Mark

On 5/22/2020 at 8:03 AM, Tumblrweed said:

"As difficult as it may be for us to believe today, particularly if we have had the seemingly involuntary, overwhelming experience of "falling in love," anthropological and historical evidence both suggest that falling in love is not actually something human beings are hard-wired to do but a behavior pattern that is learned. In cultures where there is no significant cultural pattern of experiencing romantic love, most people do not. Such a pattern did ultimately develop in the West, but for most of our history it was not part of the everyday experience of the average person."

It also notable does not appear at all in Western culture until recently. Though it's quite common for it to be retconned into earlier history and literature.
With amantonormativity being more recent. 

However there's also this kind of junk sceince which assumes romance is innate rather than a learned behaviour.

On 4/26/2020 at 3:23 PM, sunny said:

Lately I've realized that my definition of platonic and romantic is a little skewed. I'm not entirely sure what defines one or the other for me (frankly I have a hard time seeing a line at all, I don't necessarily think there is one.

I think the notion of a "line" is an application of a false dichotomy.
Things can be both "platonic", "romantic", both or neither.
 

On 4/26/2020 at 3:23 PM, sunny said:

Let me rephrase, because I'm having a hard time iterating it: What defines that point where a situation potentially dips into the romantic? For me I can't label it as an action specifically, while certain things (kissing, namely) dip more into the "romantic" side of things, I find the emotions behind whatever actions drastically change the context. I don't think I've ever held hands or kissed anyone that didn't see the action as inherently romantic. But it's not that I don't feel anything for the people I've done that with. Maybe moments were too emotionally charged or intense, but I've only thought about kissing people I care about. Though that care for me, doesn't dip more into the "romantic."

Romance is purely abstract concept.
Where things can get confusing is that many activities are "romantic coded". That is there is a social expectation that they happen only within a "romantic relationship". 

The term "platonic" is a huge mess.
It's usual definition is as an antonym to either "sexual" or "physical".
Within the asexual community it it was also used as an antonym for "romantic". Where it sort of makes sense given that sex is romantically coded. However this meaning being carried over into the aromantic community leads to such oxymoronic terms as "platonic sex".
As a final twist the term derives from the works of Plato. Which include the "soulmate" meme now associated with romantic relationships.

There's also the term "alterous" which ma mean "neither platonic nor romantic", "platonic and romantic" or "between platonic and romantic". The latter looking like middle ground fallacy 

On 5/4/2020 at 9:19 PM, cinnamon_bun said:

Am I the only one that feels like they're missing out on certain things in life due to being aro?

I would say that I'm missing out on being able to do many things which are romantic coded.

On 4/16/2020 at 7:42 PM, DeltaV said:

Also, in some cultures this agreement of monogamy is not made explicitly, just implicitly assumed.

I'm reminded of a thing I've seen recently about "ask culture" vs "guess culture". 

On 4/17/2020 at 3:27 AM, Apathetic Echidna said:

that was hilarious and so true in highlighting the issues involved in attraction and romance. The girls can't/don't explain it but clearly think the guy should understand automatically that there is 'clearly' a difference. 

It's notable that many people commenting on the video will insist that something must be different. Even if it happened off screen.

On 4/17/2020 at 3:27 AM, Apathetic Echidna said:

As for why there are many more women than men on the site, well anything I say would be guessing and making wild assumptions based on stereotypes. probably. 

This is the case across social media.

On 4/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, TripleA said:

I think women tend to express their desire for romantic love much more than guys do 

In respect of romance gender roles differ hugely. Thus asking anything along the lines of "Are men or women more romantic" can be apples and oranges.

On 4/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, TripleA said:

so if we so happen to be absent of that, we are maybe more likely to express our absence of romantic desire, especially when fending off creepy men. We basically have to come out to try and avoid guys hitting on us. 

Part of gender role difference is that women are expected to be "hit on" whilst men are expected to do the "hitting on". 
Something I don't recall being asked is how do allos feel about "hitting on" someone they are not romantically attracted to along with how likely they are to do this.

It's very clear being "hit on" romantically is perceived differently depending on if there is romantic attraction or not. (Including third party bystanders.) Shown in this video
.
I think it's, also, worth asking if aros, especially cis heterosexual ones, want to retain these kind of roles/behaviour for non romantic relationships.

On 4/11/2020 at 5:58 PM, nonmerci said:

Men also have this pressure, but they are also supposed to enjoy sex without romance, contrary to women...

Having seen plenty of hyper romance from men of all sexual orientations I wonder if this is better described as being 'less unacceptable'..
I'm sure I recall a post here from a hetero aro woman expressing frustration at being unable to find men interested in romance free sex whilst also having to "fending off" those interested in her romantically.

Complicating this whole issue is that it's socially normative to conflate romance and sex. Potentially to the point where perioriented allos may be completely unaware when they only experience sexual (or romantic) attraction. Indeed exclusive varioriented people, such as allo aros, can take years to decades to realise this.

The term Friends With Benefits describes at least two different types of relationship.

One might better be described as "Entirely Sexual". This tends to be favoured by allos and what you tend to find if you look up the term online.
The other being "Sexual (or otherwise non-platonic) Friendship". This tends to be favoured by aros. Sometimes allos withing kink and poly communities.

The other possible complication is that allos can have expecations of such relationships transitioning into romantic ones.

On 4/1/2020 at 1:12 AM, Coyote said:

I've seen it only very infrequently, but for instance, it's in the description for the PF community A-SpecUsers: "A place for support and friendship for asexual, aromantic, and agender pillowfort users." I asked the comm creator... why that grouping, and their response was basically "we all get the same crap." I don't really get that reasoning, but there you go.

Seems more likely to be "several different kinds of crap" in practice. With maybe some overlap at times.
 

On 4/1/2020 at 1:12 AM, Coyote said:

The origin story, apparently, is that "a-spectrum" was originally created on Tumblr in 2015 to mean "the ace spectrum and the aro spectrum" together in one word. This is something that strategicgoat, warriorsdebt, and whes did specifically because anti-ace & anti-aro bloggers on Tumblr kept conflating the two concepts. So their response... was to create a word for both concepts? ...And now we have the problem of that term, itself, inspiring a lot of conflation of the two concepts (where people will use "aspec" when what they actually mean is just "ace"). Great going, everyone. 

Something of a facepalm.

12 hours ago, kernsing said:

There’s been a thread on this (EDIT: that got really off topic and contains some identity policing). Personally I’ve never really heard of it incorporating agender and use to it encompass the aro and ace umbrellas.

I think XKCD may have got there first.
It can seem at times that a lot of "aromantic terms" follow  Unix Standards.

On 3/29/2020 at 9:38 PM, Coyote said:

• • International issues, ex. "learning disability" as a term is defined differently in different countries.

This is also the case with racial categories and terms to describe urban areas. Including, those such as Singapore, where the country comprises a single city state.
 

On 3/29/2020 at 10:10 PM, Guest time-is-ticking said:

if i live on the country-side, what do i choose? i don't live in a village.

This seems an odd omission. Since I'd have expected those preparing the survey to be familiar with countries, such as the USA, which have a huge range of population density. With both isolated single dwellings and huge cities.

The caveat to always include an "other" option applies here.
There also may be people who live on ships, military bases, etc.

On 3/27/2020 at 2:00 AM, Guest Sennkestra said:

Yeah, I think part of the issue is that because ace communities and aro communities overlap or at least bump into each other a lot,

It might be better to say they intersect.
 

On 3/27/2020 at 2:00 AM, Guest Sennkestra said:

 This comes in the form of people/groups procaliming "aspec" projects or spaces without actually putting in the work to actively include all groups (though tbh, while everyone gets shafted by this, agender folks probably get shafted by this lip-service "aspec" approach even more); but also in the form of people assuming/demanding that groups that cater to one of these groups must also serve all "aspecs" equally even if that's far outside their actual scope.

I wonder if if this might describe the majority of "aspec" projects, groups, organisations, etc.

34 minutes ago, bydontost said:

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

Rather depends what is and isn't included in it...

On 3/15/2020 at 11:34 PM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

Like, for example, a relationship between two aces where they're both romantically attracted to one another, dedicated to one another, in love with one another, but there's no physical element involved at all. One couple in this relationship will describe itself as an aro-ace QPR, because no physical element is involved. The other couple in the exact same relationship will call it a romantic ace relationship because they love each other, regardless of no physical element involved.

IMHO a term like "romo-platonic relationship" would make rather more sense here.
It makes no sense at all for two allo aces to use aro to describe their romantic relationship.

On 3/15/2020 at 11:34 PM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

Then say you have an ace relationship similar to what I described above, but add cuddling -- one couple will call itself a QPR because there's no kissing. The other couple in the same relationship will call it a romantic relationship, because there's a physical element involved.

Both romantic relationships and QPRs are abstract concepts. So I'm not sure how this makes any sense

On 3/15/2020 at 11:34 PM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

Or add kissing. The couple may feel romantically desire one another, but aren't romantically attracted to one another per se, so they call it an aro-ace QPR instead.

Ditto.

Is this an allo ace (or AVEN) thing?
AFAIK allo allos in mainstream society just use "(romantic) relationship" regardless of if they kiss, cuddle, have sex, etc.

On 3/15/2020 at 11:34 PM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

Yeah, I'm not sure. I've seen plenty of ace articles (although not AVEN directly) where they describe aro-aces as "wanting QPRs." And I've seen a lot of aces that carry that assumption... although not all.

The looks like a variation on the amantonormative meme that everyone wants to be coupled.
I suspect that only a minority of aros actually are interested in QPRs (of any form).

On 3/16/2020 at 5:27 AM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

But lots of debate on "your relationship sounds more QPR than romantic" or vice versa. So not necessarily using it to mean "anything non-sexual" (although I've seen that), but "not romantic enough to be romantic" vs "too non-romantic to be QPR."

This looks like an expression of relationship (type) hierarchy.

23 hours ago, Coyote said:

Point of clarification -- I think the "I Don’t Mean to Baffle You, But I Do" post was more about the author's own relationships, but before that, in 2011, they posted this, which specifically says "a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual." (I don't know why use the term "platonic" in the term then, but that's what they did.) So technically speaking, that's not a recent development.

I've always found this kind of statement oxymoronic.
Even reading the post from 2011 it's unclear what it's intended meaning and audience is.
Could it be intended for sex favourable asexuals rather than allosexuals?
 

On 3/15/2020 at 10:24 PM, nonmerci said:

I am aroace and certainly don't want a QPR. Aroace just means no romantic and no sexual attraction... some wants a QPR and some don't. It depends on the person.

I don't even think it is an aro ace thing : I'm sure I saw some aro allo said they want one too... so they can add a sexual composent sometimes.

Experiencing or not experiencing a certain type of attraction does not determine what kind of interpersonal relationships people actually want.
Even many alloromantics have little interest in being in a romantic relationship.
 

On 3/15/2020 at 10:24 PM, nonmerci said:

Maybe it is an example of how some aces are still stuck in amatonormativity?

Some common definitions of QPRs seem rather compatible with amantonormativity. Especially in terms of ranking relationship types by "closeness".
 

On 3/15/2020 at 10:24 PM, nonmerci said:

They have to difficulty to understand some people are juste not interested in monogamous relationship, romantic or not? 

There are also people who are only interested in non-monogamous relationships. Be that sexual, social, structural or emotional monogamy.

Amantonormative societies are as much mononormative as they are romonormative.

On 3/15/2020 at 9:24 PM, Ace_of_Spades7 said:

I've seen other aro-aces express worry of being lonely once all their friends marry, have kids, etc., and even when they say that they don't want a QPR, their posts are still flooded with comments about how they should be in a QPR.

The other way this can go is the assumption that people who are not interested in couple type relationships must prefer to do things by themselves. 

On 3/12/2020 at 9:54 PM, sennkestra said:

If you're curious about how common it is, the Ace Community Survey

I think we really need something similar for aros.

On 3/16/2020 at 10:58 AM, nonmerci said:

I think that seeing that aro felt not comfortable, the asexual community decided to be more inclusive. And that's why now, all ace events wants to be "ace and aro" : they fear that if they don't, they will be seen as not inclusive, or discriminatory against aros. This is well-intentionned. They are glad to share ressources for aros too.

I'm thinking of how this meme might apply.
Accessibility: Being able to get into the building.
Diversity: Getting invited to the table.

Inclusion: Having a voice.
Belonging: Being listened to.

13 hours ago, pressAtoQUEER said:

Okay, so this focuses on the inclusion of asexuality as a part of bisexual history, but keep in mind that the aromantic community split off/was borne from the asexaul community, so the histories are one and the same in a lot of spaces for a lot of time: https://bi-asexual.tumblr.com/post/161938628812/aphostraphe-pls-give-me-1one-reason-aces-have

I know, I know - that's a tumblr link! But it's got tons of cited sources (take a look at the book recs) and it wouldn't be fair of me to just copy'pasta all that work over here ignoring the work OP put into compiling those resources.

It's definitely from an ace perspective. Can't see anything obviously allo aro applicable.
In terms of The Golden Orchid association this existed long before romantic relationships (and marriage) became normative. Which happened later in China than Europe, possibly even post 1949.

This Kinsey reference seems to be more about the desexualisation of disabled people too.
 

13 hours ago, Coyote said:

Well that seems... questionably applicable, then. I mean, I hear what you're saying there, but just because aromanticism as we know it here traces back to early ace communities doesn't mean that... all ace history is de facto aro history. That seems like just making the same ace-and-aro-inherently-go-together mistake that Alex (Jot-Aro Kujo) was just talking about.

It's the all too common issue of the only depiction of aro being in an ace context. Which tends to imply aro as a subset of ace. Even without the intent of allo aro erasure this is a problem.
 

6 hours ago, bydontost said:

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.

Even if you treat the last one as a kind of split attraction it's unclear if "affectional" is intended to mean "romantic" or not.

 

20 hours ago, Sufletromanesc said:

Comfortable in self is an extended version.

That would be an example of a backronym.
The word "cis" is a Latin prefix meaning "on this side of".
It's a, mutual, antonym with "trans". Which translates as "across from" or "on the other side of".

14 hours ago, Uxhio said:

but people tends to lump sexual and romantic attraction together. This is why people tends to assume you must be also ace  if you are aromantic by default.

The term for this is periorinted, which is a majority (~85%) situation.

Whilst the asexual community has had some success in challenging this assumption for asexual alloromantics nothing similar has happened for allosexual aromantics. (Nor for heterosexual homoromantics or homosexual heteroromantics who are also exclusively varioriented. Though there could be a lot of "overlapping varioriented" people who assume they are periorinted. e.g. heterosexual biromantics.)
 

14 hours ago, Uxhio said:

Or that you are ''picky'' or [insert bad mental diagnosis here] if you don't like a romantic relationship while feeling sexual attraction towards people. 

Possibly romance (including seeking romance) makes sex acceptable in sex negative societies.
When it comes to child acceptable, safe for work, consent, harassment, etc there are huge differences when it comes to social attitudes towards romance and sex.

14 hours ago, Uxhio said:

Notice how the key is romanticism, not some sort of close affection. 

I wonder if romance, rather than sex, is key in respect of amatonormativity.

On 3/14/2020 at 9:48 AM, nonmerci said:

Having a word for meaning "not asexual" is just normal to me and very useful.

Also using in avoiding the use of a double negative.

On 3/14/2020 at 11:30 AM, Sufletromanesc said:

I am convinced there are far many more Aro spec people out there but as romantic orientation is harder to decipher in many ways I'm convinced many "unaware arospecs" dont yet possess the vocabulary or understanding to even be introspective to recognise aro spec orientation in themselves. 

There' s also the issues of aro being, often, being seen as a subset of ace and the "right person" meme.

On 3/14/2020 at 11:30 AM, Sufletromanesc said:

That's where we come in. The more aro content online leads to more aros and more education of everyone else

There needs to be more diversity of aro content. Since aro ace content may be unhelpful to aro allos. Whilst at the same time, mistakenly, seen as "general aro".

On 3/8/2020 at 1:45 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

It would depend on context, usually. If someone talks about just "allos" it usually means alloromantics,

Here, AUREA,etc. it would mean "alloromantic".
Whereas somewhere like AVAN it would mean "asexual".

On 2/29/2020 at 8:46 PM, nonmerci said:

My original idea was to create contents specifically for LGBT sites. That may just be me thinking this was common sense, but if there is any aro in these places they are more likely to identify as bi, gay, lesbian, etc than ace... so create content that actually adress the experience of being aro while not being ace was just logical to me.

Which is why I was so concerned by @Morgenfluss bringing up ace websites in this post. Which did look like they might be advocating using this as source material.

On 2/29/2020 at 8:46 PM, nonmerci said:

Also, there is other things that concerned all aros.

Given how diverse aros are I'm uncertain how many such things there actually are.
 

On 2/29/2020 at 8:46 PM, nonmerci said:

Like the Wikipedia page about LGBT symbol who present a lot of flag,  including the ace flag, but the aro one (there is not even an aromantic article or at least I don't find it; if you google "Aromantic wikipedia", the first response is... the article about asexuality;  I'd like to write one but right now I don't feel legitimate to write an article on a site where I never write anything).

IIRC there was a Wikipedia page on aromanticism which, somehow, fell outside their rules and was deleted, There is a page on Romantic orientation
Putting just about anything which starts "Aromantic" into Google tends to lead to articles about asexuality.
 

On 3/1/2020 at 12:41 AM, pressAtoQUEER said:

 

Ask @Mark, the user whose post I was responding to. They're the one who asked for proof of aro "stuff" on ace sites several times now.

I was asking @Morgenfluss for clarification about the "aromantic stuff on Ace sites" they brought up, along with why they though it was relevant to LGBT+ sites.

On 3/1/2020 at 10:35 AM, bydontost said:

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".

IME the latter can be rather more common than the former.
 

On 3/1/2020 at 10:35 AM, bydontost said:

 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.

Possibly also something to the effect that boy/girl friend is a friend you have sex with.

On 3/1/2020 at 10:35 AM, bydontost said:

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.

Prior to encountering the aro community I had never known it meaning anything other than "non-sexual" maybe also "non romantic" as a consequence of romantic coding of sex.
The closest I can find to your definition is Merriam-Webster with ": of, relating to, or being a relationship marked by the absence of romance or sex".
Though that could also mean "non-sexual, can be romantic" as well as "non-romantic and non-sexual".
TBH I'd rather avoid using 'platonic' at all.

On 3/1/2020 at 9:26 PM, Coyote said:

If queer theory counts as a "LGBT place," and if you'd like to see aromanticism introduced explicitly into queer theory scholarship, you might be interested to read about some existing perspectives on romance in queer theory. Short version: while "romance" isn't really a key word in the field, I'd say queer theory is overall pretty friendly and supportive of nonromantic sexual relationships, which could be a promising start for introducing more of an explicitly aromantic perspective.

It's, unfortunately, only a start. There's a lack of vocabulary for nonromantic sexual relationships (and attraction).
The sex is a keyword whilst romance issue is one of the many ways in which sex and romance are treated differently. Hence conflating asexuality and aromanticism, including the idea that aces and aros face similar problems, can be such a problem.

On 2/21/2020 at 12:59 PM, bydontost said:

What?? You mean... beginning the whole introduction with that, or you mean the "bi-, a-, homosexual" thing specifically??

Something like "This was written by an aro ace. YMMV especially if you are an aro of a different sexual orientation" at the start. Rather than "not all aros are ace".

On 2/21/2020 at 12:59 PM, bydontost said:

Uh I thought we're talking about adding info on aromanticism to general lgbt websites. And as for credit, if an author who's aro and ace steps up to do it, well, i guess no one who's allo aro has??

Does this mean creating resources specifically for LGBT sites or  "cut and paste" of existing resources? These could look, very, different in terms of both content and style.

On 2/21/2020 at 12:59 PM, bydontost said:

Can you give an example of exclusively aroace experience that is thought of as a baseline for all aros?

The omission of relationships based around sexual attraction from articles on Non-romantic relationships.
Over focus on platonic, including squishes and QPRs, would be rather indicative of a lack of aro allo perspective.
Ditto for erasure of other non-romantic and non-platonic attractions.

18 hours ago, Morgenfluss said:

It does not originate from any ace sites.

Also

On 2/13/2020 at 4:53 PM, Morgenfluss said:

it's easier to find aromantic stuff on Ace sites

Which is why I asked for some examples of the "stuff" in question.
What is it and where does it originate from?

I'll stick with my assertion material on an ace site is likely to have an ace bias. Ditto for material with an ace author.

1 hour ago, Uxhio said:

The sad part was that they were aroace, I thought they would be more comprehensive of this, but they assumed than my chronic anxiety and traumas could be cured if I got a romantic partner ''because friends of them found mental peace with a partner''. A romantic partner, that thing that I don't get and I feel repulsed to? Like I wasn't enough on my own.

I need a therapist and sometimes someone that actually listens. Only partners do that? I thought emotional intimacy comes from friendship and family too.

Quoting Brake on amatonormativity

Quote

The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships. I call this disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal, ‘amatonormativity’: This consists in the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists, quirkyalones, polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted. Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility.

The first sentence easily explains what you are experiencing.

18 minutes ago, Uxhio said:

Oh god, the love triangles

You could think of them as a dramatic expression of a False Dichotomy.