10 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I thought aromantic as "someone who fits in the aromantic spectrum"

7 hours ago, bydontost said:

we're talking about the use that is interchangeable with the word arospec, as used in for example "aromantic community" 

Well, color me confused then. I wouldn't have expected that. When someone talks about "defining aromantic," I'd always assume that they mean defining aromantic itself, as in for people whose primary identity label is "aromantic" point blank. If what they mean is the aromantic umbrella/spectrum, then I expect them to say "aromantic umbrella" or "aromantic spectrum" (or "arospec," if they're from Tumblr and/or on a mobile device). I also know that I'm not the only one who finds using "aromantic" and "arospec" interchangeably to be confusing. I also suspect that using specific terms as umbrella terms may be a part of the reason for the rise of the (icky) term "endcase aros," which is... unfortunately linear in its implications. Especially given that I've only ever seen it defined purely in terms of the zero attraction thing. This would be a type of that "pushing into grayness" issue that James mentioned.

And jury's out on my relationship to the aro umbrella, but if somebody were to refer to me personally as "aromantic," I would be annoyed.

(But anyway: thank you for clarifying.)

If the task is for defining the whole aromantic umbrella as a concept, not aromantic-just-aromantic, then I would not have suggested quite the same wording. For that, I think it would make sense to take a page from the Carnival of Aros FAQ written by @sennkestra -- wording like a) "anyone who personally relates to some aspect of aromanticism," or b) aromantics + "those who may identify with identities sometimes considered 'adjacent' to aromanticism." Either of those seems like a decent starting point to me, if only just because of their breadth/comprehensiveness while also sticking to the specific topic of aromanticism.

Hi Bri. Looks like this is your first post here? Welcome to the forum.

1 hour ago, bri53 said:

Any insight or tips? 

My tip is this: Remember that only you can really determine what it feels right to call yourself. It's no one else's place to tell you what you are or aren't. With that said, if you're looking for people with experiences and outlooks similar to yours -- not seeing what all the fuss is about, not experiencing much in the way of romantic feelings, not seeking out romantic relationships -- then these are certainly things that you will find among many members of the aro community. There's no one single way to be under the aromantic umbrella, of course, so not every aro will look just like you. That's just to say, if you're looking for that resonance, then I think you've come to the right place. Any of those reasons you named are plenty normal reasons that some people have for identifying with the aromantic spectrum.

Quote

Aromantic: describes a person who experiences little to no romantic attraction or whose experience of romance is disconnected from normative societal expectations of romantic intimacy

hm. "Disconnected from normative societal expectations" is something that strikes me as maybe overbroad, since arguably that could apply to people who are gay/bi/pan in a romantic way, but I think it's a good start. If it were me, I might put that one up front and then add some subordinate clauses with examples, ex. --

Aromantic: a person whose experience of romance is disconnected from normative societal expectations, for example due to experiencing little to no romantic attraction, feeling repulsed by romance, or being uninterested in romantic relationships.

2 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I don't really understand what's wrong with the actual definition ?

9 hours ago, aro-fae said:

and having a definition that is basically "none of that, or only a small part of it" seems to cover most points in surface-level conversations. 

Presumably @running.tally is also interested in non-surface conversations. Part of why this is an issue is because of identity policing, questioning people, and folks who don't exactly fit this one singular narrative -- as James argues,  asserting that someone can’t be aromantic (and instead has to identify as something else) because they “experience” any amount/type/frequency of “romantic attraction”... is identity policing. And, granted, no definition can prevent that. But certainly a very narrow and precise definition lends itself to that easier. And... unfortunately, getting hung up on levels of attraction does seem like something that's been going around, if I'm not mistaken. These questions matter for discussions and relationships within any given community, not for just the cursory introduction. Although even the cursory introduction can also shape whether or not someone feels emboldened enough to look further.

Anyway, I'm a bit unclear on something else here--

2 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I don't see what arospec term don't fit into it?

15 hours ago, running.tally said:

there are some identities under the aro umbrella that aren't captured by "little to no attraction."

Are y'all talking about the word "aromantic," or are y'all talking about the concept of "the aromantic umbrella"?

22 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

Strong and soft aro is no worse than strong and weak atheism.

I'd never heard of that before either and I can't say I'd go for that either.

13 hours ago, TripleA said:

lol why is everyone being so oversensitive, chill. 

This is the only overreaction I see in this thread. You really gonna accuse "everyone" of "oversensitivity"? Even Neir/running.tally, who posted solely to call the idea cute and fun? Take it easy.

13 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

(edit: I can give links later, if you want them)

I always appreciate links.

13 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

I know that in my own experience I rejected the asexual term because I couldn't connect with any experiences in the community back in 2007, and ultimately I think it is the experiences rather than the dry, simplified dictionary explanation which people use to find labels for themselves

Hard agree. I haven't adopted the labels I have just from staring at the definitions alone. I even wrote a post about that in 2015, although it could really stand to be updated... There's things I'd say differently now.

6 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

And if the word or the community you find doesn't fit 100% of your experience, you want a new term.

I think that's a bad outlook to have -- where "bad" here means "detrimental to having a community." I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but communities will always, always have people who are different from each other... because people are different from each other, period.

13 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

Now people are just making up labels (and flags) because they find it an enjoyable hobby or something, and do it all on the expectation that someone out there 'might' need it because 3 or 5 or 10 years ago there was a need for different or broader terms. 

I... hate this, to be honest. Whipping up an endless conveyor belt of neologisms to send them off like paper boats on the off chance that someone out there might appreciate it is like spending your days adding tape to paper towels because somebody might want a bandaid. That's not how you make sure this stuff is useful. And that frustrates me, because it means people are pouring energy into things other than (and basically at the expense of) community building.

This isn't just some generic commentary about there being "too many" or the terms not being "respectable" enough, to be clear. After all, I'm someone who identifies with a concept that's pretty undignified & that was first named on a whim (wtfromantic). And there have also been... an endless array of gender terms that I've looked at and been like... maybe? Maybe this could work, I guess, but let's see how it's used first/what the community looks like, in order for me to tell if this is an identity that works for me, and then [insert surprised gru meme] there is no community. There's no one posting about what it means to them or hardly using it at all. So it's practically useless to me. What am I supposed to do, start an entire community myself? Around a term somebody else created? Why's there a term at all if you can't find out anything about it besides the name? It feels like a bait & switch and I feel cheated.

I don't necessarily want to make things "tidier." I just want to see some actual follow-through.

But there won't be, because aro, ace, & nb online communities (as far as I can tell) are majorly based on Tumblr, and Tumblr overall prioritizes images, not text. Consequently: endless autocratic flag generation & moodboards, far surpassing any actual in-depth discussion. There are some terms I can find more flag/moodboard posts about than people identifying with them, let alone talking about it. You want to stem the flow of neolabels generally, you're going to have to form a bigger aro community off Tumblr.

16 hours ago, bananaslug said:

Our PR Team is getting to all the emails as fast as possible.

Right, not trying to rush you. Just thought I'd ask where to set my expectations.

7 hours ago, Mark said:

With "nonamorous" being a term which is likely to confuse people.

Depending on how familiar they are with the term polyamorous, I would think. The term was derived as a spinoff of that one.

7 hours ago, Mark said:

With these being concepts which came from outside of the aro (or aroace) community...

huh? Nonamory was suggested by anagnori, who is aromantic.

On 6/7/2019 at 12:04 AM, bydontost said:

We'd like to invite you to visit the website so you can take a look or read what is there and if you notice something could be corrected - please inform us about that by writing to us at contact@aromanticism.org.

Approximately what should we be expecting in the way of turn-around time for emails?

Uh. I'm seeing some reason for hesitation here. Some of these, I just don't see the need for (we already have words like "alloromantic," "dominant," and "submissive" -- what are these alternatives adding?) but others... "strong aro"? "soft aro"? That sounds kind of value-laden and, more definitely, makes it sound like you're framing romance-repulsed aros as "more" aromantic than other aros. Please don't repeat the ace community's mistakes. There's no need to frame some aros as "softer" or weaker than others -- or "less likely to destroy cupid's spells" than others. This feels like it's setting up a hierarchical scale of aromanticism.

Quote

How old should you be to start identifying as aromantic?

Old enough to talk.

19 hours ago, mookins said:

Am I aro or just too young like everyone says?

Getting told "you're too young to know that" is a common experience to all sorts of people who aren't straight (or cisgender, for that matter). It's a double standard, because those same people probably wouldn't have told you "you're too young to know that, maybe it'll change" if what you had said was "I'm straight." They're just generalizing based off of what's more familiar to them. It's a type of reaction to expect from people -- but not something to take to heart. It's okay to identify as aromantic if that's the term that feels right to you. No matter how old or young you are. I promise. 

19 hours ago, gravityspiker said:

'Anti' is usually a self-applied term

Is it?

That hardly aligns with what I've seen, but alright.

19 hours ago, gravityspiker said:

If you're not familiar with the anti movement,

I'm plenty familiar with it being explained to me second-hand, actually. The more people talk to me about it, the more I become convinced that referring to the group you're speaking of as "antis" is a strategically unsound choice. "Anti-shippers" is also silly, but that's for the separate reason that, according to one harassment account I've been directed to on this topic, some of these people are shippers themselves -- basically participating in a ship war.

19 hours ago, gravityspiker said:

more interested in having a place to access current and older discussions of aro(spec) experience in fandom (and contribute if possible, in comments as on DW or reblogs as on Tumblr) without having to follow a feed that often expresses approval or support for the anti movement. However, if this is a topic you're interested in pursuing, I would be interested in following that sort of thread.

I see. In that case -- I don't know of much, but I recently started another PF discussion on this topic ("How does your aro spectrum identity, romance aversion, or romantic ambivalence impact how you engage with fandom?") that's gotten over a dozen comments now. You might also be interested in tumblr user beranyth's old posts on Growing Up Aromantic: The Half-Read Book and also this reblog-chain on dehumanization.

13 hours ago, bydontost said:

and the most common/loudest voices don't have to be the same for every person either. so one person is gonna see someone talk about their nonamorous, 0 attraction aromanticism and think "oh this is *the* aro experience", while another is gonna see someone talk about squishes and qprs and think that's aromanticism for everyone.

The see-saw cycle.

6 hours ago, TripleA said:

I'm referring to Asexual Alloromantics,

Well then using "aces" to mean that one segment of them, specifically, is certainly at least a little disrespectful to the ones who aren't.

Quote

A request for blog recommendations that do not support fandom antis

Much more direct title. Thank you.

24 minutes ago, gravityspiker said:

I am looking for a page to add to my feed that discusses aromanticism in fannish contexts without supporting censorship and harassment. The key phrase is "add to my feed" rather than it being Tumblr-specific.

Aha. I see. I was going to say, if the objective is "aro blogs that don't specifically support [folks who are pro-... harassment? you call them 'antis' here but don't say anti-what and seem to define them more in terms of what they're in support of]" -- then that could mean both "aro blogs that explicitly take your side on the matter" and "aro blogs that don't address it," but "blogs that talk about aromanticism in fandom" is already much, much narrower than that, without even getting into any other ideological stances. Granted, I'm not well-versed in aro blogs, but I don't know that I could think of an aro-specific blog that posts much about fandom (at the meta level) to begin with.

hmm. Is it a requirement for the blog in question to have RSS? I ask because Pillowfort doesn't have RSS at the moment, and I know that's a problem to some people. Granted, of the aro bloggers and communities there, I don't know of one that's got much on fandom & aromanticism as a combination specifically, but, if you're looking for stuff to read, you might possibly be interested in this discussion of unshipping.

This could also potentially make for a good prompt for a Carnival of Aros, by the way, if you're interested in spurring more discussion on the topic. A step down from that, in the mean time, I'd also be happy to try and get some more people blogging about it, if you could help me with some prompt ideas. Some possible angles -- let me know how much these do or don't match up do what you had in mind:

• How does your aro spectrum identity impact how you engage with fandom?
• Are there any fictional characters that you interpret as aro?
• Have you read/watched anything with a canon aro character?
• Where/how have you observed amatonormativity in fandom?
• Do some fandoms feel more aro-friendly than others?

5 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

The posts Coyote mentioned ought to help give you a better understanding of what voidpunk actually is.

On that note -- have you considered linking to one of those posts and/or a compilation of links in your sidebar? That's one of the places I checked first, actually. I know there's links within your About, but I mean as its own link/page right there among that and the Ask link.

Relatedly, Tumblr is also known to have terrible SEO/doesn't come up with relevant posts easily for people googling things, so if you were to put up some info on voidpunk on a more SEO-friendly site, it might be easier for people to find the right information via search engines.

On 6/14/2019 at 11:36 PM, gravityspiker said:

Almost every single aro-focussed blog on Tumblr that I have found is

So you're looking on Tumblr.

Is this an absolute requirement for you?

On 6/14/2019 at 11:36 PM, gravityspiker said:

A complaint / request for resource(s)

 

[...] I'm looking for some blogs that do not do this. 

Are you looking for resources, or are you just looking for blogs? "Blogs" is a lot bigger/more numerous category than "resources," to me. "Blogs" is also a bigger category than "blogs on the Tumblr platform, specifically." At the moment it's not completely clear to me what you want. You could have a discussion, here, on Arocalypse, about aros in fandom & what you want the aro community to look like, and that would be a different kind of thread from a request for blogging recommendations, but for blog recs I would need more details about what specifically you're looking for -- and atm I'm actually not sure which one you're actually angling for between those two possible paths.

On 6/14/2019 at 11:36 PM, gravityspiker said:

I also want to make it clear that these people often ignore well-tagged warnings

Speaking of warnings, given that this is a fraught/sensitive subject for a lot of people, it would be polite to give this thread a more indicative title.

On 6/14/2019 at 11:59 AM, VoidpunkDreams said:

I have been looking around for definitions of the VoidPunk but could not find many open identifications or a definitive list. 

If you have encountered VoidPunk and have an idea of what that could look like I would like to know but the words define my identity rn and this list is looking to expand. 

It's my understanding that voidpunk as you know it was initially created by Alex @Jot-Aro Kujo on Tumblr in February 2018, starting with this post, although the name itself was proposed here by Tumblr user milkchocolateowl. Alex elaborates on the purpose of the concept in this post:

Quote

I mean tbh the entire reason I came up with voidpunk is because I’ve spent so much of my life feeling isolated and like I’m not a real person whiel being bombarded with “This is what it means to be human™!!!1!1!1!!!!!”, that it’s literally less exhausting and self-critical to just go “Yeah, sure, guess I’m not human” than to either try to force myself to conform to amatonormative/neurotypical/etc. ideals, or to constantly try to argue with the society as a whole

...and this post:

Quote

It’s, well, punk. Society puts out a lot of messages about What It Means To Be Human™ that can make a lot of people who don’t completely fit the bill feel lost, broken, alone, or like they’re doing something wrong; Voidpunk is about taking that message of “you’re not human”, making it your own, and throwing it back in society’s face. You say I’m not human? Sure, ok. That’s chill. Why does being Human™ have to be a goal to aspire to anyway? What’s so great about humanity?

...and this post:

Quote

Overall, voidpunk is a very nebulous concept, and open to being defined and altered to fit what the community or individuals feel. Just don’t do anything dickish with it, guys.

...and see also A Note on Voidpunk and the Aro Community:

Quote

Voidpunk is open to anyone who relates to it, by all means, but my personal voidpunk- and the original creation of voidpunk- Is inseparably tied to my allosexual aromanticism.

...and this post:

Quote

The bigger voidpunk gets, the more I feel like it gets misunderstood, so I want to clear up a few things:

1. There is no one “right” or “wrong” way to be voidpunk. There is no voidpunk flag, there is no specific voidpunk aesthetic, there are no rules to voidpunk.

18 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

We need a word for purely sexual attraction without a romantic component.

Fun fact, while I don't know if anyone still uses this, the original squish thread made reference to calling this a "smash."

On 6/14/2019 at 5:08 PM, TripleA said:

So I don't feel that I can be in a normal relationship because every relationship is romantic in some way (like a dating relationship),

It sounds like you may have made that ruling preemptively. "Every relationship is romantic in some way"? That's far from true. I understand that you may be fearing some friction in looking for what you want, and that apprehension may be warranted -- but relationships are whatever you make them to be.

On 6/14/2019 at 5:08 PM, TripleA said:

even Aces are ok in this realm.

what?

On 6/14/2019 at 5:08 PM, TripleA said:

On the other side of the coin, whilst they sound great in theory, I cannot do QPRs because 1. not many people will know about them and 2. remember the sexual part? Yeeah that's a problem.

Only a problem if you feel it's a problem.

On 6/14/2019 at 5:08 PM, TripleA said:

What I want:

 

- affection (give affection) but with limitations like I don't like the idea of holding hands.

- sex 

- eventually someone to have kids with 

- someone I can trust

 

That's it. Hopefully someone in this world, other than me, also feels this way but idk. 

I think you'd be surprised. I don't mean to downplay your personal struggles, but this all sounds fairly within reach so far -- as much as sexual partnerships can be described as such. It is fairly standard for some people to take a long time (i.e. years) to find a partner they're compatible with, after all. But this really doesn't sound as niche or outlandish as you're making it out to be. Just focus on the parts that you *are* looking for, while also making sure to communicate your specific personal boundaries, like hand holding, whatever other things feel too romantic for your tastes, etc.

On 6/12/2019 at 10:53 PM, raavenb2619 said:

I'm curious, do other people find the idea of appreciation useful at all? 

I associate that word with art galleries and also, more generally, gratitude/thankfulness, which makes it kind of weird for me to swap out in some cases, but I also can see it working fine in others.

On 6/11/2019 at 8:57 PM, raavenb2619 said:

Maybe retitle it (again) to "What can we do in addition to making new words?" to shift the focus towards other actions that would target the underlying problem.  "Why do we need a word for that?" can be read as implying "We don't need a word for that" which in turn implies "Your underlying motivation is invalid", but the point of this post is to talk about the underlying motivation and to find more productive ways of dealing with these sorts of problems than creating new words.

I can see what you're saying, yeah. hm. I'll give it another shot.

On 6/11/2019 at 6:33 PM, DavidMS703 said:

Those are all good points.

Thank you.

On 6/11/2019 at 6:33 PM, DavidMS703 said:

However, the topic here is about if we should be promoting visibility. I think pretty much everyone on this site, if they were to spread aromantic visibility, would do so in a positive way that sends the message it's okay to identify as aromantic.

Ostensibly. And yet it's far from impossible to find amatonormativity messages and harmful wording about aromanticism even within the aro community. Even with good intentions, I can't trust that having-the-right-identity will equal perfect execution.

7 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Why do we need a word for that? Probably because it helps some folk ( not all) to place themselves in the scheme of things.

You know, I had figured that changing the thread title to something more provocative might help it get responses, but it seems I failed to apply that same effort toward making sure people read through the entire first post. It's a string of thoughts that I find hard to condense down into something simpler, I'm afraid.

Oh hey, a fellow 'yote! Hi, welcome to Arocalypse. Have some ice cream.

18 hours ago, treepod said:

A feeling is something experienced in the body, not to do with logic, but still mental in a way, mixed with a physical sensation. Attraction is a feeling combined with a desire to take some kind of action towards a person in order to become closer to them.

huh. Personally, I like to make a big distinction between attraction and desire. So much so that it's more than a little confusing when a definition of attraction has the word "desire" in it. But that could be because I reserve "desire" for things you have the actual will to act on, whereas it's possible to feel attraction without feeling like acting on it.

12 hours ago, Mark said:

On 6/9/2019 at 5:22 PM, Coyote said:

At the same time, the term itself has been circulated enough around the community that I'm sure people are getting something out of it, even if I'm not quite clear on what that something is, what they're using it to mean, or if we really do have the same experiences and they're just choosing to talk about them a different way.

It also appears to be somewhat important to the squish and QPR concepts.

Somewhat. Queerplatonic is also a relationship term, and I think of it primarily as referring to that, although it was also discussed as a parallel type of attraction by Meloukhia from the beginning. I think it's plenty common to discuss it mainly as a relationship descriptor though.

When I was looking up the origin of squish, on the other hand, I was surprised to find that it was... older? apparently? than anything I could find on "platonic attraction." Rasin's post doesn't even present it as a type of attraction -- just "a desire to talk to the person and be friends with them" (and which is, weirdly enough, explicitly defined as being less intense than a crush -- I wonder if the people who use "squish" these days still think of it that way).

12 hours ago, Mark said:

IIRC the term alterous can mean either "different from either 'romantic' and 'platonic'" or "between 'romantic' and 'platonic'". With the latter seeming like a variation on the argumentum ad temperantiam logical fallacy from my POV.

It's been defined a few different ways, yeah. Not always good ways. I know someone who's planning to write a more in-depth post about what it means to her, but for the time being that's still forthcoming.

12 hours ago, Mark said:

The best i can come up with is that the former is conscious whereas the latter is unconscious.

hmm. Are you using "unconscious" to mean "without being aware of it," or... something more like un-willed?