Coyote

So, presumably, you mean people who might potentially identify as aromantic if introduced to the term. I generally try to stay on the side of not calling people anything different than what they call themselves, when it comes to these identity things. Otherwise risks presuming that there is an essential, concrete "actual" nature that can be known and used to tell other people that they're not actually what they identify as. That's something I leave to people telling their own narratives. Right, learning that their experience can be reframed as "aromanticism" and that there are people who say there's nothing wrong with that. Those two things have to go together. Just changing which words are used to refer to it is an incomplete recipe, since words just by themselves are meaningless. It's not the combination of sounds/letters inherently itself. It's surrounding it with a positive reframing -- not just "aromanticism exists" but "being aromantic is okay." So "learning that aromanticism is a thing" needs to include that. I'm not sure if you read the other thing I linked to, but put another way: I don't believe in a contentless message. You don't just "see" aromanticism abstractly. You see it with either a positive or a negative framing.

Oh, I see. That makes it easier to see how that dynamic could arise. Sounds like she thinks she can speak from more years of experience and tell you how things really are. Well, I'm 25 and you have my word this kid sounds cruel and clueless.

That's a pretty big if! It's hard for me to actually imagine not being concerned with how my actions impact or are perceived by others. Staring is mostly understood as either hostile and/or expressing... desire for further interaction, of some kind, so I avoid it because that would be sending all the wrong signals and would just end up making for an awkward experience for the both of us. It's hard to realistically imagine a scenario without that concern. But, if I try, then, I guess, sure? I already stop and stare at pretty dogs, cats, and horses, so if people were as unselfconscious as dogs, then maybe. Depends on how pretty they are. It's a different scenario, of course, when it's not in person, and just pulling up pictures of someone (like a celebrity) is more of an option. For example, every once in a while I remember that Riz Ahmed exists and go pull up pictures of him. He's got beautiful eyes, I don't know what else there is to say. Maybe other people find aesthetic attraction more or less motivating than that, I dunno. It sounds like what you experience may be different from me by slight degrees, and I've also heard of at least one person describing their own aesthetic attraction as a lot stronger than the "pretty painting" perspective.

Wow. This person was only thirteen/is maybe fifteen, now? I don't want to ask your age, but I'm getting the impression that she's younger than you are. That's really scary the amount of influence she's had with her tantrums. From what you've described, it sounds like she's herself been exploited & taught the wrong lessons about boundaries, but I don't bring that up as any excuse because, unfortunately, it sounds like she's just trying to pass on the same lessons to you. It sounds like you have more than enough reason to block her on every account you have.

Answering my own questions: 1. Is the concept of "attraction" useful to you? Yeah, sort of. It doesn't actually matter much in my day to day life or actual relationships, but the terminology has been handy for my questioning process, and it's reassuring to have access to as a concept. For me it's most useful for those otherwise-inexplicable impulses toward another person. All of the attraction types that make sense to me, when I think about it, are all physical to some degree. Attraction can be shallow and irrational (which isn't to say "bad," just not always a good basis of decisions all on its own). 2. What about the concept of "platonic attraction," in particular? No, not at all. When I want to be friends with someone, that's very explicable. They're charming or smart or fun to be around or have a lot in common with me etc. etc., so what I feel is an admiration or just liking them as an actual person. 3. For you, what is the dividing line between a "feeling" and an "attraction"? Feeling is the broadest possible category. Feelings include your whole range of anger, sadness, happiness, road rage, etc. Feelings about another person can include a desire to spend more time with them or an interest in getting to know them better, but if so, those feelings are just that -- desire and interest, i.e. things you actually want to act on. Attraction, to me, isn't necessarily something you decide to act on -- it can precede that decision (or not be acted on at all). Feelings about another person can also include an emotional bond of closeness, or emotional investment in their wellbeing -- that's not attraction either. That's just caring about someone. To me, "attraction" is more like the "intrusive thoughts" of the feelings-about-people world, separable from intent to follow through, and not necessarily based on anything "real." For me, calling serious, invested, explicable feelings (themselves) "attraction" would seem to cheapen them or make them sound less... based in specific reasons I could point to for those feelings. Ex. I want to spend more time with C because they're cool and we have fun together (liking C as a person), but I have no explanation for why I want to touch R's arm hair (physical attraction). That's one that I do experience! ...Or at least, syntactically, I find it easier to say "This person is attractive (aesthetically)" than to say "This person is good-looking in a purely visual way but not attractive" (or rather, I don't want to have to remodel the whole way I talk to avoid calling pretty people attractive). This may be a different way than how you model it, but the "specific course of action" there, for me, is "keep looking." Which can be a problem if I'm trying not to stare!

If you want to talk about amatonormative aro terminology... what's with people inscribing the "romance means more closeness than friendship" hierarchy on queerplatonic of all things? I want to tear my hair out.

Recently, some folks have been talking about attraction, especially platonic attraction. Some people define platonic attraction to mean something like "wanting to be friends with a person," and I'm not the only person this raises questions for. Personally, when I want to start a friendship with someone, I don't think of that as attraction & I wouldn't want somebody telling me that that's attraction. That would be super uncomfortable. 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. So I'm wondering if this is something that we can learn more about by swapping perspectives on the subject. Questions: Is the concept of "attraction" useful to you? What about the concept of "platonic attraction," in particular? For you, what is the dividing line between a "feeling" and an "attraction"? (or whatever other word you want to contrast it against)

Same story on Firefox. Definitely used to work for me before, so that's strange.

Update: added Siggy's Tumblr post, a Tumblr post by Kris, and a recent Arocalypse thread on squishes to the first post. Those latter two don't really get into labeling or creating new labels for those experiences, but they are examples of alienated narratives, like you were saying. @raavenb2619 Anybody have examples of those things getting labeled, besides aplatonic? ETA: found one. This is from just two days ago, so presumably it may have been a part of the discussion sparked around why these things are being labeled. One of its suggested terms:

"Every aro"? Wow. I'd like to know who's been saying stuff like that.

If it feels right or like it makes sense to call it romantic attraction, then it is. If not, then no need to. Not everyone finds non/romantic distinctions useful or important. Since it's something you're asking yourself, though -- I'd also suggest asking yourself this: If you came to a definitive answer on this, what would that do for you? Are you wondering because you're wondering if you should change how you label your identity, or because you're wondering how you should proceed with the relationship, or something else? Me neither. For me, that's a part of why I identify as quoiromantic -- "is this that feeling romantic or not?" for me just ended up being a tiresome and unproductive question that never went anywhere. It may or may not be the same way for you; I'm just explaining where I'm coming from on that. In any case, I'm glad you've found someone you really love and want to be close to. That's really something special when that happens. Cheers to you both!

Here's a post with a lot of links and information on "queerplatonic" and where it came from. It's basically an umbrella term for relationships that are neither completely "romantic" nor "just friends" -- so that can mean a friendship that is also a primary partnership, a relationship that's only ambiguously romantic, or anything else you want to use it for. As for what it feels like, it's different for different people, but here are some examples: Sciatrix has written about her queerplatonic triad here and here, and Kaz wrote about eir "not!girlfiend" here, in the post where the term originated from (although Kaz wasn't the first to use it -- that was actually Meloukhia, in the comments). Meloukhia also wrote about their own queerplatonic partners some here, too. What all of them have in common is some kind of close, involved friendship or relationship that isn't exactly romantic, in one way or another breaking the "rules" (or social norms) of what friendships are supposed to involve.

Hmm. Alright. Here's a start on that, then: on the subject of sexual orientation, I've compiled some non-rosol aro narratives here, and on the subject of queerplatonic, I haven't seen as much but I did find Siggy's post here. In the first one, Ib commented to point out a fourth additional dynamic around talking about "attraction," as well. Okay. I think I see what you're saying. I'm going to edit that part of the post.

@420.seven Found the post I was thinking of -- it was Updating the Map: Romantic Attraction and Friendship vs. Romance . Here's a quote from it (bolding added).

With all due respect, isn't that what people are already doing? Asserting "Z people exist" and devising a specific term to condense "Z" into a one-word label, so that the statement "Z people exist" can more easily be made? Please feel free to fill me in with more context, but for now that's a part of how I was interpreting those initial posts on hyperspecific language -- reacting to the efforts to devise terms for "Z people" in any given case, as opposed to interrogating what makes a statement like "we need a term for Z people" get said in the first place. The former, just talking about a counter-narrative and talking about different ways to express the statement "Z people exist," is already happening. So while it's fine for that to continue happening, I would also like, in addition, to have the discussion that Red, Ollie, and Alex are saying it's important to have at the meta level. Are you... saying you disagree with them on that, or are you saying something else? Yes, those are some of the things I am interested in collecting examples of first. For comparison, in this post, there's links to specific examples of people giving lists (aroallo/aroace/alloace), advocating compulsory romantic orientation (implying everybody uses the concept), and taking an approach of non/romantic absolutism toward certain vocab, which takes that vocabulary away from people who don't make stark romantic-or-not distinctions. Those links include examples of the "everyone is X (or Y)"-type statements and other statements being discussed for their implications. "Easily cited" is... relative (ease is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak), but if we could just compile anything that gives off The Vibes, that would be a start. You start with your examples first, then do the analysis. We don't have to expect everything to happen all in one blow. A discussion, unlike an essay, means a work in progress. ...Well that's certainly not good. The people you're talking about, if we're thinking of the same people, are people who come to a conclusion and then act like the guy with the Change My Mind booth. They proclaim a given stance, and from there they demand that their opponents submit to them their dutiful "proof" if they disagree, only for them to then immediately reject that proof as not good enough. They do this because it helps them gleefully celebrate thinking they were right all along and reveling in how bad their opponents are at challenging them. It's an entirely self-gratifying exercise that begins from a position of hostility and is entirely about shutting discussion down, not opening it up. Those demands for "proof" are never supposed to "go" anywhere. They're not supposed to develop or lead to new conclusions that none of the participants had thought of before. They're just a sparring ground. Specifically, they're a sparring ground over whether a given pain should even be recognized in the first place. In demanding "proof" of "being oppressed," they are demanding a tour of people's scars. The premise "people are alienated" is held in question, for the "proof" to either support or fail to support. It hadn't even occurred to me that asking for links would come off anything like that. Probably because I make a habit of limiting my exposure to that environment, so it's not really fresh on my mind any time I talk about aro stuff, but in any case: The premise "people are alienated" is not being held in question, here; it's being accepted as a starting point for other questions. Nobody's "requiring evidence" or demanding that anything be "proved." What is being said is that it's important to have a discussion. In order to start a discussion about all this, I suggested we start with examples. My reason for making that suggestion is because that's how my brain works. Without specific examples or things to respond to, I find it very hard to synthesize, describe general patterns, or really say anything. Maybe other people can. That's great for them, and I look forward to the conversation they can start, if they choose to dive in using a different approach. People don't have to come at it the way I would. This thread is just meant for the discussion in general, not for saying we have to start the discussion in a particular way, and I tried to start it my way because, well, it's me. Does that make sense?

Previous thread titles: "Aro community terminology & hyperspecificity," "Why do we need a word for that?" Today I encountered some pieces of this conversation (featuring Alex @Jot-Aro Kujo) via @raavenb2619's tumblr blog about neolabels & what they are or aren't capable of on their own. I didn't see a corresponding Arocalypse thread, so I figured I'd start one. A quote from one of those posts, to give you an idea: So, I figured maybe we could talk about that. In those posts I linked, Alex went into two particular examples: labeling aros by how they feel about QPRs & labeling aros without sexual orientations. Some links to further context: On aros who do/don't do QPRs: so far I've found a few related posts and threads here, here, and here talking about not wanting a QPR/not feeling squishes & feeling out of place for that, plus a related reassurance post here from five years ago. The recent posts I've encountered on labeling these things are this one just expressing an interest in having a word and from this post suggesting "callistic" (alongside "europic" and "iodic"). On aros w/o sexual orientations: I've written a compilation post on some of the different narratives expressed by non-rosol aros, or aros whose identities are in tension with the romantic/sexual dyad one way or another. The most recent suggestions for labeling I've seen for these experiences are unit aro and neutral aro ( @bananaslug @Magni @running.tally @arofrantics are users from those posts with Arocalypse accounts). The meta question being raised about all this by Alex and others, as I'm hearing it, is this: What pushes people to form/seek labels for these specific things in the first place? And I think addressing that question, for me, has to involve breaking it down into taking one step at a time -- 1) What are people trying to describe? What are the narratives? 2) What is it being describe on contrast to? What is that narrative? 3) Where are these narratives coming from? Where, specifically, can you point and find them? and 4) What makes these narratives salient? Why does having a different experience matter? For example -- here's a compilation of some non-rosol aro narratives. These narratives are being described in contrast against the romantic & sexual dyad, or the norm (in the ace & aro communities) of labeling yourself with one orientation of each of those. Any text that lists "aroallos and aroaces" as if that's a list of all aros = examples of the romantic & sexual dyad in action. These narratives are made salient by aroallo/ace conflict, wherein labeling your sexual orientation as an aro becomes relevant. Some elements of this conflict include silencing aroallos and the misuse of the Tumblr tagging function. Relatedly, on the former there, I'd like to remind folks about the sexuality board suggestion. As for the latter, that one is a concern because Tumblr tags are unmoderated, making misplaced posts more difficult to address than they would be in a space with moderation tools. Because of things like this, aros positioning themselves as either-allo-or-ace becomes relevant in the discussion of these issues; because of things like that, not fitting that binary becomes important. Labeling not-fitting-that-binary, by itself, while fine, does not address the underlying problems.... So what would? From what I'm hearing so far, both example issues involve some umbrella crunching & prioritization of certain narratives. So here's what I'm thinking: Where are those narratives being encountered, and what are the counternarratives? Can we get together a pile of examples? And what's the pattern to it all? What's facilitating or motivating the way things are being talked about in the first place? Addressing that, I think, might be how to start getting at the roots. What do y'all think?

I think @Prismatangle has talked about something like this before. I forget where, but she's mentioned that her relationship with her (aromantic) partner might have proceeded differently if they had approached it as a queerplatonic relationship at the beginning, instead of understanding it as romantic relationship. Can message her or try to dig up the relevant blogpost if you're interested.

I know what you mean about the importance of community connection. It's helped me out of an abusive friendship before, and I can't emphasize enough how much I value those kinds of connections to others-of-similar-difference, if that makes sense. As you expressed via the metaphor, though, being in solitary confinement or not is a separate thing than being in the light or not, so to me that doesn't say anything in particular about visibility per se. For those interested, I expressed some more of my thoughts about this a couple months back in a different post using some diagrams.

Hey Raven. \o/ You made an account after all!

hm, that just might work. I like that idea. Also interested in hearing people's thoughts on the TMI thread idea -- I'll add that one into the top post as another suggestion.

It's you \o/ haha, hi. I knew you had an Arocalypse account but was too shy to tag you. I didn't want to be presumptuous. 2) The Sexuality and Gender board stays the same, but a new Sexuality board is created. Aight, so there is some interest in a new board altogether... We'd have to think of some board name to make it sufficiently distinct from the "Sexuality and Gender" board, and also I'm thinking the description should maybe have specific words like sexual attraction, sexual desire, sexual relationships, etc. to make the purpose clear. Another thing, too: Would it also go under the Miscellaneous category? That seems to fit technically well enough, but I wonder if that'd risk letting it go overlooked.

I wrote this up expecting it to be short and then it wasn't, so I've broken it up into sections: the Problem, the Catch, and a few suggestions for a Solution. The Problem Lately, what I've been happening to come across from aro tumblr suggests a dire need for moderated spaces. For example: Tumblr users generally use "tags" as kind of makeshift community spaces, but tags are unmoderated, so when there's a problem with off-topic content in the tags, there's no way for anyone else to remove it. Here are some posts that talk about this in relation to aro tumblr: example, example, example. More generally, I've also come across some posts from aro allos (specifically) talking about feeling like they're not allowed to talk about sexuality in the aromantic community. Here are some posts that talk about this: example, example. To me, as much as we can try to hold the problem people accountable, this also points toward a structural need for more private and/or more moderated spaces. Arocalypse may not offer more privacy (for that, I'd recommend Dreamwidth or Pillowfort), but it does have more moderation than the Tumblr aro tags. So, from seeing these conversations, I'm wondering about how Arocalypse can create more of the space that these folks are expressing a need for -- aro spaces for talking about sexuality. I came here to this board, the Site Comments board, to suggest the creation of a Sexuality* board to begin to address this. *Note: in this particular case, I am using "sexuality" and not "allosexuality." That's because I'm trying to refer something a little more detached from specific identity labels. I don't want people to feel stuck or unsure whether they should use the board on account of not having a sexual orientation label, as is the case for some aros. The Catch But then I noticed that there already was a Sexuality board. The current title for it is Sexuality and Gender. It's currently in the Miscellaneous category (after the Aromanticism category), and its description is this: From that description ("various sexual orientations") and from looking at the most recently-bumped threads, it sounds like this is for "sexuality" in a very general sense that includes "asexuality." Currently the front page of threads in that board includes titles like "Is it possible to be aromantic, but NOT asexual?" "Aromanticism + A/sexual Identity - How does everyone here identify?" "Demisexuality, sex drive and the emotional bond" and "The Asexual Thread." So this is a board both intended for and being used for ace umbrella conversations. That's all well and good on its own, but my concern is that's not as useful for addressing the aro allosexual silencing issue. The Solution? I don't know if any changes would make sense here or, if so, what changes would make aro allosexuals feel more welcome to speak. The goal would be to provide a moderated space where aro-umbrella folks of all kinds can have conversations about sexuality -- not "sexual orientation" generally, not celibacy, not nonlibidoism, but sexuality, as in sexual attraction, sexual desire, sexual relationships, and sexual activity. This is what I'm hearing a need for, so this is what I'm suggesting changes be made in order to accommodate. But like I said, I don't know what changes would make the most sense here. I'm going to toss out just a few possibilities as examples: 1) Everything stays the same, because this issue should be addressed a different way. 2) The Sexuality and Gender board stays the same, but a new Sexuality board is created. Insert your name/description suggestions here. 3) The Sexuality and Gender board changes its name and/or its description to be more sexually-oriented. Insert your name/description suggestions here. 4) The Sexuality and Gender board changes its name and/or description to be more reflective of its current content (ex. "Orientation" instead of "Sexuality"), and also, a new Sexuality board is created. Insert your name/description suggestions here. 5) A new Sexuality subboard is created. It's located within the Sexuality and Gender board. Insert your name/description suggestions here. *) Bonus idea from Sennkestra: a TMI ("too much information") thread is created, for those topics that you might want to put a "TMI" warning on before you bring them up. What do y'all think?

Here's some more links on how people have used the term queerplatonic. Hmm, that's... a questionable response, yeah. A lot of people don't need to "try it" before they figure out sex is for them, so I don't know where so many people are getting that idea (it's something that gets directed at asexuals a lot). If I were in your shoes and considering bringing it up to her, I might try some trial balloon questions first, just to get a sense of what kind of reaction to expect. It shouldn't? ...I mean, not that it necessarily should be, but I wouldn't tell anybody they did something wrong if they called it quits after that. Getting a response like that can be a pretty heavy blow, and for a lot of people, being able to trust their therapist is pretty important to making sure therapy is at all productive or worthwhile. So it's understandable that for some people that could be a breaking point.

I guess I did the quote tree wrong, because that comment was directed more at Angel than at you. Oh well. Still, re: can you categorized those two as distinct things, in media, unless it is named? ...Eh. I don't think I'd want people to try. A possible alternative that I think would work better: if someone did make a list, there could be an asterisk-type symbol to denote if a character also has an explicitly-stated sexual orientation, if a character is involved with/pursues sexual relationships, if a character self-describes as "aro" specifically vs. just strongly implied, etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there'd be so many entries as to warrant a set of completely separate lists. Or maybe there would be, but it would easier to... build up to that. ...We are talking mostly fictional storytelling here, right?