Coyote

Old thread I created for a different topic veered into this one and got locked, so I got permission to create a new thread.

Some ways that people have used this word (aplatonic) before:

• does not feel friend love/does not use the word "love" for friends
• does not experience platonic attraction
• does not experience platonic attraction or form platonic bonds
• does not experience "squishes" or does not desire a queerplatonic relationship
• does not desire a queerplatonic relationship or a sexual friendship
• does not experience "squishes" or does not desire a queerplatonic relationship or a sexual friendship

The earliest of these uses is from 2012, where it's proposed by a homoromantic user on AVEN. I'm not actually sure where the uses of it started shifting in the direction of attraction or partnership, but that seems to have started around 2014 at the latest.

Are there any other uses/definitions you know of that aren't listed here?

Related reading:

• @Mark's poll on squishes
• Aplatonic is for neurodivergence?
• I don't get emotional attraction
• Origin of the slang use of "squish"
• Origin of the word "nonamory"

1 hour ago, pigeonhead said:

And while they're all good I'm not a big fan of how light colored they are. It may just be me, but it somewhat gives off this impression that grayromanticism is just Aromantic Lite, which is not really something I feel comfortable with, though others may feel differently.

I'm not sure which direction you mean that, but in light of this I'll add -- it's also appropriate to use the cameronwhimsy aro community flag.

In the design creator's post about it (continued from here), the first two stripes are explained as representing, quote, "the aro-spectrum (and aromanticism itself represented by green because green belongs to us now hell yeah). this covers every identity under the aro umbrella - demi, grey, lith/akoi, wtf/quoiro, cupio etc. EVERYTHING. even ones that don’t have names yet." End quote. In fact, this is why some anti-grey folks have sometimes objected to this design -- because it is intended to encompass greyromantics.

@pigeonhead I've seen a different variation before, but not that one.

FWIW, not everyone likes that design to begin with (see comments).

I don't believe "sociopathy" is a medically legitimate concept to begin with ftr.

10 hours ago, LauraG said:

I think this would lend some clarity to the original sentence. I don't think it's immediately obvious that it's an example, though once I realized that's what it was it made sense that way.

Okay. I have edited my post.

6 hours ago, nonmerci said:

You're right that we should have apologized for going so hard on you. So sorry for that. Re-reading the post I can see that it was not meant to be hurtful but it was mis read because, as you said, we are used with questions not being questions.

Thank you.

6 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Though I still think the "I don't like my friends" was reductive and badly written

Good news: "I don't like my friends" isn't the paraphrasing I used. It was "I don't love my friends," because "love" (specifically) was what that original thread was about.

If you believe I'm paraphrasing that thread poorly, what paraphrasing would you prefer?

6 hours ago, nonmerci said:

(Though to be honest, what annoying me was not that you didn't give apologies,  but more than the clarification didn't came from you but others, which makes me confused about if you agree or not : before your previous response I had no idea what you truly think about all this, and that makes the discussion a bit hard... now I can understand why you don't want to engage in the conversation if you have an history of being called out, but it makes me think that left me confused and ignored)

There's a lot of things going on in this thread. If there's a particular part of your posts you'd like to hone in on and make sure I don't miss when I'm figuring how much of everything to reply to, a good way to do that is with direct questions. Do you have any questions about what I do or don't agree with?

1 hour ago, VoidArcana said:

All I was looking for is an acknowledgement that what you said was poorly worded?

Oh.

Currently I do not believe it was poorly worded. I believe the wording adequately matches the thing it was meant to express.

1 hour ago, VoidArcana said:

Establishing the intent behind the example doesn't change the fact that the example didn't come across as intended, multiple people have expressed issue with that, and Coyote has not acknowledged that.

I acknowledge it.

Now from my perspective, there's been a misunderstanding that's involved other people putting words in my mouth and then asking me to apologize for things I didn't actually say. This strikes me as pretty unfair, and I was operating on the hope that with time and further clarification, maybe folks would realize that and apologize to me for jumping the gun, or at least quit holding me responsible for their own mistakes. While misunderstandings are no big deal, and while it's fine to ask for clarification, I don't believe I'm necessarily on the hook for other people's misreads.

I'll go back and take a look at the original text again.

• "That's the question though, would an alloromantic allosexual have any reason to want to identify with the ace & aro umbrellas like that? I mean, if someone's like 'I don't love my friends,' I don't see what that necessarily has to do with me. I'm not preemptively ruling it out, just asking what the rationale is supposed to be."

So the text in question does:

• ask about grouping the aplatonic identity a certain way with aromanticism and asexuality
  • in a way that would mean including allo-allos who identify as aplatonic
• give an example of one aplatonic narrative
• indicate I don't currently see the answer to the question I am asking
• specifically state "I'm not preemptively ruling it out, just asking what the rationale is supposed to be"

The text in question does not:

• preemptively rule anything out
• definitively declare what the answer to the question is
• assert that one type of narrative is representative of the entire identity

So that arrangement of words does seem to me to decently match up to what they're supposed to do. If multiple people have interpreted it differently, then multiple people have made a mistake.

Ways I would be open to editing the post:

• adding "for instance" in front of the example given for instance
• adding more examples of aplatonic narratives, in addition to the one I initially asked about

6 hours ago, Mark said:

Something I can often struggle with is understanding how QPRs are non-romantic when they are described.

Does anyone else want to address this?

4 hours ago, LauraG said:

Also as perhaps a point of clarification, I don't think @Coyote, by asking why aplatonic should be included in aspec, means to imply that there isn't a reason why aplatonic could be grouped with ace and aro, but rather that aplatonic should only be included in that grouping if it makes sense and there's a reason for it, so Coy is asking about what that reason is in a legitimate sense. Coy you can correct me if I'm wrong here.

Generally when I ask questions they're intended as questions, not declarations, yes. It could be that some folks are coming from a context where questions are generally not used as questions, which may be why that needs to be said. I'm not even being sarcastic about that, either. I had a whole conversation with some of my PF mutuals once about them coming from a discursive context where people kept using "What does this mean?" to mean "I disagree"/"This is bad" -- which is gravely objectionable to me, as that encodes asking for clarification as itself an attack, and that's just a recipe for trouble.

51 minutes ago, VoidArcana said:

I've said multiple times your example came across as 'this is the only kind of aplatonic' (aka erasing other kinds). I know it probably wasn't meant that way, but that's how it sounded. 

I believe we've discussed what my intentions were,* so.... is the thing you're asking for..... for me to go back and edit the post?

*(it was intended as one example of one person, not a universal description of all people who identify as aplatonic)

9 hours ago, VoidArcana said:

In this case? I'm going with erasure.

Hold on, it's "erasure" to talk about one person?

6 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Immediately speaking of the possibility of an allo allo person using the term as an argument for not having them in the a-spec community, gives me the feeling that aplatonic struggles don't matter in themselves,

?

All sorts of struggles matter. Trans struggles matter, for instance. The question is which groups it makes sense to group together, not a question of making an exhaustive list of which people have problems. This interpretation just sounds like injecting stuff that isn't there by relying on a flawed implicit metric (that declaring someone "a-spec" is the only way to acknowledge their struggles matter).

12 hours ago, Guest BlackAndWhire said:

To me, ace and aro are the only things on the a spectrum. Because, to me, their oddly opposites.

huh? If ace and aro were opposites, then "aro ace" would be an oxymoron.

5 hours ago, Mark said:

Like far too many terms "platonic attraction" often seems to lack clear definition.

On 6/9/2020 at 1:50 AM, LauraG said:

I personally don't find the label itself useful, as I don't distinguish between romantic/platonic feelings

So as long as we're talking about this:

I don't use emotional attraction as a concept, personally. As a quoiromantic I don't care for the romantic/nonromantic division in the first place, and I don't personally apply the concept of "attraction" to nonphysical things. So I wouldn't say I "experience platonic attraction," either, because that's not how I talk and it's not a model I use. I greatly hope that nobody is implicitly thinking of me as an "alloplatonic" here.

So the answer to "If I take the time to type out a response to that, will you answer it?" sounds like a "no."

@VoidArcana If you're wondering why I asked first instead of just going ahead with it, that is why. Twice bitten, thrice shy and all that.

10 hours ago, VoidArcana said:

Your comment, at least to me, implied a singular way to define aplatonic,

No, there are many ways that people use that word. It was a hypothetical example of one person. We can also talk about other combinations in addition to that one, if you'd prefer.

I don't.... sssssee if you answered the question there, so I'll break it into two questions: 1) Are you (still) saying that [that use/definition] affects people who identify as aplatonic (ostensibly, negatively)? 2) And if so, how so?

If those questions are now irrelevant, then I'm confused and don't know what's going on here.

20 minutes ago, VoidArcana said:

I also recognise that just because your pace isn't matching mine doesn't mean you're ignoring what I said, so for that I'll apologise as myself being over hasty. 

Thank you. I wasn't trying to get you to apologize for that, but I appreciate it. I hope you will continue to let me know when I've overlooked something.

23 minutes ago, VoidArcana said:

It might end up saying the same things I already have with different words, but sure, I don't mind answering some clarifying questions, as long as you're aware there's only so many ways I can explain my feelings. 

Okay. I will start with summarizing some of what I'm hearing so far, and then I will ask some questions about how those things connect. I'll also use quotation marks instead of quote boxes for this just for the sake of making the formatting more condensed, but I'll reserve these quotation marks for direct quotes only.

Here are the sections that I am looking at:

• "I didn't see Magni's comment as throwing me/people like me under the bus, but rather a request, from someone who identifies as aplatonic, to think more carefully about how that definition might affect those who identify that way, especially when coupled with the example of the alloallo person."
• "I'm going to be honest, Coyote's example rubbed me the wrong way a little. It hits a little too close to the fictional examples exclusionists pulled out of nowhere to try and prove some gotcha about why aro and ace people couldn't be part of any iteration of the wider LGBT/queer community."
• "Saying 'I don't see what that necessarily has to do with me' when talking about 1) including a label in general and 2) including a certain combination of identities (in this case alloallo aplatonic) reminds me of both my experiences with exclusionists denying my queer identity because it stems from being aromantic, and conversations I've had where aces have refused to acknowledge my aro identity separate of (and having nothing to do with) asexuality."
• "The example used felt a little more like saying 'well these people have nothing to do with me, so all aplatonic people can be excluded'."
• "at the very least, the statement was poorly thought out."
• "The way I read that post basically amounted to 'why should those people count? They've got nothing to do with me, so why should we include them?'"

I trust you to let me know if I have missed anything important.

So here are some paraphrasings/takeaways that I draw from the above quotes:

• You see Magni's comment as a request to think more carefully about how that definition* might affect people who identify as aplatonic.
  • Implicitly: You are asking the same.
• My example rubbed you the wrong way because it reminds you of other things that people have said.
• You interpreted my post as essentially saying "Aplatonic people can be excluded" [from ... unspecified]

*Phrase in question = "I don't love my friends"

It could be that I am interpreting something here incorrectly. In that case, what I ask next may be irrelevant.

Otherwise, this is one of the things I am wondering.

You implied you would like me to think more carefully about this, and so I'd like you to point me toward which conclusions you hope will come of it: How does that definition ["I don't love my friends"] affect people who identify as aplatonic?

So it seems trying to take one thing at a time here is... just resulting in a more quickly amassing backlog.

1 hour ago, VoidArcana said:

Coyote has been dismissive of Magni, and ignored my comments.

Your phrasing it this way tells me something important. At the time, I figured the best approach was to address Magni first, prioritizing things in the order they happened, and put the rest on hold in relation to that. I didn't realize you were raising issues that you wanted me to address separately. Now I see that that left you feeling ignored, so I will apologize for that. I made a wrong call about how to prioritize all the different things to reply to.

1 hour ago, VoidArcana said:

I'm just wondering why people are so focused on defending what Coyote said

I really don't know why Laura and Sennkestra are doing that either. I'll let them speak for themselves, of course.

1 hour ago, VoidArcana said:

This literally could have been solved in a single post saying 'oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise it could be taken that way. I'll reconsider how to word it next time'. Instead it turned into a debate, and derailed this topic even more. 

Since you prefaced this part with a reminder that you're new here, I'd like to please ask that you not tempt me with this kind of irony.

In any case. Let me make sure I understand the grievance, since I think I mistook it for something else the first time. Will you answer some clarifying questions?

42 minutes ago, John Rando said:

Sorry to bring this about, but as we are already in the meta discussion ... May I suggest that we open two fresh topics about a-spec and agenders and about a-aspec and apls, because it seem that arguments tends to differ sometimes between the two. It could also help to not push away new readers that would not like to read 4 pages of segmented, with inconsistant subjects and definitions and quite a few personnal arguments and maybe restart the conversation in a little more discursive way.

Okay. Atm I'm unclear on which of those is something people would still like to discuss, so if someone else would like to make a new thread (on either or both), they can be my guest.

@Magni If I take the time to type out a response to that, will you answer it?

1 minute ago, sennkestra said:

As far as for casual conversation about things like "there are trends in a-spec communities..." I would prefer phrasing like "there are trends in ace and aro communities" or "there are trends in ace, aro, and agender communities) (emphasis on the s at the end of communities) because these are almost always talking about trends that occur in disparate spaces that are almost always either ace or aro focused, rather than some unique third category of "aspec" spaces.

!!!

I tried to raise a question about something like that on one of K.A. Cook's posts, once, and the comment's still marked as awaiting moderation, but here's a part of what I wrote:

• Because, to be honest with you, one of my hangups with that statement (to take things one at a time here) is actually… what is an “a-spec space”? Personally, I don’t call myself that word and havhaven't fully bought into it as a concept, but… for your purposes here, am I supposed to? …I mean, when you say “a-spec spaces,” can you give me a specific example? What should I be looking at here?

I had to ask because ze was talking about listening to aro allos, and if we take "a-spec space" to mean "any kind of space that centers on either aces or aros," then that's an umbrella broad enough to include ace-only stuff too. So we can rule that out for not making sense. But if we rule out that interpretation, then what's the alternative? Dedicated, merged "a-spec"-specific "spaces"? So... what, the Tumblr blogs that have "a-spec" in the URL? What am I actually supposed to be thinking of?

5 minutes ago, sennkestra said:

I'm sort of approaching this sideways from the rest of the thread, but I guess...I tend to see conversations about who is part of a "community" in the abstract a bit useless, because like, what does being in or out of a community even mean?

I personally find it a bit more grounded to talk about how things play out in terms of things like spaces and resources  - for example, things like the a-spec pillowfort group that coyote mentioned, which in theory includes agender people, but in practice is not really used by any agender people, whether it's because they find it uncomfortable or because they just find it unrelatable.  Like, what's the point of quibbling about which specific a-terms are "included" unless there are actual spaces using the name to make practical attempts to actually include (or not include) these various sub-groups?

Thank you.

6 minutes ago, sennkestra said:

(Although, going back to my personal opinions, I do think that's also a reason to consider more specific community naming choices instead of the confusingly unclear "a-spec").

Do you have suggestions?

Something I was thinking about earlier is how, at different times, when discussing the concept of having "a-spec" as a term, people have emphasized convergent aroaces, especially the folks who want to leave the ro/sex part unspecified (as with terms like "bi" and "gay"). So that's one use case. But the term is also clearly getting thrown around all the time just to mean "aces and aros both," as a completely different use case. Which I resent, as an ace who doesn't identify with it.

21 minutes ago, sennkestra said:

Also, to provide a suggestion from completely another angle  - as an example of finding commonality in "a-" identities and shared experiences of "absence" as a defining trait, there's been some interesting work with asexual and atheist communities, like panels with ace atheists about the shared experiences of asexuality (and sometimes aromanticism) and atheism and being defined by a "lack" of something more mainstream, whether it's interest in sex or interest in god(s). Yet, at the same time as we recognize that overlap, I think we also recognize that the needs of atheists and the needs of asexual people were often best met in separate community spaces most of the time. 

huh. That's interesting, because I was thinking about atheism here just earlier (and even brought it up back in September, as another a-word), but I didn't realize that people had actually discussed that connection before on panels. I agree though, I think that connection is more conceptual than something that would translate community-wise.

1 minute ago, nonmerci said:

You seem to think the only people who could want to speak about m their aplatonicism would be allosexuals alloromantics people. Which would not be the case, I think?

That would not be the case, no. Certainly I see aces and aros doing that more (while using that term, anyway).

22 hours ago, John Rando said:

But I don't have an allo apl comunity on this forum to prove my case.

For that reason I think unless any one such person would like to speak up about it (and I'll leave the door open for that), for the time being, I figure lumping these allo-allo folks in with aros or aces doesn't make any more sense than, say, grouping us with people who don't experience empathy, or something. It just seems arbitrarily based on etymology over the practical realities, since "experiencing a lack of something" covers way too many groups that aren't getting equal consideration.

Again, leaving the door open for folks to draw other connections I haven't thought of here.

11 hours ago, Mark said:

On 3/31/2020 at 7:12 PM, 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.

This is a three way conflation. With seven demographics involved here. Unlikely that this will be helpful to more than one of those groups of people. Quite likely to help none of them.

I mean yeah last I visited it (and based on checking it just now), it mostly gets used as an ace and aro group. I'm not even sure if anything agender-specific has been posted there more than once. So if it's meant to cater to non-ace and non-aro agender people... it's... not really doing that.

Magni stoops to addressing me directly, eh.

For anyone who's interested to know: the "I don't love my friends" paraphrasing comes from the first use of the word "aplatonic" in a 2012 AVEN forum thread, based on this quote from the first post:

• "Sure, the people I've 'friended' are nice, and I'd want nothing but for them to be happy, but I don't really have a bond with them. The only people in my life that I've bonded with are those I feel romantic attraction to. So, don't get me wrong, I have friends and care about them; but love is a powerful word, and one I cannot apply to them."

i.e. "I don't love my friends."

That's a thing that happens and an experience to take into account wrt intercommunity dynamics, and I think that's the relevance of that -- as a provocation to address certain intercommunity dynamics among aros and aces that overemphasize loving close friends.

17 hours ago, John Rando said:

In this case, this allo that "just don't love his friends" would certainly not like to be forced any "aspec" label onto him. But if this person have other traits such as some kind of neuro-divergence or social awkwardness or anything that prevent him to have the "official" love relationship (according to the idea that platonic bonds plays a role in many sexual and or romantic relationship), he may start to consider it.

Maybe. So far this talk all feels very hypothetical, so I'm wondering -- what are these narratives, in practice? I mean, does anyone have any links? If we're going to model these things this way I'd like to go a step beyond abstract thought experiments.

4 hours ago, nonmerci said:

An allo ace could say the exact same thing about aromanticism "what this person who says "I just don't fall in love" has to do with me?"

Yeah, and presumably you'd have an answer for them based on something more than hypotheticals, right?

On 6/5/2020 at 7:30 AM, John Rando said:

Personnaly I think that agenders and aplatonics should both be included and not included in the aspec thing.

Let me explain, as a person that dont feel gender as a thing on the emotional level, there is a big corelation for me between this experience and my apl, aro and ace ones. It feels kind of the same. It is such comon feeling for aro people to feel that way that we even have a word for it, arogender. Just look at the submissions for the carnival of aro of march about aromanticism and gender. But probably, not all agenders and aplatonic would find comunity with aro and aces pertinent for their life experience.

That's the question though, would an alloromantic allosexual have any reason to want to identify with the ace & aro umbrellas like that? I mean, for instance, to give one example, if someone's like "I don't love my friends," I don't see what that necessarily has to do with me. I'm not preemptively ruling it out, just asking what the rationale is supposed to be.

On 6/5/2020 at 2:22 PM, aspecofstardust said:

It can be hard at first to completely tease apart what exactly is sexual and what is romantic attraction.

So you're talking about like... questioning-aro and questioning-ace?

On 5/11/2020 at 1:09 PM, LoveIsZaxlebax said:

I guess both, this was about both being monoplatonic aro (I guess monoplatonic is a more accurate word) and wondering what a better way to explain my orientation would be, given the usual flak.

I'd probably still just use monogamous or monoamorous for that. If you say platonic, most people will probably figure you mean without sex.

Anyway, that's going to depend some on the specifics of each conversation, I think. I doubt there's any one-size-fits-all explanation that's guaranteed to work for everyone, as with any topic.

It sounds like one of the objections you've been encountering so far is the idea that nonromantic sex is categorically bad. From what you've described, it's unclear if people are saying this in general or specifically when combined with sexual exclusivity.

Regardless, one thing I'd be inclined to highlight, myself, is the matter of compatibility -- i.e., these are preferences that make you compatible (or not) with individual other people, so if someone else's preferences are different, you're choosing not to partner with each other. It's not like you're dragging people into an arrangement that they don't want. You're identifying which arrangements you don't want.

On 5/16/2020 at 7:37 PM, rabbitastic said:

My apology is a broad one directed at everyone I have hurt with my unkind words including you. I appreciate your incredible patience and that you responded to my callous post at all. You are right that it not my place to tell anyone how to describe themselves at any point especially not ace people of any kind. Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Apology accepted. Thanks for listening.

On 5/16/2020 at 7:37 PM, rabbitastic said:

I have always had productive, reassuring conversations with ace alloromantic people without understanding the link; I have some grasp of that history now. As an allosexual aromantic person, I am absolutely comfortable sharing space with ace people, aplatonic people and agender people.... Annnd all of the differently named but connected identities too.

Really? huh. I don't hear that every day. I've been kind of unclear on how aromanticism makes a point of commonality that way. Can you say more?

@LoveIsZaxlebax

It sounds like you're talking here both about aro monogamy and about issues/conflict with other people about it. Out of those two, was there one you were more interested in hearing advice/perspectives about? Because I have some different thoughts on each.

22 hours ago, rabbitastic said:

All of that to say I feel the aspec, ace and aro spectrums are unnecessary.

This is not the topic I meant to raise by asking about the term "a-spectrum," so I'd like to draw a distinction here between 1) questioning "a-spectrum" (and what it refers to and why) vs. 2) questioning the aromantic and asexual spectrums themselves, as two separate topics. Since you brought it up here, though, I will talk about it.

The asexual spectrum is necessary to me. I am gray-asexual. You can't spell gray-asexual without "asexual." This is what makes it useful to me as an identity term and concept: an amended, fuzzier version of/cousin to asexuality. I suppose if you forced me to I could just identify as "gray," but I also identify as "ace," as the short form of "asexual spectrum," because my relationship to the ace community is central and important to me in defining/understanding/conceptualizing my gray-asexuality and where I stand in relation to societal norms.

23 hours ago, rabbitastic said:

I also  do not understand how demiromantic people ,for example, would feel connected to me as an aromantic person.

That's for them to say -- and maybe you should try looking up more demiromantic narratives -- but obviously, some of them do.

Demi folks can be varied, of course, in how they do or don't relate to aromanticism/asexuality, so I'm not too surprised about your demisexual roommate. At the same time, its origin story lies with the asexual community, which is what set the precedent for it being thought of in terms of that connection. And even before that, asexuality was already understood by a number of folks as an umbrella identity that could hold cover a variety of different experiences, which is a part of what led to the terminology of the "spectrum." There have been various intracommunity fights about this and how exactly to draw the lines, but that's the long story short. It's really not your business to go telling certain aces that they're not really ace.

On the aro side of things, if you're unfamiliar with demiromantic narratives and experiences and unsure how demiroms feel connected to you as an aromantic person, one thing you can do is 1) look up demiromantic info for yourself, or 2) ask for help, i.e. "Hi, I'm looking to learn more about demiromanticism and how it's related to aromanticism. Are there any demiromantics here or anyone who can link me to more info?"

Bump/update:

• It's still relatively common for people to use this term without knowing where it came from/what it entails ideologically, so in the interest of helping with that, I'm updating this post with some more condensed notes
• The term "split attraction model"
  • is no older than 2015
  • comes from outside the ace and aro communities
  • comes from the same crowd who thinks "allosexual" is a bad word
  • is linked to anti-ace, anti-aro, and anti-bi ideologies
• For more detailed info, see here and here and here
• If you're looking for alternatives, ask yourself what you're actually trying to get at 
  • For orientation stuff, consider: aro quoisexual, unit aro, aro neu, varioriented, etc.
  • For attraction stuff, consider: attraction subtyping, differentiating types of attraction, etc.
  • For treating attraction as the same thing as orientation, don't