kernsing

I either want to be a single parent or raise kids with a friend/group of friends, if I can find any willing partners. I think I prefer adoption, but am not very opposed to having biological kids. Very interested in looking into resources the aro community can find on this topic.

According to this poll, most people are 15–25, although there are a few older folks.

I consider myself lithro, in that I experience what's usually called "romantic attraction," but this does not lead me to want to date or do many things that are considered "romantic," and that doing things that look like what my culture (USA) calls "romance" actually makes me uncomfortable. I never knew that this was a possible experience while I was young. I tried to fit myself into a shape that wasn't comfortable, just because I never knew that the shape that is comfortable for me existed. I like being lithro! I like having knowledge about what I do and what I don't like, and being free to say, "No, I don't want this," even when society doesn't acknowledge it as a possibility. I like knowing that how I naturally am is, yes, valid. I like how having an aromantic spectrum label makes me feel like I'm allowed to exist, and that I'm allowed to be happy even though amatonormativity is convinced that I can't be. It thinks that if you're in love and not "together" with the person, it's a categorical tragedy. But that's a lie. I like being friends--I'm so much happier being friends with someone, no matter my "attraction" to them, than I would be if I were dating. It's not sad that "romance" makes me unhappy, just like it isn't sad that someone doesn't like chocolate. It's just how I am, and if I were any different, I wouldn't be myself anymore. I refuse to accept that my existence is unconditionally sad. I'm allowed to own my happiness. (I don't think anyone shouldn't be unhappy about being lithro or express their frustrations. There should be spaces for that; it's fine to feel whatever about your identity. But I just want to say: it's very possible to be lithro and to be proud of it! And also: this experience isn't limited to lithromanticism or even aromanticism. People should feel free to dislike dating, romance, whatever, no matter the labels they use for their emotions or identities.) [I've said basically the same thing in a comment on a post about romantic denial in love songs. It's a pretty good read.]

Thinking about this again and the first thing that actually popped in my head was /ə.ˈɹoʊ.kä.ˌlɪps/ instead of my above reply ? I do generally pronounce the first two syllables of “aromantic” like /eɪ.ɹoʊ/, though.

TBH I think sticking the “anti” prefix in front of amatonormativity is fine. Like “anti-racism/antiracism” means action against racism, having “anti-amatonormativity” mean action against amatonormative biases & systems (which I think could encompass “things that promotes other relationships as equally valid“).

I've heard of "anattractional" before. Definitions that come up in Google include "not feeling attraction" (which sounds like it encompasses platonic, alterous, etc. attractions too) and "not feeling attraction on one or more axes" (which is broader than "not feeling romantic AND sexual attraction"). So not sure if this is a word that fits your criteria, but it's there.

/eɪ.ˈɹoʊ.kä.ˌlɪps/

Because there’s some confusion about ‘neurodiversity’ and ‘neurodivergent,’ and also because I was curious: ‘Neurodiversity’ was coined by Judy Singer in her 1998 Honours Thesis (some say 1999, but the description of Singer’s book on Amazon uses the 1998 date). Sources, if you don’t trust Wikipedia, have these popsci articles: Scientific American article (cw: advocates for the medical model, uses rhetoric similar to ‘low vs. high functioning’ concepts; there’s a critical response here), Psychology Today article (cw: says specific labels like ‘autism’ and ‘ADHD’ are stigmatizing, therefore we should use a blanket ‘neurodivergent’ instead of destigmatizing those labels??). The paper is either “Odd People In: The Birth of Community Amongst People on the Autism Spectrum: A personal exploration of a New Social Movement based on Neurological Diversity” (1998) or “‘Why can't you be normal for once in your life?’ From a ‘problem with no name’ to the emergence of a new category of difference.” (Amazon book says 1998, Google and elsewhere says 1999) I can’t find any part of the first paper. The Google Books preview doesn’t have the section where ‘neurodiversity’ is introduced and defined, but I found that part in the Amazon link preview: So as far as I can tell (which isn’t very far), Singer never specifies who exactly counts as “neurologically different,” but ‘neurodiversity’ was coined in the context of autism. I found a few people who want to differentiate ‘neurodiversity’ from the ‘neurodiversity paradigm’ and ‘neurodiversity movement,’ where ‘neurodiversity’ refers to the simple fact that human brains are varied, the ‘neurodiversity paradigm’ states that this variation is natural, and the ‘neurodiversity movement’ promotes the view of the neurodiversity paradigm. I assume that they equate Singer’s “politics of Neurological Diversity” to ‘neurodiversity movement,’ but I really could not access enough material to see if Singer does ever make the distinction. I’m also getting mixed signals from the 1998 Atlantic article by Harvey Blume, which is credited for popularizing the term. (PS, the first two links do not use ‘neurodiverse’ as the plural form of ‘neurodivergent.’ Their usage more parallels ‘diverse’ and ‘of color.’ e.g. A cast that includes white and characters of color is diverse. A cast that includes neurotypical and neurodivergent people is neurodiverse.) Singer did not coin ‘neurodivergent.’ I can’t find any good sources on who coined ‘neurodivergent,’ but all of the ones I have found seem to agree that it’s someone named Kassiane (surname: Asasumasu or Sibley?), a biracial autistic advocate whose online presence isn’t all linked together, so I can’t tell if any of them are legitimate. They may run this blog, this Facebook page, this Twitter, and this Tumblr. I generally trust ASAN, and there is an article there by “Kassiane S.,” so I’m assuming there does exist an autistic advocate named Kassiane. As for the other surname, I also generally trust AWN, and they have published a book (All the Weight of Our Dreams) with one of the contributors named “Kassiane A. Asasumasu.” Relevant to the ‘who is neurodivergent?’ question: in the linked Tumblr, there’s a post from 2015 with about 100K notes, and the author signs it off as “Neurodivergent K of Radical Neurodivergence Speaking” (Radically Neurodivergence Speaking is the name of the blogspot blog). From skimming the blogspot blog, the writing style seems to match. The post addresses the definition of neurodivergent and who it includes: I can’t find anyone contesting this (i.e. I can’t find anyone else claiming to be the coiner and disagreeing with this definition). So it’s very much possible that the coiner of ‘neurodivergent’ uses a very broad definition of the word that includes mental illness. *** I struggle with mental illness. I’m pretty sure I have OCD, but I don’t think I have a diagnosis (maybe??? how do you navigate the American mental health system send help). I don’t know if I’m autistic or a cousin; in any case I am probably alexithymic/I find it difficult to identify and express emotions, and this is related to my being grey aromantic.

@nonmerci I went through your writing and made a couple of grammar/wording edits to your amatonormativity section. Also wrote some things on singlism but it's incomplete.

Thinking about this again and why I'm attached to the term "aspec"/a way to refer to the aro & ace communities simultaneously, and--maybe as a way to signal a connection to the ace community without necessarily having to be part of it? I'm (probably) not ace, but it sounds weird to say that I have no connection whatsoever to the ace umbrella when I sometimes use labels like "demisexual" and "aegosexual." "Aspec" as a term encompassing that experience. While I'm not against having a word to describe communities of people who are distinct entities but grouped together by outsiders (cf. the aromantic:Chinese::aspec:Asian thing mentioned near the end of my previous comment on this thread), the continued conflation is bad. I don't think that's mostly the word's fault; more of the sexuality & romanticism conflation thing society has going on in general, but I can see how "aspec" could feed into it. I think most of this is best combatted by outreach/acceptance/education about the ace & aro communities. Yeah, uh, what even? I can't even completely parse what “It means we don’t have to teach people that ‘ace’ includes the whole asexual spectrum and 'aro’ includes the whole aromantic spectrum” means & how that's connected to "aspec" but yeesh, talk about alarm bells. That's a problem if people are using "aspec" in that way, to avoid teaching people about important aspects of the aro & ace communities. And wow, I'm part of A-SpecUsers on PF and I never noticed that. Huh. Is the comm creator agender?? (I don't know how to find out who a comm creator is on PF? Is that SquirrelStone?)

I am also curious about this. I hadn't heard of this as a thing before this thread. 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.

Yes, I have felt this way for some people, and have questioned whether I was alloromantic as a result. But I realized that I prefer to be friends with those people rather than anything else, so have opted to go with (grey) aromantic as a label. The “love for them” vs. “in love with them” is a wonderful way to phrase it. Personally I have also adopted the quoiromantic label for this (to say that “romantic attraction” is not a personally useful concept, considering the flushing, heart palpitations, etc. combined with no desire to actually do romance; I cannot reply yes or no to the question “do you experience romantic attraction?”), and say that I have felt alterous attraction (attraction that is neither wholly platonic or romantic, attraction outside the romantic/platonic binary). Of course the labels are not necessary, and such an experience is compatible with the view of such an attraction as wholly platonic/does not require a rejection of the concept of romantic attraction, but this is just how I have navigated naming my romantic orientation & related attractions.

I feel very similarly, even though I am just beginning college. I have no idea how I will ever settle down when my ideal life would involve some sort of platonic communal living situation (also I think I do want kids and I have no idea how the script to a "would you want to ever raise kids with a group of friends" conversation would go). I would love to find an in-person aromantic group or other organizations that interest me, but I currently live in a small town. Hopefully the prospects will get better when I move to a larger city next year. I've been reading the Terra Ignota series where the default family unit is a sort of communal/found family thing and I have such mixed feelings about it because that's what I want and it's lovely seeing that but also--sometimes it makes me feel like I have no real future because the future I want is limited to social sci-fi series set in the 25th century. There are just ... barely any narratives for people like us, models for us to follow.

Was this part really necessary? Like truly, really necessary? All you did was discourage me from continuing the conversation. I think this part was just to point out that people seem to have very different impressions of how the conversations in this thread went down. While I don't think I see the reception as negatively as Coyote does (many people just seemed to be tired of the topic, which I wouldn't call a hard yes or no to the "were people mostly willing to listen" question; and I do agree that one thread is not a good heuristic for how this conversation might go down in the wider aromantic community anyway), I also don't seem to have as negative of an impression of Coyote either, e.g. while I understand being wary of callouts and such, I do think there's a difference between that and saying "there's a worrying trend going on, here are some examples to show you what I'm talking about/establish that I'm not just making things up." It's a fine line, to be sure, but I do think the article & thread were more of the second situation. Mostly I got the impression that a lot of miscommunication went around. As for the factions on aro tumblr, yeah, I think you have it right ('you' as in Lokiana). I'm not exactly sure which of those would be more prone to misinformation, though, if we're asking about where we should spread a post about the origins of QPRs.

I'd be interested in helping, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do. I can proofread/edit and possibly write. Is Psychology Today an acceptable source? Bella DePaulo (who has a PhD, which is good, right?) has an article up about aromanticism, some parts of which I'm dissatisfied with but it does mention aro allos & aro aces as distinct groups and amatonormativity. She's written better articles about singlism/discrimination against single people, which we could mention if we want to talk about amatonormativity: here's one about housing discrimination and one about workplace benefits (this one on WaPo). She's also written a book and some scholarly articles on single people, but I don't really know what those are like. Are we organizing this on Arocalypse (like on this thread?), will we have a Google Doc, something else? EDIT: Looking at the Wikipedia talk pages, it may be more effective if we first expand the aromanticism section under the romantic orientation page and then argue that it should be its own page once it's bigger.