Coyote

So how would you break down 'allosexual aro' and 'ace aro' into categories or criteria? This seems overly reliant on the idea that all aros are either aro allo or aro ace. Some aros aren't. Anyway, can we just put together a list of some aromantic media in the first place before figuring out how to numerically rank it?

Enzi just said why they feel weird about using the term demiromantic. ...I mean, to be clear, I'm all for using whatever labels work for you, whether that means using something in spite of other people using it slightly differently (as will always be the case) or not using something that "should" fit, because it would feel weird. More importantly, I don't think anyone can really tell anybody else what they are. That's something that everyone has to figure out on their own. I agree, it's both a pro and a con, at the same time. And I can understand that making it a little daunting. To me it's also important to remember that figuring out what particular label to use doesn't even need to be important. The bigger questions are -- What communities do you want to be a part of? To what extent, and what ways? And what is this self-knowledge helping you to do -- or how to conduct your relationships in life? But in any case, personally the best way for me to figure out labels has always been to read a bunch of writing by different people about their experiences and what they use those labels to mean, so here's a blogpost by a greyromantic about greyromanticism, as a starting point.

If I may hazard a guess... I figure they mean "official" colloquially, in the sense of "credible, serious, and polished-looking, with an air of authority."

I'm happy to hear this. It makes sense to me, even though it's arguable. Although I'm not interested in pushing for them to go one way or the other on how to handle this (and am just sharing some thoughts here), the way I see it is like this: if they were to do a lot of disclaimers and personalization of the site, framing everything in terms of "this is just our own way of seeing it, from the POV of the team here," then there wouldn't be a lot to differentiate it from a lot of existing aro blogs and glossaries that are already out there. It'd just be basically the same thing, except with a different domain. My understanding of the goal here is to create something that looks more "official," and -- for better or for worse -- to a lot of anglophones, more "official" presentation is more impersonal, absolute, unified presentation. You could argue that that association/perception is bad, of course, but I can understand not wanting to fight two battles at once, if that makes sense.

Hello Tost. Thank you. My question pertains to something that's already been said about the team's plans: What I understand this to mean is that the team is intending to not invite any outside beta readers/not release any part of the web copy before publishing the site. Why?

No. Or more specifically: I don't think it makes sense to pull up a hypothetical scenario of a hypothetical person and decide, on the basis of the gender direction of a sensual orientation, that they "could be considered queer," because I don't like the idea of establishing "rules" like this about how people are supposed to identify or how people are supposed to parse their experiences. Especially when it comes to a word like "queer." That's a pretty complicated topic and (as with most labels, but this one especially) ties in with a lot more than just the barebones of their sensuality. This additionally ties in to part of some more general thoughts I have about unorthodox axes of orientation, too, but I'll try not to get sidetracked here. Suffice to say that I think "your sensual attraction is bisensual, so you're queer" is an oversimplification & doesn't acknowledge enough autonomy in the identification process. With that said, I've asked something similar about sensual attraction before (specifically wrt ace issues), and... the way I wrote that post then isn't how I would have written it now, but it might be interesting to anyone who's interested in further responses on the subject. General disclaimer that I'm putting this thought forward as someone who does itself experience sensual attraction to multiple genders but does not use orientation language for that, and personally, that barely registers as a part of my own relationship to (not using) that term.

It sounds like we are still not on the same page, because I disagree with some of what you've said here -- or rather, I just have a different understanding of how to parse it all. On the one hand, I think it's fine and would make sense for the team to include something on the site about how the team came about -- some kind of "origin story," so to speak, on the website, whose idea it was, and how the other people were picked, plus a note that these people were not voted into the position or whatever. That would be fine. It's not something I'm pushing for, but it'd be fine. On the other hand, I would draw a distinction between them doing that and them saying "we are not representatives" or "this website is not representing the aromantic community." Because it is. And I'm not even saying that's a bad thing! I'm just saying, "representing others," necessarily, is something that this initiative entails, by definition. I cannot stress enough that representing others is not (itself) something that I object to. I just don't know why you're talking like that can be avoided in a project like this. It's actually little different than, say, the grad representative from my department, who represents the graduate students at faculty meetings -- by showing up to those meetings and acting as a liaison between us and them. In that role, they are representing others. Representing others is not a bad thing to be avoided. It's the point of the whole website. So it's because they are aiming to represent others in this particular way that I have questions I think it's not unreasonable to want answers to. At the moment I have one question in particular that I think is pretty good & that I would appreciate some support in getting the team to answer.

I think they're all intertwined forces -- sometimes identifiable separably, but often running as a pack and reinforcing each other. Heteronormativity and amatonormativity do tend to go hand-in-hand (Luvtheheaven discusses an example of that in a recent post). And another reason to make the connection to heteronormativity, tbh, is that this is something you'll see tackled in academic queer theory sometimes, although not always by the name of amatonormativity as such. I wouldn't know who to cite off the top of my head but they definitely make the case that the "respectability" of marriage is inflected with a heteronormative ideal -- and paint trying to incorporate LGBTQ people into that mold as assimilationist. huh. Interesting. Thanks for collecting those pdf pages. Is there a main source page where you found them?

I think it's okay to take it slow in figuring out what words you want to use. The aro community is for the entire aromantic spectrum, which means that people can relate to the concept of aromanticism in lots of different ways, so whether or not you belong isn't going to hinge on any one specific label or fitting any one specific narrative. Also, welcome. Have some ice cream. You mentioned cupioromantic, but I'll also add here that you can find some narratives of only-being-interested-in-unavailable-people in association with some labels like lithromantic. Unfortunately I don't know of a lot of examples that I can link you to, but here are some: one, two, three. Also, here's a post by the coiner on where the term comes from. Not suggesting you have to fit yourself into that narrative either, just another example of the breadth of possibilities. This is also why I think it's important to have umbrella terms like grayromantic, which are a lot more vague and nonspecific. Here's an example of a grayro talking about being grayro -- and how "??? is this romantic?" can be a part of that. Basically, identifying on the aro spectrum doesn't have to mean pinning anything down in exact terms more specific than that. I don't even consider that to be "slowly," lol. It sounds like you've been dealing with some clingy people. Everyone's free to have different preferences about that sort of thing, of course, but even for people who are deeply romantic, I can see that being a bit much for some. It's not totally off the wall to say "I need you to stop expecting me to be available at a moment's notice. This isn't the relationship communication style that works for me. If that's not okay with you, then it could be that we're just not compatible."

Baby Outlaw -- Elle King: Well I ain't nobody's baby Baby, I'm an outlaw

Of course we're not. The (self-)chosen aro representatives in this situation are the people who have decided that they're going to represent the aromantic spectrum, i.e. create the outward-facing advocacy website for it. I'm actually pretty confused how you've interpreted my post/why this comment is directed at me, because if you have a problem with people selecting themselves as aro representatives (a problem which I don't exactly share), then I'm not the one you should be looking at. Or, on the flipside, if you're perfectly okay with anyone self-nominating to be aro representatives, then I don't know why you've phrased your remarks like this. Or were you just highlighting that "we" are not members of that group, unlike the team here? Those are some possibilities there off the top of my head, but I admit I'm at a loss for what you're specifically trying to get across to me, other than the nebulous sense that I said something you think I shouldn't have. I do tend to have a problem where I'm bad at grasping what other people are saying. Would you be interested in elaborating?

It's hard to say how recent exactly, but something like that, yes. While mothers/fathers/children relationships may have existed since the origin of sexual dimorphism, the idea of taking that as the "basic unit of society" (or even calling that "the nuclear family") isn't universal across time and space. I was hoping to put together something of a more specific timeline on that, but that's going to have to wait, because it turns out that the literature on this subject is a lot more varied and complicated than I thought. Should have figured though. Anyway, this is something important to me to talk about because while criticizing amatonormativity is one thing (and it is a good thing to criticize), recognizing a connection between that and the nuclear family, and criticizing that norm as well, opens up a lot of potential for alliance with lots of other movements. Those sources, they come from feminism, sociology, geography, critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial and indigenous studies... There's a lot of connections waiting to be made there. I mean, I dunno about y'all, but I find all that potential exciting.

Hi, Gabrielle. I've got some thoughts on what you've written here. Now as a preface here I'll say that it's fine to conceptualize your feelings in whatever way makes sense to you. With that said, since you're asking to what to call this, I figure it makes sense to point out -- none of the things you've described *have* to mean one thing or the other. I'm sure there are people who use the word "alterous" on their feelings toward people they want/like to kiss, and I'm sure there are people who like their romantic crushes in ways that are more than just romantic, without necessarily wanting to get married, and so on. There aren't hard and fast rules written down anywhere about what any given feeling "allows" you to want. They're your feelings. When it comes to describing them, basically, you're the boss. For reference, I've also compiled some links here on the different things people have said about "alterous" (and more). Since you've described wanting a relationship that's somewhere in between romantic or not, you might be also interested in reading about the different ways people have applied queerplatonic, too. There's a lot of flexibility to these concepts (including "romance") from my POV, so figuring out how to parse your feelings is less about finding the "exact match" as told by someone else and more just figuring out what legacies/associations you feel like invoking. Anyway. Since I'm quoiro and don't use the romantic/nonromantic distinction, I'd also be remiss not to point out that you don't even have to use that distinction in any way if you don't feel like it. You can try describing what relationships you want to build/are building via entirely different models, like Queenie's five factor model of relationships, and go from there. It sounds like you do already have a pretty clear idea of what you want and don't want, which is great! So from there it's just a question of how you'd like to act on it.

It's alright. A decent conversation starter, I think. Gotta say, though, when I saw the title ("Why Are Romantic Relationships Privileged Above Others?") I assumed -- incorrectly -- that that question was going to be answered. And the article doesn't really do that, more just argues that the question is worth asking. This is a good point. DePaulo is... downplaying the societal place of familial relationships, here, in a way that needs to be a little more hedged, I would say. There are certainly cultures that prioritize family as much as if not more than romance. And while she does qualify "in the U.S.," that still includes a big mix of people. It's my understanding that, for instance, the place of "family" is generally different in upper/middle-class White culture vs. Latinx culture. Plus, yeah, contrasting them gets in the way of recognizing how they're intertwined. Romantic relationships are expected to be how more families(/children/blood relatives) get made. That's why I'm inclined to think that a serious approach to answering this question ("Why Are Romantic Relationships Privileged Above Others?") would have to start digging into critiques of not just marriage but also the nuclear family. I've put together a few sources on that topic here, for anyone interested.

It's hard. I struggle a lot with the same things, honestly. I know that the problem lies with society, not with me, and that people prioritizing certain relationship structures doesn't mean those are inherently better across the board, but knowing that doesn't make the problem go away or make me any less lonely. I haven't quite figured out my own way of navigating that just yet, either. Like others, I use the internet a lot for socializing and writing/reading/games/etc. as hobbies, and that can help some. But I also like spending time with people in person, too. And once I get attached, it's hard to reconcile that with feeling like I'll always only ever be disposable, you know? ...It's a long-term work in progress, but so far what I've figured out in the mean time is that it helps to work your way into in-person communities in addition to finding individual friends, because then, even if individual people come and go, the community is still there. You can find some groups like this through school, hobbies, meetups, churches, professional connections, volunteering... Could even check your local library for events, tbh. Like I said, it's not a total fix, but for me at least it does help with feeling anchored.

Quite so. Look at most of this thread already -- the few people who pipe up with something other than why they shouldn't have used paypal are getting a lot of "don't worry about it" and "no, we refuse to do that." If that's what others are getting, what hope do I have of hearing anything different? It makes me wonder what they actually had in mind when they said they were interested in "feedback."

Yes, Paul is the original aro ace elitist, as was mentioned in the Christianity thread here a couple years back. Yet that passage also says that married people are required to have sex with each other. Anyway. Are you going to elaborate, or should I understand you to be saying that these three snippets are enough to support that claim you made earlier? How relevant do you consider how these religions are interpreted and practiced by their contemporary adherents?

I want to say just one thing about these responses. I've been... thinking carefully about how to word this, since although I have my own set of concerns about this project and how it's currently proceeding, I don't really expect you to care to hear it. And so I'm trying to nix any commentary that I don't think has a chance of being listened to. But while you might not care about my trust or what I have to say as an individual, you should care about winning the trust of the community. That absolutely deserves to be step one for embarking on a project that very directly entails becoming representatives of the community. I don't think "we're not asking you to trust us" is a response that makes sense here. You should be asking for and trying to earn trust. You should be doing that. You're setting out to do something very important in a way that may have far-reaching consequences -- and people deserve to know that a task like that is going to be handled appropriately. Saying "we're not asking you to trust us, just asking you to suspend your distrust" doesn't even make sense at the sentence level, and it especially doesn't make sense in context. Asking for people to "suspend their distrust" is a request for trust. That's already happening, right there. And it's happening more generally, too. You are asking everyone to not worry, to "please don't assume we will misrepresent you," to "support" the project, to just wait and see. That's asking for trust. And with some people, @Mark and others included, that trust hasn't been earned yet. @running.tally indicated that the team isn't sure how to handle that issue. Like I said, I'm not expecting any of you to be interested in my advice, but surely there must be somebody you can ask.

Okay, I read them. What's step two? You've got a particular interpretation of these, right?

Thanks. And, hm... I'm not sure if it's obsolete, really. It's just an older version of quoiromantic. Quoiro was coined very directly to be an alternative pronunciation (since saying "wtf" out loud is... a bit much, for a prefix). I think it would make sense/be fine to either combine them or put a note saying "see quoiromantic" for wtfromantic's definition or something.

Hadn't heard of them, but e.e @ them using the lipstick flag. I've been trying to think of more specific links and people I could point you to for this... There are a couple of people I know, like Rowan and Sciatrix, who may well be pretty close to what you're talking about, but I can't think of specific blogposts of theirs atm that would be useful here. In addition to the Aceadmiral links, though, you might be interested in some of the stuff that Laura's written on being a homoplatonic aro ace, and potentially also some of what Elizabeth @Prismatangle (a grayro ace) has written on being "bi, not otherwise specified." Actually come to think of it, on that topic there's also Vesper's video on being a bi-but-not-biromantic ace, too. You know... It occurs to me the dilemma you're facing kind of reminds me of the qualms I've had around butch identity -- I've mentioned on my Pillowfort blog before how I feel weird about using the term because I'm sure some people would view me as not "qualified" to touch it, even as indirectly as calling myself "butch-aligned." I still haven't completely resolved that for myself, but for me, here are what I consider to be some key questions on that front: Do I get something out of being recognized as "having something in common" with that group? And how much does/would it bother me to be "mistaken" for sharing traits I don't share, via that association? What are the risks and rewards of highlighting that relationship, for either of us? I gotta head to bed soon but some of the arguments you might face seem pretty predictable from a ways off, so if you want we could also talk through what I think some decent counterarguments would be.

Woof. This stuff is kind of a mess. I'm gonna put down some notes about the term "oriented aroace" first and then address some of the specific issues you raise. While on the one hand, people choosing labels for themselves is their own business, I'm not thrilled about "oriented" (specifically) as a distinguishing label because, tbh, it makes it sound like folks don't think of aromantic and asexual as themselves orientations. Maybe that's just quibbling over semantics, I dunno. But I'm also not thrilled about how it's been used and defined, either. I've brought this up already elsewhere, but I'll just say it here too since it's relevant: The term "oriented" aroaces was (apparently?) popularized by an anonymous-aside-from-their-tumblr-url tumblr user, who defines the term like this: ...And there's already problems with that alone, even aside from the confusing talk as if aro aces aren't on the aro & ace spectrums,* because "those who do not know whether they feel such attraction or not" and "grayros/gray-aces" are already overlapping categories. In other words, this definition is crunching the umbrella of grayness. * Seriously folks. What the heck. With that said, I also want to temper this with some acknowledgements. I do think it's fine for people to label identities on an unorthodox axis if they feel like it. That one tumblr user there isn't the one who invented that concept, after all. Aros and aces have been using multiple identity labels since well before that was called being "oriented." And if anything, I would like more attention drawn to unorthodox attraction, axes, & identities in general, because I could benefit from that myself, despite not using orientation language for all my attractions. ...I just don't like "oriented," specifically, in light of all of the above, as a way of doing that. Anyway, more to the point-- This might be something to take up with lesbians & the lesbian community, but I can also understand why you might anticipate hostility there on this particular issue, so that places you in a tricky spot there. You're not alone though. I can think of at least three different bloggers off the top of my head who might relate, but just an example, you might be interested in this post by Aceadmiral about the attendant baggage (note the post introduces it as "homoromantic asexual issues," but it's worth noting that Aceadmiral themselves doesn't have a romantic identity and also wrote this). So I guess what I'm thinking is... There's reason to anticipate some sensitivity there, and some of that reaction may be understandable but also not all of it will be correct. For the time being, for figuring out where and how to locate yourself, the questions that I think may be the most useful are 1) Do you want to be a part of/interact with lesbian communities? If so, how much/in what ways? 2) Do you want to connect with lesbians generally on the basis of lesbian-ness, or just lesbian aro aces? 3) Would seeking out more of the latter's narratives be helpful to you? Are you specifically interested in narratives of lesbian aro aces, or would you expand it to aro aces with unorthodox-axis identities more generally? Or even non-axial ones? No, it isn't. There's nothing romance-supremacist about bonding with people and wanting to form longterm relationships. The only amatonormativite thing about that would be saying that that can only happen through romance -- which you're not saying. If it feels right, then it's right. Any identity can be real if you make it real. What it sounds like you're asking, though, if there are others who do the same and what that looks like.

Welcome to Arocalypse. :3 Have some ice cream and cake.

I can sure agree with you there. Is it too rigorous to reply to "All Abrahamic religions place a lot of restriction on sex" with "source?"

I don't know much about these people. I and the team wanted people who we knew and trusted It sounds a bit like you two are talking past each other here. Tost and Ramen are saying that the team members trust each other, while Mark is saying that they (Mark) doesn't feel as much of a reason to trust the team. 1) Is that interpretation of what everybody's saying correct? 2) To the team in general: are you interested in soliciting trust or convincing anyone else at Arocalypse that you should be trusted with this (pretty big and serious) task? 3) Mark, what would be some things you would like to see that would help build your trust? I don't think that's just an "if," but more of a "when." Nobody's perfect, right?