Lokiana

On 3/26/2020 at 12:39 PM, Coyote said:

*squints* ......I wish I could understand how you're coming to these conclusions. If I turned to one of my friends, linked to this thread, and said, "So as you can see, people listened and were cooperative," they'd think I was being sarcastic.

Was this part really necessary? Like truly, really necessary? All you did was discourage me from continuing the conversation.

On 3/26/2020 at 12:39 PM, Coyote said:

But in any case: okay, then what are the factions?

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

2 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

That person would be me. Hello!

 

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.)

4 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

It's a very difficult line to navigate for both parties. But it absolutely needs to be navigated.

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. 

13 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

Wh.... Okay, I take it I didn't word my question clearly enough, because it sounds like we're not on the same page about what I was trying to ask there. Understandable, since the word "here" is pretty ambiguous and wasn't really emphasized. I will try again.

 

Referring specifically to this Arocalypse thread, I've gotten the impression that (up to that point) the answer to "Are you ready to listen?" has been mostly/disproportionately a "No." If you have a different overall assessment of this thread, or if your impression of it is mostly "Yes," then -- in this thread -- what am I overlooking?

 

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.)

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

What am I overlooking?

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. 

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

And over the past four pages or so, the impression I've gotten here mostly is "No."

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! 

10 hours ago, Mark said:

I wonder if, given this thread If "Queer Platonic" should be given so much space on Introduction to Aromanticism.
Maybe it would be better mentioned elsewhere.

The" Common Misconceptions" section of A Beginner's Guide to Being an Aromantic Ally gets into fairly complex areas with the “can still love” and QPRs. whilst failing to mention that aros (including those who are also ace) can be interested in "romantic coded" activities such as kissing, hand holding, dating, candle lit dinners, etc, etc. 

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.

On 7/30/2019 at 9:05 AM, Cristal Gris said:

How do you say "aromantic" in these language? And how is the "aromantic related" vocalubary? Just curious.

 

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!

On 7/31/2019 at 9:14 PM, ameddin73 said:

 

Can you explain alterous? I haven't heard that. I've heard of QPR but to be honest it sounds kinda sterile or over described. 

I'll do my best! Can't promise it'll be perfect but hey. 

So here's a def I'm stealing from AUREA:

Quote

An interest or desire for emotional closeness without necessarily being platonic and/or romantic. Alterous is often used in the place of -romantic or -sexual suffixes (e.g., bialterous instead of biromantic).  

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)

On 7/31/2019 at 9:14 PM, ameddin73 said:

 

*sigh* I've been aro for two days and I already wish I was normal

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.  

19 minutes ago, ameddin73 said:

Thanks so much for replying.

Update: I did it and it went great!

 

My partner, as always, was incredibly understanding and helpful. I told them I'd need to set some boundaries, and may not be comfortable with the term partner in the future. We also talked about making sure they don't feel like they're not getting enough out of the relationship. 

 

I feel so much better now. It's a enormous relief not feeling like I'm lying, or have to pretend I feel a way I don't. I still have a lot of doubts about my romantic orientation, but coming out and feeling that relief/that click made me a lot more sure. 

 

I'm really happy to be in this community, and hopefully it can be a resource for me in the future! Even more, I hope my story can be helpful to someone else! 

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 )

On 7/13/2019 at 10:31 PM, Coyote said:

This is getting to be genuinely concerning. How is this happening? Why does that keep feeling like the most common aro narrative to so many people? Is this something that could be addressed by using "nonamorous" more, or is this something that can only be addressed by proliferating more personal narratives?

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.

5 hours ago, Coyote said:

Ohhh, we're back to the queerplatonic problem again.

Aren't we always? 

11 hours ago, Coyote said:

23 hours ago, Lokiana said:

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.

 

 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. 

11 hours ago, Coyote said:

not just people proposing or suggesting at term initially in the abstract (so many people seem interested in "coining" terms on other's behalf)

this drives me up a wall. Honestly. I understand the intent sometimes, but coining terms for other people is just....argh.

21 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

Re: respectfully indicating that a term is dated, maybe you could mark terms with some signifier (maybe an asterisk before the term) and have an approachable note at the top of the page along the lines of "This term is included for historical records and isn't in use today. If you think this is a mistake, please let me know"? In an ideal world, if you ever accidentally marked a term that's still in use as being out of use, someone would feel comfortable correcting you, and you'd periodically review the in-use terms to make sure they're still being used. The downside is that this could be abused on both sides; someone who doesn't understand or care that labels can be allowed to die might indicate that all of the terms are in use even when they aren't, while someone who doesn't like neolabels could mark them all as out of use even when they aren't (which also might lead to identity policing). 

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.

On 7/6/2019 at 8:00 AM, Holmbo said:

Yesterday a person I've recently got to know better told me he had a  crush on me. I decided to respond differently than I used to. Rather than to get into the terms I just said: I don't date. And then explained I don't have an interest in romantic relationships. Not until we had talked for a while did I mention the term, when he asked me if I was asexual.

I did this until very recently...because I ended up in a relationship. 

But definitely avoids a lot of the terminology mish-mash.

I don't think that "Ace and Aro" implies both, as it is. I think the logo definitely needs work, but, as you said, that takes know-how and time, so doing your best to make it as obvious as possible that it's both is good. I'm in agreement that "Liverpool Area Ace and Aro Group" is pretty generally a good and used format in many areas.

The biggest thing is the language change - changing the group name to "Ace and Aro", changing the language used in discussions to "a-spec"...these are all things that need to be done that don't require as much effort, but are important to overall inclusiveness. 

On 7/4/2019 at 10:26 AM, Mark said:

An alternative would be to start up a specifically aro group. Ideally with someone who wasn't asexual as an organiser.

As much as this suggestion is well intentioned, this isn't practical or...what they were asking? No offense at all, @Mark, but this comes across super unfriendly to the concept of allowing a group to grow to be inclusive, even if it wasn't originally. The group is currently alienating even to me if the group is called "Liverpool Aces Meetup" or something along those, because I identify more with my aro-ness. However, that suggestion is not helpful or practical, unless you're in the Liverpool area and want to start a group yourself.

On 7/1/2019 at 12:04 PM, Coyote said:

By the way -- will the What's Going On posts have an RSS feed? Siggy would like to know.

I'm happy to tell you that they do now! Just implemented it, actually - it applies to the entire News Feed. ?

On 7/1/2019 at 12:04 PM, Coyote said:

I ask because I wonder what would happen if, for instance, you started off with something more [social context -> group], like "Because of amatonormativity, which is the romantic part of heteronormativity, a lot of people grow up with the expectation that they're supposed to fall in love and get married. We grow up hearing about weddings and romantic love and soulmates and love stories, hearing about crushes in middle school and high school, seeing advertising for online dating sites, watching movies and reading books with romantic subplots no matter how forced they are -- it's enough to really compound the stress for queer people who have very slim chances of finding a romantic partner. It's also especially bad for people who don't like romance or feel romantic feelings at all, who are sometimes even told that they're heartless monsters. And the way that our society expects marriage, including with tax benefits and everything, means it can be especially hard for people who can't authentically live that way. That's a part of why we're working to build an aromantic movement that fights amatonormativity and promotes acceptance. Since the 2000s some people have started identifying on the aromantic spectrum because [etc. etc.]"

  

 ...the idea being, you might be able to reel people in if you start off with what's more familiar to them. Does that make sense?

 

On a more personal perspective, I really like this as an outreach strategy. I don't necessarily think it's 100% foolproof, but I think it certainly helps to find common ground with other queer people to help transition the conversation.

I do wonder though, how this might impact later discussions on amatonormativity in queer communities, because I don't find that I entirely agree with the perspective that it's a part of heternormativity. If we frame it that way in our original approach and then attempt to discuss amatonormativity in, for example, the focus on gay marriage as one of the major tenements of LGBTQ+ rights, that we as a community may get the reaction of having to re-educate after introducing it in that manner, because the thought will be "I'm [x-identity], there's no way I can be amatonormative! That's a part of heternormativity, and I'm not a part of that!". (Although, I suppose that is somewhat inevitable.)

I've always had trouble with this. I've fluctuated between labeling my sexuality as "N/A", quoisexual, not a thing, asexual, and such for years. I tend to stick to using ace for a couple reasons: one, because it makes explaining things easier sometimes, and two, because the ace community has impacted me so much it almost feels like I'm leaving a part of me behind if I don't use that label anymore.

The first time I came out, I came out to one of my friends who was a gay aroace. I was literally shaking the whole time I was trying to tell them who I was - they're a couple years older than me, and had helped me a lot with identity stuff, but I was still terrified af. Nowadays I've come out several times - to my conservative classmates, to a couple of my teachers, etc. Not to my parents yet. I'm lucky to have a best friend who really, truly gets it, even if she's straight. Point is, it got easier as I went.