Coyote

On 7/4/2019 at 11:26 AM, Mark said:

Ideally with someone who wasn't asexual as an organiser.

How come?

On 7/4/2019 at 5:49 PM, Lokiana said:

I'm happy to tell you that they do now! Just implemented it, actually - it applies to the entire News Feed.

Cool beans.

On 7/4/2019 at 5:49 PM, Lokiana said:

On a more personal perspective, I really like this as an outreach strategy. I don't necessarily think it's 100% foolproof, but I think it certainly helps to find common ground with other queer people to help transition the conversation.

I hope so!

On 7/4/2019 at 5:49 PM, Lokiana said:

I do wonder though, how this might impact later discussions on amatonormativity in queer communities, because I don't find that I entirely agree with the perspective that it's a part of heternormativity. If we frame it that way in our original approach and then attempt to discuss amatonormativity in, for example, the focus on gay marriage as one of the major tenements of LGBTQ+ rights, that we as a community may get the reaction of having to re-educate after introducing it in that manner, because the thought will be "I'm [x-identity], there's no way I can be amatonormative! That's a part of heternormativity, and I'm not a part of that!". (Although, I suppose that is somewhat inevitable.) 

We do already have the "I can't be cissexist/transphobic, I'm gay" type of line, which is a problem, and the problem doesn't contradict the fact that heteronormativity and cissexism are related.

Granted, presenting amatonormaticity as only a subcategory of heteronormativity would be an oversimplification, yes. Adjust as you see fit. I think starting out by pointing out where they overlap is an important starting point, that's all. 

8 hours ago, Mark said:

Especially with LGBT+ who've worked hard to promote "marriage equality". Which has had the effect of separating amantonormativity from heteronormativity.

The precise approach to take will depend on the specifics of your audience, naturally. Since you mentioned it, though -- it might be useful, in one way or another, to bring up the critiques of marriage coming "from inside the house," so to speak. The contemporary aromantic community isn't the first to criticize marriage. Elizabeth Brake isn't either. There's precedent for those critiques specifically originating among gay people themselves, ex. this 1980s essay "Since when is marriage the path to liberation?"

Given that history, before anyone starts talking about aromanticism per se, it might be worth finding out if a given LGBT addressee is already aware of those critiques, how sympathetic they are to those ideas, etc. And even if a given activist supports/supported the expansion of marriage in the States or anywhere else, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't think the critiques have a good point. There are more ambivalent people, too, who seem to have viewed it as an in-the-mean-time lesser-of-two-evils kind of option for helping to address healthcare and immigration. Doesn't necessarily mean they're necessarily gonna be gung-ho about wedding bells and singlism.

I mean, I guess we could keep exploring hypotheticals, but also maybe @running.tally can tell us more about the kind of people ey's had experience with?

New month, same stuff.

"the fact that this word has two definitions - no platonic attraction vs. no queerplatonic attraction - makes any discussion very confusing."

Does it? Does it really?

On 6/28/2019 at 7:22 AM, Star Lion said:

 

On 6/27/2019 at 4:07 PM, Coyote said:

Do you believe that everyone has a "true" romantic orientation, which is separable from how they do or don't identify?

It’s hard to say considering that labels are complicated as we have all different confusing circumstances such as people only attracted to cars, people only attracted to androgyny, etc. What I will say though, is that some people identify in ways that really don’t match what their actual experiences are and there might be a better (non-micro) label that would work better than what they’re using. Whether this is out of ignorance, a different perspective, or an attention seeking mindset

I used to think more like you. In 2013, I wrote a whole multiparagraph blogpost on why I thought attraction-based orientation definitions were the best definitions. In retrospect, though, I made a bunch of logic errors, like arguing "We can't define X as Y, because some Xes are not Y, so therefore X is not Y," where it was plain that I was already assuming a given population that "counted" (or not) instead of arguing for why they should be counted that way. It's been a long convoluted path away from that prescriptive way of thinking, for me. Some of it had to do with, for instance, learning about the less-than-straightforward histories of different terms and witnessing some of the conflicts within the community over tensions between different narratives, as well as reading the blogs of people like Hezekiah, who in 2015 put together a linkspam on asexual prescriptivism. 

When you say "some people identify in ways that don't match what their actual experiences are," the extent to which I agree is that there are plenty of cases of people looking back and realizing they were identifying as something that actually wasn't the best fit for them. That's their own call to make. It's nobody else's place to make it for them. Telling someone that they're not really aromantic, or not really greyromantic, or anything else in the same vein, is identity policing.

(And that's bad.)

Presumably, you can see on my posts here that I've set my "Romanticism" as Quoiro. By some people's standards, this is a "microlabel." Are you going to tell me that there's another label that would "work better"?

On 6/28/2019 at 3:53 PM, running.tally said:

Such a shift in defining a queer community will definitely be met with resistance by someone or other and my own experiences with conflict regarding these things is why I've appeared so hesitant in this thread.

From my POV, some conflict is inevitable. It's just a matter of figuring out which enemies you'd rather have.

On 6/28/2019 at 3:53 PM, running.tally said:

@Coyote, believe me, I would love to show you evidence because I know that taking things at face value online is dangerous (especially with people who, like you've said, are just looking to rile me up), but some of my experiences have been in person.

I see. I did wonder if that might be the case.

Sorry you had to deal with that.

On 6/28/2019 at 3:53 PM, running.tally said:

I've heard very well-meaning individuals who are genuinely afraid that aros will take away resources from everyone else "just because they don't feel romantic attraction," saying that queer people need resources for "having queer experiences, not for lacking them."

I see. This is helpful, actually. Well, helpful in the sense of helpful to know what's being said, for the purpose of strategizing what to say back. You know what I mean.

If I may ask -- or if you remember -- can you recount what foot you started off on, in those exchanges? Was it something like "Can we extend this program to aromantics?" [starting with organization -> group] or "I'd like to distribute some brochures here on aromanticism, which is..." [starting with group term -> definition] or "Some other aros and I would like to host an event here at the resource center" [starting with group -> organization]...? Do you recall any of the leadup?

I ask because I wonder what would happen if, for instance, you started off with something more [social context -> group], like "Because of amatonormativity, which is the romantic part of heteronormativity, a lot of people grow up with the expectation that they're supposed to fall in love and get married. We grow up hearing about weddings and romantic love and soulmates and love stories, hearing about crushes in middle school and high school, seeing advertising for online dating sites, watching movies and reading books with romantic subplots no matter how forced they are -- it's enough to really compound the stress for queer people who have very slim chances of finding a romantic partner. It's also especially bad for people who don't like romance or feel romantic feelings at all, who are sometimes even told that they're heartless monsters. And the way that our society expects marriage, including with tax benefits and everything, means it can be especially hard for people who can't authentically live that way. That's a part of why we're working to build an aromantic movement that fights amatonormativity and promotes acceptance. Since the 2000s some people have started identifying on the aromantic spectrum because [etc. etc.]"

...the idea being, you might be able to reel people in if you start off with what's more familiar to them. Does that make sense?

On 6/28/2019 at 3:53 PM, running.tally said:

I just want to be able to have a coherent response to these types of people when they do inevitably come along and go "Uh, but that's confusing and doesn't make sense! So it can't be queer!"

I think the things I've been suggesting so far have been pretty coherent. Hopefully you can let me know if not.

I'll ask a question though: Do you think the people you're thinking of can be successfully shut up with a single-instance response? ...where "single-instance" here means "saying one thing," as opposed to dialogue and back-and-forth requiring multiple responses and responses-to-responses over time.

On 6/28/2019 at 3:53 PM, running.tally said:

As for perspectives (essays, articles, etc.), 100% yes. We plan to have our News Feed be dedicated to that. Right now, what you see in the feed is general and has been curated by the AUREA group because we just started. We have a general monthly What's Going On post we plan to do, to talk about what is being discussed or debated in the community.

By the way -- will the What's Going On posts have an RSS feed? Siggy would like to know.

On 6/27/2019 at 10:47 PM, Scoop said:

You actually both confirm and ended up disproving my statement here. There are no flags coming from Arocalypse, of course not, it's not an image based site. However I did say vocab is likely to come out of here and ykno when I scrolled back further than the current — I think it's about 4 of 5? — threads the next 20ish aren’t about vocab at all. So 1) Arocalypse isn’t trapped in the vocab and language debate like many other areas of the aro community, 2) you can ask: well what is the forum building instead? and 3) it's meant for discussion and it's fulfilling that goal. I shouldn't have been so quick to add it to the list of 'places where people want to do more but are trapped by This Is The Way Things Are Done Here'. Obviously Arocalypse has its own problems — this thread unfortunately went off track and I've seen it happen on other threads also — but the format of the site isn't one of them.

That sounds about like what I was thinking, as well. So... not to be a broken record here, but I think addressing this problem of a neolabels-over-discussion cycle would have to mean... moving more aro community engagement away from platforms that tend more in that direction, i.e. Tumblr.

Btw, you mentioned Discord as well, but I mainly use Discord just for IMing people I already know and haven't explored many group servers -- can you say more about what the state of aro discord looks like?

2 hours ago, TripleA said:

This is confusing me now. Even if we used this definition, there is no mention of sexual attraction.  

• "I read somewhere that the word 'smash' was used to describe an overwhelming feeling of lust for another person"
• "Does anyone find it odd that we use the words 'crush' and 'smash' to describe having a romantic/sexual attraction toward someone?"

On 6/29/2019 at 3:38 PM, Herbe de provence said:

Wasn't the definition of squish an intense feeling of platonic attraction or something like that ? I'm a bit confused.

Squish was first proposed in 2007 as Raisin's word for when "There was just something about them that I liked. I wanted to get to know them better. I wanted to talk to them, just be around them. [...] I just have a desire to talk to the person and be friends with them." It does not look like "intense" is a requirement here. In fact, they even wrote that these feelings "aren't as intense as 'crushes.'"

On 6/26/2019 at 2:30 PM, Star Lion said:

Then you have people such as myself

Yes, speaking of people such as yourself, I notice you responded to the part of my post that was directed at Neir but not the part of my post that was directed at you. In light of that, I will ask you a question. Do you believe that everyone has a "true" romantic orientation, which is separable from how they do or don't identify?

14 hours ago, running.tally said:

I'm still thinking big/powerful but not quite on national or international scales. More local. When I come up against locally powerful queer organizations where I live or outspoken LGBTQ+ leaders/groups in my area, me as an individual having to sit down for a several-hour conversation on the intricacies of aromanticism hasn't been feasible.

Presumably this is something that AUREA is meant to help with, no?

13 hours ago, running.tally said:

Like @nonmerci was saying, it would have been useful to have something broad or at least understandable in a short version to give before gradually introducing the rest, in order to take me seriously as a queer person (and not just "an attention seeker" or "queer wannabe").

I notice you're using quotation marks here. I'm familiar with the kind of accusations you're describing, but I don't have any links on hand at the moment. Do you have direct experiences with or links to public exchanges where you or others have gotten called those things -- specifically because of an inadequately "simple" definition? To clarify, I don't doubt that it happens -- or, well, I don't doubt that that's something people claim is the reason for slinging mud -- but like I said, I'm not currently convinced that's a completely accurate description of the situation as it usually happens. Or in other words:

I suspect that some of the people you're thinking of might be engaging with you (general you) in bad faith -- and trying to get you to blame yourself for it.

There are ways to deal with people engaging in bad faith, certainly, but I don't think "taking what they say at face value" is one of them. That's why I keep asking for links. It's hard for me to say for sure what's going on without looking at a specific example. In any case, I'm not sure whittling down a "simple" short definition is a guarantee towards getting taken seriously in the way that you hope for.

....Tangentially related:

It occurs to me to ask, do you have any plans to include a section of essays or articles by/about folks on the aromantic spectrum, like an Aro version of the AVEN Asexual Perspectives page? I remember when I first started my questioning phase, I read through all the definitions in glossaries and wikis, but that didn't help much. Simple, raw, short-form definitions left me completely lost. I also made a lot of bad kneejerk assumptions in reaction to the unfamiliarity (up to and including stuff like "some of this just seems like splitting hairs and trying too hard," "probably only the real asexuals are the aromantic asexual nonlibidoists," etc.). Being faced with materials that straight up said "no, those assumptions are wrong" didn't totally convince me. There was something missing, and I was aware that I didn't understand. But you know what did help me come around? The more extended writing. Commentary and personal narratives and critiques of social norms and discussion and... stories. Stories, not definitions.

It's how it's worked for me, and it's how I'm sure it's also worked for other people. I still think back sometimes about that ace panel that I once participated in with Sciatrix, and some of the comments she made after the fact. She's had a lot more experience doing ace advocacy panels before -- and her perspective, from what I remember of what she said, is that people respond to those kinds of "informational"/"educational" efforts differently when you're talking about technical definitions vs. about experiences. She also mentioned later how, during the panel, one couple in the room reacted with visible surprise when she mentioned how it's often easier for her to just present herself as a lesbian, rather than to get into the complicated specifics of being a partnered ace. And how, once we got off dry 101 and instead started getting into the things we'd lived through and the things that made or identities salient... it was like there was a whole shift in the energy in the room. Because what we were talking about at that point went from a weird foreign complicated niche technical concept to something that actually, meaningfully affects people's lives. And things like that, that shift toward context and stories, has ever since been cemented in my mind as a necessary part of getting these identities "taken seriously" on a broader scale. 

12 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

Oh...another site full of aspies and nit pickers.

Presumably you'd also consider it nit picking to ask what the heck you have against autistic people.

2 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

What right do we have to judge them?

If what you mean is "we have no right to judge them" in the same sense that we'd have no right to judge an abuse victim for not leaving their abuser -- which is to say, that they deserve more sympathy than blame, as people who are being taken advantage of -- then I can see what you're saying there.

2 hours ago, Spacenik86 said:

Similarly, aromantics should be interested in finding about the best way to have regular sex without being in a relationship, or reconciling yourself to living without sex. 

This sounds like you're splitting aromantics in two, between the sexhavers and the nonsexhavers (who "reconcile" themselves to living without sex -- what does that mean?).

While I'm interested in pursuing the more general train of thought, why center sex in this?

1 hour ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

listen bud if there is one thing that i can say is true about all leftists its that we love complaining about other leftists.

lol I think Oliver's on the money here. 

2 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

and id say there are plenty of material realities that aromantics face because of how much romantic relationships are tied into the nuclear family. id say two good goals for the community would be the destruction of the nuclear family as the favored social unit from a legal standpoint, and expanding our social safety net so that people who don't have romantic partners don't have to worry about being homeless, or not being able to pay a medical bills, etc.  

Relatedly, here's some writing on the nuclear family that I'll maybe possibly get around to sifting through at some point. If anybody else feels like exploring that body of work... it points to a good foundation, I think, for some intercommunity/inter-movement alliances, like you, @Scoop, and @aro-fae were talking about.

On 6/25/2019 at 2:01 AM, Janeisy said:

Does lithromantic fall into the aromantic spectrum 

Sure, you can find some lithromantics around here on Arocalypse here who would say so I think. I don't know of much writing that's been done on lithromanticism by itself, but it's generally been referred to as an aro spectrum identity on places like the Aro Wiki and AUREA.

14 hours ago, Star Lion said:

Just because you have the right to call yourself something doesn’t mean that it’s true.

This is the kind of stuff where there might as well be no "true."

11 hours ago, running.tally said:

YES this is exactly why I am so conflicted. I don't want to get into respectability politics (in fact, challenging the powerful and default definitions of romance are what we're all about anyway), but what I mean more is that very broad definitions have, in my experience with non-aros, been very confusing. Many non-aros who I want to understand aromanticism, who have big voices and are big allies, regard aromanticism as less legit when given too much right away.

hmm. You've mentioned "powerful allies" and "big allies" here a couple of times. It might help here to link me an example of what conversations you're thinking about. I have my suspicions about what's going on there, but I don't want to speculate any further in the abstract when I'm not sure yet what you have in mind.

A thing to take into account, regardless, is that whatever you put on your "front page" (so to speak) as "the simple definition" is necessarily going to influence how people understand the borders of the concept and could have unanticipated consequences later down the line. I think an instructive basis of comparison here would be the history of debates and fissures over how best to define "asexuality," precisely because it illustrates how this goes down. When David Jay made the website for AVEN (not the first online asexual community, but relevant because that's what AUREA is meant to become comprable to), he threw up a very simple one-narrative definition, and although that definition has been debated and contested ever since (from the very first year of AVEN's existence in 2001), that line on the front page has never ended up getting changed by the people who run the place. Now, more than a decade since then, you've got people so influenced by and accustomed to that front page definition & the exclusive focus on attraction & parsing aromanticism via direct parallel to asexuality that you get folks like Star Lion here, saying formulaic things like "it’s literally one thing which is a person who doesn’t experience romantic attraction. Nothing else is relevant."

So with that in mind: Y'all have mentioned that you aim to create the aromantic parallel to AVEN. So anticipate that your website may be subject to the same things that AVEN has been subject to. Imagine that there will be people who only look at that front page definition on AUREA, take it as gospel, and look no further. How hard or how easy do you want it to be for that front page definition to be used in the same way that AVEN's has been?

Just something to keep in mind.

21 hours ago, running.tally said:

The balance is hard to reach but some generalization is needed at this point in aro activism to just get non-aros to somewhat understand our experiences and support us. It's umbrella-crunching, as you've referred to it before, for sure. But many powerful allies simply won't care to hear about experience diversity

With all due respect, what you're talking about here -- saying there's no choice but to oversimplify things in order to appeal to the sensibilities of more powerful people -- sounds like the ethos of respectability politics.

Anyway, I think it's a false dilemma. There's always the option of something as tautological as "People are aromantic if they feel like aromantic experiences [of some kind] describe them somehow," with an addition like "absence of romantic attraction, distaste for romance, or disinterest in romantic relationships are some examples of what can be considered aromantic experiences." If that's "too much diversity" from someone's point of view, then the problem is their attitude, not the string of words.

5 hours ago, Star Lion said:

Some micro labels do fall under aromanticism but why is it so much trouble to identify as aromantic and be done with it?

Are you really asking?

2 hours ago, Star Lion said:

Cupioromantics are just aromantics who aren’t romance repulsed.

The only definition I've ever seen of cupioromantic (including here and on AUREA) involves wanting a romantic relationship, not just "not being repulsed." Those two things are hardly interchangeable.

2 hours ago, Star Lion said:

If you don’t experience romantic attraction, you’re not greyro. If you experience romantic attraction, you’re not aromantic. People id as labels that just don’t make any sense for them to have in real world use because it either doesn’t fit definition or it isn’t practical.

What the hell? Who are you to tell people what they "really" are? Aromantics call themselves aromantic for more than just one reason, and greyros don't all call themselves greyro just because of romantic attraction. If you look at threads like Why do you identify as gray-romantic?, you'll find a mix of different responses, and there are also greyros who are uncomfortable with being assumed to experience romantic attraction. Attraction isn't the be all end all of everything. Some people aren't even sure when they are or aren't feeling it. Any discussion of greyness needs to account for that. The whole premise is a social construct anyway -- what do you even mean "isn't practical"?

7 hours ago, Chandrakirti said:

I must agree here...if Einstein can reduce the complexity of the universe into E=mc2...you know the acronym KISS.

huh? Do you realize what you're saying? Taking an attitude of "just keep it simple" toward this stuff is the exact same attitude you find among people who think the whole concept of "romantic orientation" is too complicated and we should just stick to the system of gay/straight/bi.

15 hours ago, Star Lion said:

The idea is that it’s a “split attraction model” so talking about attraction is ideal

"Split attraction model" as a term is a whole other can of worms, and it originated a decade after (not before) the term aromantic.

Anyway. Back to the aromantic vs. aromantic spectrum question, for those interested: Siggy recently wrote a post he titled "Aromantic" should not refer to the spectrum.

5 hours ago, Mark said:

I'm wondering if Poe's Law is applicable to this Galilean moons based idea. Since it is so ridiculous in several ways.

Looks pretty sincere to me. If you want, I guess we could ask.

5 hours ago, Mark said:

There's also the question: "WHAT KINDS OF RELATIONSHIPS DO AROMANTICS HAVE?" which mentions "queerplationic relationships" in it's short and uncomprehensive list. I also feel that this somewhat conflates "partnered" and "committed". Which brings to mind some troublesome QPR definitions.
I think part of the problem is that the likes of "sexual friendships", "sensual friendships", "(physically) affectionate friendships", "non-platonic friendships", "cuddle buddies", etc don't get mentioned anywhere near as often as "queerplatonic relationships".

hmmm. Do you think the answer would be improved if those things were added onto the list?

2 hours ago, Janeisy said:

I don’t think relationships are for me, but why does every time I have a crush on someone, I want to date them. But, once we start dating, it just don’t feel right or it feels weird. Please help me, I’m at lost right now.

Hey Janeisy. I'm not sure what kind of advice you're looking for right now, but you might find some similar experiences among lithromantic narratives -- here are just a few links to get you started:

• Arocalypse thread - Lonely Lithromantic
• AVEN thread - Lithromantic Definition
• About the origins of "lithromantic"

As for advice, are you able to identify what feels wrong to you about dating? Is it certain forms of touch? Is it certain expectations or behavior? Is it certain ways of addressing or referring to each other? Or is it the whole relationship type altogether? Either way, there's nothing wrong with setting boundaries or deciding that there are some things you just don't want. You don't owe romance or romantic-coded behavior to anyone.

40 minutes ago, humantoafault said:

So while I'm definitely not aro, I'm starting to consider myself greyromantic.

Then you're greyromantic.

Welcome to the gray club.

5 hours ago, nonmerci said:

the first time I encounter the word aromantic and do some researches, I find a lot of website saying things like "not feeling romantic attraction doesn't mean aros don't form couples", and then explaining the concept of QPR.

hmm. I thought about this again recently while looking at the AUREA website -- the very first section of their FAQ page, the "General Information" section, has 2 questions on queerplatonic relationships (out of 9 in that section total, mostly about aromanticism in general). I don't know about y'all, but I feel like this foregrounds queerplatonic as a very central/general aromantic concept, moreso than other kinds of relationship preferences and types.

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

I feel as tho the aro community is trapped in an echo chamber of sorts.

How do you figure? If anything, I'd say there's an opposite problem.

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

Maybe not agreeing opinions but no matter what platform you're on people do tend to be doing the same things, the same way.

On the contrary: about how many new flag designs have come out of Arocalypse?

On 6/20/2019 at 9:50 AM, Scoop said:

I think I'm simplifying this down a fair amount but its safe to say all our community building is happening online and that’s not bad thing but it is clearly limiting atm.

Sure, but I don't think "the aro community is mostly digital" is why people are feeling alienated over not wanting partnerships or not having sexual orientations, and while expanding in-person could have benefits, that doesn't really address the specific thing I was asking about.

4 hours ago, assignedgothatbirth said:

er, im fine with that actually? if gender is a construct than 'weirder' nb identities should be just as valid as the more well-known ones like 'agender'. [...] the biggest problem i have with the plethora of microlabels is how people just coin them and then make a flag and don't do anything else

Agreed.

50 minutes ago, aro-fae said:

And, as we've seen from this topic and the need to create it, communities can't form around overly specific terminology - there needs to be an emotional experience that resonates with the people who identify as such. 

...I think you may have this backwards. Certainly Simon's (ridiculously amatonormative) terminology suggestions (that delineate between more distant friendlike qprs and closer romancelike qprs, wtf) relate back to some real emotional experiences that resonate with people -- otherwise there wouldn't be people thanking him and saying things in the notes like " Aaaa I really like this a lot. ... And this. Actually makes me feel a lot better. Because I felt left out of even the aro community bc I don’t rlly want a QPR at all."

My question is: why are people feeling left out in the first place? What's creating this impression of QPRs as some Master Narrative of How To Be Aro? Where is that coming from? Out of all the aromantics in this thread, how many of y'all even have a queerplatonic partner?

On 6/21/2019 at 8:04 AM, Mark said:

Thus "platonic" and "sexual" are very much mutually exclusive adjectives to me.

On 6/21/2019 at 1:08 PM, NullVector said:

In fact, isn't this just the standard usage of 'Platonic' in the context of inter-personal relationships?

Platonic is a hot mess of a word. We've talked about this before, but aside from the fact that I'm annoyed at the word etymologically (I hate Plato), it's also tangled up in the fact that a lot of people don't make a distinction between romance & sexuality, so, consequently, you'll have people using it both to mean nonromantic and/or to mean nonsexual and/or both. *shrug* Yet another reason why I just avoid it. I mean I get why people want a word for this stuff that doesn't have the word "non" in it, and people like a more established word over a neologism, but this is a problem with that word that's never going to go away.

Yet another reason why I can't rightly answer the poll the way the answers are given.

7 hours ago, Mark said:

It also appears to be an aro (possibly aspec) neologism...

What does?

Anyway, if y'all are interested in origins/uses of aplatonic, platonic attraction, and alterous, there's more links on that here.

On 6/21/2019 at 1:44 AM, running.tally said:

By end-case aro I just mean to distinguish aromantics in a way that won't make our current conversation about the definition of "aromantic" confusing, since aromantic can stand for an aromantic at the end of the aro spectrum or for the whole concept of aromanticism or as a synonym for the aro umbrella (thus my "arospec umbrella" in brackets). It's difficult to separate this conversation out without being confusing, but hopefully this clarifies things a bit.  What I'm after defining in this thread is that middle item.

Okay, something it sounds like is coming up here, then:

Does it make sense to use "aromantic"* as an umbrella term that includes people who do not call themselves specifically "aromantic"?

*itself, as contrasted with "aromantic spectrum" or "aromantic umbrella" -- or in other words, to treat "aromantic" and "aromantic umbrella" as synonymous

5 hours ago, bydontost said:

Yeah it definitely is the reason for the fact a term "endcase aro" came into existence, but how do you wish to proceed...?? People hear "aromantic" and think a person is not interested in romance, doesn't feel attraction, assumptions are made; this person chafes at the assumptions, says they feel unwelcome in the community. We have either the option to expand the definition of what aromanticism can be, so that people who may feel attraction and/or have a nonnormative experience of romance, in which case it does become synonymous to aromantic spectrum definition or we can say "aromantic is 0 attraction" but this would be untrue...??

Well, how I... wish to proceed, I guess, would start off by ruling out either of those options. I don't support a definition of aromanticism that tells some aromantics they're not actually aromantic, and I also don't support an overzealously-extensive definition of aromanticism that tells people they're aromantic even if they don't want to be called that. @sennkestra recently made a related blogpost about "positive" identity policing, telling questioning people what they "actually" are in a way that's clearly well-meaning but still prescriptivist -- you can read the post and the comment section below for how people feel about that. The way around that dilemma, from my POV, involves making a generalization that borders on tautology and then listing some examples of the different reasons that people identify with the label, without implying any one-to-one formula.

4 hours ago, running.tally said:

(the end-case aro who never feels romantic attraction for example) [...] without alienating end-case aros

So uh, this would be an example of saying the thing I just said I think it's detrimental when people say.

4 hours ago, running.tally said:

(or arospec umbrella)

o.O

7 hours ago, NullVector said:

Up to now, I didn't personally see why this needs its own word. Or how it's at all specific to aros.

It's not.

7 hours ago, NullVector said:

19 hours ago, nonmerci said:

an attraction that leads people to want a QPR relationship.

which would be more aro-specific, I guess...(although I'm personally not sure about the term 'QPR' - do these imply an aro-ace only dynamic, or can they be sexual? (the 'P' might suggest not))

Not at all. Queerplatonic as a term was originally intended as something open to anyone. To quote the person who first suggested the word, S.E. Smith: "Anyone, sexual or asexual, romantic or aromantic, straight, gay, queer, bi, lesbian, poly, cis, trans, etc etc can be in a queerplatonic relationship."

2 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

and those flags are all mixed in with bigender and lesbian and aromantic flags. *sarcasm*and don't you just love a gender that melts given the same attention as the trans flags*sarcasm*

No, that doesn't bother me.

For all I know, there's a lively and close-knit icecreamgender community out there -- I'm only annoyed when it seems like people are churning out words before/without communities instead of letting that be a co-constituative process. I'd rather this thread not turn into taking shots at unfamiliar terms just because they seem odd conceptually.

57 minutes ago, Bri said:

 Seems to me like your on the aromantic spectrum since you say you've been romantically attracted to someone before so you seem grayromantic or demiromantic

Please don't do this. No one experience is the determiner of what someone is -- it's one thing to point out options someone might not have been aware of, but it's another thing to tell somebody what they "seem."

I voted "something else" because my answer would have been "I don't use the word 'squish.'" Nothing against other people talking that way, to be clear. Just saying that for myself, it's... not the way I talk.

I don't use platonic orientation labels, either, for that matter. I honestly hope that that never becomes an expected/demanded/subculturally compulsory thing the way romantic orientation has become for aces. My relationship to the concept of "platonic orientation" isn't the same as how I feel about "romantic orientation," though -- it's more just... I don't see why I'd describe any of that stuff using the "orientation" framework, personally. Also I hate the word platonic.

On 6/18/2019 at 1:05 PM, NullVector said:

(I don't get how it's different from the standard wanting to be friends with someone or wanting to get to know them better / spend more time with them)

Doesn't sound any different at all to me. Here's the original thread where it was suggested, for reference (which isn't to say that other people don't or shouldn't use it differently).

Speaking just for myself again: I definitely have known people I've wanted to become friends with, and what I call that is "wanting to become friends."

10 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Plus I suppose that the needing of formons platonic bond is lin to platonic attraction?

What?