack of anything positive to be brought out of that first post. Far too many times I have seen accusatory statements along the lines of "The aro community is bad because they don't constantly acknowledge that everything they have came from the ace community!!!!", and this feels very similar, because the thread itself initially lacked acknowledgement of why these things are happening, nor any sort of "Here's what you can do to help". It was just a statement, "The aro community is doing bad things". I'm tired of such accusations. The aro community is bad, bad, bad, we need to apologize for saying words, we need to apologize for having feelings, we are so bad for doing things. I'm sure it comes across very differently to aroaces, but to those of us who have been constantly shut down and pushed away from our own community, it's a very familiar rhetoric- Pointing fingers at the aro community for not giving constant credit to the ace community. It's hurtful and it's exhausting and seeing this thread, even having read the full Tumblr post, just feels like a repeat of that.

 

Furthermore, the mention of specific posts and their number of notes does feel a little unnecessarily bitter- There could be any number of reasons why one post might have more notes than another. Maybe the blog has more followers, maybe it got reblogged by a popular blog, maybe it was phrased in a way that's easier for people to parse than a full essay. Just because one post isn't as popular as the OP wants it to be doesn't necessarily mean the aro community has a specific agenda; This, combined with the mentioning of specific Tumblr users and especially their words being taken out of context, makes it feel like a bitter accusation towards members of the Tumblr aro community specifically, without any real attempt to address the context behind their words- It's just "This person on Tumblr made a bad post! I'm gonna show that bad post to everyone on Arocalypse so they know how bad it is!"

 

If I were to reframe the issue in a less accusatory light, I might say something along the lines of "Hey, I've noticed the aro community has an issue with misinformation regarding QPRs. I see this go around a lot on Tumblr. I think this is probably happening for xyz reason, and I understand that completely, but this is still bad because blahblah. I think it would be really good if we could work together to prevent this from spreading further. You can help by doing yadda yadda. Here's a post with more information on this topic," etc.

[nonmerci]

Excuse me @Jot-Aro Kujo, but are you sure you are not interpretating Coyote's posts because it resonates with previous bad experiences you are? I agree that the first post sounds like "aro are doing bad things by spreading misinformation", but I don't see anything saying that ace community is better than aros, that we should be eternally thankful, that we should apologie for using their words or whatever. I think we all do that : associated ideas to one posts even if they didn't say it, because it shares similarity with other things it says.

 

However I do agree that just pointing that something wrong happen without looking for solution isn't useful at all.

[LauraG]

24 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Far too many times I have seen accusatory statements along the lines of "The aro community is bad because they don't constantly acknowledge that everything they have came from the ace community!!!!", and this feels very similar

 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know I've felt skeptical before of posts that sounded similar to things that have hurt me in the past, and it makes sense that you felt that way when you saw this thread.

 

27 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

because the thread itself initially lacked acknowledgement of why these things are happening

 

I think this is what I'm confused about? The point of the first post was to share the link to the blog post, of which the whole point was acknowledging why these things are happening. And the paragraph length summary started with: "A common problem in the ace community is that people don't give enough attention to the aro spectrum as an independent entity. In the process of pointing this out..." Which, yes, isn't particularly specific, but it is a summary. Perhaps you misread that sentence? Or is there something else I'm not seeing?

 

32 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

nor any sort of "Here's what you can do to help"

 

Yeah, that's true. I can see how not having that might make it feel like the post was existing to point blame rather than fixing the problem.

 

34 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Furthermore, the mention of specific posts and their number of notes does feel a little unnecessarily bitter- There could be any number of reasons why one post might have more notes than another.

 

@Coyote can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was included to point out that the misinformation was spreading faster than the corrections. And that's par the course for Tumblr. In my eyes, that's all the more reason to try to spread the corrections in some other way.

 

39 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

This, combined with the mentioning of specific Tumblr users and especially their words being taken out of context, makes it feel like a bitter accusation towards members of the Tumblr aro community specifically, without any real attempt to address the context behind their words

 

Ah, I see. You don't feel like Coy acknowledged the why behind arokaladin's post enough - am I reading that right? Coy mentioned the reason why this was happening in the original post, but didn't mention it again when referencing the other examples of this happening in this thread, until you pointed out that ix may have been mischaracterizing arokaladin's words?

 

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

48 minutes ago, LauraG said:

Ah, I see. You don't feel like Coy acknowledged the why behind arokaladin's post enough - am I reading that right? Coy mentioned the reason why this was happening in the original post, but didn't mention it again when referencing the other examples of this happening in this thread, until you pointed out that ix may have been mischaracterizing arokaladin's words?

 

 

Honestly, it’s not really about Annest specifically. I feel that every Tumblr user mentioned in this thread has been unfairly mischaracterized and taken out of context- See, for example, the claim that aphobephobe “had a friend repost” misinformation, when in fact they never did so. Yes, that’s been resolved now, but the claim should never have happened in the first place.

And, given that this platform is not Tumblr, had there not happened to be people here who were aware of the actual context and willing to speak up, it would have been perfectly possible for everyone to assume this is true and go “Gosh, what a nasty person that aphobephobe is, spreading lies like that,” with no one being there to defend them. I do not think this kind of behavior is at all fair. 

[Coyote]

This is a lot of post to catch up on. There's... a lot going on here, so I'm just gonna try to focus on a few things, and if I skipped over anything you want me to address, just let me know.

 

 

3 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I definitely agree that misinformation is a problem. I do think that people should stop claiming QPRs were not created by aces, and I think it is good to spread awareness, especially given that a lot of people genuinely don't know any better. I also agree that "just don't mention who created QPRs if it's not relevant" is fair enough.

 

Cool.

 

3 hours ago, Mark said:

There's no actual reason for the aro community to use the same jargon as the ace community.

 

...huh? There is a reason for parts of the aro community to use terms like this, and that reason is "because individual folks want it." I'm not endorsing linguistic separatism here.

 

Of course, at the same time, nobody should be forced to use it, either. It's fine if you don't find it personally useful, Mark. It's just a matter of individual preference either way.

 

1 hour ago, LauraG said:

2 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Furthermore, the mention of specific posts and their number of notes does feel a little unnecessarily bitter- There could be any number of reasons why one post might have more notes than another.

 

@Coyote can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was included to point out that the misinformation was spreading faster than the corrections.

 

I agree with Alex that that evidence [the mention of specific posts and their number of notes] is a bad fit for that conclusion you described [the aro community has a specific agenda]. If I saw somebody arguing that, I would be like, well, no. That's going too far for that evidence to support, because there are too many other factors involved, like Alex described. For example, full text posts take root more easily than link posts, from what I've seen; that doesn't necessarily reflect anything about the content. In general there are just too many other confounding variables there like the difference in which users posted which, which users reblogged which early on, and so on.

 

All I think that evidence can actually suggest to us is "the spread of the misinformation is outpacing the spread of the corrections." Or in other words, that this remains important to address, because the misinformation still seems to have reached more people.

 

49 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Yes, that’s been resolved now, but the claim should never have happened in the first place.

 

I agree. And that's why, each time I have been corrected here, I have attempted to adhere to my own expectations/values for how people who make mistakes should handle those mistakes, once they come to understand what they are. Are there any additional steps you'd like to see?

 

*****

 

Back on the topic of the original issue:

 

Given that there are many people frustrated with the real crimes of the ace community, and given that people keep talking about a fake crime instead of just focusing on the real crimes (and even citing this fake crime as an intracommunity grievance), what are some potential solutions here?

 

A few ideas have been suggested so far, but it's kind of hard for me to keep track of who's on board with what.

 

[eatingcroutons]

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

I was referring to the link to the arokaladin post from this November, which was directly linked in the specific quote I was responding to (requoted below with original link for reference). That post is still up.

Ahh okay. Again though, I can't help you with that one, as arokaladin blocked me some time ago because I read stories about immoral things. Again, I recommend contacting them directly if you have issues with what they're saying. 

 

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

I would think the goal here is to just be aware that this is an ongoing concern, and also be educated about the causes behind it, and to start thinking about potential ways to respond for if/when it inevitable does filter out to other parts of the aro community that you are more active in.

These misunderstandings do occur in the aro communities I'm actively involved in, and in this thread I've already talked about what I've found are effective ways to respond to them. I'll definitely continue to correct misunderstandings when I see them, but to be frank, you couldn't pay me to wade back into Tumblr. 

 

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

Does anyone know if there's a best way to nominate resources for the site (or at least the periodic "what's going on" linkspams?)

I suspect the two options you've mentioned yourself (emailing them, and pinging them here) are not a bad place to start! 

 

9 hours ago, Coyote said:

I consulted with some other people earlier about wording, and someone pointed out to me that instead of "revisionism," technically, a more accurate word would be "denialism."

The massive problem with the language you're using is that both of these words imply intent. People are misinformed about the history of the term "queerplatonic". They're not, in the vast majority of cases, actively trying to suppress it. Your language comes across as accusatory and that is not conducive to building bridges or reaching solutions. 

 

3 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

This, combined with the mentioning of specific Tumblr users and especially their words being taken out of context, makes it feel like a bitter accusation towards members of the Tumblr aro community specifically, without any real attempt to address the context behind their words- It's just "This person on Tumblr made a bad post! I'm gonna show that bad post to everyone on Arocalypse so they know how bad it is!"

Mate I know we've had our differences but I am 100% with you on this. 

 

16 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Given that there are many people frustrated with the real crimes of the ace community, and given that people keep talking about a fake crime instead of just focusing on the real crimes (and even citing this fake crime as an intracommunity grievance), what are some potential solutions here?

You know if you'd stated in your OP that this was the goal of your thread, it would have saved us all a lot of wasted time and miscommunication. 

 

I would like to say though, as one of the admins of an aro community, I've just had a really fantastic experience with one of our partner communities. The partner community in question is nominally for aces and aros, but is in practice ace-dominated. There was an issue last week where some aro-exclusive things were said in a conversation - a "real crime of the ace community". I brought this up to the community admins, frankly with the sinking feeling that I'd be ignored and we'd have to end our partnership. But the admins in question took my comments deeply seriously, and are now planning a community announcement and adjustments to their rules to help ensure that aros are as welcome, in and of ourselves, as aces. 

 

That's not just a potential solution, it's a practical one that's being implemented right now. It involved honest discussions about things people found upsetting and why, and practical objectives that we hope will help make everyone feel more included. 

 

As @Jot-Aro Kujo has said, I'm not really sure what the practical objectives of this thread are.