Mark

7 hours ago, Guest August said:

I'm trying to write a story where there are two main characters, one is aro, the other is ace. I want it to be a BL where they get together at the end but idk how to do that correctly since one is aromantic. I myself am not aromantic so I hope any peeps on here could help me. :)

Rather sad that all you want to do with these characters is to make them into a boring couple.

How about something like:
Alice: An aromantic pansexual who is really into dating with no interest in being "in a relationship".
Bob: A panromantic asexual who's desperate to find "the one" whilst being fairly indifferent to dating.

Whilst dates between Alice and Bob are mutually enjoyable they ted to be infrequent.
Bob cares more about them never leading to romance than Alice cares about them never leading to sex.
Maybe after a series of failed romances, maybe a divorce or two, Bob will change his mind and start enjoying casual dates with Alice.

8 hours ago, ImJustChillingHere said:

• "You've had crushes on guys though?"- First off, aromanticism is a spectrum, so some people can still technically have the possibility of feeling romantic attraction, but have found the label that truly fits how they feel, and second, people have made up crushes/and/or confused their feelings with a squish (I have done this).

In mainstream society any strong attraction tends to be considered a "crush". Regardless of if it any part of it involves romantic attraction or not.
Though it's just as problematic to regard any attraction as a "squish". Which can happen in parts of the aro community.

8 hours ago, ImJustChillingHere said:

• "You're so young, I just don't see the point in labelling yourself!"- Well the label resonates with how I feel and makes me feel a lot more confident and sure of myself in my identity, but I'm sure if I was a straight allo girl you wouldn't be saying anything about labelling myself.

Even someone who actually is "too young to know" would not be challenged if they labeled themselves as "straight", "allo", "cis", etc.

9 hours ago, ImJustChillingHere said:

• "It's probably just a phase, you'll most likely grow out of it."-This is just rude and is such a inconsiderate phrase, you have no right to invalidate my feelings, and you don't know me more than I do, so what makes you think you have any say in whether I'm going through a "phase"?

It's actually far more common for aros to grow out of an "allo phase"...
Just as it's very common for LGBTQ+ people to have a "cis straight phase" when they are young.

9 hours ago, ImJustChillingHere said:

 

• "Are you saying you're LGBTQ+ because you want to fit in?"- Ok, I understand there are some very stupid people that pretend to be LGBTQIA+ because they think it's a trend and want to follow on it, but again, THIS IS A RUDE AND INCONSIDERATE PHRASE. No, I'm not trying to "fit in" with people at my school, what I've done is found a label that finally fits how I've felt for my whole life, and you're invalidating my feelings yet again, and even accusing me of faking it! Even if I truly wanted to "fit in", and did something stupid like that, I wouldn't be identifying as an aroace, I'd be identifying as a sexuality that is way more relatable such as bisexual, pansexual, lesbian ect.

If someone was motivated by wanting to fit in they'd likely identify as "cis straight". Maybe also "mongamous" and "vanilla" anyway.

An issue with the Digging Deeper part is that many parts of it are rather US specific.
Most obviously is health insurance reference.

Imperialism and colonialism does not need to involve settlement or other forms of mass (even forced) migrations to change societies.
Rather understated is the role religion, especially Christianity, in terms of colonialism.
Marriage, including monogamous marriage, long predates romance. With romantic marriage and amantonormativity replacing arranged marriage. It's also notable as recently as the 19th century, maybe into the 20th, arranged marriage was still commonplace within Europe.
A connection with "capitalism" fails to explain how amantonormativity exists within Eastern Europe, the former USSR and China.
 

On 5/1/2021 at 9:05 AM, Erederyn said:

Hey all! So I've been working on a challenging amatonormativity guide and it is done, wooo. I'm posting this here because it is aimed at alloromantic folks (although could be useful for aros dealing with internalized amatonormativity). I'm hoping that allies that will use this guide in order to not only be better allies to aros, but to also actively challenge their own amatonormative standards. 

Feel free to share it, especially with people in your life who could benefit from learning about amatonormativity. And if there is anyone on the forums who consider themselves an ally to aros, please consider engaging with this material and spreading it in your circles. Challenging amatonormativity is not the responsibility of the aro community alone!

https://gracesofluck.wordpress.com/2021/04/29/challenging-amatonormativity-a-beginners-guide/

A couple of things which might be worth adding would be
Mononormativity: the belief that exclusive dyadic relationships are the default, preferred, or normal mode of human relationships, especially intimate ones.
Romantic Coding: the belief that certain activities and behaviours are an essential part of romantic relationships and should not happen in other forms of relationships.

Other examples under "Structural/Institutional" Are social events, including those connected to employment, where attendance "with a partner" is the expectation or there is a substantial discount to tickers/membership for couples.

Most estimates appear to be in the 1-3% range. Though I do recall one, specific to a BDSM community, which came up with 6%.
Considering how obscure aromanticism is even 1% is a surprisingly large minority group.

There's the 2020 Pew survey of single people in the US showing that 14% of single people actually conformed the stereotype of single mindedly wanting to be coupled; 50% were entirely uninterested; 10% interested only in casual dating and the remaining 26% somewhere in the middle. (This would correspond to ~7%, ~25%, ~5% and ~7% of US adults.)
This could mean that aros are rather more common that about one in fifty; allos are rather less hyper-romantic than popular culture portrays or both.

20 hours ago, Holmbo said:

Single friends might like more like you but if they're very focused on finding a romantic relationship you might feel more kinship to those friends who are coupled and thus not searching.

Something interesting is that only a minority (~14%) of single people fit the stereotype of focussing on becoming coupled. Whilst the majority (~60%) are entirely uninterested. As shown in this recent survey.

IME both couple seeking and coupled people tend to have "couple mindset" which I can't relate to.

On 12/8/2021 at 4:38 PM, Holmbo said:

Yeah it's very strange. I don't think I've ever experienced it in real life. Seems to me like it's often tied to sexist and toxic masculinity. Like that a real man doesn't want to commit or have any expectations on them

The most obvious relationship between romance and toxic masculinity is the expectation that, heterosexual, men should obtain emotional support only from their girlfriend or wife. The other side of this coin being that, heterosexual, women are expected to only offer emotional support to men who are their boyfriend or husband.

This has the effect that emotional support is more strongly romantically coded for men than women. Which can also happen with physical affection.

29 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

I played a game, it asked the synonyme for "available". An accepted answer was "single".

The context being "available for what?"
There's even evidence that the majority of single people are not interested in being coupled anyway.

Would "married" being an acceptable answer of the basis that marriage people are "available for divorce".

This book on Consent in Gaming both recognises romance as being a consent issue and being distinct from sex.

On 10/22/2021 at 7:42 PM, nonmerci said:

It was also interesting to see there is no clear majority bing romance-repulsed, neutral and favorable. It made me think of this survey on AVEN, when it was the case also for the aros who are there, but it is very clear that for sex, sex-favorable asexual is a minority. I think it is interesting how romance don't have a clear difference for aromantics, but sex does for asexuals.

The AVEN survey, which is presumably aro ace biased, does show a majority towards romance-favourable.
Interestingly the terms "sex-tolerant" and "romance-tolerant" are not used on either survey.

I wonder if it would be useful to split the analysis of the AUREA survey by sexual orientation. Possibly also by age group, gender and nationality. Given that the responders were rather skewed in terms of some of these demographics.

On 10/28/2021 at 12:15 PM, nonmerci said:

I wonder if it is linked to how society portray sex and romance. For sex, society insists on the act, and for romance, it insists more on the feeling (that is portrayed as best thing in thé world). The value attached to it is different, too. For sex, we are all supposed to want it and think it is good, but also encourage to respect our boundaries and to not engage in it if we are not comfortable. With romance, society doesn't portray it as something you should not do if you don't feel like it, but as something pure that can only do good.

There are also other social differences.
Sex: Private, Not Safe For Work, inappropriate for children.
Romance: Public, Safe For Work, appropriate for children.

Within amantonormative societies the assumption tends to be that everyone is expected to want sex only as part of a romantic relationship.
This raises issues for alloromantic asexuals; a different set of issues for aromantic allosexuals and another set of issues for any aromantic asexuals who may be interested in (non-sexual) romantic coded activities.
It's also plausible that allo aces and aro allos might more interested in attempting normative (romo-sexual) relationships than than aro aces.

Aro characters who isn't also asexual. Since these are conflated far too much.
Likely who also arn't philematophobic or haphephobic. Given that these are also common aro stereotypes.

1 hour ago, sol said:

yesterday i told my friend i'm aromantic. her reaction was: "isn't it because of some trauma? have you talked to your therapist about that?"

Maybe you should have asked them what makes them so sure being alloromantic isn't the result of some trauma....

9 hours ago, eatingcroutons said:

Yeah, this is the main thing for me. That, plus the fact that there are certain Life Events where it's standard practice for everyone in the office to pitch in for a gift and a card, and those are all related to the typical amatonormative life path: Engagement, marriage, childbirth, etc. I have nothing against doing this! I'm just sad that I'm never going to get a present from my colleagues like that ?

Possibly it depends on the cost of the gift.
Even if it's small, it can still feel uncomfortable subsidising privileged people's lifestyles.

On 8/3/2021 at 11:38 PM, Aronaut said:

What about using sex-positive? Or is that not possible because of the sex positive movement? (Asking because I've seen this being used often while mingling in the ace community)

Someone of any sexual orientation, including asexual, can be sex-positive. Thus it makes little sense to attempt to use it as an antonym of asexual.

27 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

So on AVEN there is this discussion about the term "allosexual", saying that the term allosexual should not be used and that we should talk about non-asexual or sexual instead.

Maybe this bunch of bigots should be called "non-allosexual" :)
Moreover it was the asexual community, i.e.AVEN, who coined "allosexual" as an antonym of "asexual".

An effect of intersectionality is that privileges and disprivilegees do not "stack" in any simple way.
Aro aces having perioriented privilege doesn't really count for much.
Ditto for hetero aces having heteroromantic privilege or hetero-aros having heterosexual privilege.

I'd define it was wanting to be in a romantic (or similar) relationship with someone.
With romantic relationships being those where ideas like being "in a relationship" or "in a couple" are very important. Possibly even more important than what happens within that relationship.

11 hours ago, DeltaV said:

But “bisexual” is the only word for an orientation that has “sexual” in it and is still normally used… I think it would be better to just say “bi”. So that it refers to both bisexual or biromantic attraction.

Perioriented people tend to conflate romantic and sexual. Even though many of them, with the obvious exception of aro aces, can experience only romantic or only sexual attraction. Thus you find "sexual" used where "romosexual", even, "romantic" would be more accurate.

On 7/13/2021 at 2:34 PM, Erederyn said:

In general society and in many different settings. I work in mental healthcare and marriage/partnerships are often considered signs of proper functioning. And if you're an adult who has a never had a romantic relationship, then yeah, this might indeed be seen as a sign of arrested development or immaturity.

I wonder if there might be something within mental health training which bolsters faith in amantonormativity.

Considering some the behaviour of allos, when, in romantic relationships it might more sense to see them as a sign of immaturity.

On 8/27/2018 at 12:22 PM, Tagor said:

In my opinion, the problem is that there are two major definitions of aromanticism I found. The first, which I found primarily on AVEN, is "somebody who doesn't desire a romantic relationship" and the second is "somebody who doesn't experience romantic attraction, for example never has a crush". Based on the first one, we wouldn't be aromantic, based son the second one, we would. But this one has the the major problem that prove that you're aromantic - you could still have a crush in the future.

AVEN is a resource for asexuals primarily those who are also alloromantic.
At best the definition of aromanticism is from the limited perspective of aro-aces. (Likely excluding any who are romance repulsed.)

An issue with the first definition is that a large minority of allos are uninterested in romantic relationships.

There are a couple of issues with the second definition:
Absence of "romantic attraction" is a much more abstract concept than lack of desire for a romantic relation.
The term "crush" is highly subjective. It's also unclear how a "crush" could reliably be distinguished from a "squish"; intense sexual, sensual, aesthetic or other type of non-romantic attraction. Especially be someone who's never encountered the idea of attraction having,, at least, five flavours.

On 6/14/2021 at 12:27 PM, Erederyn said:

Oof, one of my players wanted to romance the NPC and I felt so awkward as the DM ? Even though it wasn't directed at me as a person, I was not prepared for it hahah.

Just out of interest how did the PC ad NPC compare in terms of stats? Also was that a plot-critical NPC or one you could afford to lose in a combat encounter?

On 6/14/2021 at 12:27 PM, Erederyn said:

And then the same player was trying to get another player, who is aroace and uncomfy with those sorts of situations, to flirt with an NPC lolol.

This sounds like some troublesome PvP behaviour.

On 6/14/2021 at 12:27 PM, Erederyn said:

 just forgot that players/characters might try to romance NPCs or each other, and I did not foresee this as a potential issue ahhh. 

PCs can behave in all sorts of inappropriate ways towards NPCs. However NPCs can either run away or attack PCs as they see fit. It's also perfectly within the rules for a harmless appearing NPC to be a high level monk/sorcerer/druid/etc or a (polymorphed) dragon.

On 6/15/2021 at 7:00 AM, Alexander said:

Ikr?? Like, I've been listening to "Best friend" by Queen and I thought that it was just a platonic song to show affection to your good friend. It turned out that it was actually romantically coded.

It would be nice if allos would stop using "friend" as a euphemism for "romantic partner".

3 hours ago, I.B. said:

One of the most common chromosomal disorders is Klinefelter syndrome (XXY sex chromosomes). There's also variants like XYY, X, XXX, XXXY, XXYY, or even XXXXY.  Some of these are surprisingly common, with about 1 in 500 people overall having a sex chromosomal disorder.

 Many chromosomal duplications are lethal to the cell in question.
The Y chromosome is small so it being duplicated or omitted makes little difference.
Whilst X is a large chromosome only one is typically fully expressed in a cell.  Where there are multiple X chromosomes present all except one are Barr bodies, with the majority of the genes inactivated.

 

Its notable that there are RPG systems, such as 7th Sea, which specifically support aromantic characters.
For those unfamiliar the Game is set in a fictionalised version of 17th century Europe with page 89 of the Player's Guide stating "On the other side of the fence, the romantics sing about a new kind of love, a love between two people no other can experience, share or understand It is a fire that flares up without reason and burns forever." With one of the character creation questions being "Is your Hero in love? Is he married or betrothed?" (The guide does poorly when it comes to gender inclusive language.)

On 3/18/2021 at 5:44 PM, Acecream said:

i’m an aroace person myself and I feel like aro-representation should be a bit more allosexual than it is. Even in the aro-awareness week I saw a lot of posts on social media that were mentioning asexuality while I felt it would be necessary to part my aro from my ace identity (yes maybe they interact with each other, but they still are two different parts of my identity) and I fear that aroaces would be a bit gatekeeping...

Even if they don't mention they are also ace having only aroaces gives a very limited perspective on aromanticsm.
Including that, like other perioriented people, aroaces can more easily confuse and conflate romantic and sexual.