aro_elise

58 minutes ago, Storm_leopardcat said:

What kind of a test/exam has questions about your significant other?

quiz, those fun ones, like personality quizzes. 

when a question in a quiz is about what you like in a partner or something and you're like...i can't answer this.  like, i can name qualities i think all humans should have (kindness, honesty, decorum) but even if someone has those and more, i don't want them to be my partner.  or you know the old question "which is more important, looks or personality?"  it's like, for a friend, obviously personality; for a sexual partner, obviously looks.  why are these in the same category?  we often need an 'n/a' option.

soulmate--yes

no, you can't control how you feel or how others feel.  like if someone's romantically attracted to you--also, why are they the poor guy and you the bad guy?  why is their desire to date you more important than your desire, whether it be for friendship or nothing?  two people wanting different things is no one's fault.  and as others pointed out, this also happens with allos, in fact it's the most likely situation.  what matters is how you treat people.  so even if i'm sexually attracted to someone without caring about them, that in itself isn't harming them (the example who first comes to mind isn't even alive); purposeful actions like sexual harassment, misleading someone about your feelings toward them, or otherwise disrespecting their feelings/boundaries are harmful things which i would obviously never do.  and again, some allos do those things, including sometimes when they're romantically attracted to the person.  when everyone's on the same page, even if it's with "no emotion," sex is not wrong.  (sorry if it's tmi but some partners will be more than ok with you just seeing them as a sex toy.)  point is, aromanticism isn't evil; no orientation carries any moral value one way or the other. 

yeah, know that the idea that life without romantic relationships is worse comes from amatonormativity.  if you want to, you can be in a relationship that's like one in every way except for the presence of romantic attraction.  and even besides relationships of any kind, there's joy in so many things.  honestly i love being aro precisely because of how free it makes me feel.  but the biggest point i want to make is that i'm confident you'll feel differently in time.  i struggled to come to terms with my aromanticism too, but now, 7 or 8 years on, i've been perfectly happy for a while.

1 hour ago, EGGHEAD said:

i feel like this doesn't take into account the existence of something like sex-repulsed sexuals, like it's positioning them as just really sex-positive

(same goes for romantic)

true, the same way the definition of being a-spec is a lack of attraction, nothing about favourability toward romance/sex (which is obviously the point of this), the definition of being allo is just the presence of attraction.  i'm not sure the chart could cover all of that, but yeah, some of the phrasing could be different.  i feel like instead of looking for a quotation which matches how you feel (there is the disclaimer about them), you should just look for the intersection which does.  

also i just realized 'allosexuality' is probably yellow because of the allo aro flag.  (i noticed the green and purple immediately, of course.)

generally makes sense.  a5.

sounds like sex-favourable ace.  if you don't experience sexual attraction, yeah, that's what it comes down to.

34 minutes ago, Storm_leopardcat said:

Well, I'm not sure I can say that I have! What are some examples of movies, tv-series or novels where they've shown this (let me guess, Turning Red (2022)?

like, almost every piece of fiction media not specifically for young children.  not knowing where to begin with modern stuff, i can think of examples in 100-year-old novels (fitzgerald, hemingway, huxley, camus, kerouac), 75-year-old movies (even if i try to narrow it down to the most overt examples in the most famous films there are too many to list but i'll name 'peyton place' because it has a character i clearly identified as allo aro), and 50-year-old sitcoms (with examples in more episodes than not: the bob newhart show, the mary tyler moore show, the partridge family).  this is just coming from one person with one approximate decade of consumption of adult/teen media.  characters making comments about people being hot, checking them out, flirting, references to sex....  i must say i'm surprised; i thought aces were more acutely aware of the ubiquity of sexuality in media (as i am of romance).  

On 11/29/2022 at 10:03 AM, Storm_leopardcat said:

How would aroallos be depicted, especially in movies/series which aren’t for adults, maybe teen or children novels/movies/series? 

 

Not every form of media wants to depict sexually explicit scenes, so I’m wondering how it would be depicted? How would asexuality and sexual attraction be explained to younger audiences (I don’t necessarily mean kids, could be pre-teens or teens). 

 

I, personally, would rather prefer if movies/books had no sexually explicit scenes. Maybe if you want to show it, it could be implied. 

 

(I don’t mean to offend anyone, by those statements, of course).

sex doesn't have to be shown.  i generally agree that modern tv could lay off with that a bit.  (i'll refrain from delivering my "i love old movies and shows" rant here.)  but if you're old enough to know sex exists, you're old enough to know that people with various sexual and romantic orientations exist.  you wouldn't consider the idea of a portrayal of a gay or bi character inappropriate or dirty, any more than a straight one, and it doesn't become that when they're also aromantic.  that's exactly the view of allo aros we want to discourage.  i'm sure you've seen depictions of sexual attraction (including non-romantic) without explicit sex scenes.  so take that and add a clear demonstration of aromanticism.  in fact, in a way it's beneficial to show that attraction doesn't equal action--you don't only become [whatever sexual orientation] when you have sex with [applicable gender(s)].  but of course to completely avoid any acknowledgement that people do have sex isn't the way to go either.

i like lilies.  i actually have an aro-related story involving them.  back in the day, my boyfriend remembered i'd said i liked them and got them for me on our semi-anniversary.  later, when we'd broken up and i'd come out to my parents, my mom was trying to understand and asked me whether i didn't think that was sweet (the lily thing).  i said "well...no more than if anyone else had gotten them for me".  i'd thought that was obvious but she was surprised.  anyway, i like lots of flowers and plants.

born.  this is just what my romantic and sexual orientation happened to be, always have been.

i totally get what you mean.  i also feel like when people learn our orientations they kind of see our aromanticism as irrelevant, or secondary to our sexual orientation (no matter what it is), even if we actually feel it to be the other way around.  and i also feel particularly connected to the aro community and our "philosophy," and i relate more to aro aces than heteroromantic heterosexuals, overall.  though i do use two labels, i put 'aro' first.  i suppose you could use just 'aro' and 'aro and ace' alternately depending on the situation.  but maybe you're thinking more about how to identify in your own head?  i understand that.  i think there isn't really a better way to see what feels right than just to...see what feels right, you know, like try thinking of yourself as just aro and see whether it sticks.  same thing we did when we first came to identify how we do, right, well, what i did.  but you're right that hearing from other people who identify that way is helpful too.

23 hours ago, Acecream said:

And, clearly, being aromantic is totally queer itself.

23 hours ago, Acecream said:

I also don't feel welcome in lgbtqia+ spaces if those spaces wouldn't welcome me without any question if I was a endo-cis-heterosexual-aromantic person

you guys are awesome, see, it's stuff like this why i love it here.

2 hours ago, EternallyTDB said:

As an aro ace, I’m curious. How do you allo-aros separate your romantic and sexual attraction? Or, how are they different? And can you feel sexual attraction on an emotional attachment level?

well there is no romantic attraction, so nothing to separate.  do you mean how do we know it's not romantic?  based on my understanding of what romantic attraction is, you know, i can't relate.  and personally, no, there's never anything emotional about it, but that might not be true of all of us.  

15 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Now of course there are people who just one night stand and that's OK, but not everyone.

yeah tbh i often wonder whether people (any orientations) would be so quick to emphasize that non-romantic sex "isn't necessarily one-night stands" and similar sentiments if not for the existing general perceptions of certain types of relationships; really, i believe disdain for sex without romantic affection/commitment and disdain for sex without any affection/commitment aren't so different.  it's still amatonormativity.  it feels like when allo aces try to appeal to aphobics by proudly proclaiming that they "can still love".  obviously i understand that stating your own preference or explaining that it applies to a number of people doesn't inherently equate to taking a moral stance.  but you know what i mean?    

well, like anyone else, the type of attraction/feelings i have toward a person dictates the type of relationship/activities i want with them.  i'm never romantically attracted to anyone, so i don't want to date anyone.   if i'm sexually attracted to someone, i want to have sex with them.  if i like someone's personality, i want to spend time with them as friends.  it's possible that i might have both these feelings toward the same person, but they'd still be unrelated.  in such a case, if he only wanted one of those things, that would be fine, i can always have the other one with other people.  in sexual situations i don't experience emotions (i don't consider sexual excitement and attraction to be emotions), even if i do in other situations with the same person.  this is just me though.  and yes, some people have problems with casual sex or whatever, but they're not my problems.

bisexual and assuming you're a guy, homoromantic

12 hours ago, sevan said:

the majority of people on here are aroace

in fact, in a poll on here about sexual orientation, 30% were ace and 36% were allo (hetero-, homo-, bi-, or pansexual), the rest identifying as ace-spec, queer, or questioning.  i'd be interested to know the distribution for all the aros in the world--i'd actually guess, if you count the people who don't even know they're aro, like they're not familiar with it, an even higher percentage would be allosexual.  you know, 'cause if you're aroace, you're probably more likely to figure that out, because you're more likely to hear of asexuality (which would likely lead you to aromanticism) and also because of the complete lack of attraction it would be harder to write it off as anything else, whereas for example a heterosexual aro might just think they were straight and look no further.  wouldn't you say?

i appreciate the allyship though.  (can i just say, @nonmerci, yours is the best i've ever seen.  i noticed a long time ago that you consistently show support for allo aros even when that's not the main point of the discussion.)  a high level of awareness and empathy concerning experiences you don't share is pretty rare.  i'm sure i lack that in many respects.

yeah especially when i was like 16 i'd totally have platonic and sexual attraction even to book characters.  with tv characters of course their appearance is that of the actor, so it's not entirely fictional.  i guess my feelings about some characters and celebrities too were almost crush-like.  it's probably a universal teen thing.

friday night i went to a party with some new friends and tonight my best friend/roommate and i are hosting a little thing.  that's two chances to trot out my costume with which i'm thrilled but which no one gets.  (inspired by the 1981 horror movie 'my bloody valentine,' i'm a bloody valentine--i made a big heart-shaped thing, sewed lace around it and a ribbon to wear it around my neck, stamped the poem from the movie onto it, and i do era-accurate hair and makeup, and blood effects.)  and i've been watching lots of horror movies this month.  this morning was 'the cabinet of dr. caligari' (1920).

mine's not unusual, it's arachnophobia.  it's quite severe though, like there are countries i can never visit, movies i can't watch.  even the little guys, photos, decorations, etc. cause at minimum a brief panic reaction.  once i spotted what i quickly realized was just a crab--still cried from the shock.  always great when people make fun of it, too.

currently reading this side of paradise by f. scott fitzgerald--i think he was terrific.  i read mostly classics and i can't really name a genre in particular, kind of just slice of life, you know.  i don't know what to choose as my all-time favourites but the best thing i read recently was the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde by robert louis stevenson.

i have 3 baby teeth! 

let's see, 3 other things...

-gifted (so my classmates were mostly the same from grade 5-12)

-vegan (about 2% of canadians are)

-love travel, been to 21 countries and going for 100 (half the world) in my life

i don't like it either.  ideally, people's feelings toward me would be the same as mine toward them, whether that's platonic, sexual, or no attraction.  i never want anyone to be romantically attracted to me.  the only thing i appreciate in any case is purely aesthetic attraction.  and no, you don't owe anyone anything.  what they want is not more important than what you want.

i agree, that seems so unlikely.  my grandma actually apparently said something similar, how most of the time it's not mutual.  i think the same thing about sexual attraction.  some people have higher standards than others, though, like my best friend (allo) has never been in a relationship, whereas some people will jump at the chance to date anyone they don't find completely off-putting.  idk man.