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Neir

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Everything posted by Neir

  1. I'll pop in just to say that if we are attacking a-spec flags with black triangles on the basis of Nazi imagery, we should also be attacking the flags of the following nations for having Nazi symbolism: The Bahamas (black triangle), South Africa (black triangle), Jamaica (two black triangles). The fact that people are not complaining about triangle imagery on nation flags (or even in the Queer Chevron, whose design contains downward-facing triangles, closer in design to Nazi imagery; or even in the Lesbian Labrys flag which literally has a downward-facing black triangle), but only on a-spec flags, is telling. Again, like Coyote said, this criticism is nothing new and unfortunately not something that really holds up. Queer and LGBTQ+ groups fly the triangle demi flags and some queer/LGBTQ+ people have even reclaimed the downward-facing triangle imagery entirely. Suppressing these things is not the answer, never has been, and never will be. It has always been an attempt to mask exclusion and violence with false accusations of appropriation.
  2. From talking a lot to cis people, many people don't think about it. They are completely fine with the gender they were assigned at birth and don't really question it. For some people, even if they don't "feel" like their particular gender, they still consider themselves to "be" that gender anyway, because they're happy playing that role in their community/society. 1. Gender, to me, is a social role. It's a group people fit in with in some way - whether that's based on behaviour, socialization, comfort, etc. For some people (like me!), when they look at the gender roles in society around them (and how people express them in diverse ways), they don't feel like any one of them fits. What social role am I? I don't know. I have some stereotypically 'feminine' traits and some stereotypically 'masculine' traits. I feel awkward at women-only events, like I don't really belong there. I feel awkward at men-only events, as well. For me, gender is something I understand theoretically but don't feel I'm a part of. Especially because many people are breaking down the stereotypes associated with different genders, it's harder for me to know which one I really am. 2. Gender does matter to me, mainly because it seems to matter to everyone else. I mentioned that I know a lot of cis people who say they "don't really think about" their identity, but they will always go to events that are for their specific gender. This confuses me, because people simultaneously say "gender doesn't matter to me" and "well, I'm X gender so I should go to X gender event and not to Y gender event." I also find that cis people, when I really question them about what gender means to them, can't tell me what gender is apart from "it just feels right." Because I never "felt right" in the gender I was assigned, or in the other gender available to me, I just opt out of the whole thing. It matters to me because I don't like people putting me in a category just because I act a certain way, one time. 3. Honestly, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't! Haha. Sometimes I can very clearly understand that I'm agender, because I don't categorize my actions and feelings based on gender. I'm just me. The stuff I do doesn't have a gender and I don't feel like I fit in with anyone except for other agender, genderqueer, or non-binary people. The queer gender group of people "feels right," but it's hard for me to be more specific than that. Other times I can't tell what gender I am at all, because I don't fit anywhere or only partially fit somewhere. 4. For me, being genderfluid means I don't really control which gender group I feel a part of. Sometimes I am very clearly masculine and feel right in a group of men. Sometimes I am clearly feminine and feel right in a group of women. Sometimes I really connect to a non-binary person's experiences on a very personal level, and I feel like they are my in-group, if I had to define myself. Being genderfluid means I identify with different groups at different times, and since I am also agender sometimes, that means that occasionally I don't identify with any groups at all! The key is that it changes, and I can't control it. It's not influenced by me wearing certain clothes, being around certain people or in specific locations/situations, my body/biology, etc. Sometimes I like to use clothing and other ways of presenting to indicate to others that I am part of a particular gender group, but sometimes I don't bother. That's my personal experience. Hope that helps. These are good questions, by the way. I was asking similar questions a couple of years ago. Gender is a confusing concept and in different societies it is defined differently (and even different people define it slightly differently).
  3. Welcome to the community I'm glad you're focusing on you and learning more about yourself in the process
  4. Welcome Thank you for sharing your story and I'm glad you are finding closure and happiness in this community. Here's some more aro ice cream:
  5. Hi, aros. I wanted to share a short summary of a research proposal I drafted for one of my courses. Unfortunately, with my current time taken up by AUREA, data analyses for other arospec and a-spec surveys, and my thesis (which is not on queer things at all), I am not sure when this kind of research could get done. However, that’s where you come in. I would be happy to send along some sources and literature review (i.e., my whole research proposal document) if someone, or a group of someones, is interested in carrying out some or all of this research. I’d also be happy to help guide the research or give advice. Reach out to me if this sounds like something you’d be interested in doing, now or later, or leave comments about your thoughts on this. There's no deadline for this, but I wanted to share it before I forget. Purpose The aromantic community is relatively new. As it develops, aro-specific terminology and conceptualizations develop alongside it. Recently, there has been a spike in the rate of term coining, particularly to replace already-existing terms. Questions of term usage and policies around term reinvention, coining, and adoption have surfaced in intra-community discussions: What should the community’s policies around changing and emerging terminology be? Does the community have a static language policy or does (and will) it change over time? The purpose of the research proposed herein is to investigate the evolution of terminology in the aromantic community, particularly as compared to other queer groups. This research may help the community make sense of their language policy practices. Conceptual Overview Language and Policy Language policy can be broadly defined as a mechanism that impacts the structure, function, use, or acquisition of language. Language policy can be a legal document that legislates how a language should be used, from the top-down in terms of power, or it can be an agreed-upon set of practices at a micro-level in a local community. The latter is the case the aromantic community’s language policies fall under. The orientation to language policy that aligns most with the language policy under study in this research is a rights orientation. Language-as-right and language policy as a process to obtain those rights is embedded in the aromantic community’s discussions about protecting every community member’s freedom to using terms that describe themselves best. Queer Language Policies Queer communities’ policies around term coinage, replacement, and reclamation are highly varied and context-dependent. There are no universal policies for dealing with term evolution. Nevertheless, there are common patterns evident in the evolution of terms in various Queer communities. Term evolution in all Queer communities is moving towards greater specificity, even in the cases of new, community-unifying terms. Rejecting binary conceptualizations and antonymous terms is also a marker of term evolution of recent. This is at least true of older communities under the broad Queer umbrella, such as the gay, lesbian, and trans communities. Whether a new term is created depends on a number of sociohistorical factors. Whether a new term replaces an old one is something that varies and will continue to vary as queer terms take up positive and negative connotations through their use. Research Approach Research Questions Q1: What are the aromantic community’s practices and policies surrounding term reclamation, coinage, and replacement? Have they changed over time? What sparked those changes? Q2: How do these policies and practices compare to historical and modern practices and policies of other Queer groups? Methods Discourse Analysis: analyzing the meaning and significance of discourses about policy in relation to their broader socio-historical context Media discourse data: intra-community media discourses within the aromantic community (e.g., posts on social media platforms like Tumblr, blogs, Wordpress sites, etc.) that address term coining, replacement, and/or reclamation in some way Unstructured interview data: unstructured interviews with representatives of non-aro queer communities, with open-ended questions about their term evolution histories and community policies regarding term coining, replacement, and/or reclamation
  6. Welcome! Have some aro ice cream:
  7. There's no right way of doing aromanticism or of being aro. I know it can certainly feel this way when society splits relationships and intimacy into boxes. But I want you to remember that we didn't always have these boxes of romantic vs. platonic and et cetera. Ultimately, how one person does intimacy and what they require from their relationships will always be different from another person's needs. Just because society tries to standardize certain narratives and make things uniform and universal doesn't mean that that's how feelings work. It's frustrating to come up against people who have internalized the standards, who feel that those levels of intimacy and those boxes work for them. But you're not alone and I know there are people out there, aro and alloro and everything between and around those, who share your views. Society would function so much better if we were all allowed to express ourselves and do intimacy how we want. But alas, people in power want control.
  8. I was actually talking about this the other day with a friend of mine who's in her 30s. I'm in my 20s and we have a solid 10 years' difference between us in age. We both seem to have noticed, as we're growing older, that the younger generations seem more comfortable than we do with being vulnerable. They seem to be maturing emotionally faster than we did and are pursuing close friendships and queer relationships that don't fit society's usual narrative. This might be because older generations have done some of the work of teaching the younger people about different types of intimacy, it might be because schools are getting better at teaching that kind of content. It seems more acceptable for younger people to choose what kinds of intimacy they want from their relationships instead of adhering to a rigid structure.
  9. Welcome, fellow research nerd! Have some aro ice cream and join us for some cool chats. Learning is what we're all about.
  10. I do know of a whole giant thesis/dissertation that an aroace woman of colour wrote that discusses attraction conceptualizations, but it's from an American perspective. If you're curious, it can be found here. I've done a few minutes of searching and couldn't find something that matches all your points, but I admit I didn't have the time to search all the combinations of your key words and phrases. My best advice is to get in contact with this friend again, if possible, and ask for clarification. Good luck!
  11. This is so relateable, I originally thought I had wrote this! Lol I've been told by some alloromantic people that my dedication to my close friendships looks a lot like romantic relationships. I'm lucky in that a few of my closest friends reciprocate the commitment I put in to the relationship, but they don't view the relationship as romantic or even as a queer friendship. To them, I'm a very important lifelong friend that they are committed to. It's worth noting that all of these closest friends are alloromantic. Some of them aren't queer. But they are all open-minded and don't really buy into what society defines as friendship. I suspect that people who struggle to reciprocate are people who are uncomfortable breaking societal rules and who have rigid notions of what kinds of intimacy are allowed in which relationship box. Some people aren't compatible with me because they view friendships as more closely tied to circumstances or place. The biggest difference between the people I tried to have meet my needs (but failed with) and the people I succeed at having a close bond with is: the presence of unconditional love as loyalty throughout changes in our lives and growths in our personalities and selves. This is a lot to ask. It's like lifelong commitment from a partner. It essentially is having multiple life partners. It's why I've had relationships fail to meet my needs. Unfortunately, most of them I just had to re-conceptualize and give less time, energy, and depth to. I've always felt bad, as one often does when feelings aren't reciprocated or compatible, but some of these people are still in my life and still important in different ways. I'm also a very open and honest person; consistent and open communication is how I roll. This has helped me on many occasions, because I've found that if I reach out and be vulnerable, but also tell the other person explicitly that it's OK if they aren't equipped to be vulnerable with me in return, there is less awkwardness and tension. Giving a choice and a safe space for saying no to me, because I will accept that, has done wonders. Thanks for bringing this up. I feel like you've poked a part of brain that needed to externalize some thoughts too. It doesn't seem to be an aro-only issue, but I do wonder how common it is in the community, compared to non-aros. *Research survey cogs are turning*
  12. Ah, alas, you've missed my point. I think this may be something you have to sit with over time and read over for yourself. You are very stuck on rigid definitions and specification. Just because you don't relate to some people, doesn't mean the term doesn't include them. You don't have to understand it to respect it. I first joined the aromantic community because I fit in definition 1 of aromantic: not experiencing romantic attraction at all. When I talked to other people like me about what they defined as romantic attraction, I got many different answers. For some, how I described my affectionate feelings for people seemed like romantic attraction. For others, my affectionate feelings were nowhere close to how they saw romantic attraction. When I talked to alloromantics, it was the same thing. I got answers from different places. My point is that feelings are very subjective and because people interpret the definition differently, they draw the line between aro and alloro in different places. We don't feel feelings in the same way; we have no way of knowing what another person's experience with attraction is like. Therefore, we cannot make judgements. We can attempt to, but it's very easy to misinterpret and put our own biases onto things based on how we define romance. All that to say, I'll point out that you may not relate to all other aromantics who experience 0 romantic attraction perfectly. Who, out of all of you, is the "proper aromantic" then? (This is a rhetorical question. But my saying this is to point out this is where your logic leads. That's why I and many others are reading your additions with eyebrows raised.) Yes... Many people do. I'd encourage you to read some older queer publications. I will point out there exists a not-very-popular term for definition 1 of aromantic that puts it under the broader definition 2 umbrella. Apothiromantic comes to mind, for example. Terms are in limbo right now in the community, though. Which one is most popular is sometimes just arbitrary. One word can have different definitions based on different contexts. Honestly, if no-attraction aromantics want their own flag, they can make one. They have to acknowledge, though, that if they do, they can't parade it around as "the real aromantic community." That's... I don't know how to tell you that that's just plain elitist. The aromantic community made a decision at its outset to include people who are "elsewhere on the spectrum" (i.e., not right at the end, experiencing 0 romantic attraction and having 0 interest in it, etc.). This mirrors other queer communities. The point is that a person who feels like this community is "close enough" will have relief and resources and acceptance so that they are not ostracized by society. If we kick those people out, if we gatekeep them and exclude them from the community, they don't belong anywhere. Queer communities exist precisely for the people who feels they don't belong in normative society. The aro community isn't a exclusive club. Saying "you're not queer enough" ("you're not aromantic enough") is a great way of making sure we're perpetuating the very thing queer people fight against in society. Worrying about "being invaded by not real aromantics" is not productive and not realistic, because the likelihood of people pretending to be aromantic just for funsies, just for attention, just for resources, is really low. Non-queer people just don't pretend to be queer. Non-aros don't pretend to be aro. There is more benefit to fit in with society, and greater risk to try to fit in with a group for a small resource reward that honestly isn't that nefarious. Using the end case, the "aromantic" label, is arbitrary and honestly follows the conventions of other queer communities. Though, there are some discussions about what we should use as the umbrella term in other threads too, because some people don't seem to like how arbitrary the name is. As far as I'm concerned, the name is the simplest and most non-nuanced extreme case that is helpful to explain to people who know nothing about the concept at all.
  13. Thank you for your apology. We very much appreciate it.
  14. Hi @TripleA. I will say this bluntly because I'm not sure you've understood where others who have said this are coming from. You've formed your opinion based on information that is outdated, incomplete, and/or not representative of the community. The aro community has discussed this many times. It is fact that within the aro community, the word "aromantic" has two meanings: Experiencing no romantic attraction ever, at all, zero times (the definition you're familiar with) An umbrella term for people who do not experience romance or romantic attraction in the ways conventionally put forth by society, whether this is in terms of how often the attraction is felt, the circumstances behind the feeling, or the behaviours connected with the feeling Identities are never fixed because human beings are fluid. Identity terminology, especially orientation terminology, is descriptive and not prescriptive. X-sexual or X-romantic indicate tendencies toward whatever fills the X slot. They do not indicate a rule that, upon being broken, can no longer be used as an identifier. A person who is heterosexual that had one crush on someone of their same gender but had 20+ crushes on people of their opposite are not necessarily bisexual because of one experience. For some people, the exception does change the rule, because the person and their identity have changed. For others, the exception does not change the rule; it's an exception because human beings aren't robots bound to identifiers and If/Then statements. If someone says they are aromantic and they have experienced romantic attraction before, you have no right to be saying "Yeah, but if that was me, I wouldn't use the label aromantic." Perhaps that's how you define aromanticism for yourself, and that is fine, but you cannot say "Oh everyone is valid" and then proceed to tell those people that they are wrong. You draw the line between aro and alloro for yourself in a particular way. You should not say that this line is the correct line or should be the correct line. The aro community as a whole welcomes anyone who fundamentally feels that they belong in this community, because chances are, regardless of how many times someone has felt romantic attraction in their life, if they are feeling alienated from alloromantics or from typical romantic narratives, they feel they belong in the aro community. We as a community don't believe that we should define a line for everyone. At least that's what I've noticed about inclusive queer communities in general. We don't define the line. What we do is provide examples of others' experiences with drawing the line so that questioning folks can decide where their line is and whether they identify with our community. It is true that some grey and demi folks, for example, don't view themselves as being part of the aro community. Sometimes they feel they fit better in the alloro community, sometimes in neither or in-between. Ultimately, identity is relative and completely personal. Words and categories of identity never have hard lines and boxes. It's impossible. Even in sciences where we think lines and categories are very clear, you'll find that nature is not that easy to put in a box. Language is always approximation. And when feelings are involved, there is no aromantic experience that is shared by everyone in the exact same way, even for the aros who fit definition 1. Fact is, drawing a line between aro and alloro, and placing greyros, on an expansive scale is prescriptive and will never be correct. It's impossible. Lines and categories for things are always arbitrary, because nature is not and never will be black and white. TL;DR: Labels are not for other people to categorize someone, they are for someone to sit themselves in relation to others. People are getting frustrated with you because you seem like you are trying to pass your opinion off as more correct than others', since, to you, it is. You can't be correct because no one can be correct, because the aro community is not trying to define an aro/alloro line on a large scale. Having conversations about this is unproductive and only serves to make some people feel excluded.
  15. Still waiting and haven't crunched the numbers yet, but yes, we will know this. Percentage of participants who started vs. completed is standard to report, as well, so you'll see it. If there's a pattern to the questions stopped at, I agree it's useful data. In a previous survey I ran, participants who stopped typically did so after the first question, so it wasn't very interesting - I just assumed they changed their minds about participating. If something different happens here, it'd be interesting to see.
  16. This survey has closed. We received 923 responses; thank you to everyone who participated! For those of you who started answering but didn't get to finish, you still have 2 weeks to complete the survey. Analyses will come after that.
  17. We are closing the survey today. Thank you to anyone who participated; we had 357 participants. For those of you who started but didn't finish the survey, your session should be open for the next 2 weeks, so you can finish in that time frame. Analyses to come.
  18. Absolutely. I've seen this done many times. Sometimes people will simplify to one or the other depending on the context (e.g., demisensual, homosensual), but the full story, all the microlabels, I've also seen written out when someone wants to be very specific.
  19. I'm not sure. I think it's a bit complicated. Romance as a concept is rather new (in the past few centuries), and all it does is put a name to a specific kind of intimacy. Something being romantic isn't necessarily amatonormative, since "romantic" just categorizes a type of intimacy. Amatonormativity is about normalizing the idea that everyone feels this attraction in one specific way and must seek out a romantic partner to be valid/healthy. Calling certain relationships "romantic" I think was a way for people who use and understand the term as it is usually defined by society to make sense of intimacy. For them, certain types of intimacy were in the "romantic" box, because that's how they and society categorized and labelled that intimacy. A great modern and personal example of this is the relationship I'm currently in. To me, it's alterous, sometimes platonic, but to my accomplice it often feels traditionally romantic, and probably looks that way at times to others. I categorize certain intimate things differently and it doesn't bother me that my accomplice also categorizes differently. We both know each other's feelings and respect each other's definitions. Where calling friendships "romantic" does become amatonormative is when people are very insistent. Like, "this cannot be just a friendship! It must be something more!" That playing into relationship hierarchies can often trigger amatonormativity, because people can then say "at least X has a romantic friendship with Y so they're basically romantic and romance is something everyone wants, so they're getting it via friendship" or "finally X has a romantic-ish partner; thank God they're normal like the rest of us." It's a subtle difference and it's often all in the tone. I'm not sure that inherently labelling something "romantic" would count as amatonormative, but that's maybe a separate point. Most things! I consider very few things romantic, because I define romantic as a specific kind of performative and hierarchical thing. Things like gift-giving, PDA (public displays of affection), celebrating milestone anniversaries, and generally elevating a romantic partner over every other person in one's life (prioritizing them as the "most important person") are things I consider romantic. Especially if these things are done when in the presence of other non-participants, as if forgetting the non-participants are there (e.g., I've heard some people call this being lovestruck or seeing a person surrounded in a kind of light that erases everyone else around them). Some physical gestures, like kissing (which people often put in the romantic category) are platonic to me until they become very prolonged and backed by a specific intention or feeling. It really is about the intention, the feeling, and end-goals for me. However, what I think society defines as platonic is a different question. It's also complicated, because depending on your community, the answers may be different. Generally, I've seen platonic things be defined by not being too deep or prolonged. For example, a platonic hug would be going in for a squeeze, maybe holding it for a while. A more 'romantic' hug would be going in for a squeeze, maybe holding it for a while, and also adding something like gently caressing. There's a level of gentleness and vulnerability that society seems to reserve only for romantic gestures. Absolutely you can identify as sapphic and aroace at the same time! You can say oriented or angled aroace if you'd like, as @nonmerci described, since describing orientations that are not romantic or sexual attractions is the point of those terms. Or you can just say sapphic aroace, or sapphic and aroace. Personally, I don't use "oriented aroace" or "angled aroace" and just say I'm bialterous (just like someone could say bisexual). I throw the bi- modifier onto the type of attraction I feel. Sapphic as a term seems to be valid to use for any kind of attraction, since it's not a modifier like bi-. It's a standalone concept. All that to say I believe it's fine.
  20. This makes a lot of sense! I'm not sure if there is another word for it, but I like fractionamory. I have definitely felt similarly sometimes, although I'm not sure it'd apply to me now anymore. Relationships are complex but "not being anyone's primary but being a secondary" is certainly nice-sounding. Thanks for sharing this. Maybe someone more in tune with the polyamory community may be able to answer as well.
  21. What others have said really gets to the point, I think, but I can reiterate it again: attraction labels are, by definition, never going to be objective. There are definitely societally-agreed upon definitions of things like romantic attraction very very broadly, but every time I have asked alloromantics about their definition, each individual has said something slightly different. I can't remember if I've shared those definitions, but I could share what I've heard if it would help to illustrate with examples. If you're interested, there's a thread on Arocalypse HERE (link also below) that talks about defining romantic attraction, and there are many definitions there you can find. There's also an old thread that mentions defining romantic experiences HERE (link also below) you could check out. Ultimately, though, it is impossible to define romantic attraction objectively, although it is true that what we see portrayed in media seems to have patterns. I also second Mark's suggestion to look at quoi, because some of the questions you're asking ring with that experience.
  22. AUREA has a list of ones we know about you could check out: https://www.aromanticism.org/en/resources-1#offline-resources
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