Mark

On 12/20/2019 at 7:36 PM, sennkestra said:

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 think there's a why as much as a who dimension here.
In that aros potentially being interested in dating and hookups for the "wrong" reasons from the allo POV.

On 12/20/2019 at 7:36 PM, sennkestra said:

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.

IME LGBT+ communities can put couples, marriage and amantonormativity as much of a pedestal as mainstream society. It some cases advocating "marriage equality" can look like "matrimanial fanaticism".

7 hours ago, metelyk said:

I thought, it will be fun to see how far I can watch the video and still relate to what they are saying. I can relate to the children ages 5-9, and after that it feels like the tone changes. Suddenly there is talk about butterflies and wanting to be with the person all the time.

Is this the point at which alloromantics start to prioritise (even experience) romance.
Which would be interesting given that younger children certainly can understand philia and storge. Probably philautia, agape and ludus.

8 hours ago, metelyk said:

IA lot of the descriptions I do not experience at all, but a lot of others, I do not understand why they have to be romantic? A lot of the time it just sounds like these people are describing close friends. Like 18: to be happy and feel like you are safe. Why should this only be one person, your partner??? Why it is not a friend? I am confused.

I've never really understood the singular part of this. (Even without the romance part, as is the case in some QPR definitions, the soulmate/other half idea is something I'm at best indifferent to.)
 

8 hours ago, metelyk said:

That is what is most interesting for me in this video, that I can relate to a lot. I feel a lot of these things, like being vulnerable with people, understanding and being understood, feeling safe, etc. I just do not feel them as romantic. I wonder if these are actually NOT romantic, but just closeness with people, but when allos start having crushes they put all those feelings of closeness on one person instead of sharing them with many people outside of romantic relationships (like little children do, I think). So society begins to associate them with romantic love.

This sounds like "romantic coding" feelings.

8 hours ago, metelyk said:

And then when aros say we are aro, allos assume that we do not feel that same closeness because they think "closeness = romantic love". But in fact they are two different things. Does this make sense?

The other side of the coin is that having or seeking "closeness" can be interpreted as "romantic love"...

On 11/28/2019 at 11:50 AM, nonmerci said:

For instance, in French, we have a distinction between "copains" (or "potes") and "amis", but I have the feeling that both this word are translate by "friends" (to be simple, a "copain" or a "pote" is someone that we enjoy the company, but a "ami" is something we can rely on… the degree of intimacy and investissment is not the same; but when I see discussion in English, it seems the English language don't have this kind of distinction and that everybody don't talk of the same thing (or maybe it just cause I translate "ami" into "friend", so I'm always surprised when I read thing like "friends are not supposed to be super closed" or things like that because for me it involves a certain degree of intimacy)).

I'm sure there are also examples of multiple English words which translate into a single French word. This kind of thing is part of the reason why mechanical (AI) translation is difficult.

A similar example is how eight words from classical Greek translate to "love" in modern English.

On 11/28/2019 at 11:50 AM, nonmerci said:

For the poll, I made the options that came to my mind, but I you have other ideas I'll add it (I think we can edit a poll, right?).

I'm not sure if the site notifies people who have voted if a poll is altered.

9 hours ago, LauraG said:

Would you consider the phrase "platonic relationship" to be a synonym of "friendship"?

No.

9 hours ago, LauraG said:

Do you consider all friendships to be platonic relationships?

No.

9 hours ago, LauraG said:

Do you consider all platonic relationships to be friendships?

No.

23 hours ago, LBMango said:

Also, my primary love language is touch, which, for men in American culture, at least, is pretty much limited to romantic relationships... 

I wonder how much romantic coding may also be an issue with Quality time,  Receiving gifts and Acts of service.

Since "Positivity Posts" are Words of affirmation only.

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

I mean, I'm glad that I learn the term was created by aces people because learn in new thing is cool, and because I get now it refers to platonism  (I think platonic relationship were supposed to be not sexual?)

That's certainly its dictionary definition and colloquial English usage.
Does anyone know when it started to be used to mean "not romantic" and "not romantic, but possibly, sexual".
 

1 hour ago, LauraG said:

Well, QPRs being coined by aces shouldn't be taken to mean that they need to be non-sexual. In one of the early posts introducing the term (dated 2011), s. e. smith says "The key feature is the idea of being deeply connected to someone, without a romantic element (though a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual)."

At that time there was no "aro community". Possibly it even predates any "aro ace community".
Thus I think the "...can be sexual" bit is aimed at "sex positive" aces rather than allo aros.

1 hour ago, LauraG said:

What the word "platonic" actually means widely varies from person to person in the aro and ace communities, and also outside of them. Not all usages of it are intended to mean "non-sexual." (Which yes, is very confusing.)

It has a narrow enough definition to appear in dictionaries as either "non sexual" or "non physical". (The latter including the former.)
Slang or jargon uses or words are often confusing, especially outside of the context they were coined. Doing this so as to make a word its own antonym is likely to be really messy.
There's no actual reason for the aro community to use the same jargon as the ace community.

Something which rarely seems to be considered is how sexual orientation affects the experience of aromanticism.
Do aro allos and aro aces experience being aromantic differently?
If this is the case does it also matter if aros are heterosexual,  homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc? (Often intersectional analyses treat can treat characteristics as binaries. Even when they are clearly more varied.)
Ditto for greysexual, demisexual or quoisexual aros.

I think it matters if "straight" means "heterosexual", "heteroromantic" or "heterosexual and heteroromantic".
With only the first one making much sense to aros.

There can be such a big assumption of periorientation that "heterosexual" gets used to mean "heteroromantic"; "homosexual" to mean "homoromantic"; etc.
Which I think can cause complications for any varioriented allosexual.

30 minutes ago, TripleA said:

There are 2 apps which are more focused on making friendships and (therefore) PPs (Platonic Partnerships, I know it sounds like peepee XD) which are 

 

Patook (however it's not very active)

Yubo

These are specifically for platonic, with it's regular meaning, friends.
 

35 minutes ago, TripleA said:

I mean there is an option on some dating apps where you can say you're just looking for friends but most people want a romantic relationship eventually from those friends. 

Similarly these are platonic friendships.
Which alloromantics, especially those who are "friends first", may wish to "upgrade" to romantic relationships.

Though ir seems to be very much an aro thing to want non-platonic (including Queer Platonic) friendships.
 

42 minutes ago, TripleA said:

I would love to have a place where you can be confident everyone wants a fwb or pp of some sort

Not all aros will be interested in any kind of "Platonic Partnership". 
With FWB having all sorts of issues. Both in respect of the term itself and being interpreted differently by different people.

There is a site called Adult Friend Finder. However it's a swingers site. Thus catering towards alloromantics.

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

I was sure that QPRs was originally an aro term! I mean, I never thought about it because I personally don't care about how a word was created

I always suspected a strong ace input. Because of the likes of "Queer Platonic Relationships can be sexual". Which is oxymoronic.

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

I agree! I mean, I think it is very important for aros to feel safe in ace places if they want to go there. But I know that even if I am ace, I don't go on ace spaces, not because I don't feel sage but because I don't think it will be useful for me (basically, I identify as ace because I don't feel sexual attraction, but I don't see that as having a huge impact on my life, let alone my identity; while I feel that aromanticism has an impact on my life choices). I would be glad to see more aro communities!

With allo aros having no reason to want to go into ace spaces in the first place.
But we can find ourselves having to do so. Because that's where most of the aro resources, still, are.
 

On 12/11/2019 at 4:33 PM, nonmerci said:

Also I don't get why we are focusing on making ace communities safe place for aros, and not LGBT and society in general (because I guess that, for instance, a bisexual aro also have a lot of problems for joining busexual communities,  or at least I sometimes saw bi-aro complaît about it, but we don't adress this issue as we do with ace communities).

Exactly.

18 hours ago, Coyote said:

For those who are only interested in aro advocacy more generally, I think this is just one example of how Tumblr has hobbled community memory. QPRs aren't the only topic where this happens -- for example, I've also seen it with aplatonic. And it's not that people aren't creating resources on these topics, saving and preserving primary sources, and writing up historical summaries. It's that that's not what sticks, and chasing down individuals isn't efficient when incorrect versions of posts are still able to spread out of the OP's control. This issue has a structural dimension. Thank you for bringing that up.

I was thinking about this kind of issue. In terms of aplatonic along with squish and alterous. 
Were these also coined in an "ace-first" environment?
I think it's also worth asking which terms originate from the "aro community"?

3 hours ago, aepaex said:

Personally, I've never cared for those "You're special, you're loved!" mental health things. Having a stranger tell me that I'm loved does nothing for me. They don't know me or my circumstances. Some people feel helped by those words of encouragement & I think that's a great, but usually it just seems... really shallow? If someone is depressed, etc., then they're going to need a lot more than that.

This could be Toxic Positivity or a case of wrong Love Language.

On 12/15/2019 at 1:03 PM, aepaex said:

 

That sounds like a good idea! I know there's an ace & aro (well, mostly ace) meetup around me, but it doesn't look very active.

AFAIK there are no such meetups near me.
Though, if there were, I'd find "mostly ace" a disincentive. (Even more so if that translated to "mostly alloromantic".)

I came across this article on Queer loneliness and friendship.
Which whilst it does not, directly, mention aromanticism does mention issues which may be applicable.

21 hours ago, bananaslug said:

ACEapp is *technically* an aro inclusive app, and it does let you filter for people who just want to make friends, but in my experience it is still pretty ace centric, and unless you live in a big city it really doesn't have enough users to be helpful. 

I found quite mixed reviews of this on the, Android, app store. Including complains about too many allosexuals using it.

Another app which is sometimes mentioned is Patook, which is exclusively for platonic friendships.

Many mainstream dating apps do have a "platonic friends" option.

My feeling is all of these are written by and for alloromantics.

2 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Asexuals are a smala group too, but at least their dating app has only one goal : dating.

Specifically romantic dating and seeking romantic relationships.
Which are not too dissimilar from what other alloromantics do. Indeed allosexual alloromantics who are "wait until marriage" might go about dating in exactly the same way as asexual alloromantics. Dating websites/apps typically have mostly platonic matching criteria.

On the other hand there is little consensus of what a date without romance would look like. Even though everything people actually do on dates is romantic coded...
Similarly for non-romantic relationships, especially those which are sexual or otherwise non-platonic.
Even more so as long term relationships...

18 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Ok, my question must sound weird as most of the time, allo are the one who clearly has no empathy for us.

Also when I say "we", I mean in general, it aims at no one in particular.

The thing is : from what I read sometimes, it seems aro has difficulties to understand romantic feelings and heartbreaks, for obvious reasons. Also, as we have a lot of bad experiences with them when they don't try to understand us, which leads us to be on defensive sometimes. However, I think it leads us to be rude, in particular when allo come on an aro website to seek advice with an aro person. For instance, I saw some comments saying things like they are wrong to feel the way they feel. While I think we should try to understand why they react this way instead of blame them, the same way they try to understand us. (I'm of course talking of allos who are not reacting as jerks when someone say they are aros, but people who try to get it, like people who are in a Relationship with an aro for instance and are trying to make things right).

I'd add that this not only an aro thing. For instance, I saw in aces community people being completely unsympathetic (is that a word?) with allosexuals. Some people in a romantic relationship with an allo, who want their partner to understand them but will never make an effort to do the same (well, I Don't think we reach this point and I hope we never will, but that's it).

What is going on here is best described as a "double empathy problem".

There's also the situation of alloromantics: privileged majority and aromantics: dis-privileged minority.

What this leads to is the allo (privileged) position being seen as default position or "human nature" with everyone including aros (dis-privileged) expected to understand romanticism.
Conversely there's no expectation on allos to understand aromanticism at all or to feel guilty for not doing so.

This is a "privilege thing" rather than an "aro thing". 

On 12/5/2019 at 3:15 PM, nonmerci said:

Yep I was wondering about it. I don't know if I would using it myself, but I saw a lot of aromantics saying how difficult it was to find people for a QPR or a sexual relaionship, or even deep friendship. And I thought it would be great to have an app to help people find themselves.

I made a post about it here, but as nobody answer I thought I was wrong.

 

The difficulty I see here is that of a small group people: aros who realise are aro, rather than thinking they are "broken allos" combined with a wide variety of possible relationships: QPRs, non-romantic sexual relationships, deep friendships together with others which fall outside the false dichotomy of "(sexual) romantic or platonic friendship".

On 11/28/2019 at 2:47 AM, running.tally said:

 Saying "you're not queer enough" ("you're not aromantic enough") is a great way of making sure we're perpetuating the very thing queer people fight against in society.

This is also the case for "you're not the right kind of queer/aromantic/trans/etc".
That's before considering "twue aro" metrics which only apply to minority of aros.

13 hours ago, running.tally said:

For those of you who started answering but didn't get to finish, you still have 2 weeks to complete the survey.

Do you know how many people this involves and which question they stopped at?

This might itself be useful data.

18 hours ago, LBMango said:

I think it's extra easy to be undiagnosed aro in (at least) American society, where we put an unrealistic emphasis on "finding The One"... So a lot of people who are actually aro have been trained to think that they just haven't found The One yet... 

Part of amantonormativity is to dissuade questioning of the premise that these kind of relationships are (best) for everyone.
Hence ideas like "wrong person", "not ready for", etc. There are similar attitudes related to heteronormativity and mononormativity.

I've always been more interested in dating than being "in a relationship". With most other people appearing to be more interested in the latter.

37 minutes ago, JetSettingAro said:

Marriage as an institution is something that historically was not romantic. It instead existed to bring families together, create community bonds and provide stability in times of trouble.

With "family" meaning "extended family", sometimes very extended. Rather than anything like a "nuclear family".
It's also a lot about money and property. For high status people this often included politics and treaties too. (In some cases marriages only to end and prevent wars.)
 

1 hour ago, JetSettingAro said:

Sadly, it was co-opted by romantic propagandists, and now most people associate marriage with romance. Marriage, in its altered form, is used as a tool to create "haves" and "have-nots". Gone are the days it brought people together and fostered community. We all know that nowadays, most marriages snuff out platonic friendships, and isolate us aros from our friends and families.

IIRC the greedy marriage is a recent thing even within Western societies. Yet the myth of marriage being "community building" persists.
There's also the "Bridal Tour" which could involve travelling with or visiting relatives and friends. Which appears to have fallen out of fashion.

On 10/1/2019 at 7:32 PM, YXSHINN said:

The term romantic friendship refers to a very close but non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that which is common in the contemporary Western societies, and may include for example holding hands, hugging, kissing, and sharing a bed. The term was coined in the later 20th century in order to retrospectively describe a type of relationship which until the mid 19th century had been considered unremarkable but since the second half of the 19th century had become more rare as physical intimacy between non-sexual partners came to be regarded with anxiety.

It would be interesting to know what these relationships were called at the time, rather than about a century later.
It would also be worth knowing what romantic relationships typically looked like before the mid 19th century.

These kind of relationships falling out of fashion as amantonormativity came in certainly seems significant.


 

2 hours ago, Uxhio said:

I never understood love triangles, I find them pointless, as long as certain love topics... I see them as ''toxic''. Like:

They are always depicted as Vees rather than triangles. Though I've always found the "pick one" rather than "both" or "neither" seems more of a plot contrivance than anything else.

2 hours ago, Uxhio said:

-You are my half= No, I'm a whole person.

why would anyone want to be a fractional person in the first place?