aspecofstardust

If you want to be aro and you feel like it's a good fit, then yeah! Sounds like aromantic might be a good fit for you. 

I like that I'm really compassionate and take care of people ❤️

Loveless by Alice Oseman has an aroace protagonist and is out in the UK now!

I've always used "aroace" myself. There have been many aroace flags created though, here's a wiki link about them: https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Aroace

The one I see most often on tumblr these days is the orange and blue one by aroaesflags, but plenty have made the rounds. 

I would love to use a combination term for myself -- I feel like there are a lot of parts of my experiences and identity that I can't parse into either aromantic or asexual because for me they are so intertwined. I understand how for other people they might not be, and in some ways I experience them differently (especially related to repulsion) but a lot falls in a blurry in-between for me personally.

The way that I have used and thought about aspec is as encompassing a lot of identities and issues that get brought up in the ace and aro communities (I am not agender and so do not have a close tie to that community, and can't speak to that side of things). For example, we often talk about different kinds of attraction, relationships, etc.

For folks I know who are questioning their identities and figuring out what labels might be right for them, the idea of "aspec" has been really helpful. It can be hard at first to completely tease apart what exactly is sexual and what is romantic attraction. Someone who is questioning their identity might find a community and some sense of identity with "aspec" even if they don't have very specific labels yet (or ever). Even for me, I have identified as aroace for ~6 years and sometimes still have a hard time parsing what parts of my experience would fall under aromanticism and what parts would fall under asexuality. For me sometimes they are impossible to distinguish between, but I know that they are "aspec" experiences. 

The "aspec" term also allows for the overlaps in experiences of the ace and aro communities. While they are not exactly the same, there are a lot of things that our communities have in common, and a lot of people who identify with both. 

The bottom line for me is that this term has been and continues to be very useful for a lot of people, and questioning the legitimacy and validity of the term stands to do more harm than good, especially for folks who are new to these communities. 

I'm highlighting aspec related research and content on twitter for pride this month @aspec_stardust! We're only 5 days in but plenty more coming that I think you'll be interested in including. I'll have a round-up post on my blog (aspecofstardust.wordpress.com) at the end of the month too. I also have most if not all of the pdfs for the articles I mention so if there's a resource you'd like to have let me know and I can send it to you.

Use whatever labels work for you! It might be helpful to think about sexuality in the model proposed by the AVEN Triangle: 

The top line represents the Kinsey scale, the left being homosexual, the right being heterosexual and the third dimension, leading to the bottom point of the triangle, represents sexual attraction. Asexuals lie in the bottom regions of the triangle, which is why you might see the two-toned triangle having only the bottom corner black. AVEN chooses to display the triangle as a gradient, which allows room for demisexuals and grey-asexuals. It signifies that there really is no clear cut black-and-white; it is a continuum.

Basically, that who you are attracted to can be thought of as one axis, and how you experience that attraction is another. 

You might resonate with this episode of the AOK podcast called Truth can Change and That's Okay with John Arrow who talks about how his identities have shifted over time https://www.aokpod.com/e/30-i-actually-really-like-being-single/ 

I'm hoping to eventually be a neighborhood farm witch

wow this is super interesting!! Do you think the rest of the book is worth reading?

I highly recommend The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee!

I never had crushes when my friends started having them. Also, I knew from like 10 years old that I wasn't interested in dating, I just didn't have the words to explain for a long time why I knew that was the case. It took me 6 more years to find the word aromanticism!

@Mark Thanks for the resources!

I love love love tea but I do also really enjoy coffee. I always have so many different kinds of tea on hand but I particularly enjoy spiced black teas like chai and fruity/hibiscus herbal teas. This year I'm working on starting a tea garden! I'm going to try to grow lavender and mint. We'll see how it goes!

@The Angel of Eternity I'm not sure I understand what you mean by speaking activities -- do you mean just like a discussion group where you talk about certain topics?

@Naegleria fowleri yeah that sounds like so much fun just to be able to hang out with people in an inclusive environment. I'm going to make the group centered around aromanticism and asexuality (and be careful to not conflate the two for sure @Mark) but I don't want anyone to have to come out if they aren't comfortable and I want to encourage attendance so we won't be picky with who participates as long as everything is respectful. 

Thanks everyone for your ideas, keep them coming!

I mean I personally consider myself single but I also think I have a different relationship with the word than most of society. Some people see it as being sad or isolating but I don't really find it to be that way. Maybe if I were looking for a romantic relationship being single would be a bigger deal to me, I don't know. 

yep this has definitely happened to me but I hadn't seen it put into words before! I think as aros its probably something we are more keenly aware of than alloros.

I'm in the process of getting an aros and aces student org started on my campus this year. If you were to attend an event or participate in an in-person community dedicated to aros and aces, what sorts of activities would you want to see? What would keep you coming back? Any other advice?

trying to convince your allo friends to not snowplow your headcanons.....

I highly recommend The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee. It is a sequel, but you don't really have to read the first book to follow the plot. The main character Felicity is aroace, although because it's a historical fiction book she doesn't use the terms explicitly. But she has experiences and feelings that I really relate with! And also the author has confirmed that if she were living today she would likely consider herself aroace. It's one of my favorite books.

On 8/7/2019 at 8:20 PM, treepod said:

Anyone else get really disappointed when a character you related to as possibly aro turns out not to be, or fandom for the character ships them relentlessly?

 

 

 

all the time! When I watched Captain Marvel back in March I really saw Carol and Maria as a qpr, but I got totally stomped on by even my close friends who saw them as lesbians. I just wish that queer allos got as excited about aro and/or ace representation as I get about other kinds of queer representation. 

So far I haven't bothered coming out to anyone who I didn't know would already understand at least a little bit about what being aro means. That said, when I come out to people I come out as aro and ace, there's no one I'm out to as only one or the other.

Somewhat related, I'm trying to start an aces and aros group at my school, mostly to have more of a sense of community, but I will also probably have to get more comfortable talking about aromanticism (and asexuality) with allos, and coming out to people I don't really know. I'm not too worried about how this will be handled at my school because generally it is a very queer-friendly environment, but I do get worried about potential consequences if information spreads.

Just now, Cristal Gris said:

 

 

To be honnest…. i feel the same.

 

Also, when I say i am not looking for a qpr , it mean that i am not looking for a "certain type of relationship described by some aros about their qpr ", and i would probably not feel the need to call it like that. But i could have a relationship i would call close friendship but someone else would call it a qpr ?

Exactly! The boundaries of what a qpr is is totally up to the people involved. I know what kinds of relationships I'd really like to have in the future, but am I ever going to be able to find someone who won't leave me when they start a romantic partnership? It's tricky.

There are so many signs looking back that i was aro -- when I was 10 there was this one boy (and also his friends) who followed me and my friend around and kind of just made our year miserable. I told my parents about it to see if they could do anything to help, and my dad told me that he bet that in a few years I would go on a date with him. I knew he was wrong, but at the time I didn't have the words to explain why I knew he was wrong, so I just had to let it go. I wonder if he even remembers that now.....

A lot of girls around me from a young age were planning their weddings or thinking about who their dream boyfriend was, and I just could not relate at all.

I honestly think that if I knew what aromanticism was when I was around 10 I would have started calling myself aro. A lot of alloromantic people start getting crushes in early elementary school (6-9 years old) and I didn't at all. 

My issue with thinking about qprs right now is that I have such a hard time distinguishing for myself what the difference is between a qpr and a very close friendship. Trying to draw the line for me between what is platonic and what is romantic is super tricky.