Coyote

Wh-- Th-- This looks just like @Jot-Aro Kujo's aromantic allosexual flag design. Am I seeing this right? Is there something wrong with my eyes? This is the exact same design except slightly paler.

Current suggestion on the table: "QPR Misinformation Is Not an Appropriate Vehicle for Aro Community Building" @bydontost @nonmerci

That's a refreshing perspective to hear. In any case, that describes your own investments. How would you describe the investments being expressed in these posts I linked as examples of misinformation? In two or three words, if possible.

I'm sure this is well-intentioned, but at this point I'm pretty tired of flag redesigns. Especially on grounds like these. Here's what that Wikipedia page says about it: "The black triangle was a badge used in Nazi concentration camps to mark prisoners regarded 'anti-social' and 'arbeitsscheu' (work-shy). Those considered anti-social included alcoholics, homeless, beggars, nomads, and prostitutes. Women deemed to be anti-social included prostitution, nonconformists, and lesbians." So "against lesbians" is accurate but also a pretty big oversimplification. It's also.... not even oriented the same way. It's just a triangle. That's just a basic design element. It's not like it's something as distinct as a swastika or a symbol of Venus. Anyway, I think it's important for the aro community to be aware that people have been attacking aces' use of triangles since at least 2011. This is kind of criticism is nothing new.

People have used the term "queerplatonic attraction," yes. In fact, the very first use of queerplatonic on the internet was "I kind of like queerplatonic as a definer for the attraction I feel to my zucchini" (where "zucchini" here means "queerplatonic partner").

I've got one person here telling me the title puts too much emphasis on reasons/motivation and I've got another person telling me the thread doesn't put enough emphasis on reasons/motivation. I don't know how to reconcile these two perspectives, so if you two could hash that out together and get back to me, I would love to implement a solution which is satisfactory to the both of you. If I might tentatively put forth a theory here.... This seems like a situation where many people are highly on guard (on account of a lot of negative past experiences), so based on cases I've seen where just presenting the facts wasn't enough.... I think a big component here that might help, potentially, is if people were corrected by people they already know and trust, especially on aro issues. Also, hi, btw. Welcome to Arocalypse.

@metelyk Besides queerplatonic, some other related keywords you might search are "companionate love," "passionate friendship," or "romantic friendship" (I know, but still). Not necessarily exactly what you're looking for, but might be close enough to explore, if you're looking for relationships/experiences/concepts with some overlap to what you described. Some related posts that you might find interesting: I don't understand dating, so I'm getting married An Aromantic in Love (about a platonic relationship) Intimacy Scales (about different ways of categorizing hand-holding, etc.) Bro, That's Gay (about romantic ambiguity & intense friendship)

Suggestions on the table now: "Misinformation on QPRs in Aro Circles Hinders Conversations About Real Problems Between Aro and Ace Communities" "Misinformation on QPRs Hinders Conversations About Community Relations" "QPR Misinformation is Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations"

I'm happy to change the title if people can come to an agreement on what the new title should be. Some candidates that have been brought up: "QPR Minsinformation is Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations"? "QPR Mistakes are Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations"? "Spreading Misconceptions About QPRs is Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations"? "Spreading Misconceptions (Intentionally or Not) About QPRs is Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations"? Something else? Yes. I can say it again, if people like. It was not my intention to discuss intentions (in the sense of deliberate vs. accidental). I have no particular way to know whether people are doing these things knowingly or unknowingly, so I make no particular statement on that. Done. Hmm... You're referring to this one, right? I think that's the same one that was brought up to me in another conversation about the topic. Creating a new/better/more-accurately-worded infographic sounds like a promising idea. Currently, the bad one is sitting at... *checks* ...8,849 notes. If a new one were created, are there any big blogs that could help spread it just as far?

This is a lot of post to catch up on. There's... a lot going on here, so I'm just gonna try to focus on a few things, and if I skipped over anything you want me to address, just let me know. Cool. ...huh? There is a reason for parts of the aro community to use terms like this, and that reason is "because individual folks want it." I'm not endorsing linguistic separatism here. Of course, at the same time, nobody should be forced to use it, either. It's fine if you don't find it personally useful, Mark. It's just a matter of individual preference either way. @Coyote can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was included to point out that the misinformation was spreading faster than the corrections. I agree with Alex that that evidence [the mention of specific posts and their number of notes] is a bad fit for that conclusion you described [the aro community has a specific agenda]. If I saw somebody arguing that, I would be like, well, no. That's going too far for that evidence to support, because there are too many other factors involved, like Alex described. For example, full text posts take root more easily than link posts, from what I've seen; that doesn't necessarily reflect anything about the content. In general there are just too many other confounding variables there like the difference in which users posted which, which users reblogged which early on, and so on. All I think that evidence can actually suggest to us is "the spread of the misinformation is outpacing the spread of the corrections." Or in other words, that this remains important to address, because the misinformation still seems to have reached more people. I agree. And that's why, each time I have been corrected here, I have attempted to adhere to my own expectations/values for how people who make mistakes should handle those mistakes, once they come to understand what they are. Are there any additional steps you'd like to see? ***** Back on the topic of the original issue: Given that there are many people frustrated with the real crimes of the ace community, and given that people keep talking about a fake crime instead of just focusing on the real crimes (and even citing this fake crime as an intracommunity grievance), what are some potential solutions here? A few ideas have been suggested so far, but it's kind of hard for me to keep track of who's on board with what.

Hi, Magni. I remember that you don't like long stuff, so I'm going to put your part at the top and try to keep my replies very short. If they're actually too short, and if you come back, you can let me know if I need to explain myself more, okay? One thing I want to say first: Out of the people whose posts I linked as examples, you are the first Arocalypse user to come here and respond personally, and I think that's very brave. I don't know if that'll come off as condescending too, but I was gonna feel bad if I didn't say it, so. I'm putting it out there that I recognize and appreciate that. The point that that post is an example of is "people say incorrect things about the origins of other words, too." I encountered the post while I was on that blog looking for something else. Then, here, I needed to pull an example, and that was one that I knew about. I feared that you might take it as a sign of something if you saw it, but I decided to take that risk. Yes. I am afraid that is incorrect. Thank you for the additional examples. So as I was saying: People make these incorrect origin claims about more than just QPR. What's different about the QPR misinfo, I've noticed, is that people talk about it in terms of aro-ace community relations, and I haven't seen people do the same with "aplatonic" or any other terms. I'm well-aware of how I'm perceived. Of course. In any case, if you do come back, and if you have the time and energy, I have a question for you. ***** I will leave that one scratched off the list and the rest of the list as it is, then. ***** Cool. You can include the contextualizing links from October/November or just leave that part out. Either way, it's also important to note that this thread has already inspired a new post on Tumblr. ***** Note: I consulted with some other people earlier about wording, and someone pointed out to me that instead of "revisionism," technically, a more accurate word would be "denialism." Currently still thinking about how to revise the post title and header language in light of that. "QPR Denialism" doesn't sound quite right, since "QPRs" aren't what's being denied... "QPR Ace History Denialism"....? "Ace History Denialism"....? Haven't settled on anything just yet.

I've compiled some information about aplatonic, squish, and alterous here. Short version: "Aplatonic" was first used in 2012 by a homoromantic ace on AVEN. "Squish" was first used in 2007 by an ace on AVEN. "Alterous" was first used sometime around 2015 on Tumblr -- the coiner has deactivated their blog, but they submitted the idea to the ASAW tumblr, for what it's worth. Note that I don't think these things have any particular implications (about "who can use them," etc.). I'm just answering Mark's question.

I'm getting mixed information on this. The note on the repost says "she deleted for reasons related to the discourse and a busy life," and I'm not sure which is more accurate. Good point. I misremembered what exactly was in that preface note, and I've messaged the reposter to clarify. Hopefully you're right and we can get that all cleared up. In the mean time I've scratched that one off the list. Did I get anything else wrong? Expectation? No. ***** Hey there, Mango. In the linked post, I was using "reparations" to mean something like "compensation" or "advocacy to address grievances," in the context of aro-ace community relations. Does that make sense, or should I keep explaining? (Asking because I sometimes explain too much or too little, and I don't want to assume how much is right for you.)

Aw shoot, good point. I keep forgetting about that, or else I'd have acknowledged that as another problem with the quote, too. I look forward to your post about it. I agree! This is one of the many impacts that Tumblr can have on community building. For those who are only interested in aro advocacy more generally, I think this is just one example of how Tumblr has hobbled community memory. QPRs aren't the only topic where this happens -- for example, I've also seen it with aplatonic. And it's not that people aren't creating resources on these topics, saving and preserving primary sources, and writing up historical summaries. It's that that's not what sticks, and chasing down individuals isn't efficient when incorrect versions of posts are still able to spread out of the OP's control. This issue has a structural dimension. Thank you for bringing that up. ***** Back on the topic of QPRs, I'm glad that Crou has had such good experiences with correcting people. I'll go ahead and use that as a prompt to talk about some other kinds of experiences. 1. At the beginning of this reblog-chain, @LauraG links to a compilation of primary sources. Aropanalien's responses started with a misunderstanding of what Laura was saying, then going "it’s not okay to say [this] term was coined by the ace community," then "the term was created by both communities" and "aroaces coined qpr" -- not to mention @Magni's reiteration of "it was coined by aroaces." There's sometimes this double-edged sword, honestly, where A) detailed link compilations like mine are seen as information overload, but B) more simple explanations like Laura's are rejected out of hand because people think they already know the truth. Even combining the two approaches together, like Laura did right there, can still lead to this result. 2. On this post, @raavenb2619 tried to address the problem w/ a short explanation & a link to a source. Annest dismissed that response and did not edit her statement. Now Sennkestra is making another attempt, with links to more sources. Meanwhile there's also whatever the heck Seventeenaros is doing there w/ reiterating "its an aro term." 3. My own experience messaging someone about a misinformation post did (after a lot of back and forth) eventually result in them deleting the post and apologizing, but not without a ton of initial pushback. Links on request, but most of our correspondence was private. 4. And then there's also this exchange that happened last year. I mention this one because despite the response Aphobephobe's essay received from people who were literally there, they later had a friend repost the whole essay, unedited. [Edit: see below.] So taking into account these examples, people discussing this topic don't always just accept the facts when presented with them. Multiple people, not just me, have repeatedly encountered resistance. And in my experience, there are a lot more people willing to spread misinformation and make a mess than there are who are willing to stick around and clean it up. I would love to see that change. ***** Anyway, AUREA has been brought up a couple times now, so that's got me thinking, maybe I should ping @AUREA and ask for an official response. Or, alternatively, they do have those monthly "What's been going on in the community?" posts that it could be slotted into. Dunno how much of an audience they've built up for themselves yet, but hey, could be worth a shot.

I read it fully. I chose to quote a shorter excerpt to be concise, and I can see what you mean about that possibly giving folks the wrong impression. Since you brought it up, I'll add this: "it's only recently that aros have been able to have a community outside of aro spaces" does not make "Qprs/queerplatonic relationships are a kind of relationship that started in the aro community" any less of a false statement. I consider that sentence and everything from there on to be irrelevant to what I'm actually talking about -- except in that it demonstrates the third part of my argument: people jumping at the chance to needlessly claim QPRs as aro-community-originals in the name of supporting broader, more worthwhile aro causes (ex. to dispute the idea that "we're a smaller part of [the ace] community," etc.). So actually, in that light, that serves as more evidence for what I'm trying to say here. Thank you for bringing that up.

It was not my intention to discuss intentions (or rather, whether or not people are doing this deliberately). While there does appear to be a common thread to the motivation, I think my argument stands regardless of whether people were sharing the misinformation knowingly or unknowingly. I also presume that a disproportionate amount if it may be unknowing. However, since intentions are of interest apparently, that seems like a good reason to talk about this post by @arokaladin (dated Nov 26, 2019). The original post is melayneseahawk (a panromantic lesbian) asking why the term "queerplatonic" exists. Arokaladin reblogged the post with a response, and in it, they wrote, "Qprs/queerplatonic relationships are a kind of relationship that started in the aro community." In the replies of that same post, @raavenb2619 helpfully corrected them on that point, and Arokaldin wrote back, "I'm aware." So when we've got someone issuing false statements about this and then responding to the corrections with "I'm aware," without apologizing or taking it back, what are we supposed to make of that? Should I assume Arokaladin is also mistaken about being aware (and that they simply wrote back without actually reading the post)?

I'm glad I posted this here then! When a lot of people are saying it and it seems to add up, it's easy to just take their word for it.

QPR Misinformation Is Not an Appropriate Vehicle for Aro Community Building Hi folks, long time no see. I made this post about a month ago, and I'm posting it here now because I'm looking for some more responses from the aro community. One sentence summary (not written by me): Some people have argued that QPRs originate in the aro community as opposed to the ace community, but this is inaccurate and a poor way of seeking aro validation. One paragraph summary (not written by me): A common problem in the ace community is that people don't give enough attention to the aro spectrum as an independent entity. In the process of pointing this out, multiple people have claimed that QPRs originate in the aro community. This is a claim we know is wrong because some of us were there. Some of us are eager to listen to aro voices, and we don't have an issue with QPRs becoming important to the aro community. These false claims about the history, though, are hurtful and counterproductive. Medium-length summary (not written by me). And, again, the full length version can be read here for the full explanation w/ examples, links, and sources. I think this remains important to address because this now-deleted* post still has more notes (164) than this (68), this (21), and this (24) combined, to say nothing of all the other ones. *That is, deleted at the original source, but because of how Tumblr works, people are still able to reblog it -- and still are reblogging it. This means that the misinformation I'm talking about is still spreading further than the attempts to correct it. Edited to add 12/20/19: Given that there are many people frustrated with the real crimes of the ace community, and given that people keep talking about a fake crime instead of just focusing on the real crimes (and even citing this fake crime as an intracommunity grievance), what are some potential solutions here? Edit 1/4/20: Title changed from "QPR Revisionism is Not An Appropriate Proxy for Aro Reparations" to "QPR Misinformation Is Not an Appropriate Vehicle for Aro Community Building."

huh. Yeah, in retrospect, that was poor phrasing on my part. It's hard to describe something so nebulous, I guess, especially when I don't really think of it as One Thing. Oh dear. I very much would not like the concept of queerplatonic to be associated with soulmates. It sounds like you might not have meant that specifically though.

Yeah? I'm including stuff like that. Okay. I hope you understand my confusion, then, when people call a decidedly nonromantic (and presumably nonsexual) feeling "not platonic." Put on the same level.... Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So if that's what friendship is, and if "platonic" is the adjective of friendship, then-- ...what do you mean by calling alterous "different from platonic"?

Well, sure, the original post didn't use the terms QPR or Named Important Relationship. None of the additions did. Excepting of course the one at the end talking about romantic relationships. Benefits is an ambiguous category. I think I sort of see what you're getting at, but the very first list did include "sleepovers," which isn't one of those technical/financial benefits specific to marriage as a legal institution or other people's conventions around it. So stuff like "surprise cookies" and "two people can walk more dogs" seems like more in the same vein, there. If I could easily do it, I'd check the post for any sign of further followup from the original poster, but 1) I don't know how to do that as a non-tumblr-user, because it's 53k+ notes and my only option would be to scroll through that list forever in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a relevant comment and that's just ridiculously labor intensive for something like this, and 2) it looks like the OP has deleted the original post, anyway. I can't know if that's because they got annoyed with people's additions or just because of too many notifications. So... despite my impulse to want to verify the OP's intentions, that path is basically blocked off for me here. Imma be real with you chief... I didn't even fully read the addition by vaspider at first. I don't even having anything specific against that person, they're just one of the people that I've gotten in the habit of ignoring half the time. Anyway yeah they turned a post about "nonromantic reasons an aro might enter a marriage" into "a good outlook to have for a good romantic marriage," which, hm, while not necessarily wrong, does seem like kinda, uh, not what people were using the post for. But then again, I feel weird about speaking to intent when, again, that's so hard to determine in this case. But then again (x2), them starting off with "I want y'all to pause for a moment and consider this" starts off on a real condescending foot, if you ask me... and going "IF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WOULD NOT STAND UP WITHOUT THE ROMANCE IN IT, DON’T GET MARRIED" is kinda.... I mean, who is the audience here? It's on this post about aros, worded as if it's directed at the people posting/adding on, but then is seemingly addressing people in romantic relationships...? What? Who are you even talking to? Why are you talking to that group on this post? .....'Course, it's a reblog-addition, not a comment, which means it's simultaneously being sent to people upstream and being shared to their followers, so maybe that bit is for their followers? I dunno. Managing audience stuff on Tumblr always seemed prohibitively complicated to me and I think that's a big part of how you end up with tonal weirdness like this. But they're also using "aromantic" there as if it describes nonromantic relationship components instead of a type of person, which... what? Also -- "I submit that we should refer to this as the New Platonic Ideal" -- No Thank You. To quote one of the classics: Plato's grave is a gender neutral bathroom.

Okay. What are you using friendship to mean? (Here are five different ones that I know of) Sure, but what I'm getting at is -- if "platonic" means "nonsexual" and "sexual" encompasses "romantic," then you're never in a position to need to distinguish between "nonromantic nonsexual" and "romantic nonsexual" -- but for those who do recognize the romantic nonsexual possibility, then the specifically romantic/nonromantic distinction becomes important, and that's how you'll see some people using it, as a consequence. Though, again, to reiterate, because of this mess, I just say "nonromantic" if I mean nonromantic. Do they? I'm not sure I've seen that. Here, maybe, although I'm not sure of that. It's not necessarily dependent on attraction, no. Many definitions of queerplatonic emphasize the strength of the bond, the partnership configuration, the nature of the relationship, etc. With that said, a lot of people have approached the term very differently, and there's no one consistent definition that everybody agrees to across the board, so don't expect consistency. Well, no, because relationship =/= what attraction you feel within that relationship, and also (like you said) there are types of attraction which themselves get deemed platonic. I mean, technically, sensual attraction that's nonromantic/nonsexual* is "platonic," and it'd be a bit silly to say "okay the whole relationship is not platonic anymore because one person felt an inner unspoken impulse to cuddle" and so on. *depending on what definition of "platonic" you're using. huh. When I meet someone who seems super cool and I want to be friends with them, I call that thinking they seem super cool and wanting to be friends with them. I'm also more inclined to describe that impression in terms of characteristics of the person themselves -- ex. "she's really charming," "I liked their vibes," "I think we're on the same wavelength," "co seems like a rad person," etc. Then again, when I get those impressions, I don't necessarily see that as a "for no discernible reason" situation. There is a discernible reason, and it's that I like interacting with the person. Anyway -- so you say here that you use alterous for a feeling that's "neither platonic or romantic" ... in that it differs from the platonic attraction by... including infatuation? Meaning "platonic" for you necessarily is mutually exclusive with infatuation?

Uh... ...eh? atm I'm not sure there is necessarily a way to "say QPR without saying QPR," since QPR doesn't inherently mean anything in and of itself outside the framing as such. I also... don't... see why this is stated as a contradiction or a drawback. I mean.... What's wrong with posts about QPRs? What's wrong with posts about nonromantic marriage that don't use the term "QPR" specifically? ....I just don't understand what the objection is. Especially since the OP doesn't specifically start out by saying "married for reasons other than a QPR," so it's not like something's going directly against the OP's wishes (that I can see), and the first initial list even included “we got married because it gave us an excuse to have sleepovers every night,” implying the relationship isn't supposed to be totally devoid of emotional investment in each other. And... I don't see how the additions are taking it anywhere away from where it's supposed to be, except for maybe being... less flippant/humorous? ...but then again the original post doesn't feel all that funny to me in the first place, so. To me it's not all that noticeable. So I... don't see what the issue is, unless you're trying to blacklist QPRs & think this should have been tagged as such, so that you could blacklist it (in which case I might suggest just blacklisting marriage posts instead, to be more comprehensive). ...? Which part?

Wait, hold on. Didn't @raavenb2619 use "alterous" for a feeling they've had that didn't involve wanting to form a particular relationship? What are you using "platonic" to mean here? Generally. But people also do both. "I kind of like queerplatonic as a definer for the attraction I feel to my zucchini" was the very first known online use. I've also seen it used more recently in other places, even on Arocalypse. I mean, I don't really get that either, but it does get used. There's a problem with relying on those dictionaries or other conventional approaches though because a lot of English-speakers typically don't recognize adult nonsexual romantic relationships as a concept. Yeah... "a little bit romantic, but not completely" is worlds different from "completely off the scale." The way people fail to make any distinction between the two on this topic is like people failing to make any distinction between nonbinary people with totally-off-the-binary gender identities and nonbinary people who are half-man half-woman.

Yes, alterous appears to be from 2015. I've no idea how it's supposed to be different from "queerplatonic," the term introduced five years earlier, besides usually being accompanied by a more derogatory treatment of "platonic." Mark is a them, not a him. Yeah so the multiple different understandings of the word "platonic" are why I try to avoid it when trying to talk with any precision about these things. The way I would understand what other people are using the word "platonic" to mean in these contexts (re: "alterous") would be "nonromantic," although people don't always bother to clarify that, so I can't be sure. But then... if you're defining "alterous" as "neither romantic nor platonic [nonromantic]"... the main way for me to make sense of that would be (1) some kind of quoiromantic situation, where the romance-quotient (lol) is ambiguous or undetermined somehow, or (2) a general umbrella term for emotional attraction, where romantic-ness goes unspecified. But that doesn't seem like what people are getting at, either. I've seen aromantics get pretty emphatic that their alterous feelings are NOT romantic at all. In which case... I can make sense of that as (3) talking about an exact synonym for nonromantic emotional attraction (which other people also sometimes call "platonic attraction"), or (4) talking about a more particular subset of nonromantic emotional attraction, which feels different from other kinds under that same umbrella. That last one is the approach that makes the most sense to me, conceptually. Yet it's also completely incompatible with how I usually see it talked about (see above, the text Raven quoted on alterous being non-platonic). It's all very confusing. So, I mean. I don't use this concept, myself, or apply it to my own experiences. But that's because I'm confused by the framework people are using to even talk about it in the first place, not because any particular experiences are different. Identifying myself by the lack of it is something I would only do if it became inescapably prevalent and demanded of me.