sennkestra

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!

Yes, some can, and some do! (Others can't or don't - so there's not necessarily a single answer to your question). If you're curious about how common it is, the Ace Community Survey found that ~70% of asexuals engage in some kind of occasional masturbation, while ~18% have never masturbated, and another ~10% have tried it in the past, but currently do not engage in masturbation. You can see more specific breakdowns (and how they compare to non-asexual respondants) on page 33 of this report.

Actually, people use "allo" as an abbreviation for both terms on both sites (it gets very confusing). So as @Jot-Aro Kujo mentioned, you kind of have to go off context. The usual trick is to see what term (romantic, sexual) it's paired with - and then assume it's referring to the opposite, as these tend to come in pairs (like alloromantic asexual, allosexual aromantic, asexual aromantic, biromantic asexual, aromantic pansexual, etc. - each pair has one sexual and one romantic identity term) So for example, if someone says "allo aro", the aro is short for aromantic and thus has answered the romantic part of the identity - so "allo" in this case must be answering the sexual part - and thus be short for "allosexual". If there is no additional context like that, I look to see if they spelled it out earlier in the post. And if they hanven't...sometimes I just have to ask. - When it comes to identity symbols, if you want other people to be able to recognize it, I definitely recommend going with the flag colors as the ring thing is less common and less recognizeable. But if you are just doing it for fun or self confidence, then do whatever suits your style!

I'm willing to help commit to funding it (in full) personally for at least another year, if absolutely needed, and helping co-manage ongoing fundraising for the next year with whoever ends up taking over. Obviously I'd prefer to still seek community contributions, both because it would be financially less of a strain on me and would help set up a more sustainable funding process for the future, but considering the short-term notice I'm definitely able to front any immediate costs so that we can take out time figuring out more long term plans. Unfortunately, between my current work and other projects, I don't have the time to check in much or help with the technical or day-to-day management side of things, so we'd still need to find someone (or ideally, multiple someones) who would be willing to take over that aspect of things.

I know this is derailing the thread a bit, but since the topic of wikipedia came up, here's some thoughts from following the many-years-long struggle to make even basic updates to the ace wikipedia page: First, you can see more about why pages have been changed (including edits added and edits rejected) by looking at the "View History" and "Talk" pages at the top. At the moment, it looks like the reason aromanticism does not have it's own page is because of an overall lack of content, especially a lack of wikipedia-acceptable "reliable sources" that can be cited or that information can be drawn from - this was also one of the biggest hurdles the asexuality page faced when people tried to start cleaning it up. (Instead, it is made part of an overall romantic orientation page, where you can find current talk notes). Generally speaking, wikipedia editors will often reject edits that aren't linked to citations of some kind of newspaper, semi-traditional news media (huffington post etc.) or academic article (and will often not allow pages from orgs like AVEN or AUREA, which makes things extra difficult). So before you even start editing the page, it helps to gather any news or academic article that mention the information you want to include (like flags, terms, definitions, historical events, etc.). And if there aren't any articles available....it helps to have a list of things that are needed, and then you can recruit help to try and get people to mention them in any interviews for articles for things like ASAW, pride month in June, etc. (Contacting local or student papers around these events can also help.) This is the part that requires some patience, because sometimes it can take a couple years of education and media outeach before you have enough citable source material for everything you want to include. If anyone is particularly interested in getting up to date, it might be worth starting a new thread and reaching out to other parts of the aro community to see if there's anyone else interested in setting up a wiki team to tackle the project of figuring out what information we want to include, finding sources for it, angling to generate sources if needed, and then actually learning a bit about wiki editing guidelines and actually starting to suggest edits.

Hello and welcome! ??

Also, regarding making handouts and other materials that might be more relevant to non-asexual communities - while I think I understand the main point (that it would be good to showcase a wider variety of non-ace aromantic people, experiences, and relationship), I would be very, very careful about how that is phrased - for example, I would avoid the use of the word "lust" at any cost. "Lust" as a term still carries strong connotations of Christian sin, and since LGBT communities are often targeted and harassed for being "sinners", that kind of language is just likely to stab at some major hurts for a lot of people and will likely not go over well. I would also be careful about the implication that LGBTQ people can't relate to discussions of friendship or platonic relationships - setting aside the fact that many LGBTQ spaces these days have active ace members who you might also want to target as potential allies, LGBTQ people in genera have long faced accusations that they are incapable of being true friends because of the myth that all queer people are just predators who are incapable of being "just friends" and will secretly just want to target you for sex. While I don't think that was the implication intended, it evokes similar themes enough that we should be careful about how we discuss that. (For example, suggesting instead that we add more examples of the experiences of aromantic folks and their sexual desires and relationships - especially stories from LGBTQ-identified aros - is perfectly fine. Let's just be careful about not implying that the reason for that is that we think LGBTQ folks are incapable of understanding anything else, because that's really underestimating LGBTQ communities and their own histories of exploring various types of non-romantic and non-sexual relationships) - Also, on the topic of whether aro ace speakers are going to be "relatable" to various audiences....I wouldn't worry as much about that, because frankly, no one is going to be 100% relatable to everyone, so any aro activist is going to face that problem on some level: whether they are straight, bi, lesbian, gay, male, female, nonbinary, cis or trans, young or old, white or a person of color, disabled or abled, everyone is going to experience some kind of intersection that will make their experiences different from their audiences. But frankly, the whole point of most LGBTQ communities is to be able to build coalitions across identities, and to find shared solidarity even with people whose identities and intersections you don't personally understand or relate to. Intersectionality is all the more reason to uplift the voices of people who face intersecting experiences of oppressions, whether it's aro aces, lgbtq+ aros, aros of color, disabled aros, or other experiences that audiences may not have encountered before. So basically, while it is definitely still important to try and present a wide array of aro experiences, it doesn't matter as much who is doing the presenting. Also, at this point aro is activism is so new that it's not even a matter of choosing between sending in asexual aro activist vs. allosexual activists (or even folks who fall elsewhere on the spectrum) - it's a matter of choosing between the few volunteers who are already available and willing to do the job, or sending no one at all - and in most cases, having at least someone willing to put in the work and link back to the voices of others is far better than doing nothing at all.

I just wanted to generally agree with both of these responses - right now, the best way to increase acceptance of aromanticism in LGBTQ+ communities (or in any communities, for that matter) is for aro individuals to start by getting actively involved in those communities - not just in advocating for aromanticism or seeking support as an aro person, but also in generally supporting those communities' missions as a whole, whether that's by attending meetings to learn about other identities under the umbrella, organizing a social event like a potluck or movie night, donating time or money to causes they support, etc. In general, groups are likely to be much more open to taking in new knowledge from people they already know and trust - and the best way to gain that trust is to show that you are invested in supporting the wider LGBTQ+ community just as much as you hope that they will in turn invest in supporting other aros like you. It also gives you time to learn what approach might work best for that group, especially since LGBTQ+ groups can vary so much in their attitudes and approaches to learning about new things - often to a much greater extent than when working with aro or ace communities, which are unusual in their level of centralization (which comes in part from being smaller, and in part from arising in a post-internet age). While new aro organizations like AUREA can help by creating vetted materials like FAQs, Brochures, and Presentations for other aro activists to use, actual activism works best when there is also direct support from local volunteers who are already embedded in potential ally communities who can serve as a bridge to make that connection. Once you've built that trust, the next step is to finding something that you can use as a sort of "launching off point" to turn the conversation to aromanticism - ASAW is a great event for that, but if you don't want to wait all the way until 2021, you could also look for any new interesting news articles that come out, or maybe a thoughtful piece of writing from an aro blog, an interview from an org like AUREA, or a new video about aromanticism - basically, you want a hook that can tell people why they should be interested now, so timely things like annual events or newly published media can work well there. From there, you could try sharing the link to start a new discussion thread (for online activism), or by reaching out to organizers to see iif you can schedule an event (for ASAW next year, for example), or seeing if it would be ok to drop a link to an aro piece into their next newsletter, or for you to bring it up in announcements in an upcoming meeting, etc.

I wasn't able to get as much done online this week for ASAW because I got hit by a bad week at work that had the worst timing, but I am really excited that I was at least able to help put on a good offline event this year! We had a "chocolates and chats" social mixer in a community room at the local library, and at least 10 people show up (plus a few more who had timing conflict but sent their regards), which is good turnout for an area that really doesn't have any kind of organized aromantic community yet! And so now working on that is our next goal Also, while I wasn't a part of this since I graduated long ago, some of the folks at my alma mater organized a students-only aro spec week event where they collaborated with the university archery club to have a combined archery 101 and aromantic 101 event, which is such a clever idea and one that I"m super jealous of (and maybe potential inspiration for folks next year!) I was also lucky to work with some of the folks at AUREA and Aromantic-Official, along with a few other aro activists to help set up a shiny new Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week landing page than can be used as a centralized warehouse for posting updates as new dates, events, and campaigns are announced, especially for folks who don't use tumblr. On the sillier side, I was happy to see a plethora of aromantic frogs, which I only recently discovered was an aro thing (maybe? If it wasn't already I'm definitely all for making it one).

Hello - this is a bit of a late followup because I missed the previous notification, but I wanted to post an update on SF activities: 1. There's a new "Bay Areomantics" aro group page on facebook for Bay Area Aros (not created by me, but I just joined!) 2. There's going to be an ASAW event next week (February 22nd, in Berkeley), where I'm hoping we'll be able to get some names together and chat about future possibilities for more aro-focused local activities. Still drawing up a list of conversation prompts and icebreakers for it so I'm very open to suggestions! I've also changed the name of this thread so that it can also just serve as a master thread for local stuff.

Hello - I noticed that my post criticizing another user for being extremely hostile towards specific parts of the aromantic community (especially aromantic spectrum folks) and deliberately trying to erase and exclude their experiences was removed, without any notification or explanation to me, while the original offensive post was allowed to remain intact - now with no warning to future users of why exactly it was so problematic. Also, since I received no alert or explanation for why my post was removed, so I have no way to know what to do to avoid blatant censorship in the future. Would it be possible to get some clarification from the mod(s) or perhaps also some user suggestions around when the mods consider posts appropriate to remove, how they can be transparent around communicate those reasons to users? I'm uncomfortable with the idea that content bashing on aro-spec folks has been allowed to stand while attempts to defend them are being erased. I hope it was an unintentional spur-of-the-moment decision of what to delete or not delete and that the mod(s) will reconsider in light of the current implications, or at least follow up with a little more transparency and exlplanation, but right now it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth about whether this is actually a welcoming community space or not.

Hello everyone! Aro-Spec Awareness Week is just a week away, and I've been working with some of the folks at AUREA and Aromantic-Official to help set up a website to collect any arospec week events, calls for submissions, hashtag campaigns, and other activities that might be going on. If anyone here has any events in the works that they'd like to promote, we'd love to hear about them! And if you don't have anything planned yet.....maybe some of the prompts above will give you some ideas for how you can get started?

No, but food happened to be on my mind when I made this post because I was hungry, and because I'm also currently trying to plan what thematic snacks I can bring to the aromantic meetup I'm hosting for ASAW. Figured it might be a fun and silly conversation topic as well. Anyway, this thread is definitely tempting me to get ice cream for myself at least. Maybe matcha or pistachio for the color theme? (mint chocolate chip is the obvious one, but I'm not a big fan of mint).

Within ace communities, cake has become one of the communities best known symbols and memes, to the point that many aces make it a point to bring cake to events. More recently, some ace communities on reddit have also adopted garlic bread as an additional savory ace meme food that’s allegedly better than sex. But what about the aro community? What would good symbolic or memetic aro foods be? My my initial thoughts are maybe chocolates, because we all know that’s the best part of Valentine’s Day once you strip away all the romance. But on the more meme side, maybe we should have a more salty snack because we’re all salty about the constant presence of amatonormativity?

A question for everyone: What kind of colors/words/imagery do you like on your pride swag? With ASAW fast approaching, I’m thinking of putting together some small custom buttons for my local area, but I want to go beyond just the standard aromantic pride flag and the word “aromantic”. 1. Besides pride flags and actually spelling out the words, is there any kind of imagery or symbols that you associated with the aromantic spectrum that you think would be fun to include? (I’m definitely not up to date on all the latest puns and memes) 2. Also, for those who use more specific labels under the umbrella that they wish they had swag for, what are those labels and what kind of imagery (pride flags, puns, or anything else) do you associate with them? (Also, if you could link to your favorite definition of the term, that would be a big to help to me so that I don’t flub it if someone else asks me to explain it). I’ll also eventually post the design files for anything I make online in case anyone else wants to make use of them in the future

For what it's worth, I think feeling a bit alienated by the contrasting experiences of other group members is always going to a problem in large mixed groups like general "a-spec" groups (whether you're an allosexual aro, asexual aro, or asexual ace) - for example, just within the general ace groups I'm active in, both aro aces and romantic aces often feel out of place when conversations they can't relate to as much come up (and that's without getting into things like gender and racial and other demographic differences) - but there's also not really any way to completely avoid that; it's just a consequence of being in diverse communities. That said, I imagine this is definitely especially exacerbated when some groups are numerically overwhelmingly larger as it probably is for many allosexual aros joining general aspec groups. (for a parallel, this is also a common issue for, for example, ace or trans or ethnic minority folks in LGBT groups - even if the rest of the group is doing their best to be great allies, there's a limit to how comfortable you can get when 90% of the people around you have experiences that are diametrically opposed on one axis or another). I think the best answer is to (also) have more specific groups and gatherings (whether they are general aro groups, or specific allosexual aro groups) that focus on specific sub-groups and can focus on their experiences without having to worry about competing needs from other groups - but the hard part is finding enough people who are capable of and willing to lead them. Most of the people I know who run general "ace and aro" meetups know they're an imperfect stop-gap for a lot of allosexual aro people, but keep them going in the hope that having at least some kind of networking opportunity set up will eventually bring together enough people who can help make something more specific in the future. -- EDIT: I looked up the actual event because I was curious, and I'm not necessarily a fan of the current wording, so I think that changes my perspective a bit - I'm not sure all my comments above apply in this case; I think my actual answer is that, while some amount of feeling uncomfortable or alienated is inevitable in umbrella groups that cover a lot of diverse experiences, I don't think that's what happened here - there are definitely actions that organizers can take to better run joint, interntional, and inclusive a-spec or ace&aro umbrellagroups, that don't seem to have even been attempted here. While I think there are a lot of groups that are honestly embracing becoming full ace & aro umbrella spaces, as I mentioned above, I don't think they've quite made it that far here - any attempt to be a full "A-Spec" or "Ace & Aro" gathering would require including that phrasing in the title at a minimum. The current wording is problematic because even though the second to last sentence seems like it might include allosexual aros, the name and first sentence certainly make it seem that it's really more focused on asexuality - and unclear whether they actually meant to include allosexual aros (and were just unprepared) or if that was just an accidental inclusion when they were actually just trying to cover the full a/romantic spectrum of asexual people specifically. So I wouldn't be surprised if the organizers themselves were not really prepared for how to actively include allo aros either --- Anyway, my advice for anyone organizing joint ace/aro meetups, is that it's important to at a minimum give all groups included equal billing in any event names or definitions, and to have active plans for discussion questions, icebreakers, etc. that can actively include all experiences (aromantic aces, romantic aces, aromantic allosexuals, etc.). Or alternatively, if you are organizing a just ace meetup, and want to emphasize that it's open to both romantic aces and aromantic aces, then use that kind of phrasing rather than just saying "open to the whole aromantic-spectrum" - because it's important to remember that that spectrum includes lots of non-ace people too! --- As an attendee, meanwhile, if you feel comfortable reaching out, it might be good to raise that concern with the organizers and get them in touch with other groups (like TAAAP, maybe) that have more experience working with both aces and aros so that there could be an opportunity to make things more clear or more inclusive in future years, if this is a recurring event.

I have a couple question for any sexually active aros (or any aros who would like to be sexually active) - what kind of sexual relationships would you ideally like to pursue? Do you find them acheivable right now, or not so much? And what words do you like to use to describe these relationships? As an aromantic person who is firmly on the asexual side of things, I've never really had to think about what navigating sexual relationships would look like without any romantic interest, so I'm curious to hear about what it's like from those who do. I feel like I see a lot of talk about how aromantic people navigate their more "platonic" non-romantic and non-sexual relationships, or how people navigate romantic relationships of various kinds, but I'm curious what non-romantic sexual relationships look like for people here who are interested in them, either as an ideal or in actual practice. For example, do you personally prefer sticking to short term arrangements like hookups, "one-night stands" or other short-term relationships? Do you prefer longer-term but informal relationships like "friends with benefits"? Or are you still interested in more formal "committed" relationships similar to serious dating and marriage, but without the usual romantic assumptions? Are these terms something you use or do you prefer different relationship models and terminology alltogether? Also, for those who are interested in both sexual relationships, and committed non-romantic relationships (including QPs, cohabitating with friends, or other commitments), do you prefer to have both of these desires fulfilled by the same person/relationships? Or are these things that you see as more seperate?

I was talking to some friends offline about feeling comparatively a little older in some aro communities (both in terms of time spent in and around aro spaces, and in general age - I'm not that old, but i'm also clearly not in touch with all the hip young people memes anymore), and I was curious what the actual breakdown of people on the site is in terms of age and if it matches my impressions at all or if I'm just wildly off.

I would be careful about making assumptions about how easy it is to figure out an aroace identity as well - it's all too easy to assume that the grass must be greener on the other side, but I think we just don't have the data need to really know one way or the other yet (though that might defintiely be an interesting project for future ace and/or aro research projects - we do know that aces as a group are likely to have their first self-realization somewhat later in life - I think the median in the last ace census was around 19? but I don't think anyone has looked at how that breaks down by romantic orientation, especially for non-ace aros ) . While sticking to hypotheticals, I would agree that it might be easier for an aroace person who has already learned about and joined an asexual community to learn about aromanticism / that that's an option. But the big limiting factor for most asexual (and aro) people is that they don't even know that something other than just gay/straight/bi exists as an option in the first place - which leads to the same exact kinds of denial and explaining away that mango mentioned. (I know I in particular spent many years assuming that all crushes and "ooh, he's so hot" were just other teens my age imitating hollywood teen movies to pretend to be grown up - because surely, no one my age actually cares about any of that, right?) It's pretty impressive what loops the brain can through to try and fit into an existing box, no matter how poor the fit might be.

Honestly, one of the things I'm curious about that doesn't get talked about so much is the difference in experience not between just ace and non-ace aros (which already gets talked about a ton), but the differences in the experiences of different group of allosexual aros - especially between those who lie on the more queer/LGB+ end of the spectrum vs. those who consider themselves more straight. (and that's not even getting into the complications of gender and trans identities). While I can't speak directly to either of those experiences as an aro ace (we have our own set of confusing issues), I've noticed that outside the bubble of certain ace and aro online community spaces, most people in the wider world often don't care that much about the intricacies of what kinds of attraction I feel or what specific labels I use....but they often do care a lot of about more visible behaviors, like who I date (or rather, don't date), who I hook up with (or my case, who I don't hook up with), etc. I'd imagine that being a queer-identified allosexual aro - especially one who might have visible same-sex relationships (whether sexual, queerplatonic, or otherwise) or talk about their same-sex attractions - would have to deal with a double-whammy of overt homophobia/heterosexism on top of all the regular anti-aro sentiments; and for those involved with broader queer or LGBT+ communities there's also a unique set of politics to navigate there that are different from the issues encountered in more mainstream [straight] society - for better or for worse. And I'd imagine that for more straight-aligned allosexual aros, while they might not have to deal with as much direct homophobia, they might still have to deal with the more indirect effects of homophobia/heterosexism as a result of not fitting into the "right kind" of straight behavior, and may have difficulty finding access to offline spaces to really explore their sexuality in more complex ways (because while some queer/LGBTQIA+ communities may in theory be friendly and accepting straight-aligned aces and aros, they often just aren't really built for or experienced in giving the kind of support those groups might need...and there's not many equivalents for straight or straight-ish people). For anyone who does identify as either of those groups, I'd be curious to hear more about your perspectives on the issue.

The sense of "non-romantic" has been around since long before the internet; the ways that society tends to conflate both romance and sex mean that platonic often gets use to mean lack of sex, lack of romance, or lack of both somewhat ambiguously and interchangeably. As far as the use of not romantic, but possibly sexual, I'm not sure. I see it so rarely that I've never really looked into it. You can see examples of that ambiguity in definitions like these. (also, since queerplatonic is a seperate word that usually requires being given a definition anyway, I don't see it as an urgent problem) Actually, both aroace and more general aro communities both predate that post! For specifically aroace communities, the aromantic thread on AVEN and the Aromantic-Asexuals community on forum-motion were created in 2010, a year before that post was made. And in bigger news for the wider community that year, the National Coalition for Aromantic Visbility was also launched that year, with a focus on providing space for all aromantic people, not just ace ones. Aro communities on other platforms like tumblr, livejournal, facebook, etc. were also getting their start by mid-2011. These formal networks were also outgrowths of more informal communities and social circles that were a bit older than that even. Also, while there's no reason that the aro community (or any specific people in it) need to use terminology that other communities like ace communities or queer communities use, sometimes it's nice for those of us who don't mind sharing to not have to reinvent the wheel

@Jot-Aro Kujo have you had a chance to read the original essay that was linked in the beginning of this thread? It specifically sets aside space to talk about some of the reasons that this might be happening, and to acknowledge that a big driving factor behind some of these conflicts are the mutual hurts between various parts of ace and aro communities. This is just one segment: If you (or others in the thread) haven't had a chance to sit down and read the whole linked post, I think that might help to understand where this is coming from - the brief summary in the original posts was obviously incomplete because, well, it's a summary, and it's hard to condense ideas into a couple sentences without leaving a lot of important things out. I think the hope was that people would actually read the original post, with it's more nuanced discussion, and additional context (and perhaps even prompt people to engage with the other community discussions already happening there, in order to promote more cross-community discussion). I agree that more specific calls to action might have made things clearer, but I think that one of the hopes of opening additional conversation here was that we might also be able to brainstorm and crowdsource additional suggestions for ways to help - because as was mentioned upthread, while just making factual suggestions is a start, it isn't always effective when individual corrections are often just ignored or responded to with hostility - which is why we want to start figuring out if there are additional steps that we, as a community, can take in order to help prevent the spread of misninformation (or even to proactively spread accurate information).

I think that's one of the points we're trying to make! It shouldn't be that big of a deal to just go back and correct small references to either correctly cite the origins of terms (whether it's from aros, aces, queer communities, academia, or wherever else) or to just focus on who currently uses and not mention anything about coining or origins at all. We don't want to anyone to stop using these terms (which were often created precisely because their founders hoped they would be useful to as many people as possible) - in fact I personally would love if many of them became even better known! I think one of the things that can make it hard (and which coyote mentions directly in the original post) is that I think there can be a sort of instinctive fear response, esp. for people who constantly hear lines of thought from other sources (*cough* especially tumblr and everything influenced by it *cough*) that coining a term => owning that term forever => being able to tell everyone else not to use it - and who then assume that acknowledging that someone else coined the term, means that someone else will control it, and that someone else will tell them they can never again use it. I want to make it very clear that we don't want to imply any of those things - we're not out to police who can use the term, or what communities it can be associated with. We just want people to try not to spread incorrect information. As far as specific calls to action, here are my more specific suggestions: First, in your own writing: If you choose to talk about where a term was coined or where it originated from, do a little research to double-check where it actually came from. If possible, look for citations and check actual primary sources when possible @Coyote has already put together a history (with all important links to original sources!) of queerplatonic and some related terms that are also popular in aro communities. Taking 15 minutes to familiarize yourself with this information now will help you have it at the ready when you need it (and a lot of it is also a fun romp through a lot of aromantic community and adjacent histories) If you aren't sure where it came from, or don't want to get into the complicated intertwined history of aro and ace communities, just don't mention any of it! Instead, consider phrases like "x phrase is popular with aro communities" or "aro communities talk a lot about the concept of y" etc. as a way to emphasize the importance and connection of the term to aro communities without having to make any ahistorical claims Also, while not strictly as outright incorrect, I would still recommend avoiding phrasing like "x is an aro community term" or "y is an ace community term" if you can, as it can carry problematic implications of ownership among terms that were often invented specifically to be shared, that can easily be avoided by using alternative phrasing like I suggested above. While it can sometimes be harmless, it's fraught enough that I'd still personally go with other ways of phrasing things (especially since it's such an easy small change) Second, I would take time to educate yourself about the histories of queerplatonic and some related terms if possible, so that you can recognize misinformation when you see it and not get fooled or confused. Thirdly, it would help even more to try and gently correct misinformation when you run across it in the wild, and to share links to more accurate citations or suggest alternative phrasing.

I think I might try to respond with a little more nuance in the morning, but in the meantime, a few quick thoughts - first, can we please try to avoid personal insults and stereotypes about other groups of people (including both the people in this thread, and alloromantic aces)? I know that criticism can be really hard to take, especially if you start realizing that you were misinformed by sources of information you thought you could rely on, but sometimes part of growth is being able to step back, take a deep breath, and realize that yeah, maybe you were mistaken about certain facts. That doesn't have to be a big deal - it's a learning experience all of us have to go from at some point, and you're already taking the first step in that direction by joining the conversation here. As far as the additional context for where you were getting your information from, thank you for sharing it - it helps to explain the situation and I think to also help identify some more of what is behind the trend. But I think it also illustrates the point that @Coyote was trying to make, which is that this misinformation is so pervasive, and also why it's so important to try and bring attention to exactly what's incorrect about it, and what the actual reality is. Part of the reason that Coyote has been putting in the work to gather these histories and explanatory sources is exactly so people in the future will have access to histories that you didn't, and won't accidentally fall into the same trap. It's not that it's not understandable how people accidentally assume that things that resonate with aros must have come from aros, or that people don't always fact check things - to err is human. But the thing is, the fact that something resonates with aro people doesn't mean it didn't also resonate just as much with other types of people as well. And sometimes, those people come up with concepts for themselves first, that we in the aro community later find useful. When that's the case, I think it's worth getting the history right - both out of respect to the people who have articulated concepts that have become so useful to the rest of us, and also out of respect to the actual history that the aro community actually has, which often gets obscured in favor of some of these mythologies that sound nice to so many people but just don't hold up under investigation. Also, I'm guessing this was probably rushed out and you may not have given it a lot of thought, but I want to make it really clear that when ace people (romantic or otherwise) are talking about queerplatonic relationships, they're talking about the exact same kinds of "queering the boundaries of what a platonic relationship can be" kind of relationships that other aro people are. They are not actually talking about normative romantic relationships at all. Whether you intended it or not, I worry that the comment above seems to imply that alloromantic people don't need or are incapable of queerplatonic or other platonic relationships just because they also have (at least in theory) the option for romantic relationships - which uncomfortably reflects common assumptions that QPs are some kind of second-class choice for those who can't do romance, or that alloromantic people are somehow incapable of having intimate platonic relationships - both of which I want to push back against.

Ah, I think I see where there's confusion. I was referring to the link to the arokaladin post from this November, which was directly linked in the specific quote I was responding to (requoted below with original link for reference). That post is still up. The post that was mentioned in the first post in this thread as deleted was a completely different post (the much older but wider spread post by aphobephobe), which is a completely different thread. I would think the goal here is to just be aware that this is an ongoing concern, and also be educated about the causes behind it, and to start thinking about potential ways to respond for if/when it inevitable does filter out to other parts of the aro community that you are more active in. Right now it's happening most on tumblr - but that's also because tumblr is largely where people are talking about aromanticism the most. But the emerging communities there are closely connected with the communities both here and elsewhere, and things tend to spread around. I mean it's up to them, but I personally wouldn't expect them to give an "official response" every time someone on a social platform makes an inaccurate post about something to do with aromanticism. They've done a pretty good job collating a set of resources that any of us can link to when we see myths or inaccuracies being perpetuated. Unfortunately as far as @AUREA, detailed aro community history (including the adjacent history of things like queerplatonic) with sources is actually something that don't really have much on in their resources yet, especially one that really explains the issues mentioned here (although that's understandable, because it's a missing resource almost everywhere). Does anyone know if there's a best way to nominate resources for the site (or at least the periodic "what's going on" linkspams?) I think some of the posts like the original Queerplatonic Geneology post might be good to include somewhere, and I also have another post about the history of early aro community spaces (c. 2010 to present) that I'm putting together at the moment. That might be easier than trying to start from scratch. (I'll shoot an email over eventually, but figured I'd ping them here as well in the meantime)