DeltaAro

"platonic" exists as a word for ... allos to emphasize that a relationship isn't sexual / romantic, and everyone's fine with it, no hard feelings, no sexual or romantic attraction (at least it's not strong) - and this though this relationship would be assumed to be sexual / romantic (e.g. same age, opposite gender) aros to precisely distinguish this non-romantic attraction (desire for friendship, etc.) from romantic attraction The Symposium is more about love as ascent to the Form of Beauty (which obviously contradicts the split attraction model, that sees aesthetic attraction as an attraction in its own right). I think that in Phaedrus, we find more concrete ideas that can be applied to a relationship. According to this dialogue, a platonic relationship would be one where sexual attraction is strongly present but mostly not acted upon. OK, sex is still "allowed" to happen as an "accident" or a "slip-up" in some rare instances, but better not! In Plato's chariot analogy, love makes our soul spread wings because the soul remembers the Form of Beauty, and wants to ascend to it. Beauty in this world is "instantiated" by a beautiful boy (or "beautiful person", though Phaedrus [just as the Symposium] is about homoerotic male love, or more sinister, the Athenian institution of pederasty). But the bad, ugly, black horse (the appetitive part of the soul) gets unruly when it sees the beautiful boy and pulls us to the beloved so to have sex with him. Platonic lovers resist the temptation, and over time the black horse gets disciplined. After death, our soul rises from the body, and tries to ascend to the gods and ride with them to reach the place beyond the heavens. Here it can experience the Forms themselves, which results in a sort of salvation. But black horse will pull us down to earth, if it was not disciplined, and we will not ascend. I do not think that many aros are sympathetic to these ideas, since they come across as sex-negative and aphobic at the same time. The modern usage is heavily influenced by Renaissance-era Neoplatonism, which brought Plato's idea more in line with Christian values, so that platonic love usually means that sexual attraction isn't present. Why is this word used? Maybe because friendships where we assume romantic/sexual attraction are suspect (usually opposite genders). E.g. think "friend-zone"... the contempt in this word! So people can put a positive spin on it and insert the name of a famous philosopher.

I know there was a thread about aromantic video game characters, can't find it, but ok, I post it here. In Diablo IV, you can play rogue, which is obviously the right choice for aros. (but please not red!!) I applied green arrow tattoos on my character and also found a transmogrification (actually armor, this means you can change the appearance of your character's equipped armor without altering the stats; pretty neat system) in the swamp area with green clothing / armor. Diablo also has "titles" and if you craft all incenses you get the title "aromatic". Ok, sadly without the 'n', but it's as close as we get! Still, this title is a lot of work, and I haven't got it yet.

Of course, many or even most allos don't engage in such behavior. But there's a minority that is titillated by the thought of trying a "forbidden fruit". Yes, and because of this she thinks she's allowed to do stuff that actually fits the definition of sexual harassment. Totally normal... not.

You didn't read my answer to your post, right? 😜 Ok, here the ultra-short version: I feel if I were "cured" of my aromanticism, I wouldn't be me anymore. I just wonder why it's that difficult to prove, if it is supposed to be this effective. The evidence from trials is just disappointingly weak or non-existent, but it should be dramatic. Yes, that's a very common argument. But parents might treat the child differently (e.g. become calmer) because they have high expectations that the homeopathic remedy will help, which in turn calms down the child. For this reason, clinical trials are often double-blinded, i.e. even the doctors treating the patients don't know who's getting the placebo.

Homeopathy isn't really folk medicine, but a system of alternative medicine conceived by the 18th century German physician Samuel Hahnemann. It's based on the idea that "likes cures like", e.g. drinking coffee can cause you trouble falling asleep. Therefore, coffee should be used against insomnia. Now, most people probably wonder: doesn't this approach just make everything worse? But homeopathic medicines are extremely heavily diluted substances. Imagine one drop of coffee mixed in the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, since you can repetitively dilute a dilution, you don't actually need that much water. Take 1/100 from a solution and dilute it, take from 1/100 from this dilution and dilute it, etc. And again, most people probably wonder: how can a substance which is so extremely diluted have any effect at all? Well, Hahnemann believed that the way the substances were diluted, with violent shaking, would activate the vital energy of the substance - the more you dilute a substance the more powerful it gets. Obviously, homeopathic principles are very different from conventional medicine (and even common sense). Because of the dilutions, criticism of homeopathy is never that it is harmful by itself, but that it doesn't work. It is "just" the placebo effect - though this effect can be pretty strong, especially for mental conditions. But some people may waste precious time trying out homeopathy for serious illnesses. E.g. Steve Jobs should've been immediately operated for his cancer. Instead, he delayed surgery for 9 months trying such approaches, which likely worsened his prognosis. Undiluted, yes. But if you do not believe in the principles of homeopathy, all he ingested were sugar pills. It seems to be standard treatment in homeopathy for "repressed emotions" (such a stupid trope that aromanticism is about this).

Happy midsummer!! 🌞 (there are so many dates for midsummer. Some countries celebrate it at the actual summer solstice, the 21st, but I know it as the night to the 24th) And... midsummer in Elden Ring:

Voidpunk reminds me of the void type in the C programming language, so it has quite a robotic flair to me. I don't know if that association was intended.

There's nobody around who posts images with sassy captions about my problems for the whole world to see, without consent. And I don't miss it. Ok, I now hear you saying: "But wait, isn't this just the bad apples?" Yes, yes. But the fact that this got 65.5k 😠 upvotes still shows how widely accepted such behavior is for romantic partners.

Great idea for drawing. Aro Artemis going on a mushroom 🍄 hunt.

In my housing co-op, "rent sharing" has been banned with some vague exceptions like for "life partnerships" 💞. I believe this weird construct isn't really legally binding if you'd go to court. But it still works in deterring people. I voted against this resolution, because I'm for aro rights, obviously. 😅 But a shocking two thirds or so of the members voted for banning rent sharing. Their main argument was, "ooh, the rent is already sooo cheap in comparison to for-profit landlords". Yeah, but with rent sharing it would be cheaper, and you can't save enough money right now as cost of living has exploded.

PS: my attempt at renaissance hats:

I sometimes wonder if it was a good idea to put that much money into an Android system. On the Microsoft Surface, you can use e.g. the serious apps like Adobe Fresco. Ok, sorry, btw. where did the image go? You hopefully didn't delete it just because of my comment? Anyway, nice to find other Krita users here, I love this app. Don't be discouraged! It gets better with practice.

In my opinion, if an idea is still relatively common it's worth arguing about, no matter how wrong it is. There's the implicit assumption that language encodes power relations and isn't just a neutral tool for communication. Such an argument can also be constructed regarding gender, e.g.: "you should always disclose your trans status on dating sites, since as a trans woman you may not fit other people's understanding of woman." To which most users here would probably answer: "all the worse for those bad people who reject gender self-identification!" On the other hand, the "standard picture" (implicit in your post) is that we have ideas which refer to the real world and words that represent the ideas. Those two aspects of language are chronically conflated nowadays. And so it's often not clear if we talk about words, ideas, or the real world. People get confused or feel manipulated, and productive discussions become very difficult.

Looks great!! What hardware are you all using? iPads ?? I'm using a Samsung S8 Ultra. @TwinkieMcdinkie Do you have layers in your app, so that you can hide / unhide your guides?

The micro-label for this would be bellussexual. Disclaimer: I'm really not much into those labels, so I'm not that experienced in those things. I just looked it up for you. Ace also means ace-spec, therefore it's not necessary to be totally uninterested in sex to be ace in this sense (for example, like greyasexuals).

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I guess, I'll never understand this line of reasoning. But you still have an opinion what the right answer should be, don't you?

That's a new development, though. Like on the page you linked to, this requirement was inserted a year ago. See version from 29 April 2022.

QPRs aren't romantic in nature, that's all. It's neutral regarding sex. Or maybe, phrased more carefully: QPRs were originally conceived to set arospec folks' closer relationships apart from romantic relationships. Disclaimer: I personally don't really understand QPRs since from the outside they look way too romantic for me than I'm comfortable with. Yes, though the rest of the world understands "platonic" very differently, i.e. it must be nonsexual.

Why does Artemis hunt? 😔 I want an Artemis who is just a peaceful forester, then she would be perfect. 😄 Nor does laughter-loving Aphrodite ever tame in love Artemis, the huntress with shafts of gold; for she loves archery and the slaying of wild beasts in the mountains, ... from: Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

Oh, that would be great. There's never enough aro art!

🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍🌈 Saw so many flags when I came back from work, wow. 😸

🚨PSA: Wikipedia says:: ➡️ LOTS of examples here aren't really guilty pleasures and better belong in the "How are You a 'Bad' Aromantic Spectrum Person?" thread OR in the "How are You a 'Bad' Asexual Spectrum Person?" thread... if that thread existed... yes, why does it not exist?? 🤔