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@Coyote I've added some elaboration on the site in the description of this post! Update: ARENA and ARNA have also been suggested by some Google Forms folks!

Thank you for your input so far, everyone! Acronyms are hard and we appreciate the honest input and resources. As for domain name, we may work that out in a separate topic (to keep things focused on the acronym here) once we've discussed our options a bit more.

FINAL ROUND CLOSED AND THE WINNER IS AUREA (Arospec Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy) A few of us have decided to put together a website similar to AVEN for aromantic advocacy and resources. We wanted to pick an acronym that is different from AVEN but is also short and official-sounding. We looked through a bunch of options but we wanted an option that is also free as a domain name for the website. If you don't like the acronym (or even if you do like it), let us know if you have any suggestions for a better one. Website Info: We haven't announced the website officially yet. We're still planning what will go on the site and how it will be managed (as well as who our core volunteers/admins will be). We will likely be including: - intro to aromanticism - FAQ - term glossary - pamphlets/resources - news and aro-related events - media contact (for interviews, guidance, etc.) - volunteer contact (for those who want to volunteer with us) Much of what Sennkestra wrote (post linked in this discussion!) is what we're aiming for - an official space with aros who can be contacted by media outlets to talk about everything aro. We've been thinking of adding: - a tab for ongoing surveys/research information - tracking aro-related fiction/art/media

I think many people like this equate romantic love with having feelings, and that only this kind of love can inspire your art. One way to address this (without explaining aromanticism for two hours) is to point out poets who were single all their lives and wrote beautiful poetry. You could also say that many other feelings can inspire poetry: love for others (family or friends or nature or animals or whatever), joy, excitement, sadness, anger (i'm thinking of slam poetry for example). Also, doing art isn't necessarily romantic. It can be for advocacy, for protest, for expressing your feelings in many other ways. I think arguments like those could help! It sucks you had this experience but it's definitely amatonormativity (and sexism honestly) at work!

From what I understand, the purpose of this term is to describe a set of attractions that are not the "mainstream" (for lack of better term) romantic or sexual attraction, without making the term problematic like "tertiary" was (i.e., making sure the term doesn't make these attractions seem like they are 'lower' than romantic or sexual attraction, or an afterthought). Sometimes, when people describe alterous and platonic and sensual and all those other types of attraction other than romantic/sexual, others can't relate to those separations. For me personally, I can very clearly recognize alterous and sensual and two different and unrelated attractions I experience. For others, they may not, and they may want a word that captures a mix of those two or a relatedness that makes them inseparable. Maybe not those two specifically, but a mix of two or more attractions that manifest as one experience. Like instead of saying "I experience [ALTEROUS AND SENSUAL AND AESTHETIC] attraction," it would be "I experience [NEW TERM] attraction." Further explanations of what that [NEW TERM] is made up of can follow in the conversation if the person wants (e.g., "I experience [NEW TERM] attraction, and I think alterous and sensual and aesthetic make up a part of it"). I think we're looking for something vague, like how "greyro" is a vague term that describes many nuances and many very specific identities under that umbrella all under the same idea that romantic attraction is a blurry grey area. This new term, from what I understand, is for a type of attraction that is a blurry grey area that is hard to define by solely "romantic" or "sexual" terms. I don't think we're looking for a term to append orientation prefixes to (like bi-alterous or bi-romantic --> bi-[NEW TERM]), but just a word to be able to express that one's experience of attraction toward other people has facets not captured by "romantic" or "sexual" on their own, and that other types of attraction are experienced in an interconnected way. Correct me if I'm wrong on this point though.

Yes! Somehow integrating those "less visible," more "complex/nuanced," and potentially "mixed" facets would be excellent! "Blur" is a word that kind of gets at all of those things. Blurry things are less visible, are often many things mixing together, and aren't very clear in terms of being nuanced. A problem with "blur" or a word similar to "blur" might be that some people think of blurs as flaws or blemishes or something dirty, and that's the OPPOSITE kind of meaning we want for people who might use this word. "Oblique" is also a word that is sometimes used as a synonym for something obscure (or less visible, more complex). It's also a word for a wide angle, which is kind of a nice picture - widely covering many different experiences. I'll keep searching and reading your experiences; I'm offering up a few words to start.

This is a great discussion. Thank you for starting it. I think it might be useful to coin a term that has some sort of "mix" meaning in it, meaning that the attractions the person experiences blur together or are grouped together in a singular entity. Would we want to keep this term specific to tertiary attractions or also include the possibility of mixed attractions including romantic or sexual components (kind of like how "queerplatonic attraction" is used in a way that signals "queering platonic" and may or may not involve other experiences of attractions depending on the person)?

Welcome! Out of curiosity, do you happen to run a Tumblr under the same username? I've found many other aros here also on Tumblr but never the other way around, so it would be quite the first

Thank you for that term list @Magni! That's really helpful. "Gul" sounds a bit too much like "girl" in some pronunciations for me but I like many of the alternatives. I especially like "Neut." Re: "kid," I agree that its usage has changed in the modern day but I do think I've used "friendo" before! It's sufficiently informal, though it's still two syllables as opposed to one. Not gonna lie, I would love to be called "punk" because if that isn't my approach to gender, I don't know what is! Thanks all for offering some things though.

I remember reading a webcomic that is a queer romance (so totally cool if y'all aren't fans of the genre) and the main character's best friend is pretty explicitly aro (although the term itself isn't mentioned as far as I recall). The webcomic is called Always Human. You can find it on Webtoon and it's complete!

(Lol no worries! XD I generally assume people on here are being respectful, nice prose or not.) I see! I understand better; I misinterpreted and thought you were still unsure about parenting. Honestly, the pain and confusion surrounding 'the line' is something really relatable and valid. Bloodlines are by no means the most important historical relationships, although they are definitely glorified. I'd like to think that my ancestors were too preoccupied by their own lives and needs and desires to really be concerned about whether their family would still have ownership over something beyond the time they could benefit from it. Not sure what I'm saying is remotely helpful, but I'll just reiterate that what you've felt is valid.

It's not particularly popular at the moment (where I'm living at least), but there is the possibility of co-parenting. The work of raising a child is a lot more distributed between many people, and there is also the benefit of having a child you can call your own. A little like adoption but with a greater number of parents/role models that can each contribute to a child's development in different ways (including passing down a title if you so choose). I don't know much about legal stuff surrounding this issue, but I would look closely at the terms. It could be possible to give the title to someone you greatly mentor later in life, a good friend that will stick around, etc. All that said, guilt is one of the worst motivators to have when it comes to having children. Even if you don't pass that title down and continue the tradition, you can pass it to someone who you know will benefit from it. When historians look way way back at the lineage, it's not really as broken as you think it seems right now. There have been plenty of royalty that have had way more complicated passing-down tradition-changers and the titles/possessions they hold are still attributed to their family.

It's OK to ask this question. Forums like these are the perfect place to ask potentially uncomfortable things. This has actually been talked about before, somewhere... I'm not sure it's been talked about on these forums but I've definitely seen conversations about it on Tumblr and other social media. There are many aro folks here (myself included) who have a mental illness and/or are neurodivergent, disabled, etc. Not everyone has a mental illness - just like you said, being aro isn't a mental illness and just because you're aro or queer doesn't mean you're depressed. However, of the people who do, a small fraction (I want to say about 25%?) find that them being mentally ill interacts with their aromanticism. So you're definitely not alone in that! I also think it's valid if the two are intertwined for you. Often, our mental health is dependent on our social lives and social health. And social health means something different to each society, each individual. In my Western context, for example, social health is equated with experiencing romance. So it's no wonder that, for some people, not having romance as a part of their lives can make them miserable. It's also possible to be mentally ill, and have that affect your social health. Often, mentally ill people shut down and shy away from people, isolating themselves. Emotions can also get either unmanageable or disappear entirely, so if you felt romantic attraction before and suddenly don't because you're mentally ill, then it could be true that being mentally ill has made it harder or impossible for your body to engage in the feelings that romance requires. Social life and emotional life are intertwined, and those things can be factors in both mental health and orientation. As you said, identity is valid no matter what! It would be weird to say that your life experiences do not in any way influence your preferences to have certain relationships with people. Emotions are life experiences. That's my take, anyway, and that kind of fluidity of orientation is something the LGBTQ+ community has been talking about more and more lately. Orientation is probably one of those things that isn't entirely biological (being "x orientation from birth"). It's probably one of those nature + nurture things, like most human traits seem to be. I can't make the decision about this for you, but I can tell you that it's valid to think about, and feel free to process your feelings with us. First I would look into whether you very suddenly "became aromantic" (if I can use that phrase) and if that distressed you. Doctors use very sudden distressing changes as symptoms of disorders. Like, sudden loss of interest in things you once enjoyed, for example. That's not necessarily a be-all end-all method, especially because flux identities exist, but it's a start. Next, I'd try to imagine where the mental illness(es) and orientation overlap. Are they completely overlapping and seem more like the same thing? Or do they have parts that are independent from each other? What about being aro makes sense to you, and do only the parts that fit with your mental illness(es) make sense? Hope that helps a bit. Being aro is separate from being mentally ill, but unfortunately, with stigmatization against both existing, the experiences and 'symptoms' can overlap sometimes.

My fellow non-binary peeps, genderqueer folks, and others who don't feel they fit the conventional "man/woman" or "girl/boy" dichotomy, I have a question. The other day I was with a friend of mine who I have recently come out to as non-binary/genderqueer. We were gossiping about something, and she wanted to use a very exaggerated "GIRLLLL" to refer to me. She self-corrected to "BOYYYY" and then had a funny little confused expression before she blurted out "Fabulous human?! Extraterrestrial???" At the time it was hilarious, but it got the both of us thinking. Is there a short form equivalent to "boy" or "girl" for non-binary people? I know that "enby" has been suggested in the past, but some people dislike its cutesy undertones. Furthermore, it's two syllables, while "boy" and "girl" are very easy to draw out in an overly dramatic way because they are single-syllable words (like in "Oh my God, GIRLLL" or "Boyyyy, that was amazing!"). "Dude" is something some people use as gender-neutral (myself included), but it carries a slightly different connotation. Also, it is not universally viewed as gender-neutral. Is there anyone working on this someone here could point me to, or even some ideas from the crowd? Sometimes I want to be dramatic, and both I and my friends stumble over simple gendered words. (The same happens with words like "QUEEN" and "Princess," but those are perhaps separate, albeit related, issues.)

One thousand eight hundred and thirty-two! This was a great way for me to review how to write out large numbers lol

Amatonormativity~~~~ I grew up with a lot of that kind of narrative. Marriage as an established norm, and basically a "normal" stage in adult development, akin to learning to talk and walk as a baby. I never questioned it until my parents started asking me, "Sooo have you got a boyfriend yet??" It definitely is frustrating because people who aren't married are often viewed as selfish or aloof. However, I have noticed recently that more and more people have been treating marriage as just a ritual. There are people who don't want to have a grand marriage ceremony (a coworker of mine said she and her husband just eloped - signed papers and stuff). I also know that there are more people I have heard of recently than I had when I was younger who are getting married for the benefits, not for the 'love' or whatever it was supposed to be for. That definitely isn't the norm yet, but I feel like some of the Millennial generation and younger is popularizing more flexible unions and slowly stretching societal norms. So there's hope!

@Tired-Sparo I absolutely love how you simultaneously called out Man imposing his definitions and structures onto nature, but also used a manmade idea, i.e., the ballroom, to characterize and describe nature. It very clearly shows that although the narrator is wary of staying past their welcome and claiming nature, they are still beholden to Man's ideals and assumptions and ingrained notions that one must always see through human eyes. It's like an acknowledgement of bias that was taught to the narrator and can't ever fully be erased. Just a lovely poem, thank you for sharing

I was replaying DmC: Devil May Cry recently and I had some Ideas. Dante as an aro allo would make so much sense. I often see people shipping him and Kat, which I find annoying at romantic and sexual levels, but I also see them as potentially a QPR? In fact, a lot of their interactions are how I picture a QPR to unfold. It's now canon in my head. Furthermore, I headcanon Dante in pretty much all the other DMC games (that I've played) as aro. Vergil as aro ace (or demi). I just get the Aro Vibe from him. He doesn't seem interested in pursuing any relationships beyond familial and platonic (and alliances). I reckon he'd want a lot more commitment and development with a person, getting to know them, before pursuing a relationship. I'm not sure if that would also mean attraction - I'm kind of ambivalent between completely aro and demi on this one, regardless of what I think his actions and behaviours might be.

This is a very interesting and often controversial topic. I think it's very difficult to answer but as long as we are not using our answers to justify hatred and hurting others (many anti-LGBT people claim that "becoming LGBT" would mean those people could "un-become LGBT" and they purport things like conversion therapy), it can be an interesting intra-community topic to ponder. I have my own thoughts on this but I'm not entirely committed to them simply because they're not based on concrete evidence. Just a heads up! I think that defining ourselves as particular sexualities/identities /is/ something we made up socially, as a way to group people and segment them by their differences and labels. I often see this idea that "you are born X Sexuality and don't change" being thrown around and I do not think that that is the case. Orientation and identity are fluid because we live in a social and ever-changing world, ever changing ourselves via growth and learning. I think that labels are useful descriptively but not prescriptively, meaning that I use "aro" to label my general pattern of experiences. I can still label myself "aro" if there have been exceptions to the pattern, but I find it a useful label for getting across what I observe my natural tendencies to be. These natural tendencies are influenced by my state of life and being moment to moment. I may grow into a new person, personality-wise and physically, in the future so it is entirely possible that my orientation or identity may change. They also might not. But my point is that by nature these things are fluid and CAN change, whether or not they actually do. My issue with using labels prescriptively is that a lot of misunderstandings and self-hatred arise this way. If i call myself "aro" but this ONE TIME i experience something different, am i suddenly no longer aro? Even if i never experience that difference again? Am i supposed to act like a non-aro now? What does that even mean? Saying someone is born a certain way makes it seem like that person has to fit a box with rules and if they don't, they have to find another box. This isn't very inclusive to me. So to answer the original question, I don't think we are "born aro" or the like, but i also don't think that breaking orientation down into "nature or nurture" is in any way a productive conversation. It's like asking whether we're born with or acquire certain personalities. I don't think that orientation is simple enough a concept to be broken down in this simple way. Orientation, to me, is something that can change (naturally, not necessarily by influence, as conversion therapy failures show us time and again), but can also stay the same. Orientation isn't completely immune to change, but it isn't something that can be externally changed, just like personality. We grow and change, so parts of our identities also have the potential to. Hope that makes sense. This is a good topic, thanks for starting it.

I would rather go to a wedding for free food than spend the money to get married myself

@not_my_standard_username It was up for a bit, but invites were closed recently due to influx of unwanted accounts i think. I'm not a mod but I think @Zemaddog will have more info. Stay tuned!

Same issue here; I'd love to join and see what shenanigans people are up to if there's room