El011

Ophelia from Sweet/Vicious is aromantic or gray-romantic bisexual. She prefers hookups and hanging out with friends over committed relationships, there's a comment in the first episode about her being attracted to all genders, and she just really never shows romantic feelings toward anyone. I do absolutely love Juphelia but that's also not canon and I feel like it kind of says something if Ophelia has only just started to fall in love once in 21 years after knowing Jules for several months, and seems to have a lot of trouble figuring that out despite already knowing she's bi.

Lauren from Faking it is a straight aro and so is Liam. They're fwb. Lauren had been dealing with a lot of insecurities from her ex finding out she was intersex and then she met a hot guy who was really into her and she just ran with it. With Liam, he's always shown more interest in his friendship with Shane and with having sex with girls but has never wanted commitment or felt romance no matter how much he tries.

And Karma is gray-romantic/quoiromantic bi. She was so confused over her feelings for both Amy and LIam, and then with that one guy Wade she mostly wanted him for sex. I think it fits really well for her to not really understand what romance is or whether she's feeling it.

Also I change my mind about Warrior Nun. Camilla and Lilith are both aro and Mary, Ava, and most of the nuns are bi. Beatrice is canonically a lesbian. Lilith is also asexual. I think a lot of these women just didn't see any way out of marrying and dating men and also felt that they had been called to fight demons because of their lack of interest in dating and marriage. Lilith especially, and I think part of the reason she felt so strongly that she was supposed to be the next in line for the Halo was that she'd never been attracted to anyone and had assumed that meant God was calling her to be the next Warrior Nun because of her supposed "purity"...until she found out asexuality was a thing. 

Emma and Hook from Once Upon a Time are both arospec bi. Zelena is a straight aro and so is Cora. Hook and Emma had never really wanted commitment or met anyone who understood them and their limits, until each other. Zelena and Cora just always seem to prioritiize other things over romance and seem largely indifferent to it.

Jason from The Good Place is a straight aro. He loves Janet and Tahani as friends and sexual partners but has never felt romantic attraction.

Tiff from Bonding is a bi aro. Pete just seems like a QPP to me, and she never shows romantic attraction in the show as far as I remember.

All the circus characters from The Greatest Showman except for Anne, Barnum, and Carlyle are aromantic and bisexual (Anne, Barnum, and Carlyle are also bi, but not aro). Also, Charity is bi and Barnum is nonbinary. None of the characters are ever attracted to anyone and just want to commit to each other. Also, I love shows and movies that prioritize a close relationship between friends who want to devote their lives to each other.

Henry and October from The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod are both aromantic bisexuals. Snow is also bisexual and so is Vlad. Joss is gay. The way Henry has always made it clear to girls that he's not going to do anything romantic with them and is just interested in sex reminds me a lot of aromanticism, and he just seemed really bothered by Melissa's efforts to be romantic and insist on him also being romantic, and it made him act unlike himself and stressed him out and he just didn't really seem to have mental energy for anything else. He seemed happier after he and Melissa broke up, and then I think when he met October he mostly saw her as a friend who he was sexually attracted to and was glad to meet a like-minded person who understood his limits and capabilities and felt the same way, and she felt the same way toward him. Snow and October definitely used to date, and October isn't romance-repulsed but her inability to feel romantic bothered Snow so they broke up. Also, Vlad has absolutely had a crush on Henry at some point but he eventually got over it. As for Joss, he definitely seems to have a crush on Vlad that he won't admit to himself and only thought he was interested in Meredith because he was jealous of her and because she was pretty and popular and she seemed like the kind of girl he should have a crush on.

8 minutes ago, Zema said:

From what I've noticed, nonbinary people have a fundamentally different experience of gender to binary trans people

not invalidating you or anything but i just thought you should know, there are nonbinary trans women who would certainly disagree with that and who would relate more to your experiences than mine even though they're nonbinary and you're not. nonbinary is so varied that i don't think we can really be described as having a single experience of gender.

i mean aro aces aren't really going to date or anything whereas a lot of aros who aren't ace go on dating apps for hookups and have fwb relationships.

this is of course assuming that all the aros involved are full aro and not gray but tbh going into the many ways to be gray-aro would just be a headache that I don't feel like dealing with right now. besides, speaking as a gray-aro, it's totally reasonable for someone to experience attraction exactly like I do and not identify as aro. I just do it because I find the identity personally useful when it comes to communicating my needs to a sexual partner and making sure they understand and don't take it personally if I'm not romantic or view them as a friend.

As for how it interacts with my bisexuality specifically, I definitely feel less kinship with the rest of the aro community than I would have otherwise because of the homophobia I've experienced within it and because I also just share more common experiences with a bi person who isn't aro than an aro who is straight/het or ace.

13 minutes ago, arokaladin said:

I think you need to ask yourself why everything coming out of your mouth on this thread is something you could read on an aspec exclusionist's discourse tumblr lmao. 

I could get into how aros didn't 'decide' we're privileged. I could get into the social and legal oppression we face, regardless of other labels we have. I could explain how your experiences of being bi versus being aro are just that, yours. I could try to get you to understand, as someone who only ids as aro myself, how gross it is that you assume me straight by default and how invasive it feels that you assume you're entitled to know he ins and outs of my experience with attraction. Frankly I don't think you're worth the effort. If you reflect on the hurt you're dealing to your own community, it will be because you yourself realise you're in the wrong.

what social and legal oppression do we face that is based on being aro and only on being aro, that doesn't also widely affect non aros? and, again, I specifically said multiple times that I was mostly talking about cis people. would you read the post at least before throwing a tantrum?

also, you said that sexual orientation is something that doesn't help you understand yourself but also said my experiences with sexuality don't apply to anyone else. why do your experiences apply to other people and mine don't? why do you only use that argument when it suits you? do you actually think that there aren't a shitton of other aro bisexuals who feel more common ground with non-aro bis than with aros who aren't into their same gender? I've literally had multiple aro gay and bi people approach me quietly to thank me for calling out the homophobia from the aro community that we are so frequently screamed at for even daring to acknowledge without a million disclaimers validating people who don't experience the same level of discrimination as we do, and tell me that because the aro community is so homophobic and treats them like deviants and outcasts and they no longer feel safe participating in it. and yet I'm the one hurting our community?

why is it that I, a bi trans aro, am expected to "reflect on the hurt" that I'm supposedly dealing to people who are cis and don't experience homophobia, but if anyone ever fucking dares to acknowledge that the aro community is anything less than perfect, they're an arophobic monster? why are gay and bi aros treated like shit so constantly for simply addressing homophobia in a community where we deserve to feel safe? how does ignoring our needs make YOU and everyone else in this thread not an arophobe? If any of the most marginalized aros among us feel unsafe, we're no kind of community, just another tool of oppression, until we fix the issue.

2 minutes ago, Vhenan said:

Maybe it doesnt't tell you about who they are attracted to because they don't want you to know!!! Aro people don't owe you jack shit. Why are you mad? 

There are many reason someone might want to use aro as their only label. Maybe their sexual attraction just isn't as important or relevant to them, maybe they're questioning, maybe they're not comfortable with their sexuality or they just don't want others to know. All of them valid and perfectly fine reasons. I don't understand why you are mad!

you're talking about aros as if I'm not one. this is what I mean when I say aros who are gay or bisexual are treated as deviants in their own community, while aros who aren't are treated as the default. it's our community too and we're treated like outcasts. and what you're not taking into consideration is that aros who are into our same gender don't generally have the luxury of treating our sexual attraction as irrelevant to our experiences.

12 minutes ago, HotRamen said:

They don’t talk about oppression against cis aro aces because aro and ace are still pretty invisible to a lot of the population I’ve seen more research about aces but not a lot about aros. and there’s still a lack of research about aces compared to other sexualities. Also cis doesn’t mean het those are 2 different things it seems like you might be conflating the two.

or maybe because it doesn't happen? also what oppression are you talking about? is there a widespread social problem of cis aroaces getting fired, kicked out, and forced into conversion therapy for being aroace? are cis hetero aro men being kidnapped and tortured in Chechnya and Saudi Arabia? was there ever a widespread public health crisis disproportionately affecting cis hetero aces while the government laughed because all the people were dying were people they never wanted to survive?

also, I know what cis is. i'm nonbinary lmfao. I'm using both here because trans and nonbinary aces and aros are obviously not going to experience the same privilege as our cis counterparts, regardless of who we're attracted to. like, we're still going to be affected by policies that make it illegal to be lgbt. we're still going to experience violence at the same rates as other trans people. and cis aros who are gay or bi are still going to experience homophobia at the same rates as cis gay or bi people who aren't aro.

but like, if you're a cis aroace in bumfuck alabama and you tell your homophobic boss that you've never been attracted to anyone of any gender and don't really consider dating a priority, they probably won't care too much in comparison to if you said you were gay. i have literally seen fundamentalist christians be completely chill about cis aro aces when they thought gay, bi, and trans people were sexual predators who deserved to be tortured and were possessed by demons. when i said my experiences as an aro have paled in comparison to my experiences as a bisexual, that wasn't just for funsies.

why is it more their community than mine? what about the homophobia and transphobia I've experienced when they shat on ME? and how am I gatekeeping?

Straight should still work provided it doesn't make you dysphoric. A trans woman who is exclusively attracted to men is still straight even though her experiences are different than a cis woman's after all.

3 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

your literal only purpose in this thread seems to be antagonizing me, validating the privileged, and now ignoring that I actually know what I'm talking about. why are you even here? literally why? you're acting like an ignorant child and I would hope someone who claims to be a community activist is better than that.

3 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Yes, in fact, I am a community activist

not a very good one, apparently. As long as we're on the subject, I'm also a community activist - and a member of the national social work honor society, with extensive experience studying psychology and sociology from actual accredited researchers, experts in social science, that mysteriously never talked about the alleged widespread violent oppression against cis aro aces. Wonder why.

5 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

It's more like I respect myself more than to waste my time and energy holding your hand while I explain queerphobia and heteronormativity 101 to you, lmao.

Do you have literally any experience with social science besides seeing tumblr blogs that insist you're a mean bully uwu if you don't constantly validate privileged people? because you clearly don't respect yourself enough to not do that.

That said, I don't need you to explain """"""queerphobia""" to me because unlike cis people who aren't into their same gender, I actually experience it and it doesn't just end at people being kind of rude on the internet. Go "waste your time and energy" on them. 

1 minute ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

so you have no actual response. got it.

10 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

You're supposed to assume that they identify as aro. You DO realize there are bis who have only been in M/W relationships, yeah? You talk about being concerned about marginalized non-hetero identities, and here you are acting like it's up to you to decide who's ~really~ queer or whatever. It's literally none of your business. If they say they're not straight? Then they're not straight. You don't get to decide someone else's identity for them.

ok but most bis aren't going to exclusively talk about wanting to be in m/w relationships. because they don't exclusively want m/w relationships. and this affects my community so it is my business.

do i get to just say i'm irish and not white, even though I'm literally never going to experience the same oppression as an irish poc and our lived realities are totally different? No. should poc assume i just identify as irish and refrain from pointing out that I'm white and need to take a back seat in discussions of racism, and ignore that my whiteness is already perceived as the default both in and out of the irish diaspora and by not acknowledging my whiteness I'm just perpetuating that and centering my feelings over oppressed people's needs? Again, no.

why is aromanticism one of the only identities where you can just decide you're not privileged and it's totally socially acceptable and encouraged even by progressives? why is the aro community one of the only ones where the most privileged members are prioritized by everyone involved, including those who claim to center marginalized people?

5 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

No, it doesn't bother me. Why is it any of my business who they are and aren't attracted to? Fuck am I, a cop? If they don't want to label that experience, then they don't have to. I also find it deeply concerning that you would assume they're straight by default...

I don't assume that. But if they say, for example, they're not attracted to anyone or they talk about dating/having sex as an ace or aro but only in reference to m/w relationships, literally what am I supposed to think? Especially since most bi aros just...say that they're bi aro because they know otherwise they'll be assumed to be straight? It's not even an assumption, it's just a reasonable deduction based on what an individual has said about their life.

Also the cop thing is just really not fair or appropriate considering I'm not exactly shooting unarmed aroaces and getting paid leave for it.

I briefly identified as a feminine trans man and during that time I met a lot of other trans men and male-leaning afab nonbinary people who identified as transmasculine. To us, it was never about masculinity itself but about the fact that we leaned more toward manhood and had been assigned female at birth. I've also seen masculine trans women doing the same, identifying as transfeminine to express that they lean more toward womanhood despite having been assigned male at birth.

In recent years I've seen more and more afab masculine nonbinary people using the label to express that they were assigned female at birth and were transitioning toward masculinity, toward a more masculine gender identity than what had been expected of them, but not toward manhood - and many of them still identify partially as women. I'm told that amab feminine nonbinary people are doing the same but haven't seen it as much personally. This brought up some identity issues for me considering that I'm more masculine presenting, afab, and nonbinary but not a trans man.

It seems like the first group is using the labels to indicate gender identity but the second is using them to indicate gender expression. So if you're trans, nonbinary, or otherwise non-cis, vote in this poll and comment your feelings and observations below. If you're cis, feel free to read the results and ask questions of course but this is an intracommunity issue for trans and nonbinary people.

EDIT: can a mod move this to gender and sexuality? I forgot we had that forum.

1 hour ago, Leton. said:

Hello i use only "aro", am not because i am privilegiate at all (sometime i id as aro allo, it's complex but i have the right) and i think that you should let peoples identify as they wish, you assume too much about them.

As I said I can't force anyone to identify as anything.

1 hour ago, Leton. said:

Peoples can be "only ace" or "only aro" and it's not just bc they are privilegiate. There is many possible reasons. It's not because they are het. In fact, i find it disrespectful of you to slap "het" on someone who don't label their own orientation.

There are non-aro, non-ace straight cis people who also don't label themselves as cishet either. Is it also disrespectful of me to label someone cishet if they literally say "I don't label myself, but I'm a man/woman who lives as and is totally comfortable being treated as my assigned sex, and doesn't identify with any nonbinary or culturally specific gender, and is only attracted to genders completely dissimilar from my own"? Like by definition that is both a cis and a het. It's not "disrespectful" to acknowledge that.

1 hour ago, Leton. said:

I don't label my sexual orientation bc it's blury and i CHOOSE to not. And it's fine. It's not bc i am questionning.

I mean good for you? This isn't about you though, considering that I said I can understand why nonbinary people would do it and that I'm referring mostly to cis people who aren't at all attracted to their same gender sexually or romantically.

1 hour ago, Leton. said:

As a non binary "only aro", let me tell you that you are wrong on all the line there. 

I have literally no idea what this is even supposed to say.

1 hour ago, Leton. said:

Sorry if i get annoyed too, but wow. Hope you understand why it's not great If you get annoyed at peoples for an harmless self label, then it's on you. It's about us, how we decide for our own label. Not about you. 

It's not harmless though.

I can't opt out of oppression for being bi, and honestly my experiences as an aro kind of...pale in comparison to my experiences being bi. I've never worried about being physically attacked, raped, fired, kicked out, evicted, or forced into conversion therapy for being aro. I've never worried about introducing my family to a sexual partner because I'm aro. I've never been told I'm a sexual predator or that I'm possessed by a demon for being aro. I've never been followed home or treated as a straight man's personal fetish or told it's my own fault if I'm abused for being aro.

But I have experienced all of that for being bi. So for someone who is, by definition, both cis and not attracted to their same gender to pretend that we're the same just because we're both on the aromantic spectrum, to ignore their privilege by just not labeling themselves when I will never have the ability to pretend that my bisexuality is insignificant and grayromanticism is inherently more important, to marginalize me in my own community by acting like their identity is the default and doesn't need to be explicitly stated as if that doesn't just contribute more to heterosexism and the treatment of same gender attraction as a deviation from the norm? That's a huge slap in the face to me.

As a community, we're weak when we leave our marginalized members in the dust. That means aros of color, aro women, trans or nonbinary aros, disabled aros, aro religious minorities, and in this case aros who are attracted to our same and similar genders. So yeah, sometimes hetero cis aros need to realize that they're not "just aro" and that they are privileged in a way I will never be, and they need to acknowledge that and not act like their experience is the default or something they can opt out of.

I'm a bi gray aro and like on the one hand I recognize questioning people exist and also using just ace or aro by themselves makes sense for some nonbinary people and I can't force anyone to identify as anything, but it annoys me so much sometimes when aros who aren't attracted to their same gender identify as "just aro."

First of all that tells me absolutely nothing about who you're attracted to since you can be a gay ace or a het aro. When I and most other people ask what your sexuality is they want to know who you're attracted to, not how you experience attraction.

Second, to me it's - and I say this as a nonbinary person - the equivalent of saying "I'm not cis, I'm normal" or "I can't have cis privilege because I'm a woman/gay/don't like gender roles." Or when straight women will call another woman their girlfriend when they'd never call their male friends their boyfriends. Or like, if I tried to say that I'm not white because I'm half Irish and my ethnic group has faced colonization and oppression (even though that doesn't negatively affect my life personally today) or if I tried to say that because I'm pagan I'm somehow just as oppressed as someone Jewish or Muslim.

I think if you're cis and not attracted to your same gender you hold privilege for it even if you're aro or ace. And while it's fine to prioritize being aro or ace as an important part of your identity it's also important to acknowledge when you're in a position of power - in this case due to lack of same gender attraction - and not treat your own life experience as the default, which is what I feel like aros and aces who aren't into their same/similar gender(s) might be (consciously or unconsciously) doing when they try to just call themselves aro or ace and just leave it up to interpretation who they're attracted to. It promotes the idea that aros just inherently feel no attraction at all or that we're all straight, which marginalizes aros who are gay/bi/lesbian/etc and ignores how we're more at risk because of homophobia. As a bi gray aro I need support from other aros and that includes prioritizing the marginalized in our community.

EDIT: I'm not talking about people who are strictly aroace and openly call themselves aroace here, but instead more like someone who's a cis het aro and says just "aromantic" when asked their sexuality.

imo you like...can identify as aro as a young teen but it's also totally normal to not have a crush yet or feel ready to date at your age. i think the aro and ace communities should at the very least be 16+ but im also not here for jabbing my nose into how a stranger identifies and if you're going to id as aro i would rather just make sure no one's being creepy about it. also, keep in mind that this is actually how a lot of lesbians in denial feel and not feeling romantic attraction towards boys =/= not feeling romantic attraction at all.

sounds like hetero ace. you could also be gray aro though.

Gray aro and plant based mostly-vegan here!

I don't prioritize it, politically speaking, for a few reasons.

One, I think there's nothing inherently that sets me apart from non aros since a lot of people have a complicated relationship with romance, want to prioritize friendships over romance, and have trouble differentiating between romantic, sexual, and platonic feelings.

Two, it's really not an oppressed identity and in terms of shared experiences I really don't have much of anything in common with an aro cishet man the way I do with, say, a genderfluid bi woman who isn't aro. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter to me.

I'm culturally Catholic/Christian and back then aromanticism was definitely an issue because it was super emphasized to not date until you met someone you could see yourself marrying, to not have sex before marriage, and to not get married to anyone you weren't 100% in love with. Even for lgbt Christians the only reason any of us were conditionally, sometimes, accepted was that we could still fall in love. And I still think that's super important for lgbt Christians who aren't aro and it's not a bad thing for that reason, but where does that leave those who are aro? What if you can't fall in love?

That said it was never just aromanticism that was an issue. It was also being a nonbinary bi girl in a misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic slut shaming society where having or wanting casual sex - ANY sex in my case - meant you were broken and a whore and an unrepentant sinner, but nobody said a goddamn word about it to aros who were cishet men. When my straight aro cousin told my fundamentalist christian aunt she was aro, my aunt just said "oh okay" and dropped the subject.

Now, I identify as pagan and still mix in some Christianity and it's really not an issue anymore. There are obviously homophobes and transphobes but nobody cares if you feel romantic attraction.

YMBAI you told everyone at like 15 that you didn't want to date until college and also you told your evangelical christian best friend that you didn't want to date someone you didn't think you would marry but really you just. didn't want to date and were kind of relieved not "dating" (okcupid hookup) until you were 20, and that was the only socially acceptable way as a teen bi girl to express that you wanted sex and not romance in a patriarchal, homophobic society.

It doesn't really come up tbh but that could be because I'm still figuring out my identity

I'm in a bit of a similar situation now and I think you did the right thing. She should be in a relationship with someone who feels the same way about her as she does about them, and you shouldn't be in a relationship that you weren't happy in. It's better sometimes to just rip the bandaid off.