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Aro + Asian?


arolectriclady

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Just wondering if there are any other Asian American or Asian aros on here. What's your experience been like? For me, my parents are pretty liberal compared to other Asian parents. As a woman, I did not grow up with the pressure to get married nor were my parents super strict about dating. Their openness actually made me wonder what was stopping me from pursuing romance since I did not have them to blame for "holding me back." 

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  • 6 months later...

I'm Vietnamese! My dad is pretty conservative, and he used to be very uptight and strict about not dating until after college when I was younger. I feel like I should have felt restricted, but I honestly didn't want to date at all. I chalked it up to just being too young to want that kind of stuff. I figured that when I became older, maybe I'd be more rebellious and sneaky and want to date?  I guess? When I did get older, though, he became significantly more lax, which honestly threw me for a 180. At that point, like you, it made me start to wonder what exactly was holding me back, since he wasn't anymore. All of my friends began to experiment and date and I just. Didn't want to, I guess. When my friend came out as ace, I started looking into ace resources and forums and found out about aromanticism. 

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I am a Korean Canadian aroace! Both my parents tell me and my siblings that they are open to LGBTQ+, and they somwhat are, compared to most Korean parents. But it is quite visible that my dad is pretty repulsive with the idea of one of me or my siblings being queer (lol dad, too late) or even interacting with queer people in real life. My mom tries to be supportive to LGBTQ+ people but she still says some ignorant stuff. I actually came out to my mom as aroace by accident, and even though she said a lot of ignorant words she said she will support me no matter my sexual/romantic orientation. Frankly, I don't think she really grasped the concept of aro/ace, and kinda gave me that "aren't you too young to be deciding that stuff"/"maybe you might find THE ONE"/"who knows, your romantic & sexual orientation might change in the future" talk, but well at least she's trying.

 

But still, to be honest I feel pretty stressed living with my family... My dad claims to be liberal but he is actually pretty conservative, and kinda forces the idea of dating and getting married to a nice Korean guy onto me even though I repeatedly said I don't want to get married, not ever in my life. And it really stresses the hell out of me. He is a stereotypical Asian dad kind of dad, and my siblings are no different. I don't even want to come out as aroace to my other family members cuz they will say some mean stuff without meaning to hurt me, or just think it as a phase, but I will be hurt nevertheless. It sounds pretty depressing but at least I'm off to college next year so I'm looking forward to that!

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  • 5 months later...

I'm a Chinese aroace. My parents aren't against the LGBTQ+ community, but they don't understand it and they don't really care. My mum is super fixated on me getting married to a boy, and even though I've tried to tell her that I don't want to get married without telling her I'm aromantic, she won't listen to me. It's pretty frustrating because I know that it would take a lot of time and explaining to get my mum to understand, and even then I don't know if she'll support me (and my extended family aren't much better either)

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16 hours ago, accioaroace said:

I'm a Chinese aroace. My parents aren't against the LGBTQ+ community, but they don't understand it and they don't really care. My mum is super fixated on me getting married to a boy, and even though I've tried to tell her that I don't want to get married without telling her I'm aromantic, she won't listen to me. It's pretty frustrating because I know that it would take a lot of time and explaining to get my mum to understand, and even then I don't know if she'll support me (and my extended family aren't much better either)

honestly same. i'm chinese and identify as aroace. even though i'm still in the closet, i've still made it very blatant that i'm not interested in dating. i don't dare say i'm not going to get married or have kids anymore; i mentioned it once and both my mom and my dad flipped out. it was so unnerving because my dad is - or was - usually easygoing, and as soon as i commented, "i don't want to have kids," he went on the offensive and told me very firmly, "you have to have children." to me. his daughter.

my mom is a huge romantic. she thinks that having kids and starting a family is the happiest thing i can do - which is really, really ironic since she and my dad fight all the time. whenever i try to subtly say, "i'm not interested in dating," she just passes it off as "oh, you haven't met 'Mr. Right' yet!". she expects me to get married when i grow up once i find my 'soulmate'. 

my parents are also avid trump supporters. which is the main reason why i'm so afraid to come out.

but it really makes me happy to know that i'm not alone in this boat (asian and aro/aroace) anymore!

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I am asian-european and my family is quite open and lax about most things. Since I've never been in a relationship even thought I'm in my early 20ies I have had to put up with the somewhat comforting  but awkward "It's okay if you are gay, you can tell us" talk from my little sister. I only recently realised I'm aroace and haven't told them yet since I live on my own.

Apart from my family I guess people always just asumed I didnt date because I was too picky or too focused on my studies. Other parents may have credited my asian heritage for that but I'm not quite sure how it all intersects. I believe it to be possible that, as half asian, people dont think as much of the fact that I've been single forever as they might do with german friends and they just asume it's connected to a presumed garded and reseved upbringing. Well whatever I dont really care what randoms think and my closest friends know about me being aroace (tho they dont all reeeeeally understand it)

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  • 4 months later...

My mum had 30+ to see how utterly unsutble I am as aro. I think she would have preferred me as allo but she can deal with it. I have no contact with the sperm donor for 17 years, best decision I ever made. I'm sure he is still mad that I'm not stuck in a marriage where I'm raped and beaten by a man all day, but hey too bad the world don't revolve around what he wants. 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm Viet! My parents swear they're not phobic, but the idea of me being queer is unwelcome to them. So, I'm not out in terms of sexuality. But I've dropped major hints (aka outing myself during my wisdom teeth surgery) about being aro, but I dont think they understood. But I honestly think they'll experience less stigma about the aro part.

As a kid, they were super strict on dating. I told my cousin that I thought a boy was cute (literally just physically attractive) in kindergarten! She told my parents that I had a boyfriend. Not only did I have to break up with someone I was never seeing (He literally did not know I existed, and I think they talked to his parents too. LOL.), but they forbade me from dating theoretically till end of college. Which obviously was not a problem for me since I never wanted to date anyone. I just assumed that I was too young. But I watched as all my friends started entering relationships, and my parents quickly realised that too. Suddenly the conversation became, "We're not forbidding you to date! We just want you to be safe and studious!" but lmao. sike.

 

ya girl is aro, so...insert awkward peace signs!

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I'm Hapa. The white side is estranged for good reason because they're all white supremacists, some while also being/having been chasers, which that's about colonisation of POC bodies, so it's a thing. Point is, they were never much of a factor in my life, so I don't really even connect with the Italian side... 

Anyway, well, my Japanese side was really tiny. My dad always wanted a son, for multiple reasons including carrying on the family, but not limited to. He always treated me like both genders, so I actually knew how to shave and stuff when I transitioned. And I think in the end, he'd've been really happy about that. 

I think he'd've then tried to match me up or push me to find a trans woman. Like my ex-wife. Except maybe also at least some part Japanese (I mean I'm already mixed, so who knows?) I'm very happy I didn't make any kids that had to have her as a mother. Vile, vile person. I'm not the only person I know that thinks that.

Anyway, I don't think he'd've been thrilled about this, but frankly, even if T did nothing to the uterus, I'm over the age it's easy or recommended to have kids, so I don't know if it'd even matter to him at this point. 

I can say that recently, I'm looking for a place that isn't a dilapidated dump full of violent bigots. I was at this place in Chinatown that folded because of Covid, a job search place, but she was trying to help me find an apartment. (No joy. SF Bay Area) Her husband had a brother who was married to a Japanese woman. This woman had a single sister, and she tried to get me interested three times. 

I so wasn't, but it didn't bother me 100% even though it was unwanted because it kinda reminded me of my dad talking about me carrying on the family and I just miss having a dad. He wasn't the best person, but he was a pretty good dad.

and also, being mixed, I'm no stranger to running into (more women than men as far as Asian) people who One-Drop Rule me out. I often say"when you're mixed, you're 100% whatever the person in front of you likes less/hates more/considers their outgroup." (Except Asian immigrant men don't do this to me, and Latines often in-group me until I have to tell them I'm not which is always a bit sad because, again, always outgrouped and I finally got ingrouped) 

So, yeah, that was... I had mixed feelings, wasn't entirely negative, even though I did *not* want to be steered into a date. If it was a common thing, though, it would drive me up the wall and I'd become avoidant. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

A bit late to the thread, but I'm a Chinese-American college student. My parents strongly frowned upon highschool relationships which weirdly enough didn't bother me at all. My parents are massively homophobic and transphobic but weirdly enough they don't care about the fact that I've never dated before and I'm not interested in relationships. However, they don't know anything about aromanticism so they just think I'm too busy to date people (I'm a physics major, that's probably why). However, my parents do want me to get married after college but I think marriage is a fucking scam. There's nothing appealing about being forced to live in the same house with the person you both argue and sleep with every day.

Honestly though, with the coronavirus pandemic I'm paranoid that the world hates my guts because I'm both Chinese and American. As a POC autistic trans woman I'm also confident that the Trump administration hates my guts too. Weirdly enough, I feel like being aroace makes it relatively easy for me to live through the pandemic. I never really feel any desire for physical contact with other humans, and I'm extremely non-social (I would argue that I have schizoid/paranoid/avoidant personality disorders but that's a discussion for another time) so it's always an easy decision to sit on my ass inside my house every day.

I dunno, I feel extremely alienated in general. I don't identify with either American (too individualistic and consumerist) or Chinese (too authoritarian and traditionalist) cultures because both cultures are nightmarishly transphobic and ableist (at least to me).

Edited by Iron_Maiden
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  • 10 months later...
On 8/9/2020 at 2:33 PM, Iron_Maiden said:

I dunno, I feel extremely alienated in general. I don't identify with either American (too individualistic and consumerist) or Chinese (too authoritarian and traditionalist) cultures because both cultures are nightmarishly transphobic and ableist (at least to me)

Exactly! In the US, I don't feel I have as much connection to other cultures, and when I try it just feels like appropriation or that I'm faking it even though I am from that culture. I don't think there's one country that has every good ideal nailed down, but you don't have to conform to every single aspect of it. Traditions change with time, and hopefully a more open community can be created in the future. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm Chinese-American and I empathized with a lot of the issues brought up in the last few posts, it hasn't been an easy couple of years for the community, even aside from the question of orientation. Iron_Maiden, I know it's been almost a year since you posted, and I hope things have been ok for you in the meantime.

I've been fortunate that my parents are supportive of my decision not to have kids (which was honestly pretty surprising), although I am not sure they'd understand what aromanticism is. Around family I just act "married to my job" and like my career is more important than anything which at least seems to be acceptable for now.

My main worry for now is that as my parents are getting older they wish I had a partner so that 1. I don't have to do everything by myself (I'm fine with it though) and 2. they'd have someone to help them around the house or in an emergency (since I'm not very physically strong, and Chinese people expect a lot from their son-in-law in general). I'm not really sure what to say to that. I do not want a QPR as I don't think I will ever like anyone that much even platonically. I guess I should count myself lucky for being financially stable though.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

This exists!  \(°o°)/

 

Chinese-American, if anything my parents seem to be encouraging me to get into a relationship (im kinda young btw)...

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I'm from Hong Kong, and I just made an account to reply to this! Been lurking a bit here without an account for a while, but I figured that I should share my experiences as well. My parents were also very liberal and open-minded about lgbt. They thought I was a lesbian when I was a kid because I never mentioned any crushes or anything. They kept thinking that for a while and dropping hints that they'd be fine with a girlfriend after I came out as aroace... 

Did anybody else who came out to their parents been met with a lot of confusion? Because I got the feeling that as westernized as they were, growing up in a British colony, they still had the notion of marriage as a life-long commitment of mutual support instead of the result of romantic or sexual attraction, because my dad still tries to convince me to get into dating on the basis of "what will you do when you get old" or "who will take care of you if you get sick" etc. (I don't know, die? Who wants to live forever anyways?) My mom just tries not to talk about it but she seemed to warm up a bit more to me being aroace after I got her to watch Heartstopper s2. (Aroace rep, yes! So grateful to Alice Oseman and the Heartstopper cast.) 

These days they're trying to wrap their heads around me being non-binary. It helps that we don't use gendered pronouns in spoken Cantonese and that I've always been averse to being particularly masculine or feminine since I was a kid, and they've given up on grandkids for a looong time. 

Sometimes they think that it's because I'm young (which I admittedly am, but I suppose two decades and uni is more than enough time to have at least a single crush, or even a best friend- which still haven't happened). They also had this 'no dating until uni' rule, which made my dad's whole 'you need to find a life partner' speech really out of the left field for me. Actually, they surprised me with the rule, because dating had never even crossed my brain and I was very surprised to find out that my classmates had been dating for years by the time we graduated secondary, lol. 

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I am Chinese and only recently came to terms with being greyromantic but I still am pretty confused about where I fall on the asexuality spectrum because while sexual attraction is not completely absent in my life, I don't feel it very often and when I do, I feel exhausted with the perception it is a primal urge and I don't feel like bothering to do anything about it.

My parents had and still have some very traditional heteronormative ways of saying or looking at things that were extremely emotionally and mentally damaging to me from an early age. I remember being 11 years old and being scolded for misbehaving and was given a lecture about needing to grow up so I could take care of my own children one day. I got a lot of these kind of bullshit lectures where they spoke to me as if it was a universal predestined concept that I was exclusively interested in marrying a man one day and having his children. How many times I got an earful of, "When you become a parent one day, you will understand." Even their attempt at "helping me" understand why I was beginning puberty through menstruating was for them to say it was a necessary pain all women had to go through. Wtf? I still find myself repulsed at times with the gendered helplessness my mother allows herself to live by as someone who seems to unable to separate her individual identity from her marriage and dependency on my father. She is a victim of the trappings of amatonormativity.

They have never pressured me to find a partner and seem to understand I am a solitary person who doesn't mind being alone and spending time alone. We never talk about me having children and I don't bring up the topic either. But a few years back when I was in my early 20's, I was disgusted upon learning my mother tried to set me up with one of her colleagues' sons, without even asking for my consent beforehand. 

I doubt I will ever "come out" to them. Their English is not very good, and that is a serious barrier in communicating these concepts to them. They barely understand people who don't identify as non-heterosexual and in several past instances they've made some unkind and ignorant comments about people's sexual and gender orientations, so I can't imagine they would understand romantic orientation either. Personally I don't need them to know the specifics. I'm fine with them believing I'm just not interested in anyone because I enjoy my freedom without a partner and/or children. 

Edited by Raininspring
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5 hours ago, Raininspring said:

Their English is not very good, and that is a serious barrier in communicating these concepts to them

I relate. I have to teach teach them english every so often.

 

and they are like, 4 times older then me

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I'm Indian and my dad thinks he's open-minded and such, but he's not really. When I was closeted, I'd mention something about the lgbt community or I'd wear my rainbow pin and he'd be like "You should focus on school, teenagers are too young to think about sexuality". My mom is just plain homophobic/transphobic. You know how we have those moments when we're closeted and arguing with our parents about lgbt rights and they're like "Why do you care so much?" and we just freeze and stop talking? It happened one too many times and I just got tired of it. So that was how I came out a few weeks ago. My dad kept telling me that wearing my pin only makes the queer community feel MORE ostracized. So I told them, "I'm literally part of the lgbt community. I'm aromantic. That's why I wear my pins." and my dad didn't bring it up because I guess he's chill with me identifying as aro/queer, he just wants me to put it aside and focus on school. Understandable, but I can't just ignore an integral part of myself. My mom just. Stopped talking to me. For two weeks (though it felt more like two months, I'm not even kidding, I checked a calendar and nearly got whiplash from turning my head to the invisible camera) she just gave me the silent treatment. My friends told me to give it time. But she started talking to me NOT because she came around and accepted me, but because she basically forced me to agree that I wouldn't talk about being lgbt in front of anyone ever (too late though, I've been out to a few of my teachers and most of my friends/classmates for years). I agreed because I'm hella traumatized and can't stand the silent treatment.

Over the years she always said things like "When you get married and have kids etc etc" and I always wanted to claw at my skin, even before I knew I was aroace. I just felt so exposed and unlike myself. Indian parents always push that expectation of getting married and having kids onto us without ever considering the possibility that not everyone wants that. When I came out, it was weird. My mom was chill that I'm aro, but as soon as I say I'm lgbt, she's like "why do you have to do this?" Do what? Exist? She's fine with me not being attracted to anyone, but she doesn't like it when I wear my aroace and rainbow pins because "Our family's reputation!!" Problem is, I don't give a shit about reputation. Which basically goes against Indian parents' mindset. So you can see why I feel like a bit of a huge disappointment. 

I feel like being aroace means you don't have that much of a "bad rep" compared to other queers like gay ppl or trans ppl. At least, that was my experience growing up with Indian parents. I'm not into boys, which means I won't date them. I'm not into girls, which means I'm not gay (which is a relief to my homophobic mother). Being aro means I can focus on school. So then it's hard for me to say I identify as LGBT because then they're hit with that realization moment of "Oh, right. She's one of them." Hell, my younger brother has even told me I'm not LGBT because not being attracted to anyone "doesn't count" and that every kid feels this way. For reference, he's in middle school and I'm in high school. I've identified as aroace for a good four years now. My brother didn't know what the lgbt community meant until I explained it to him about a month ago. He acts like he's a total expert, and it's so satisfying to humble him. But anyways, I feel like I sorta dodged a bullet by being aroace instead of gay or genderqueer.

And I can guarantee that if my mom knew what the word queer meant and the history behind it, she would definitely use it against me as a slur. I mentioned that I might very likely have ADHD and she started calling me "ADHD girl" as if that were the funniest thing in the world. So I wouldn't put it past her to call me queer as a slur.

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