Allo Aros

[NullVector]

Cool thread!

Reading through all this has motivated me to pull a few different people's thoughts together and offer up my own perspective.

 

On 9/1/2016 at 7:21 PM, LunarSeas said:

Yeah, I didn't even know romantic orientations were considered a thing until I made some asexual/graysexual friends through my online spiritual communities. Being heterosexual also gives me a huge feeling of "outsider" to the lgbtq community, not just because there are actual people within that community that deny I exist, but, well, I've considered myself "straight" my whole life. So my context for this is really different from others I've read. 

I've always had lgbtq friends, so I being part of the community would seem natural for me, but the aro hate I've seen.....it makes me nervous to go on and ID as any kind of queer - though in the plainest sense of the word, I am. 

 

If I want to have any sexual or sensual contact in the future, and I do, I'll have to talk to whoever I want that with. This will need to come up. And while I know there are some guys who are truly ok with "casual sex" (not just say they are), I also want to be treated with respect, not like a slut. And that's exceedingly rare. 

 

On 9/4/2016 at 4:39 PM, cute kitty Meow! Mewo! said:

I guess, for me I want a platonic companion who lives with me, more like a partner than a friend. but, for others, someone who is kind of, important as a long-term friend, but who lives apart. A companion/partner/qpr who, well, they have sex together, and probably spend time together as friends too, but they aren't "really" partners. and I'm sure there are many other ways to establish long-term trusting sexual relationships without it being so dedicated on the partnership end of the bargain. 

 

On 10/29/2016 at 11:52 PM, Cassiopeia said:

Coming out as alloaro is hard, because people have some very negative stereotypes. Talking about the kind of relationships we (would like to) have is also hard, because of the same stereotypes.

 

Male heterosexual & suspected aro-spec-something-or-other here! I think the negative stereotypes @Cassiopeia mentioned re. the types of relationships @LunarSeas and @cute kitty Meow! Mewo! mention above are very real.

 

I'm thinking recently that maybe what I'd find desirable is some form of sexual-close-friendship type of relationship (friendship++ if you like), but one where the sex is seen as an expression of the friendship (rather then the 'friendship' being seen as secondary to the sex, or as a kind of 'ruse' to get it - which is a negative stereotype often applied to heterosexual men, perhaps). And I'd want us to have established trust and some level of deeper emotional intimacy beforehand. But I wouldn't want all the assumptions of a 'package deal' that go along with any longer term sexual relationship (i.e. one where you actually feel strong bonds of companionship with the other person and care about their happiness, as opposed to something more 'disposable'). Assumptions like (as others have mentioned): if we're having sex then we should also be living together. If we're living together, we should also be sharing a bedroom together. Etc. (as in: why should the person you're living with, sleeping with, best friends with, raising kids with, etc, all have to be the same person? Isn't that a lot to expect from just one relationship? If it works for you, then great, but surely there should be other options as well...)

 

It strikes me that the paragraph above is basically invisible as a choice for a relationship archetype within this society. I hadn't occurred to me until recently (reading stuff on here, etc.) that it was even an option to choose a relationship along the lines I've just outlined. Probably why I've subconsciously avoided pursuing relationships to a very large extent! This 'amatonormativity' thing makes it essentially all-or-nothing - you either get to choose the entire 'package deal' of absolutely everything with one person (sex, your closest friendship, co-habitation, childrearing, etc.) or, in the case where you want the sex, but not necessarily one or more of the other things with the one person, you can choose sex where the other person and the relationship surrounding the sex is seen as largely disposable and/or unimportant to you. If you're female and choose the latter option you'll be stereotyped as a "slut" and, if you're male, as a "player" (eww! as a hetero guy I would not see this as at all complimentary, it would actually make me very uncomfortable!). And in both cases you'll be seen as "immature".

 

How to ask for what I think I actually want, in a social context where it is largely invisible and there seem to be few if any positive role models to emulate, feels like a fucking minefield right now. One I have little idea how to even begin navigating  

[Ettina]

On 10/31/2016 at 11:01 AM, Cassiopeia said:

 

I know. It was a reply to @Saaaro's rant about aro aces not fully understanding the alloaro perspective.

What I was trying to say is that just because someone is part of this or that  part of the alphabet soup demographic, it does not necessarily give them an insight to the perspectives and struggles of some other parts of the community. To them, asexuality and aromanticism probably is quite hard to separate. If you have no sexual or romantic attraction, you have no way of telling what goes into what category-the same way romantic sexuals quite often can't apply the split attraction model to themselves.

And being lgbtq+ does not give you an automatic cleansing from amatonormativity and/or other stereotypes, so people may have said something upsetting as well without even knowing. You have to unlearn that type of bs, but there isn't many of us to actually point it out...

 

Very true for me. For a long time I didn't believe that romantic orientations existed, and chalked up my aromanticism to my asexuality.

On 10/31/2016 at 11:01 AM, Cassiopeia said:

 

I know. It was a reply to @Saaaro's rant about aro aces not fully understanding the alloaro perspective.

What I was trying to say is that just because someone is part of this or that  part of the alphabet soup demographic, it does not necessarily give them an insight to the perspectives and struggles of some other parts of the community. To them, asexuality and aromanticism probably is quite hard to separate. If you have no sexual or romantic attraction, you have no way of telling what goes into what category-the same way romantic sexuals quite often can't apply the split attraction model to themselves.

And being lgbtq+ does not give you an automatic cleansing from amatonormativity and/or other stereotypes, so people may have said something upsetting as well without even knowing. You have to unlearn that type of bs, but there isn't many of us to actually point it out...

 

Very true for me. For a long time I didn't believe that romantic orientations existed, and chalked up my aromanticism to my asexuality.

On 10/31/2016 at 11:01 AM, Cassiopeia said:

 

I know. It was a reply to @Saaaro's rant about aro aces not fully understanding the alloaro perspective.

What I was trying to say is that just because someone is part of this or that  part of the alphabet soup demographic, it does not necessarily give them an insight to the perspectives and struggles of some other parts of the community. To them, asexuality and aromanticism probably is quite hard to separate. If you have no sexual or romantic attraction, you have no way of telling what goes into what category-the same way romantic sexuals quite often can't apply the split attraction model to themselves.

And being lgbtq+ does not give you an automatic cleansing from amatonormativity and/or other stereotypes, so people may have said something upsetting as well without even knowing. You have to unlearn that type of bs, but there isn't many of us to actually point it out...

 

Very true for me. For a long time I didn't believe that romantic orientations existed, and chalked up my aromanticism to my asexuality.

[Inez]

After being in a relationship of 13 years (and three kids) I just found out my partner is aromantic. All pieces came together when I finally discovered what an aromantic is. All along, my aromantic partner has felt sexually attracted to me but he was never in love. It's quite devastating although I always felt we were some kind of housemates with benefits. He's aware of my discovery and getting more interested in the topic as he's seeing himself in all the definitions. Anyone experienced with this sort of situations?  Thanks for your help.

[NullVector]

1 hour ago, Inez said:

Anyone experienced with this sort of situations?

No, sorry. But I wanted to pick up on this:

 

1 hour ago, Inez said:

It's quite devastating

Why? If you've realised that your partner experiences their emotions based around attraction somewhat differently to you and recently encountered a label that captures some aspects of that difference, then why should that discovery be "devastating"? I don't know the details of your relationship, but I presume that it's functional on some level if you've remained partners for 13 years and raised 3 kids together? If people with quite different inner worlds are able to do that kind of interpersonal bridging then personally I think it's neat. Why should finding a word that captures some aspects of how his inner world differs from yours now challenge or threaten what you've built together? Him being aromantic (if he is) IMO certainly shouldn't be taken by you to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him. It might be that his experience of its meaning would be different to yours. But I would expect that to be true of any relationship and more a cause for celebration (that we can relate to each other despite our differences) than concern.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

19 minutes ago, NullVector said:

No, sorry. But I wanted to pick up on this:

 

Why? If you've realised that your partner experiences their emotions based around attraction somewhat differently to you and recently encountered a label that captures some aspects of that difference, then why should that discovery be "devastating"? I don't know the details of your relationship, but I presume that it's functional on some level if you've remained partners for 13 years and raised 3 kids together? If people with quite different inner worlds are able to do that kind of interpersonal bridging then personally I think it's neat. Why should finding a word that captures some aspects of how his inner world differs from yours now challenge or threaten what you've built together? Him being aromantic (if he is) IMO certainly shouldn't be taken by you to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him. It might be that his experience of its meaning would be different to yours. But I would expect that to be true of any relationship and more a cause for celebration (that we can relate to each other despite our differences) than concern.

 

I agree. To act as if the relationship means nothing is to dismiss 13 years of him including you in his life. I understand it may be disappointing to learn that he doesn't experience the same type of attraction towards you as you do to him, but why should that make it less important? Do you seriously believe someone would stay married and put in the time, energy, money, and effort to raise three kids with someone they only care about exclusively for sex? Get real.

You know your relationship. If there wasn't a huge problem with your marriage before, why would there be now? To act as if your partner never "really" loved you just because he's aromantic is extremely disrespectful to him, it's disrespectful to you as the person he clearly cares about, it's disrespectful to your children who grew into the people they are as a product of the love between you two, and it's disrespectful to all aromantics.

Now, are you going to let a long-standing partnership fall apart because you're too narrow-minded to see anything in your partner beyond harmful stereotypes regarding his orientation, or are you going to demonstrate to him that you love and support him in his self-discovery?

 

Oh, and frankly, I'd be pretty devastated if I found out that my partner of 13 years thinks I don't care about them based on what label I choose to put on the relationship rather than my actual actions, so you better hope he doesn't read this forum, or you better be prepared to offer him a hell of an apology.

[nonmerci]

I get that it is complicated to discover that someone doesn't love you the way you do. But the fact that this love is different doesn't mean it is less strong.

Your relationship seemed to work the way it was, or you won't have stayed 13 yeas together.

The thing you have to do now is discuss with him about how this will affect your relationship and what you both want from it. But keep in mind that the fact he doesn't love you romantically doesn't mean you can build project together or love each other. You have to think about what makes the relationship work for so long, focus on it, and decide if it is worth is or not.

 

 

[Inez]

On 10/5/2019 at 6:00 PM, NullVector said:

No, sorry. But I wanted to pick up on this:

 

Why? If you've realised that your partner experiences their emotions based around attraction somewhat differently to you and recently encountered a label that captures some aspects of that difference, then why should that discovery be "devastating"? I don't know the details of your relationship, but I presume that it's functional on some level if you've remained partners for 13 years and raised 3 kids together? If people with quite different inner worlds are able to do that kind of interpersonal bridging then personally I think it's neat. Why should finding a word that captures some aspects of how his inner world differs from yours now challenge or threaten what you've built together? Him being aromantic (if he is) IMO certainly shouldn't be taken by you to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him. It might be that his experience of its meaning would be different to yours. But I would expect that to be true of any relationship and more a cause for celebration (that we can relate to each other despite our differences) than concern.

 

I'm very grateful for all your comments. You have helped me a lot on turning the picture around and seeing the other side of the story. I do hope the fact that we discovered aromanticism can bring a new insight into our relationship. We respect each other enormously, have a similar perspective on a lot of things, including the upbringing of our children.

 

Yes, we've been together for 13 years but it hasn't been easy. I always felt incomplete and not loved as a woman/wife/partner. It's hard to find out what's going on when your partner thinks we have the perfect relationship and doesn't engage on any self-assessment or investigation on what could be wrong. I fell into a depression, was on therapy for about a year, we did couple therapy, I put my career on second place because I wanted to save our family. He now acknowledges that he faked romantic situations but in his heart he believes the whole world does it (some better than others). I now have the feeling that my partner loves me like you would love an old college good friend. He's aware of the impact of knowing about aromanticism has had on me (I finally have found the key!) and he's reacting in a romantic way which I find weird. He's texting me more often, sends hearts, kisses me more that he would before. But he's not really interested in diving into the topic although he recognizes himself in the term.

 

I realize this might not be the group to post my comments. Sorry for that. If any more experienced community member has a suggestion for another discussion, I'm very appreciated.

[eatingcroutons]

On 10/5/2019 at 3:38 PM, Inez said:

All along, my aromantic partner has felt sexually attracted to me but he was never in love. It's quite devastating although I always felt we were some kind of housemates with benefits.

I'm really sorry. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to find out that you haven't actually been loved in the way you thought you were loved, for so many years. I think it's a completely understandable emotional reaction to feel devastated by that.

 

I'm also frankly pretty disappointed by the replies from @NullVector and @Jot-Aro Kujo here. It's pretty tone deaf to tell someone who's obviously hurting that they should be celebrating instead of feeling the way they do. Nothing @Inez said came close to implying she thinks her relationship "never meant anything"; the very fact that she cares enough to come and seek advice about understanding aromanticism, and working through this situation with her husband, shows that she does value their relationship.

 

Does it seem irrational to me, as an aromantic person, to be bothered by whether someone loves me romantically or platonically? Sure. But that's because romantic attraction doesn't matter to me. It clearly does to @Inez , and simply telling her it shouldn't isn't helpful. Emotions aren't rational. Calling someone "narrow-minded" for seeking help with a completely understandable emotional reaction is significantly less than helpful.

 

On 10/7/2019 at 9:44 AM, Inez said:

Yes, we've been together for 13 years but it hasn't been easy. I always felt incomplete and not loved as a woman/wife/partner. It's hard to find out what's going on when your partner thinks we have the perfect relationship and doesn't engage on any self-assessment or investigation on what could be wrong. I fell into a depression, was on therapy for about a year, we did couple therapy, I put my career on second place because I wanted to save our family.

Again, I'm sorry that this has caused so much difficulty in your relationship, and that it's taken so long to figure out the cause of the disconnect between how you and your husband have experienced your marriage. It sounds like you've done a fantastic job at trying to make things work as well as you can, and hopefully now that you have the context and language to discuss what the disconnect between the two of you is, you can work on better understanding how you relate to each other.

 

I think it's a great sign that your husband has started "reacting in a romantic way" by sending hearts and kisses - it sounds like he's willing to put in the effort to meet you halfway on this. It might be worth trying to figure out what specific aspects of romance would help you to feel more fulfilled in your relationship, and then have a talk with your husband about where the two of you might be able to compromise on those.

 

That said, it sounds like the biggest difficulty for you is that you have a need to feel romantically loved. And that could be a tricky one to work out, because it also sounds like that's not something your husband is able to give you. But the fact that he isn't in love with you doesn't mean he doesn't love you deeply. Think about the love you have for your children: you're not in love with them, but I'm sure the love you have for them is still incredibly powerful and important. Maybe talking to your husband about ways that he can express his genuine love for you - even if that love is more like the love of an old friend than romantic love - might help to fulfil your needs?

[NullVector]

59 minutes ago, eatingcroutons said:

I'm also frankly pretty disappointed by the replies from @NullVector and @Jot-Aro Kujo here. It's pretty tone deaf to tell someone who's obviously hurting that they should be celebrating instead of feeling the way they do. Nothing @Inez said came close to implying she thinks her relationship "never meant anything"; the very fact that she cares enough to come and seek advice about understanding aromanticism, and working through this situation with her husband, shows that she does value their relationship

I think you're right. I should have taken more time and care with my reply.

 

That part about not taking aromanticism to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him in particular. I wasn't meaning to imply that I thought @Inez saw things in those terms. Just that someone might think something like that in a similar context; whereas the meaning for aromantic people could be felt as different but not lesser to the meaning for romantic people. But I think it was clumsily worded.

 

Sorry @Inez 

[Inez]

@eatingcroutons Thank you so much for your reaction and for coming into my defense. You totally understood my primary reactions to this new fact in my life and my purpose in joining this community. ? From the initial shock (yes, romantic love means a lot to me), I now want to get to know my partner better in his essence and be able to help us achieve a more transparent and honest relationship. I'm sure we'll both be happier. 

 

I joined the community to get straightforward advice, criticism and some enlightenment on how to move forward in creating new meaning in our relationship. The comments I have so far in this thread ( @NullVector, @Jot-Aro Kujo @nonmerci ) and in my introduction ( @Cristal Gris ) have helped me align thoughts and ideas. And I'm also grateful to them.

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

@eatingcroutons is right to some degree, I will admit I made too many assumptions about the relationship, and in that regard I was at least a bit too harsh. I definitely don't agree with everything you've said, Crou (which I won't go into detail on because it's not relevant, god knows this forum has enough of an issue of people going off on nitpicky tangents already, we don't have to agree on everything and that's fine), but I will admit that I should have been more... Thoughtful. Oof. Sorry!

That being said, I'm glad I was able to provide some useful perspective... I think? Good luck.

[Uxhio]

Lately, I'm more and more convinced that I'm alloaro. I never understood romantic love, like... never. I know you can't 'understand' emotions,but for me, sexual attraction was correlated with affection, but not ROMANTIC affection. I'm fed up of some people calling us ''heartless monsters'', ''players'','' cowards that are scared of commitment''. Because, people that knows me are very conscious that I'm one of the most loyal people over here. I'm always down for communication and listen to people,just not romantic feelings. 

All this time I tried to 'fit it', to feel comfortable around romanticism. This made me feel miserable. From now on I'm accepting that probably I won't be able to feel that wonderful romanticism (that solves depression, apparently) that everybody is selling around me. And there is nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong with wanting to be free? To not belong to someone? To feel complete by yourself? 

If I have you in my life it's because I want you, not because I need you.

But I really don't get the term ''friends with benefits'', because it looks like I'm treating people as sexual objects, which is not the case. I really care for people with all my heart, thinking about them makes me happy, I'm there when they are bad and vice versa... And sexual desire towards some of them. Just not romantic feelings.

A lot of people calls me horny. I'm like:''yeah,like every other allo''. I don't get why it becomes automatically a bad/unnatural (loser) thing when it doesn't include romanticism. Apparently, you need to feel comfortable having sex ONLY around totally strangers or a love partner. Anything else makes you a horrible, manipulative and predatory person (again, communication is the key), even when you aren't hurting anyone (if it's consensual) and it's an attraction you can't control. I tried to denied it for years, I tried to convince myself that what I was feeling must had been romantic just because I felt sexual attraction, and I only got self hatred and guilt instead of happiness.

It's specially hard when you are bisexual, because the LGBT+ community could accuse you of perpetuating the media stereotype of ''disloyal horny bisexual''. I'm not a good representation for the community, so I don't exist for them. At this point I just wanna live my life and find someone with a similar mindset.

[NullVector]

18 hours ago, Uxhio said:

It's specially hard when you are bisexual, because the LGBT+ community could accuse you of perpetuating the media stereotype of ''disloyal horny bisexual''. I'm not a good representation for the community, so I don't exist for them.

 

Just wanted to respond in solidarity that if this kind of labelling as "bad representation" happens to you (or anyone else) then I think it's super messed up . The idea of an LGBT+ community actually shaming people just for how they experience attraction, instead of supporting them, strikes me as so blatantly contrary to everything that movement is meant to stand for (i.e. supporting and empowering people who experience attraction and/or want to practice consensual adult relationships differently to the mainstream).

[Uxhio]

On 12/4/2019 at 12:25 AM, NullVector said:

 

Just wanted to respond in solidarity that if this kind of labelling as "bad representation" happens to you (or anyone else) then I think it's super messed up . The idea of an LGBT+ community actually shaming people just for how they experience attraction, instead of supporting them, strikes me as so blatantly contrary to everything that movement is meant to stand for (i.e. supporting and empowering people who experience attraction and/or want to practice consensual adult relationships differently to the mainstream).

Thanks, I know (sorry, I am late because I forgot about my password and the account, I don't tend to visit this forum so often). You would get surprised how many times I saw this, even people wanting to ''drop the b'' in our community, because ''we aren't gay enough, we are fakers''.

But I found some people with similar non heteronormative points of view and now I'm more comfortable. Each day I'm more and more convinced I'm aro. I kinda confessed it to one of my friends (others are hopelessly romantic and it would be like explaining barks to a cat).

They were like ''But weren't you bisexual?''

The sad part was that they were aroace, I thought they would be more comprehensive of this, but they assumed than my chronic anxiety and traumas could be cured if I got a romantic partner ''because friends of them found mental peace with a partner''. A romantic partner, that thing that I don't get and I feel repulsed to? Like I wasn't enough on my own.

I need a therapist and sometimes someone that actually listens. Only partners do that? I thought emotional intimacy comes from friendship and family too.

How to explain to people that sexual attraction and romantic attraction aren't the same and they don't have to correlate? 

I know what I need emotionally, but it's too niche and explain it to people is a burden. Mostly of them would stare in disgust so it's easier to say I'm bisexual without explaining love.

[Mark]

1 hour ago, Uxhio said:

The sad part was that they were aroace, I thought they would be more comprehensive of this, but they assumed than my chronic anxiety and traumas could be cured if I got a romantic partner ''because friends of them found mental peace with a partner''. A romantic partner, that thing that I don't get and I feel repulsed to? Like I wasn't enough on my own.

I need a therapist and sometimes someone that actually listens. Only partners do that? I thought emotional intimacy comes from friendship and family too.

Quoting Brake on amatonormativity

Quote

The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships. I call this disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal, ‘amatonormativity’: This consists in the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists, quirkyalones, polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted. Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility.

The first sentence easily explains what you are experiencing.

[LBMango]

1 hour ago, Uxhio said:

I need a therapist and sometimes someone that actually listens. Only partners do that? I thought emotional intimacy comes from friendship and family too.

How to explain to people that sexual attraction and romantic attraction aren't the same and they don't have to correlate? 

I know what I need emotionally, but it's too niche and explain it to people is a burden. Mostly of them would stare in disgust so it's easier to say I'm bisexual without explaining love.

 

I believe that everyone should have a therapist... In the US, at least many cannot afford one, which is really a problem... but therapy can be really helpful.

[WrenIsNotMyRealName!!]

Personally, I feel like "allosexual" is a completely redundant umbrella term. From my understanding, allo is everything but asexuals. Which seems dumb to me. Why have a term for that. It's so freaking pointless and 8s just people who aren't ace wanting to feel included or whatever. Like cis heteros wanting their own pride parades. I was yelled at once because not using allo is discriminatory and making their experiences fake or whatever but using allo is singling aces out entirely and that is highly discriminatory.

[sennkestra]

50 minutes ago, WrenIsNotMyRealName!! said:

Personally, I feel like "allosexual" is a completely redundant umbrella term. From my understanding, allo is everything but asexuals. Which seems dumb to me. Why have a term for that. It's so freaking pointless and 8s just people who aren't ace wanting to feel included or whatever. Like cis heteros wanting their own pride parades. I was yelled at once because not using allo is discriminatory and making their experiences fake or whatever but using allo is singling aces out entirely and that is highly discriminatory.

 

Ace chiming in just to say that FWIW, allosexual was originally created by ace people as a way to talk about the differences in experience between asexual people and other orientations like gay, straight, bi, poly, etc.....but just saying "asexuals may.....while allosexuals may not...." is much faster than listing everything out, and doesn't have the same problematic connotations as calling some people "sexuals" (previously a common but contentious term), which is a very loaded word in many ways.

It's coining has the same general motivations as the term "cisgender", in that these words are ways to talk about asexual/trans experiences without assuming that being allosexual/cisgender is a normal, unmarked default that need not be acknowledged, and that only weird asexual or trans people needed to put in the work to explain or label themselves. It was popularized exactly because it did not single out aces the way that only having asexuals label themselves did.

That's not to say I don't have my own gripes (it's kinda jargony and not as useful for 101s so it's not going to be the best term for all purposes, and sometimes it's used in some contexts it would be more helpful to break out various types of queer and straight experiences, etc.) but the existence of the word is not the cause of those problems. So from that perspective, we're glad to see that allo people are also starting to use it, and not just ace people! 

[hemogoblin]

1 hour ago, WrenIsNotMyRealName!! said:

Personally, I feel like "allosexual" is a completely redundant umbrella term. From my understanding, allo is everything but asexuals. Which seems d*mb to me. Why have a term for that. It's so freaking pointless and 8s just people who aren't ace wanting to feel included or whatever. Like cis heteros wanting their own pride parades. I was yelled at once because not using allo is discriminatory and making their experiences fake or whatever but using allo is singling aces out entirely and that is highly discriminatory.

 

Hm, interesting umbrella terms you used later in your post (cis in particular). Do you have the same concerns about those terms? Asexual is actually considered an umbrella term itself because it encompasses many different ways to be asexual. What makes allosexual redundant but asexual fine?

 

Just like some cis people don't like the term cis because it normalizes instead of Others trans people, some alloro allosexual people also don't like the term allo because it normalizes instead of Others asexuality and aromanticism. AFAIK, 'popularization' (though not specific coinage) of allo definitely originated in aspec spaces for ease of use (and to have something better than the crude "sexuals" that was sometimes used before).

 

I've hesitated to start using allo myself, but for completely different reasons - because I was exposed to the early discourse about the roots of allosexual. I've never quite felt satisfied over the resolution of that discussion (which... there wasn't really? it's just the term that caught on and stayed on), but the fact that allo aros have normalized using the term for themselves has made me keep rethinking things. It seems like at this point the root of the term isn't even a part of the discussion anymore and so possibly a moot point? Like any other term that's had multiple uses that have evolved throughout history (I still remember how offended people were over the definition of literally being updated to include the hyperbolic usage - language/change seems to be a sticky point for many of us).

[nonmerci]

Having a word for meaning "not asexual" is just normal to me and very useful. It is useful when we talk about split attraction, or just when we talk about people who are not asexual. It would be difficult to talk about how our experiences different without a word for it... and just describe them as "not asexual" doesn't feel right : I hate to describe things by the negative, for me it is just showing we lack a word in our language.

And if the word were created and is still used, it is because it is useful.

[Sufletromanesc]

On 10/31/2016 at 5:01 PM, Cassiopeia said:

 

I know. It was a reply to @Saaaro's rant about aro aces not fully understanding the alloaro perspective.

What I was trying to say is that just because someone is part of this or that  part of the alphabet soup demographic, it does not necessarily give them an insight to the perspectives and struggles of some other parts of the community. To them, asexuality and aromanticism probably is quite hard to separate. If you have no sexual or romantic attraction, you have no way of telling what goes into what category-the same way romantic sexuals quite often can't apply the split attraction model to themselves.

And being lgbtq+ does not give you an automatic cleansing from amatonormativity and/or other stereotypes, so people may have said something upsetting as well without even knowing. You have to unlearn that type of bs, but there isn't many of us to actually point it out...

I'm another alloaro.

 

I think this is why the aro community need to grow further so our existence can educate those in the heteronormative, LGBT and ace communities.

 

I am convinced there are far many more Aro spec people out there but as romantic orientation is harder to decipher in many ways I'm convinced many "unaware arospecs" dont yet possess the vocabulary or understanding to even be introspective to recognise aro spec orientation in themselves. 

 

That's where we come in. The more aro content online leads to more aros and more education of everyone else

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

10 hours ago, WrenIsNotMyRealName!! said:

Personally, I feel like "allosexual" is a completely redundant umbrella term. From my understanding, allo is everything but asexuals. Which seems dumb to me. Why have a term for that. It's so freaking pointless and 8s just people who aren't ace wanting to feel included or whatever. Like cis heteros wanting their own pride parades. I was yelled at once because not using allo is discriminatory and making their experiences fake or whatever but using allo is singling aces out entirely and that is highly discriminatory.

 

...Did... Did you just come in a thread about allo aros just to vague about me?? Bruh.

[WrenIsNotMyRealName!!]

18 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

 

...Did... Did you just come in a thread about allo aros just to vague about me?? Bruh.

Nope. I wanted other opinions and I've gotten some more in depth descriptions of allo so I guess I'm sold on its use.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

1 minute ago, WrenIsNotMyRealName!! said:

Nope. I wanted other opinions and I've gotten some more in depth descriptions of allo so I guess I'm sold on its use.

 

You didn't have to be so rude about it, though... But whatever. I guess I'm used to taking the hits for the sake of education at this point anyway. What else is new.

[WrenIsNotMyRealName!!]

10 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

 

You didn't have to be so rude about it, though... But whatever. I guess I'm used to taking the hits for the sake of education at this point anyway. What else is new.

Please stop with the toxic victimization, I get enough of that irl. Anyways, as was in our original conversation, I wasn't being rude. Was I trying to start a fight because it was 1 in the morning and I was bored, yes. Was I emotionally committed enough to actually charge the words, no.