Lokiana

Yeah at age 19 (in three days) I definitely feel much younger than my friends who are graduating and have graduated college at 23.

That actually is a really good idea. If different people add small contributions and the section grows really large, someone would be able to propose moving it, which would be less sudden than creating another page that might get merged back into asexuality. One thing AUREA might be useful for, if not citing as a source, would be sourcing flags - including the aroallo and the aroace flag. Since Wikipedia doesn't accept Tumblr as a source and most news articles will use the main aromantic flag. It might be good to include those flags because they are more prominent recently.

Was this part really necessary? Like truly, really necessary? All you did was discourage me from continuing the conversation. I won't name any specific people, or any specific blogs, but as far as I can tell the divisions are mostly defined by: (and some people fall into multiple factions or associate with multiple groups) -purely positivity blogs -identity (ie: aroallos, aroaces, non-SAM aros, greyromantics, romo aros) -how people prioritize and group identity (ie: some aroaces prioritize aroness or aceness, some aroallos consider their identities inseparable, etc. and i could go on but...) -Discord servers (people in the same small groups tend to organize, so you can usually tell who's chatting outside of Tumblr) -shipping discourse -discoursers and former discourse blogs (generally very combative blogs) -when they began to id with the community (flags and terminology are generally a big indicator of this) -a couple more "official blogs" (the AUREA blog, for example, or the ASAW blog) -and some people are really just ~vibing~ trying to follow whoever they find interesting

I thought it w as but wasn't quite sure. Connecting across platforms is not my strength. ? (Also, I know it's kind of strange, but I just wanted to sidenote here that I no longer id as ace, but I'm not iding as aroallo either. So I'm just...here. I know a lot of y'all on a personal level so figured I'd disclaimer that.) 100%.

I'll offer up a discussion I had with someone about using "dirty allosexuals" which is just straight up ace discourse rhetoric.... The person I brought it up with was good about it, but it's relatively common and it's just straight up ace discourse rhetoric.

No, you weren't clear, and that's a consistent problem this thread seems to have. And as far as initial discussions...there was a discussion happening. You yourself even said " I'm glad I posted this here then! When a lot of people are saying it and it seems to add up, it's easy to just take their word for it." Mark asked, "I was thinking about this kind of issue. In terms of aplatonic along with squish and alterous. Were these also coined in an "ace-first" environment? I think it's also worth asking which terms originate from the "aro community"?". Personal things started being brought into it. You yourself cited something incorrectly, which leads to more distrust, especially when talking about misinformation. There wasn't any discussion of the actual topic other than "correct misinformation, people need to be better about understanding correction, and here's the correct information" past a certain point, so people got argumentative and personal in the middle. The infographic thing is a good idea....but there were like 4 maybe 5 people that seemed to be active by that point. Even then, people were being cooperative and still having a discussion throughout the thread...maybe not everyone was arriving at the same conclusion and maybe not everyone had the same opinion, but people were listening, is the overall impression I get. (Also, regarding your question: aro tumblr is a mess nowadays. It's developed into multiple factions and groups as far as I can tell, the hivemind thing is only slightly a joke, and there's a lot of conflict. Because aros can't agree on anything and especially not now.)

Lack of accessibility, in my opinion, but also intercommunity cooperation. As long as I've identified as a-spec, there's been some tension between aces and aros - not bad tension always, but a clash of priorities and ideas. Personally, I think a lot of people are willing to listen when conversations are held well, but when conversations become heated or intense, they become a bit of a struggle to keep up with. There's a lot of community collaboration in some spaces, and some conversations are being held in good faith: I distinctly remember having the conversation about the phrase "dirty allosexuals" with someone because they were using it in aro spaces, and they listened. While some whispers are bad, and some conversations are not productive in the least, and some people are well, people, I'm starting to see a culture grow of more collaboration and listening to each other in many spaces, and it gives me hope that some people are listening, or are willing to listen if approached right.

I think saying no one is ready to have that conversation might be an unfair representation. This has been a very long thread and at some points has gotten very heated, so people might have muted or ignored it (like I did for a while) because that's not something they're prepared to deal with. It seems to me that there are segments of both communities that are working very well together right now and are listening to each other, and there are portions that are very hostile to each other, intentionally or unintentionally. The aro antagonism I've seen from a lot of aces is ridiculous, but I'm starting to see more ace antagonism rather than pushback against aro antagonistic ideas from other aros, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Saying no one is ready to have that conversation based on one thread seems to be largely ineffective, seeing as this conversation has gone four or five different directions. Imo, separate, smaller threads and conversations would be more effective.

Welcome to the forums!

I believe those pamphlets went up with the original site, so it may be a while if/when they get changed. Although I do struggle to understand how the issue of origin of QPRs affects the commonality/frequent usage of the phrase "QPR" and related terminology in aro communities.

There is a flag, if rarely used, for omniaromantics (people who do not feel romantic attraction, do not desire romantic relationships, etc. I'll let y'all read the definition). Found here. It's been around for more than a year because we, as a community, recognize anyone who is gray-aromantic as aromantic, and belonging in our community. Even if some people did recognize the desire for a second flag, they wanted to keep the aromantic flag for our community as a whole: that's who it was created for, after all. As a final note, I am what you might call a "true aromantic" or whatever somewhat offensive term you are using - I don't feel any romantic attraction, ever - and I think that the way you've approached this topic is slightly offensive at best. Creating separate terminology for aromantics who feel no attraction whatsoever is fine - I believe I've seen terms like "null aro" floating around, as well as omniaromantic and others - but doing so in a way that alienates gray-aromantics leaves a serious bad taste in many people's mouths. In fact, it reminds me very much of the time when I was told that "arospec" was for gray-aros (including demiromantics, lithromantics, etc.) but not for null aromantics. It made me very uncomfortable - after all, I had been using that terminology for years, and it was part of my identity. People telling me I could no longer use that term for myself was a struggle (and yes, we did come to a consensus for the opposite conclusion, but it was a discussion that was had). So while I understand you may want a term or flag for your individual identity, it comes off as offensive and rude to alienate gray-aros from our community and flag when they have been here since the beginning, and since the creation of the flag. It makes a lot of us (gray-aro or null aro) feel very uncomfortable with the discussion, and not in a way that produces positive results. In conclusion: gray-aros are aromantic, and absolutely should be able to use our flag.

I've been excited to help out with AUREA and here's some translations for our "basic terms" in Polish, German, and Russian (with more in progress!). I also know off the top of my head that Spanish aromantic = arromántico. Kind of neat to see variations of different languages!

I'll do my best! Can't promise it'll be perfect but hey. So here's a def I'm stealing from AUREA: and here's a coinage post just for kicks. Really, alterous is not overall specifically defined - the general consensus is that it's an attraction or relationship based on emotional closeness that might not necessarily be romantic or platonic. (Overall, similar to QPR, but not as common or neatly defined, usually? A lil more wiggle room and less connotation, imo.) Possibly sexual, possibly nah, really up to you! Here's a couple opinions on how the two differ: one, two (i'm gonna note since it's toward thread top that i don't agree with the idea that QPRs are always non-sexual before anyone starts coming @me) Hey, you're still normal! Just not straight. I just left a romo relationship and figured out that hey, I don't want that and then hated myself for not feeling more attached - so I get it. But just because it's more complicated in an amatonormative world doesn't mean you won't figure it out.

First and foremost: welcome to the family! We bicker and we hug it out, but we are glad to have you. I'm so happy your coming out went well and that your partner took it well! If you are looking for some nifty relationship terms, queerplatonic and alterous may be useful. (but that could be my inclination to all the niche terms ;p )

I'm not sure that the use of nonamorous is going to help ( as evidenced by like, our entire community ), and the implication that personal narratives have little value or aren't useful is somewhat annoying. As for the question of how it's happening... It's relatively easy to figure out. On one hand, many aromantic people enjoy sexual relationships, committed or nah. Many others are involved in romantic relationships, and still more are involved in queerplatonic relationships. These relationships, per societal norms, are considered "beyond" or "more complex" than typical friendship, and thus, merit a lot of discussion on how to approach and deal with them within our community. And we do! We talk a lot about how to function in relationships, how to approach our partners, etc etc so on and so forth until the end of time. What I've found is that we don't talk as much about how to deal with friendships, or touch starvation due to no relationships/friends reading it as romo, how to do life when you're not going on dates and don't necessarily have a partner and that kind of thing. When we do, we don't talk about it as much - I've seen a couple glancing posts that touch on it, but in comparison to the vast amount of content available on QPRs alone, it can feel kind of overwhelming. I don't necessarily have an excellent solution, but the problem isn't a lack of language or even a single narrative being promoted. Imo, it's a matter of having a vast amount of content to discuss and people to discuss it with, vs. a smaller section of the community with different needs that aren't being addressed on an equal level.

Aren't we always?

 Can you elaborate? Sure thing! So, I found this label as I was doing flag cleanup for a glossary I worked on, and it just...fit. I had that moment of "oh my god that's me". And for a brief period there, I was able to use some of the language from the definition ("aplatonic", for example) to find communties of aplatonic people, if not necessarily omniaromantic people. I found people who were in a similar experience vein to mine, if not my "exact" experience, because the language used in the definition pointed me to further inquiry and helped me understand who I was relative to....everyone else. It also helped me because I tend to be the person who likes to hyperspecifically label myself, and to be able to broadly categorize "nope", was a nice experience, especially in a community that so specifically discusses QPRs and partnering relationships without romance. It helped lead me to a place of "hey, the aro community discusses qprs a lot but it's okay if that's not relevant to my experience, some people may experience other attraction or love than romantic that I don't and that's fine too". So it helped me contextualize myself into the aromantic community. It also helped describe a sitch that wasn't quiiiiite romance repulsion, but also not quite neutral....rather, somewhere in the middle. this drives me up a wall. Honestly. I understand the intent sometimes, but coining terms for other people is just....argh. I'm a fan of marking old terms with identifiers, and that's how I've traditionally found the best way to include them but also inform people that they may not be as frequently used. How does everyone feel about doing the same thing with relatively new terminology, after it gets some use? Including in glossaries with a note like **this is a developing term coined recently, and change is based on current community discussion or some such? But I do see the problem here with people who don't like microlabels spamming. Unfortunately, tends to be a problem no matter what you do.

An interesting perspective....but I'm not sure I entirely agree with it. (Although the notes on Rabger's model are very true.) Personal bias playing in, but I've always been fond of hyperspecific labels, regardless of how used or unused they are. A good personal anecdote is the time when I identified as omniaromantic. It's by and far an underused label and is probably one of the ones categorized by this article as a label we should let die - but it certainly helped me through a time where I was questioning /a lot/ of things. I didn't expect to find community with a microlabel, especially not one I dug out of a glossary, but it was useful to me nonetheless. I do also question the idea that we shouldn't necessarily keep our labels around. Even in the case of Rabger's model, the documentation was not removed - simply moved and re-categorized. I'd be curious as to suggestions: how do we keep a record of terms used previously, so we can understand previous posts and conversations, but still indicate, respectfully, that the terminology in question is dated? Further, when do we decide that a term is "dated" or "not used" enough to be categorized as such? I know the system I use, when sorting the glossaries I work on, but I'm curious to hear further thoughts on how to resolve these conflicts.

I've been a Methodist for my entire life - not entirely forced, mind you, my parents taught me to ask a lot of questions and to never blindly trust authority - and honestly, the process of finding out I'm aromantic has strengthened my faith. It was the starting point to me questioning a lot of harmful beliefs I had, and forced me to actually read my Bible and develop my own conclusions regarding science and God, as well as questions like "what about my bi friends" and so on and so forth. My assistant youth pastor and I hold down the "question everything" fort at my church and we discuss theology a lot. It also led to me actually acting on my inability to trust blindly, and to call out the teachers when I noticed inaccuracies to scripture or science. Basically, aromanticism was a big part of strengthening my faith. Although I will say I'm uncomfortable with the concept of blindly cross-applying the label "asexual" to Jesus or any other deity I believe in.

I did this until very recently...because I ended up in a relationship. But definitely avoids a lot of the terminology mish-mash.