bydontost

my prefernce would be to have actual examples when you can find them. it's hard to judge for yourself with people paraphrasing...

I think memes, such as the "attraction is cancelled" one may be a bit insensitive, may be not reletable to some, but theyre there to turn some frustration into humor. I can see memes that could easily say "romance is cancelled" which would be insensitive to a whole lot of people, but it's a meme, it's good for those who relate to it. I follow groups with political memes that im usually into, but I dont like all of them, sometimes they go too far in making fun of upsetting things, but maybe someone else needs to make fun of this particular thing right now to feel better with how shitty the world can be. is it possible to be frustrated that all mentions of aromanticism are in papers that either focus on asexuality too or are about asexuality, and know that it's definitely not on asexuality researchers to write about aromanticism..?? bc i find that im frustrated, but I definitely don't blame aces or asexuality researchers for... not changing their scientific interests i guess. bc I am frustrated, and definitely not disappointed in those researchers specifically, or expecting ace communities to generate that spark for researches, etc., and am far from blaming anyone for this state of things. still, frustrated, and it's generated by the situation at large I'll give an example of what frustrates me - a character from a cartoon was recently confirmed by an artist to be aroace. the title of an article that talked about it - "A crystal gem confirmed as asexual". I saw it, thought "cool, good for aces for the rep!!" and moved on. later, I see that aven rt'd the article, but they added a caption: the gem was confirmed asexual AND aromantic. i got angry!! how am i supposed to know that she was also confirmed as aromantic if the damn title doesn't mention it? she's also aro rep, that I could be telling other aro people about!! am I supposed to click on every article that mentions asexuality in hopes that maybe somewhere in the body it says that actually someone is aromantic too, that something includes aromanticism too, etc. And I don't blame aces for being more estabilished, more visible and all, but the situation that we're in is suboptimal. take a look at the article in question: https://www.cbr.com/steven-universe-crystal-gem-confirmed-asexual-peridot/. It mentions asexuality 20 times and aromanticism - 4 times. All 4 times as either "asexual and aromantic" or "asexual/aromantic". It's a singular example, but it starts weighing on you when it's a pattern. there's no one to blame for it, except for maybe the concept of sexual orientation for becoming so prevalent in today's society and the fact that because of that asexuality is more known. ideally, what id like is for the title to mention aromanticism too, and for it to be mentioned 20 times as well. I'm... not sure if a lot of people think that people should stop writing articles that are about both asexuality and aromanticism and that'll mean more aro articles will appear. there for sure are some, but it sounds so bizarre that I can't imagine that the majority of people could think that im curious now

I think it also goes in the other direction, that aces should have some intuitive knowledge how to avoid anti-aro sentiments and why things like mistaging can feel like more of a malicious act instead of any other kind of act. ??? it's the reality tho Yeah, that's true. But there's tension there, bc why should we build this allyship with aces first and foremost..?? So there are some aroaces who put effort in it when they're involved in ace activism, but there are also aros (of all kinds) who don't think that's a priority (I'm willing to take everything). That annoys me, and I want it to go. But it's also a reason why i never look at ace resources as potentially having anything relevant to aromanticism, which is often not true ¯\_(ツ)_/ i agree with everything laura said, but this especially ? i haven't checked the tags on tumblr personally for a long time now, and from what i remember, the posts that I didn't want to be in the tag were things like "all lgbt people are beautiful" tagged with every identity label the person knew, and stuff like "it's okay to be ace! i love being ace" tagged as ace and aro. the second kind of thing annoyed me more, bc it was specifically about aces with no mention of aromanticism, was only tagged with aromanticism other than asexuality, which to me implied that the author thought it'd be relevant to aromantics (why not tag it lesbian for ace lesbians..??), and i felt that aces should know better, bc idk, they're naturally more sensitive to the difference between aromanticism and asexuality. how is the general misconception that aromanticism and asexuality are the same thing making it difficult for aros to make aro specific spaces?? to me it's more the invisibility of aromanticism that hinders that, as a lot of aros do see the distinction when they know aromanticism as a concept exists this sadly seems like an issue for many aroaces. and the "funny" thing is im sure that some allo aros would be able to say similar things, but in reverse - maybe about a different space, or at a different point in time. what's going on that makes us fight each other to the point that everyone feels like they have to leave parts of their experience at the door??

yeah it doesn't seem like there's an opposition bigger than their following to what they say... what group does "other aros" mean here?? all aros, certain aros..?? could you say sth more about the implicit framework, how that looks to you?? it does set up some hierarchy... i do think other a-specs can have it marginally better in some ways (for example representation and offline resources). but idk if it has to imply that all aces are privileged over all aros at all times (tho I may be biased here!!) re: what @sennkestra said: I wanted to encompass in this thread instances where all aros say sth against mostly allo aces (for example: if you're not aro, shut up about qprs), and instances where allo aros go against all aces, but all examples in the thread are actually about the second type. I'm sorry that you feel this way, that's a big problem

That's sth that I agree with to a limited extent, bc if we're talking about tunglr dot hell, there's not really a way to make sure a post stays personal (for example by making it non-rebloggable). And that's especially true if you do some activism from a personal blog, but then also do some venting from a personal blog, it can get muddled up. Though it isn't a problem objectively unless it does dip into acephobia. take a look at: "Aros deserve to be angry at you for contributing to our oppression! We get to be mad! We get to hate you for it! Stop calling us acephobic for being angry at our oppressors!!" it doesn't talk about being allowed to feel angry when you've been hurt, it talks about people *deserving* to be angry, about being allowed to hate aces! This person says that they hate aces (that literally means they're acephobic), but not to call them acephobic. Also, obviously, aces are a marginalized group too, not the allonormative society that's the source of our oppression, etc., intersectionality anyone, etc. this is not a post i loved, but it is very much an example of an personal vent post on a personal blog that i argue isn't really personal on tumblr. this statement in particular doesn't strike me as wrong - out of all a-specs, allo aros are for example the least represented, the least visible, etc. and imo doesn't imply that other a-specs have it good or are to blame for this. i sign under everything @Jot-Aro Kujo said in this reblog with both hands, that comment about sex-favorable aces was tone deaf. "Yeah, there are sex positive aces, but they’ll never be treated the same way that alloaros are. And like, it all started when allaros started getting mad at the fact that we’re literally the most poorly treated aspecs." on the other hand implies that aces are privileged over alloaros imo. going to also pull this on tunglr dot hell from there "First, at the most basic level, we don't even know from context whether or not the OP intended the original post to be an announcement post or just a vent post, because Tumblr doesn't allow people to disable reblogs or anything -- yet various tumblr users seem to have reblogged it to their aro blogs, turning it into a kind of announcement post regardless of whether it was ever intended as one. Reblogability controls and privacy controls could have allowed a post like this to stay a private vent post instead of spreading around in the way it did." Yeah posts like that confuse me too, what is up with those? I'll see a post that's a politely worded statement like "Aroaces tend to assume that all aros share their experiences, and this can be really harmful to allo aros when they make sex-antagonistic statements and expect everyone to agree" and I'm like yeah you're right! Good explanation! And then they have a banner that says, like "Allo aro only post, non-allo-aros don't interact" and I'm like... ???? So it's... So you're talking exclusively to allo aros, to tell us things that we already know because we experience them? Ok... Why..? omg yeah that is so weird. and i really don't like the way it doesn't set up conversations?? this doesn't feel like wanting to solve a problem for me, it seems like wanting to be angry for anger's sake, and pitting one group against another, bc you were hurt in the past

The criteria I used for the above was whether or not the statement was something I've heard non-aro/non-ace people say before and considered it to be anti-ace sentiment at the time, excluding generalized statements of frustration that don't deal directly in issues (e.g. "I'm tired of aces" or something like that, which would be very different coming from a non-aro/non-ace person vs. an aro person who had been hurt by aces.) i'd say that everything that resembles things that exclusionists say is fair game, including things that imply aces are privileged are imo in, taking sth an ace does as a personal attack on your group (like with queergamic, which was not really a word for allo aros)... also, if we think sth doesn't look like discrimination, I'm sure we'll tell you C; eta: I wouldn't count people being misinformed about where qprs came from as acephobia, unless they were given sources and repeat it or say they don't care i wish it wasn't used by exclus as sth ace people say i... agree, tho i also think that we could get a bit more done if we were polite while explaining more often. the anger is going to be there, im angry a lot, but it's easier to say sth insensitive then, want to hurt the other person i think not generalizing could help, when we're talking about a problem?? instead of talking about aces doing this and that, we could say that a certain thing happened idk, with aces?? an ace person did sth and other aces didn't react?? i think framing the problems as sth that happened or a behaviour, instead of a thing a person or group is, could help avoid the anti-ace sentiments??

Yeah, it evolved when i started thinking about things that were bothering me most recently It's a food for thought, and I think that what we have now is an acephobia problem Some more links: a person saying they can't interact with ace or aro communities anymore https://asterosian.tumblr.com/post/611325453799702528/i-wont-unfollow-you-i-still-love-the-content a post specifically about allo aros not being free of ace antagonism https://shades-of-grayro.tumblr.com/post/613597892756799488/just-like-allo-aces-can-sometimes-say-things-that some more perspectives on the things that are happening, started as talking about the tone of our interactions https://shades-of-grayro.tumblr.com/post/613603658970644480/my-problem-with-current-intracommunity-issues-tm some background: qprs are a term coined by people who identified primarily as ace; queergamic is a new word created by an ace, who wanted a word that means "qpr but explicitly nonsexual"; the first carnival of aros was on the topic of "the relationship between aro and ace communities" that left many allo aros feeling that they have nothing to contribute or that everything they have to contribute is negative experiences

comrade or paramour

I said i'd like to talk about antagonisms in various parts of the a-spec communities, but what was on my mind recently was acephobic antagonisms in the aro communities, so...

There's a lot of cooperation between aro and ace activists, initiatives, orgs. There's also hostility in some aro and ace spaces, which is usually aimed at one identity. So it can be aimed at aces, at aros, at alloaros or at alloaces, maybe to a lesser degree at aroaces (they deal with being caught in the crossfire of aces vs aros antagonisms instead), but that happens too. There's a lot of hurt and bitterness, and the communities are linked (by people, by history), and it creates tensions, because we have our differences. Some people would like to be separate - alloaces were vocal about asexuality not always going together with aromanticism, now alloaros are starting to be more vocal about the differences and not wanting to associate with aces. This creates an identity split in some places - it's aros against aces, aces against aros and everyone with the same label gets thrown into the same bag. That leads to divisions, because we have our differences, but what the "aros this", "aces that" actually achieve? Hurt, alienation, helplessness..? Cool, very constructive, we'll go far on this. This split also creates an allosexual vs ace division in the aro community, which puts non-sam aros and greyaces in a weird vacuum. Say an aro person is angry at an ace person for doing something a bit insensitive. We create anger and guilt, and people who are feeling guilty don't make good progress for a cause, because they don't want to actually do it, they feel shitty, they burn out. And if someone feels wrongly accused, they're probably not going to listen to the points another person is making anyway. There will be assholes everywhere, and it's important to correct them, stand up to their assholery, or not give support to their harmful behaviors, because it's impossible to get rid of them all. They can't take over the conversations and narrations though, because that just leads to toxic communities. That was a rather large introduction, but: aros who act acepobic. They're there and we need to address this problem. For the last few years we've been steeping in acephobia (exclusionist crusades on tumblr and other social media) and we're not immune. The way our communities are linked creates strong and contradictory feelings. They're our strongest allies and we want them to remain so, we're grateful, but there's also jealousy - they're bigger, more visible, have more resources, people often ignore aromanticism when it's paired with asexuality. There have been instances of aros invalidating, diminishing ace people's struggles, when we get so angry when it's in reverse. There were aros saying that if you're asexual or you define your relationship as nonsexual, you're oversharing about your sex life - "you're asexual, so what, no one needs to know about your sex life" is a common acephobic talking point. There are aros taking a thing one ace person said, generalizing it to all aces. They were dismissive of things an ace person said on the basis of their asexuality. Any disagreement with an aro person by an ace person was treated as an example of arophobia, instead of someone else's opinion. "Aces are less oppressed than aros" is... an argument, suddenly (please, this really isn't oppression olympics). Ace people can be treated as if they have privilege..?? There's this mentality that if your group (aros) is more oppressed on average, it's impossible really do harm to a person from a group that is less oppressed. (No, I'm not getting into who and why and how is more oppressed, pls do me a favor and don't start that topic on this thread.) I think we need to realize that some aro spaces are getting acephobic, realize that there's potential in aros to be acephobic, and try to combat that, so that we're like you know, decent humans, and don't start alienating aroaces who identify strongly with their asexuality.

oh my gosh, so much this lol to me it seemed mostly a discussion about qprs...?? i'd actually really like to talk about antagonism in various parts of a-spec circles, but maybe on a thread that is specifically for that..?? eta: im gathering my thoughts on a thread like that

masturbation isn't

Lol you're in luck, bc AUREA is finalizing an Aro Census, so the survey should be out around the end of March, and results somewhere in 2021

Only the second one. Third is an example of 2nd imo. Okay, sorry, they said they didn't know about such a history for aros and bis, but do know of such a history with aces and bis. I mean... do you gather what I'm trying to say at all? ?

That's the one lol. I just know that they made a complaint about aroaces demanding to be let in when they were dealing with other allo aros telling them their moderation was shit. An allo aro was painted as an "ace miffed that they were kicked" (I'm going to say that this is a very rude and insensitive way of talking about anyone) for reporting the fact they wanted pictures of people's legal documents (blurred out) to confirm their age. Some of the drama: https://quiet-times.tumblr.com/post/611178074343653376/just-letting-you-know-ive-reported-your-server I'm not sure about another servers, but people who make servers get to decide who they want to be in it in the end. I'm personally okay with letting interested people spaces intended for allo aros, as long as they respect it's a place for us, but I know this isn't something that would suit everyone

Yes, that is the community history between bi and aro communities - that I know of, in the sense how anything about this can be known anyway. There could be other, better sources, but I don't know of them. I was just agreeing with @VoidArcana that it seems like a weird reasoning to tie aros and aces, and aces and bis, but then deny the tie between aros and bis. I used up my willingness to dig through this today, so I'm going to believe you and yeah, in this case I wouldn't claim that this part of ace history (if it can be classified as ace history with asexuality being more attraction-focused nowadays) is also aro history, that wouldn't make any sense. If there were researches that took into consideration sexual as well as emotional, affectional or romantic preferences and labelled them all together, then depending on the scales (hetero-bi-homo spectrum vs. heterosexual axis and homosexual axis) I would consider some of them caught aros in either bisexual group (first type of scale) or bisexual or asexual (second type of scale). With the first scale, allo aros and aroaces would be together in bi group and with the second, it'd be possible for allo aros to be in the bi group and aroaces in asexual group. Buuut I'm not sure how it's actually calculated/used, so those are my thoughts on how imperfect tools may be simplifying some things

I think there's also another reason and it is that at least some ace and aro events organizers are aroace and while they used to center their ace identity or talk about their aro identity only in ace spaces, now with aro spaces separating in some ways, they want to reflect that with the names of the groups/events. It's possible that some groups didn't change their character much, but it was understood before that an ace group could also be an aro group. This is not the case now. Yup!! I think ace spaces mainly owe it to aroaces to be more inclusive of aromanticism, bc aroaces are a big (in numbers) and important part of their community, in a way that bi, lesbian, gay or hetero aros won't ever be a big part of bi, lesbian or gay communities (idk if talking about hetero communities is justified, but) Same, though I may also look for wording such as: all aros, aros and/or aces. "Aros and aces" is ambiguous to me and while maybe allo aces feel welcome and claim this space (idk actually), I don't automatically think I'm always welcome I heard of an issue with a discord server being presented that way... This may have happened too, but i know what also happened was that some allo aros didn't agree with some moderation practices, but idk if you may have that in mind In the end, there's a lot of conflicting needs and interests and I think we should be mindful of this and assume everyone wants to do what they think is best and tread with tact. And at least in aro spaces, all aros should be welcome

Yeah, it is, true. That's what it implies. I only have access to this statement No, but I'm guessing this is how it can be interpreted by at least some people, and they're usually not reporting how many friends of a certain gender they have No, no, just pointing out that sexual orientation measures aren't always only about sexual experiences/desires. I think it's worth talking about somewhere, but not documenting in this compilation I mean... I don't see anything wrong with this..?? If aro and ace communities were interconnected and ace and bi communities also were, then like... at least the aroace people were connected to the bi communities too. For myself, I can say that I definitely mistook my 0 romantic attraction to everyone as being biromantic ( @Jot-Aro Kujo possibly feels the same) and I'm bisexual. If asexual was a category used in research some years ago, then it can be compared with concepts that also appeared in around that time, but aro is a new concept and doesn't really have a 1:1 translation to a concept that existed. Possibly some allo aros did what some do now - were in some relationships that were based on friendship and sex. But it's possible we'll never know. Aroaces are part of the aro community too tho, so like things that apply to them are part of the aro history too. Tho not all aro history, obviously.

second link (https://atomicbubblegum.tumblr.com/post/113202572465/cease-and-de-cis-so-i-reblog-a-lot-of-things) has this: The two following books talk about scales to measure sexual orientation, and that the distinction between no sexual interest and sexual interest in men and women can't be accurately captured in many of them. Those scales can measure exclusively sexual interest (like Sell Assessment of Sexual Orientation) , or sexual and emotional/affectional interest (like Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, which includes emotional and social preferences or Shivley Scale of Sexual Orientation, which asks about sexual and affectional). It's possible that when the books talk about "asexual" they may be also talking abut "aromantic", but this really depends on the scale and definition a lot. We're in a thread called Aro History Timelines, and I just have to second everything @pressAtoQUEER said above about the difficulty in talking about queer stuff in history that is older than 30 years ago. I think it's important to document things that are happening right now and that are explicitly labelled aromantic, but it's fine to see some similarities in people, movements, concepts that happened before

I just watched the new pope and Voilello said that "in the end everyone makes the same mistake and falls in love" or sth like that, so like... he's an aro icon now also second what @nonmerci said about jo march from little women, she was just obviously super aro

honestly my experience is that everyone thinks the grass is greener on the other side: aros who want partners chafe at the perception that being aro is seen as being partnerless by default and aros who don't want partners chafe at the perception that being aro is seen as desiring qpr or similar relationship in any case, nonarmrous or nonpartnering means not desiring a partnership of any kind or a lifestyle choice of not having a partner

Ah, this I can't help with rn, maybe if you asked a year ago

My point is that there hasn't been deafening silence

I mean, this post https://shades-of-grayro.tumblr.com/post/611142713511936000/shades-of-grayro-queerplatonic-relationships-an already has 9k notes...??

Cool, I actually understand more about what you meant now. I don't agree that general descriptions of aromanticism should be prefaced with "an aro ace person wrote this", and even between one aro ace person and another, the mileage may vary. I'm thinking just of general "aromanticism is a romantic orientation that means x, y, z" style information, not "i'm aromantic and this is my story". I've seen allo aros say that they thought romance is sex and friendship, so maybe this could be a narrative we could mention in basic introductions too. I know we have a different definition of platonic too - I was surprised to learn, as allo aro, that platonic also can mean "non sexual", bc I always used it to mean "non-romantic, can be sexual". It's sth that requires a clarification in any case. I know this is just an example of the fact that ace spaces mention aromanticism more often, but I have to second , bc my experience with fyeahasexual is mostly one of frustration at the innacurate info (see: when they said asaw changed the name from aro awareness week to arospec awareness week last year) or ace centrism (see: "don't force yasmin benoit to say she's aro too"). I feel AVEN is doing better in this regard. I'm quite hopeful about this too!