Orientation Modeling

[Magni]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Then you are invited to ask me some direct questions to which I can provide direct answers, because I don't know where to start unless you give me a starting point. In that post, for instance, I've talked some about where "SAM" came from and how it's been reclaimed. I've talked some about where applying that SAM/non-SAM binary to people doesn't work. I've talked some about my thoughts on how we can do better. What part can I help you with?

 

Answers is good if able to be brief? Like....I generally want the bulleted list/power point/TLDR version.  

 

• Yeah idk origins of SAM and what you mean about it being reclaimed
• Honestly I don't even understand why there is a "SAM/non-SAM binary", much less what's wrong with it.
• How do you even define the SAM? I think I kinda use it as listing both romantic and sexual orientation....idk if that's even a correct definition or what other ways people have been using it because apparently there's multiple definitions

 

Sidenote: You edited the original post and like....I'd strongly suggest paragraph breaks? And maybe some sort of summarizing title? I could barely process it before and now it's even longer and harder to read.  Hmmm....as I said, distancing from terms makes sense.  However, it seems like....terms are replaced with complicated definitions which makes everything longer and more confusing?

 

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Honestly the #1 way to make community discussion more accessible would be to stop having so disproportionately much of it happen exclusively on Tumblr, but I digress.

I disagree, I think tumblr makes it easier for people to at least gain access to discussions.  Overall, I think the best thing is using multiple platforms but tying them together more.  I won't elaborate here; I'm working on making a new topic/thread about how to facilitate communication/accessibility for community discussions in general.

 

 

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

I don't care how new or old it is. My thinking is -- and this may be too strong of a comparison, but -- calling some attractions "tertiary" feels a little like calling a nonbinary person "third gender." It inherently implies a first and second for there to be a third. That represents basically the exact same centering of romance and sexuality that I want to call into question here.

I think tertiary has a different connotation than third? Third is more order/rank....I don't consider tertiary to be ranked?  (I tried to explain this with color analogy)....I think I perceive it more as being a third layer in the sense it is less visible but also more detailed.  And my point about age was that....in the interest of clear communication, you shouldn't just throw out an established term without replacing it AND having the new proposed term be at least somewhat agreed upon?  Tertiary has been established thus I will use it unless I've been convinced there's a better term and/or the overall community adopts a new term.  

 

However, we should stop debating this here; I made a new post for discussing tertiary attraction in general .  In the meantime, I'll use tertiary attraction as relevant in this discussion and you can use what you want, but we need not debate/critique it here further.

 

[Prismatangle]

5 hours ago, Magni said:

I feel like y'all are under the impression tertiary attractions is a new term? It's been around for a while just not necessarily mainstream...but it is fairly established.  So, it's already been adopted? That doesn't mean it can't be changed, but it does kinda affect the way it is discussed.

 

Heh, well. I'm sorry to inform you that I... don't exactly have a great track record on accepting terms just because they've been "established" for a while. I, uh... I can't remember the last time I wrote a post that wasn't critiquing some kind of norm or term that has started getting itself established. I guess I'm an Agitator. ?

 

5 hours ago, Magni said:

Also I don't like R/S because the abbreviated form is long and has letters instead of words....also it kinda reminds me of a ship name?

 

Okay, so you don't like the R/S because of the slash and because it's not a word. How about RoSe then? Cute and confusing! Just like SAM! ?

 

(I'm just joking around, btw. I hope it doesn't bother you!)

 

5 hours ago, Magni said:

Also while the types of attraction might not necessarily go together for everyone, they can? For me I have a mess of attraction which I tend to call platonic/queerplatonic for simplicity but really it is a confusing mix of sensual and alterous and stuff (I'm demi-something so I only want to be affectionate to someone I feel emotionally close too).  

 

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that they can't possibly go together! I just don't like that they're grouped under this term as if they go together for everyone.

 

5 hours ago, Magni said:

Also I don't think it implies they're lesser? Like....colors.  Light/yellow green would be a tertiary color but that doesn't make it lesser? It more indicates it's less visible/less talked about?  Like...most people might just say "oh it's green", and while there's technically a true precise green that's a secondary color, most greens are tertiary colors.  So it's more we're...actively acknowledging the more nuanced things that most people tend to ignore and just lump with romantic or sexual or just not acknowledge at all?  It's not less important, it's just more specific and less commonly talked about.

 

I really don't like the color analogy either, actually, because even then I feel like it implies something really unfortunate. Red, Blue, and Yellow are called the primary colors because they're irreducible. They're the only colors you cannot create by mixing other colors. If, in this labeling scheme, either sexual attraction or romantic attraction (it doesn't really matter which is which for purposes of this discussion) are considered "primary attractions"... then the color analogy suggests that "secondary" and "tertiary" attractions are composed of the "primary" attractions, mixed together in different combinations. And I don't think that's what you are trying to express at all!

 

I mean, I understand what you're trying to say, I really do. But... I agree with Coyote, I do think that (regardless of whether or not you meant to do it) using a term like "tertiary attractions" centers romantic and sexual attractions, and suggests that the other kinds of attraction are peripheral. I understand that the term kinda describes the current state of affairs in the aro and ace communities, but I just feel like it reproduces and reinforces the problem, you know?

 

And to me, all that just feels SUPER wrong, so I'm sorry, I won't use that term. And I'd really appreciate it if others would please refrain from calling the attractions that I am describing tertiary, since in my experience they are, if anything, actually primary.

 

ANYWAY, I realize that this is all getting off-topic, and I don't want to keep going with that in this thread. I just thought I should respond to clear that up. @Coyote, I'm sorry for derailing!

 

EDIT: ...and of course I only saw you went ahead and made a new thread after I had already posted this. (facepalm)

[zhyrs]

1 hour ago, Magni said:

• Yeah idk origins of SAM and what you mean about it being reclaimed
• Honestly I don't even understand why there is a "SAM/non-SAM binary", much less what's wrong with it.

2

 

(apologies if I step on any toes, Coyote, but we're mostly on the same page for this)

 

I don't know how much you know of the tumblr discourse, but, basically, there's a section of folks (exclusionists) who don't feel as though asexuality and aromantism belong in the lgbt community (at best, and then it goes anywhere from 'these also are not legitimate orientations' all the way to 'these are actively harmful to the community').

"SAM" was coined by exclusionists (basically, used to shorthand the various "bad things" about the aspec community... how it "forces" everyone to separate attraction / uses homophobic slurs / doesn't understand how attraction really works / etc).

While "SAM" takes ideas that the community was already working with (separated, identifiable, attractions and mixed direction orientations) it did so with no insight or care for the history or language that the aspec community was already using.

 

Personally, I don't feel like people so much reclaimed the term as... decided to let it ride? (at this point in the discourse there were a lot of newer folks around who hadn't been around pre-discourse and, from my perspective, did not have the history of the community and so didn't object to the spread of "sam" as the term.)

 

So, now, you've got a mess, of sorts. "SAM" is heavily tied to the discourse, and with all the confusion and misinformation baggage the discourse naturally brings with it (which tends to go unseen to those who weren't there, but it makes trying to refocus difficult because you also have to explain why you want to undo things). 

Like, there's the "SAM/"SAM/non-SAM binary" because the exclusionists chose not to name the idea of having attractions that were one/worked together or having matching identities/orientations (as it doesn't really work for them to show that there was an equal option). (of course, the binary of mixed vs matched doesn't apply to everyone, but that was also a problem that the aspec community had with their language).  

 

(this is also, for me, one of the issues I have with the rise of language like tertiary attractions or oriented aroaces. these were born out of the discourse of being not allowed to continue using orientational language for attractions other than sexual or romantic, lest you be accused of being a straight invader. ...but discussions about that type of language happened years ago and the movement behind them has been wiped out.)

 

That was less succinct than I wanted. Umm...

 

tl;dr.

 

"SAM" is a bad faith and poorly understood coining that mashes up multiple concepts and ignores others. The underlining premises need to be reformed and reworked in order to move forward in any meaningful way.

[Magni]

5 minutes ago, zhyrs said:

"SAM" is a bad faith and poorly understood coining that mashes up multiple concepts and ignores others. The underlining premises need to be reformed and reworked in order to move forward in any meaningful way.

Thanks for explanations, I feel I understand better now.  I hadn't realized the link to the discourse; I generally avoided it completely and only got the echoes I suppose.  Hmm....I think my initial concept of it was based on the pre-discourse discussions, but I was generally less informed then so didn't get the nuance of it...then later saw SAM presented as the official term for that concept; thus I was generally confused by this apparent binary between SAM/non-SAM because just kinda viewed as words for describing stuff?  

 

10 minutes ago, zhyrs said:

the exclusionists chose not to name the idea of having attractions that were one/worked together or having matching identities/orientations (as it doesn't really work for them to show that there was an equal option). (of course, the binary of mixed vs matched doesn't apply to everyone, but that was also a problem that the aspec community had with their language).

Kinda confused by this....hmmm, (simplified) matched would mean same prefix vs. mixed means different prefix.  Uh...was there ever terminology for describing these ideas(matching identies/orientations etc.)?  Examples of individual labels generally makes things more clear to me.  Would aroace be similar?  as singular term conveying matching/overlapped identities.

 

Hmmm....is there some nuanced difference to how y'all are using orientation/identity vs. attraction?  I tend to perceive orientation/identity as being defined based on attraction.  Our you using orientation and identity as having specific strong differences?

 

22 minutes ago, zhyrs said:

, one of the issues I have with the rise of language like tertiary attractions or oriented aroaces. these were born out of the discourse of being not allowed to continue using orientational language for attractions other than sexual or romantic

I am unfamiliar with this background/do not perceive it that way.  From my perspective, different types of attraction have been specifically defined which makes them easier to identify and understand.  For example, figuring out that aesthetic attraction is a separate thing helped small-me actually figure out that I'm ace (and aro), because had previously perceived all types of attraction as a singular thing. 

 

I've seen tertiary attraction used as umbrella term for this group of lesser-known attractions (that can be discussed more in other thread I made).  It seems like oriented aroace kinda smushes the different tertiary attractions back together into general descriptor & then combined with aroace identity?  So I don't see how these terms are themselves problematic? Though I'm also confused what you mean by "orientational language".

 

 

[zhyrs]

2 hours ago, Magni said:

Uh...was there ever terminology for describing these ideas(matching identies/orientations etc.)?  Examples of individual labels generally makes things more clear to me.  Would aroace be similar?  as singular term conveying matching/overlapped identities.

 

It's like your traditional orientations. Gay, straight, etc. Like if you say you're bisexual most people won't ask what your romantic orientation is because it's assumed that your attraction is matched (or that there's no different attractions). I, personally, wrong consider it like aroace, but more like saying asexual and having people assume that you have no attraction, full stop.

 

2 hours ago, Magni said:

Hmmm....is there some nuanced difference to how y'all are using orientation/identity vs. attraction?  I tend to perceive orientation/identity as being defined based on attraction.  Our you using orientation and identity as having specific strong differences?

 

I'd say... attraction can lead to, or be a defining component of, someone's orientation and/or identity, but some people can have an orientation or identity that factors in things rather than (or strongly in addition to) their attraction. I used orientation and identity here interchangeably, but the may be a difference for other folks.

 

3 hours ago, Magni said:

From my perspective, different types of attraction have been specifically defined which makes them easier to identify and understand.  For example, figuring out that aesthetic attraction is a separate thing helped small-me actually figure out that I'm ace (and aro), because had previously perceived all types of attraction as a singular thing. 

 

This is true and this happened pre-discourse.

 

3 hours ago, Magni said:

It seems like oriented aroace kinda smushes the different tertiary attractions back together into general descriptor & then combined with aroace identity?  So I don't see how these terms are themselves problematic? Though I'm also confused what you mean by "orientational language".

 

Yeah, I think that's generally what's going on with oriented aroace. The terms themselves aren't problematic, per se, but more the environment in which they arose. Pre-discourse we were working on being able to describe being, say, biplatonic or homosensual or whatever, as a way to tailor orientations, and pick and choose what bits are important. This type of orientational language was mocked out of the community, partially because of the idea that romantic and sexual attraction were the only real or important attractions (for orientation use). You end up with, like, "tertiary attraction" being, sort of, fruit of the poisonous tree. 

[Apathetic Echidna]

18 hours ago, luvtheheaven said:

Now I'm going to go off on a tangent but I mean even in terms of a friendship conversation, there is a difference between who I openly label a friend and who I internally think of a friend i guess. Like the difference between internal orientation and external orientation labeling. There is a ton of overlap so a lot of times they are basically the same thing, my friends and the people I claim as friends when using language with other humans in my life lol. But also. There are differences too. 

To continue your tangent in the tiniest of ways: Yes, this is a good metaphor for sort of how I see it too. I have a post with a table somewhere in the SAM thread  

 

14 hours ago, Coyote said:

Welcome. ;D They should give me some kind of recruitment award lol. 

yeah, go you! bringing all the heavy conceptual thinkers over here (I hope that is an all right term to refer to pretty much everyone posing) Have some Ice-cream! 

 

On 3/24/2019 at 4:20 AM, Coyote said:

[work in progress, edited 3/24]

Yup, Still understand. Still identify my experience with #3 description. Can't think of much else to add because I find these sensible and within my experience and (albeit shallow online) interactions. Though one thing I will say is for some reason I read this 3/24 as the third iteration in a total of 24 possible edits. Brain fail.  

[Mark]

Something which I think complicates any model are terms like grey, demi, lithro/akoiro/apro, cupio, sappho, etc.
Which work as 'adjectives' or 'modifiers'. Outside of ace and aro communities many of these terms are rarely used.
 

On 3/24/2019 at 1:42 AM, Magni said:

I do experience tertiary attractions (platonic/sensual/alterous etc.) which are significant enough for me to want to label, but I feel like tertiary types of attraction might be better suited to a different discussion/model because that's a whole lot of other stuff; I think there needs to be more terminology developed surrounding tertiary attractions/orientations in general. Also, I get the impression part of the underlying conflict is that people who don't use the SAM resent the expectation for them to label both their romantic and sexual attraction, but there isn't really an expectation for people to label tertiary attraction.

I've not come across the term 'tertiary attractions" before.
It seems somewhat at odds with the way 'primary' and 'secondary' are used in connection to demi.

[Coyote]

15 hours ago, Magni said:

• Yeah idk origins of SAM and what you mean about it being reclaimed
• Honestly I don't even understand why there is a "SAM/non-SAM binary", much less what's wrong with it.

 

• The origins of the term "SAM" are explained in the first bulleted list in the post, where I give a timeline of how it came about.
• Short version: it came from people who wanted to criticize ace language, like the idea of romantic orientation.
• In answer to that, some tumblr aces and aros started using it in a new and completely different way.
• This new way involved sorting people into "people who use SAM" and "people who don't use the SAM."
• This way of sorting is completely binary, by definition (you either do or you don't).
• I gave some examples of how that binary can break down.
• If you buy the idea that it's a bad binary, you don't need to read the examples.
• If you don't get what I mean by calling it a bad binary, the part to look at is this part:

Quote

Here are five narratives to complicate the “SAM”/”non-SAM” binary. Note that in this post I’m using “orientation” to refer to a way of conceptualizing and describing raw experience, not the raw experience itself. Read through the list and see if you can determine who out of these hypothetical narratives would belong in which category.

1. Flint experiences multiple kinds of attraction and labels ixself in terms of one orientation. Ix orientation is gray-asexual, and ix does not think of ixself as having any other orientations than that. Flint finds it useful to differentiate among types of physical attraction — such as aesthetic, sensual, and sexual — as distinct experiences, and ix places a high importance on the language necessary to make this distinction. However, ix does not use multiple sets of orientation labels to go with every type of attraction ix does or does not experience. Ix soley self-describes as gray-asexual.
    
2. Ven experiences multiple kinds of attraction and and has multiple labels for what he prefers to think of as one orientation. He is gray-asexual, and he also self-describes as grayromantic. He understands these to be a part of one singular, integrated orientation, rather than simply a “matched set” of two different ones, because for him that is how it is experienced. This makes it uncomfortable to him that the two communities are split accordingly, and in that context, he would prefer to have language to express that for him, his orientation is felt as all one singular whole. While he does experience aesthetic attraction which he recognizes as distinct from romantic or sexual feelings, he strongly feels that romance & sexuality are not separate for him.
    
3. Alex experiences one kind of attraction and self-describes with three different orientation labels. Their romantic orientation is aromantic, their sexual orientation is asexual, and their sensual orientation is demisensual. They experience these as three distinct identities and find aromantic the most salient of the three, although they also find sensual orientation language to be very important to them. The one type of attraction that they experience is sensual attraction, not differentiated from anything else in their own experience (because it is the only kind they actually feel) but nonetheless distinguished from how their society generally talks about attraction, which tends to be alienating to them as an aro ace.
    
4. Luna experiences one type of attraction and self-describes in terms of one orientation. For Luna, the concepts of “romance” and “sexuality” are too frustrating to apply to herself one way or another, and so, if pressed, she’ll self-label as both quoisexual and quoiromantic to express that she does not find romantic or sexual orientation to be useful ideas. The one type of attraction she is sure she experiences and relates to in a useful way is some type of maybe-platonic-maybe-not emotional attraction. She is interested in exploring labels such as biplatonic or bialterous, and while she hasn’t settled on a particular label just yet, this is what she thinks of as being her orientation. Making sure that people are clear on & understand the differences between this orientation and a romantic or sexual orientation is what’s most important to her about conveying this aspect of her experience.
    
5. Mal experiences no attraction and describes their orientation with two different labels, as a way of expressing a connection to two communities. They identify primarily as asexual, but in the past they also identified more with bisexuality, and they continue to do so today. Although they do not have a romantic orientation and do not identify as anything “-romantic,” they continue to feel like a part of the bi community and relate to “bisexual” as an important part of their identity for expressing their openness to & personal history of partnering with people of more than one gender. For them, this does not describe two different “types” of orientation, along distinct romantic/sexual axes. Rather, for them this counts as “one” orientational identity — an identity they think of as being “beyond the gay/straight binary” — and they simply have two names for it.

Which of these people are “SAM” and “non-SAM”?

 

I'll also address this other bullet point briefly, and can explain more if you want--

 

15 hours ago, Magni said:

• How do you even define the SAM? I think I kinda use it as listing both romantic and sexual orientation....

 

Examples of two different definitions I have seen are "naming romantic orientation separate from sexual orientation" (like you said) and "differentiating between types of attraction in general" (w/o anything to do with naming orientations themselves). In practice this causes communication problems when the two are treated as the exact same thing. I can provide further examples of this upon request.

 

15 hours ago, Magni said:

However, it seems like....terms are replaced with complicated definitions which makes everything longer and more confusing? 

 

It's a work in progress.

 

15 hours ago, Magni said:

I disagree, I think tumblr makes it easier for people to at least gain access to discussions. 

 

You've got to be kidding me.

 

What definition of "easier" and "access" are you working off of here? Tumblr, the notoriously poorly designed platform which doesn't even allow direct guest commenting? You're calling that place flatly "easier for people to gain access" at? Are you just under the impression that "easier for you personally" equals "easier for everyone," or what? Are you spitting in my face intentionally, or have I just been too subtle about the fact that I could write an entire post on the downsides/detriments/problems with Tumblr as a community hub & was only keeping things concise solely because you asked me not to write so much?

 

Look, Magni, I'm trying to be considerate with you in spite of us coming from apparently very different perspectives, preferences, and priorities. Are you willing to meet me halfway here, or is the fact that I feel dismissed and personally insulted at this the exact outcome you intended for?

 

Quote

Overall, I think the best thing is using multiple platforms but tying them together more. 

 

I think using multiple platforms is something that makes sense in some cases, yes. No one place should be the exclusive hub of everything.

 

15 hours ago, Magni said:

I think tertiary has a different connotation than third?

 

It may have additional connotations to you, but it does literally mean third. And I do mean "literally" in the true and exact sense of "literal meaning."

 

13 hours ago, Magni said:

Uh...was there ever terminology for describing these ideas(matching identies/orientations etc.)?

 

Yes! ...Sort of. I didn't see it get used a lot. But the words were "peri-oriented" and "vari-oriented." They are mentioned some in the comments here and here.

 

______

 

 

13 hours ago, zhyrs said:

"SAM" was coined by exclusionists

 

Technically I think that may be anachronistic. They weren't "exclusionists" yet (in that I don't think people were using that term yet), and not all of them were on that "side." I'm saying this because I actually know one of those early users (who even did some of the research for my blogposts!), and she's pretty chill; we've had some pretty interesting discussions about asexuality & bisexuality together. I could introduce you to her, if you like. She didn't appreciate me characterizing the term as "coined to criticize aces," even, although I still think that's basically a decent summary (albeit oversimplified). Point being: I think it's worth staying away from us-vs-them language on this. 

 

13 hours ago, zhyrs said:

While "SAM" takes ideas that the community was already working with (separated, identifiable, attractions and mixed direction orientations) it did so with no insight or care for the history or language that the aspec community was already using.

 

You can say that again. The overall dynamic feels like they scratched out our words and wrote over them. And people just let them.

 

13 hours ago, zhyrs said:

Personally, I don't feel like people so much reclaimed the term as... decided to let it ride?

 

That's true. I admit "reclamation" has certain connotations that don't perfectly fit the situation. I don't have any evidence to suggest that, at the time, it was done with any direct intention of it being reclamatory. People seemed to just... go with it.

 

Quote

(at this point in the discourse there were a lot of newer folks around who hadn't been around pre-discourse

 

lol, no language-using being is "pre-discourse." Discourse is just language.

(I know this has been re-defined too, and I have completely separate ideological objections to that.)

 

9 hours ago, zhyrs said:

13 hours ago, Magni said:

Hmmm....is there some nuanced difference to how y'all are using orientation/identity vs. attraction?  I tend to perceive orientation/identity as being defined based on attraction.  Our you using orientation and identity as having specific strong differences?

 

I'd say... attraction can lead to, or be a defining component of, someone's orientation and/or identity, but some people can have an orientation or identity that factors in things rather than (or strongly in addition to) their attraction. I used orientation and identity here interchangeably, but the may be a difference for other folks.

 

There are a lot more factors that can go into how someone thinks of their orientation, yeah. Elizabeth has told me she is working on a post to explain more about this.

 

_______

 

 

7 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

yeah, go you! bringing all the heavy conceptual thinkers over here (I hope that is an all right term to refer to pretty much everyone posing) Have some Ice-cream! 

 

@Prismatangle @luvtheheaven @zhyrs You've been referred to as the "heavy conceptual thinkers." Cousin Coyote is so proud.

 

 

[ Note: I have updated and changed a lot about the descriptions again today. ]

 

[bydontost]

46 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Are you spitting in my face intentionally, or have I just been too subtle about the fact that I could write an entire post on the downsides/detriments/problems with Tumblr as a community hub & was only keeping things concise solely because you asked me not to write so much?

So this is getting hostile... maybe @Magni could just explain what ze meant... 

[bananaslug]

19 hours ago, Coyote said:

Do you think I should reword the first description to make more room for multiple orientations, or do you think that belongs in a separate description of its own? Bearing in mind that what I'm trying to describe is relationships to certain norms, not individual choice of labels.

 

 

Humm, actually now that you've edited your definitions a little bit I think a better solution than having a whole new model is simply acknowledging upfront that people will frequently mix and match these models to fit their needs. I don't necessarily fit into just one of the models mentioned above, but "Mixed composite and axial orientations" would actually be a pretty good description of how my orientations work. I think the reason I didn't feel like I fit any of these models at first was that it was being explained in a way that made it seem like you had to use just one. 

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, bydontost said:

So this is getting hostile... maybe @Magni could just explain what ze meant... 

 

Yes, I would love for them to clarify that they didn't mean to be hostile, if that's the case.

 

26 minutes ago, bananaslug said:

Humm, actually now that you've edited your definitions a little bit I think a better solution than having a whole new model is simply acknowledging upfront that people will frequently mix and match these models to fit their needs. I don't necessarily fit into just one of the models mentioned above, but "Mixed composite and axial orientations" would actually be a pretty good description of how my orientations work. I think the reason I didn't feel like I fit any of these models at first was that it was being explained in a way that made it seem like you had to use just one. 

 

Cool. So -- your aromanticism and asexuality feel convergent, and at the same time, your identity draws on another, noncanon axis, is that right? That language works?

 

I completely understand what you're saying about the failures of the first version making it sound like it could only pertain to having just one. That was definitely an assumption of mine that I hadn't thought to really question too much until you pointed it out. Hopefully, the wording of these four different scales -- convergence/parallel/canon/axis -- can also allow people to talk about different tensions/alignments that can even be different among their different identities, rather than trying to create a model that sorts entire people wholecloth. 

 

(Just for ref: how I'd map the relationship between my gray-asexual identity & these norms along these scales would be divergent, nonparallel, canon, and axial. That's because my only orientation is a specific sexual orientation, and I don't have a romantic orientation.)

[Mark]

On 3/24/2019 at 5:47 PM, bydontost said:

Little to no or non-standard romantic attraction.

Even the former can be fairly ambiguous due to lack of consensus about what "romantic attraction" actually means. With even greater ambiguity with the latter. Even more so were that to become "non romantic attraction".

 

On 3/24/2019 at 2:18 AM, Coyote said:

General for the record statement: I want to have a discussion about orientations, labels, identities, and person-descriptors. Attraction is relevant to that, naturally, but not the main thing I'm trying to look at.

I'd say that orientation(s) are a set of constraints, parameters and envelopes which apply to how a person may show attraction(s).

 

On 3/24/2019 at 5:59 AM, Magni said:

"Tertiary" is the only term I've seen for succinctly referring to this group of attractions; I think tertiary is because the most widely acknowledged types of attraction are romantic and sexual and the others tend to be invisible.  I'm not saying it is necessarily a good term, but unless another term has been established it's the only one I know of for communicating this group of attractions.  I've also noticed people tend to have different interpretations of these and/or they're often hard to separate, so I think it's useful to have terms describing them as a group.

It's an awful term
It's uncommon to talk about romantic: primary, sexual:secondary or sexual: primary, romantic: secondary. Which would be a context in which something else: tertiary, another thing: quaternary (following on with quinary,senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, and denary) would make some kind of sense.
Calling a set of things "tertiary" does not make sense. Especially when one of these might be someone's primary (or secondary) form of attraction.
The terms 'primary & secondary attraction" are used in a different way when describing 'demi' orientations.
 

22 hours ago, Magni said:

Also I don't think it implies they're lesser? Like....colors.  Light/yellow green would be a tertiary color but that doesn't make it lesser? It more indicates it's less visible/less talked about?  Like...most people might just say "oh it's green", and while there's technically a true precise green that's a secondary color, most greens are tertiary colors.  So it's more we're...actively acknowledging the more nuanced things that most people tend to ignore and just lump with romantic or sexual or just not acknowledge at all?  It's not less important, it's just more specific and less commonly talked about.

I think (orthogonal) dimensions make for an easier model. The mathematics scale to however many you actually need.
With chroma models it gets easiest if you can do CMY, CMYK or RGB. 

 

20 hours ago, Coyote said:

I don't care how new or old it is. My thinking is -- and this may be too strong of a comparison, but -- calling some attractions "tertiary" feels a little like calling a nonbinary person "third gender." It inherently implies a first and second for there to be a third. That represents basically the exact same centering of romance and sexuality that I want to call into question here.

I think that's a good analogy. Another one would be "third party" in political systems where two political parties dominate.
What can happen here is an attitude of "the excluded middle is small, so never mind the false dichotomy". The term also tends to obfuscate that what's being called "tertiary" is more than one thing.

[Coyote]

1 minute ago, Mark said:

I'd say that orientation(s) are a set of constraints, parameters and envelopes which apply to how a person may show attraction(s).

 

And not just attraction!

 

....hm, at this rate maybe I should make that one of the norms on the list.

 

2 minutes ago, Mark said:

Another one would be "third party" in political systems where two political parties dominate.

 

Oh that's a good comparison. Yes, exactly like that.

[Mark]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Examples of two different definitions I have seen are "naming romantic orientation separate from sexual orientation" (like you said) and "differentiating between types of attraction in general" (w/o anything to do with naming orientations themselves). In practice this causes communication problems when the two are treated as the exact same thing. I can provide further examples of this upon request.

I see the former as a subset or specific example of the latter. 

[bydontost]

56 minutes ago, Mark said:

On 3/24/2019 at 6:47 PM, bydontost said:

Little to no or non-standard romantic attraction.

Even the former can be fairly ambiguous due to lack of consensus about what "romantic attraction" actually means. With even greater ambiguity with the latter. Even more so were that to become "non romantic attraction".

Yeah, I don't mind the ambiguity that much here at least?? This is all so subjective really that I just make a rough working distinction of alloros who "you just know" and everyone else.

 

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

2 hours ago, bydontost said:

So this is getting hostile... maybe @Magni could just explain what ze meant... 

 

Yes, I would love for them to clarify that they didn't mean to be hostile, if that's the case.

Oh, I meant that you were getting hostile, to be honest. 

 

ETA: Tumblr has its advantaged and disadvantages - it helps to bring awareness of certain discussions to a larger group of people, so that they know something is even going on, even if conducting discussions on it is an ordeal and can end up selective and messy. @Magni has a different opinion on tumblr's usefulness and zem having a different opinion doesn't meant that ze thinks less of your opinion - ze just disagrees. 

 

ETA 2: Magni uses ze/zer/zem pronouns 

 

52 minutes ago, Coyote said:

maybe I should make that one of the norms on the lis

I like the updated list, I think if something like that is adapted into a final form it could benefit from having some examples too ?

[bananaslug]

27 minutes ago, Coyote said:

your aromanticism and asexuality feel convergent, and at the same time, your identity draws on another, noncanon axis, is that right?

 

Yes exactly! 

28 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Hopefully, the wording of these four different scales -- convergence/parallel/canon/axis -- can also allow people to talk about different tensions/alignments that can even be different among their different identities, rather than trying to create a model that sorts entire people wholecloth. 

 Definitely. We're never going to be able to make models that fit every individual experience wholesale, I think having a bunch of different concepts for people to pull from and use as needed is really the only way to go. It's kind of like how when you have 4 kinds of baked goods to chose from you might not get what you really want, but when you have a bunch of plain ingredients to chose from you can make whatever and everyone ends up happy. 

[zhyrs]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Technically I think that may be anachronistic. 

 

 True. I was using it as shorthand for what I had explained in the earlier paragraph, but the term happened later, and it is totally possible that the were people who, like the person you know, do believe asexuality and aromantism are orientations included in the LGBT community that chose to adopt "sam" early (even though there was no input from the current/older aspec community or concern for previous language). (I mean, everyone else sort of eventually did) It's also possible that the people who started using "sam" originally did so just so that they could have simple language, and just did not do the research (or I can see people feeling this way).

 

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

The overall dynamic feels like they scratched out our words and wrote over them. And people just let them.

 

*big nod* Yes, exactly. It's a big mash of the "old guard" from 2011 or so not being in the fight in 2015 to enforce anything and the freight train like destructive speed of tumblr where misinformation travels faster than anything. Uphill battle putting the tornado back in the bottle.

 

 

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

lol, no language-using being is "pre-discourse." Discourse is just language.

(I know this has been re-defined too, and I have completely separate ideological objections to that.)

 

Oof, big truth, lol. Here I was using "discourse" to mean the 2015+ tumblr round of aspec community hate (as it's been dubbed). As opposed to the 2011/12/13 round of ace hate. (It's almost like this language, also, was brought on with no regard to history or anything, lol ?)

 

[Coyote]

 

38 minutes ago, bydontost said:

Oh, I meant that you were getting hostile, to be honest. 

 

Alright. Alternative response: I would love to be persuaded that I read zer words wrong and that ze was actually saying Tumblr is only easier for zem personally, not easier overall. 

 

38 minutes ago, bydontost said:

I like the updated list, I think if something like that is adapted into a final form it could benefit from having some examples too ?

 

Right now the examples are in the blogpost, and I didn't want to get too far into the weeds with application just yet. But it's true that I never completely indicated which ideas were supposed to map to each narrative...

 

So on that note, here's what I was thinking for the five narratives I initially introduced:

 

1) As someone who is "just" gray-asexual, Flint's relationship-to-norms on the scales is highly divergent and nonparallel, but also reliant on a canon axis.

2) Ven was the one who doesn't like to distinguish between his greyromanticism and his gray-asexuality, so his is very convergent and canon.

3) Alex (demisensual) and 4) Luna (bi-affectionate) both have an orientation on a noncanon axis.

5) A part of Mal's identity (as bi) is non-axial.

 

...I think I'm getting closer to something actually workable here, but I still want to keep soliciting input to make sure I'm not operating off of any problem assumptions (like the ones that have already been discovered, with y'all's help). As a next step, I'm thinking I might put up a thread on Pillowfort soon. Would any of y'all be willing to help me reach out to the people who only use Tumblr, as well? Possibly with a link to some kind of google survey or something, in case they don't like guest posting to forums. Thoughts? 

 

_______

 

 

18 minutes ago, zhyrs said:

even though there was no input from the current/older aspec community or concern for previous language

 

Fun fact, part of our disagreement on this was that she didn't even view the conflict as addressing/about the ace community, at least initially. I can't link you directly to the comments in question because the post is viewlocked, but she did have some basis for this. I also get the impression (although she didn't outright say this) that she was initially viewing the "split attraction" concept as most relevant to bi and pan people.

 

(Just goes to show what a mess that reactionary movement was, if they couldn't even make it that clear what they were even reacting to, but hey. Didn't exactly occur in a culture of linking.)

 

18 minutes ago, zhyrs said:

Oof, big truth, lol. Here I was using "discourse" to mean the 2015+ tumblr round of aspec community hate (as it's been dubbed). As opposed to the 2011/12/13 round of ace hate. (It's almost like this language, also, was brought on with no regard to history or anything, lol ?)

 

It's also almost like these things keep happening on this one site in particular, year after year for almost a decade.... ? I wonder if there could be anything worth addressing about Tumblr as a primary choice of community platform...

 

[luvtheheaven]

(I also thought you were acting shockingly hostile toward Magni who very likely didn't really read wherever you had stated how much you hate Tumblr and regardless was just honestly saying ze thought it was an easier platform...)

 

As someone heavily involved in fandom, who knows it has a biblical root linguistically but isn't usually in spaces where the word canon is used besides fandom... I feel like canon vs noncanon makes me think of connotations of real vs less real/fake/not actually there. Or real vs imagined. That's clearly not ideal for the orientation model and maybe it's just me who has that reaction to the word choices but. I'm not loving it.  

 

 

[Magni]

27 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I would love to be persuaded that I read zer words wrong and that ze was actually saying Tumblr is only easier for zem personally, not easier overall. 

 

My overall point is that different platforms are easier for different people.  I've seen other people outright say on tumblr that they're interested in the conversations occurring on the forums but that they do not find the forums accessible to them.  I agree the forums are overall better for some discussions, otherwise I wouldn't be here.  However, I disagree with universally stating that one platform is awful and shouldn't be used at all because it's dismissive of people who use that platform. 

 

Tumblr does have its uses; it is more conducive to short summaries of things which makes it easier to understand for people who have problems focusing (such as with ADHD), it generally reaches a wider audience and therefore makes it easier for people to find out discussions are even happening, and also generally gives people a platform to post their feelings on a topic which often leads to topics of discussion being established in general. However, long discussions on tumblr aren't ideal because the information ends up scattered.  Therefore longer discussions make more sense on the forums.  There is a way to make these things work together.

 

As I previously mentioned, I'm planning a new thread to talk about how to more effectively conduct discussions while making them more accessible in general.  We don't need to keep debating it here.

 

3 hours ago, Coyote said:

I'm trying to be considerate with you in spite of us coming from apparently very different perspectives, preferences, and priorities. Are you willing to meet me halfway here, or is the fact that I feel dismissed and personally insulted at this the exact outcome you intended for?

 

I don't want to upset anyone; I just generally want clear civil discussion.  If anything, I feel upset.  I feel like I shouldn't bother talking on this thread anymore at all because apparently all my opinions are awful and everyone's upset with me.  I feel like I'm apparently not able to clearly express what I'm thinking and people are quick to become mad rather than ask for clarification.  I want to learn and understand but there aren't enough paragraph breaks and everything is confusing so I feel like I'm too stupid to understand and a nuisance for having to ask.

 

I want to be able to participate in discussions because I care about the issues, but things are often too confusing or combative and it's really upsetting.

 

 

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, luvtheheaven said:

As someone heavily involved in fandom, who knows it has a biblical root linguistically but isn't usually in spaces where the word canon is used besides fandom... I feel like canon vs noncanon makes me think of connotations of real vs less real/fake/not actually there. Or real vs imagined. That's clearly not ideal for the orientation model and maybe it's just me who has that reaction to the word choices but. I'm not loving it.  

 

That makes sense. While I was thinking of "canon" in the sense of "literary canon," like "traditional," I think the associations you described are probably more prevalent in the ace community overall (can't speak for the aro community -- maybe the same, maybe not?). Possibly "traditional" could work as a placeholder, but I dunno about that as a final choice... Same goes for "parallel," actually. 

 

Suggestions?

 

_____

 

 

58 minutes ago, Magni said:

My overall point is that different platforms are easier for different people. 

 

Okay, thank you, that's good to hear. That's not initially what I was hearing (whether I read you wrong or what), but what matters to me is what you currently say, not what you previously said.

 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Magni said:

I've seen other people outright say on tumblr that they're interested in the conversations occurring on the forums but that they do not find the forums accessible to them.

 

Right, just like conversations hosted exclusively on Tumblr may be inaccessible to others. This is all the more reason why I would like to get this particular conversation onto additional platforms, if possible. Do you have any suggestions for how to go about that?

 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Magni said:

However, I disagree with universally stating that one platform is awful and shouldn't be used at all

 

Sure. I'm not sure what specifically this is directed at, but I'm with you on that too, for whatever it's worth.

 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Magni said:

I don't want to upset anyone; I just generally want clear civil discussion.

 

Good, so do I. My understanding of how that starts is for everyone to get to feel heard. One thing that I have felt unheard on before (and also in this conversation) is that I am excluded from a large part of community discussions because of how Tumblr as a platform is designed. Tumblr makes it harder for me to gain access to discussions. To say "Tumblr makes it easier for people to gain access to discussions" feels like treating either me or my difficulties like I/they aren't real. If you can just acknowledge that, then we're golden.

 

What are some things you are feeling unheard on?

 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Magni said:

If anything, I feel upset.  I feel like I shouldn't bother talking on this thread anymore at all because apparently all my opinions are awful and everyone's upset with me.  I feel like I'm apparently not able to clearly express what I'm thinking and people are quick to become mad rather than ask for clarification.  I want to learn and understand but there aren't enough paragraph breaks and everything is confusing so I feel like I'm too stupid to understand and a nuisance for having to ask.

 

 

I have felt these sort of things a lot myself over the past two threads I've made. Point being, I can empathize with that. In various cases I've felt like people were talking down to me, treating me like I'm stupid, outright ignoring relevant parts of my posts, drastically misinterpreting my words, insinuating things at me rather than directly stating or asking, generally not trying to understand what I'm saying, and being unnecessarily hostile with me. For the most part, I have tried to ignore these feelings, because in a lot of cases they're not my main priority, they're not always rational/fair reactions to have or to share, and basically I don't expect other people to care.

 

 

They're not feelings I want to spread to other people, though. When I feel like I've been insulted to my face -- for example, feeling (however irrationally) like I'm being told there's something wrong with me for not finding Tumblr easy -- then generally, what I want is for the source of hurt to be removed, not for other people to get hurt too. Does that help any to hear?

 

 

If your question is "Is everyone upset with me?" then -- obviously I can't speak for every user, so I won't try to. But if that's a question that it helps you to hear the answer to in order to stay in the thread, then we can go around and do that. I'll start.

 

 

Right now, what I'm feeling is uneasy and uncertain, because I'm not sure yet how to find a good balance between my personal communication style and yours. For example, aside from things already mentioned, I am getting the sense that your communication style is maybe more indirect than mine, and that makes me more on edge because I can't tell when your statements have hidden questions in them. I'm just generally tense from not being sure how anything in this reply is going to be received.

 

 

[Prismatangle]

On 3/23/2019 at 11:50 AM, Coyote said:

Here's the descriptions I'm working with so far [work in progress, edited 3/25]:

 

1. ORIENTATION LANGUAGE: This is the norm of using the word “orientation” as a part of how to talk and think about particular ways of desiring, connecting, and relating to other people. Not everyone uses or wants to use orientation language at all. For the rest of these descriptions, though, I’m going to be talking mostly about people who do. The following descriptions refer to more specific norms with regard to the use of orientation language.
    

2. COMPOSITE SEXUAL ORIENTATION: This is the Western composite norm of thinking of “orientation” in the singular, where “sexual orientation” is synonymous/interchangeable with “orientation” in general, where romance & sexuality are intertwined, and where one’s pool of romantic interests is integrated with one’s sexuality. One’s relationship to this norm can be thought of as a scale ranging from “convergent” to “divergent.” The more you prefer this way of modeling your orientation, the more you could say your relationship to this norm is more convergent. The more you feel alienated from this norm or want to distance yourself from it, the more you could say your relationship to this norm is more divergent. Those are just the extremes, though; think of this as a sliding scale.
    

3. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION/SEXUAL ORIENTATION DYAD: This is the aro & ace communities’ norm of talking about “romantic orientation” and “sexual orientation” as two things that aros and aces have. In other words, we are expected to have a “romantic orientation” box and a “sexual orientation” box, and we are expected to apply labels to or some how fit our experiences into those boxes, making ourselves legible under this framework. One’s relationship to this norm can be thought of as a scale ranging from extremes of “parallel” to “nonparallel.” The more you relate to this norm as an applicable and useful framework for yourself, the more you could describe your identity as parallel to this dyad. The more you feel alienated from this norm or want to distance yourself from it, the more you could describe your identity as more nonparallel to this dyad. Think of this as a sliding scale with plenty of room in between for those whose relationship to this norm is ambivalent or apathetic.
    

4. ONLY ONE OR TWO TYPES OF ORIENTATION: This is the norm of thinking and speaking of “orientation” language as something that only, strictly pertains to either sex, romance, or both — what you might call the “canon” orientation types or “canon” basis of orientation language. One’s relationship to this norm is strong when you think of all your orientations as making reference to romance and/or sex in some fashion. One’s relationship to this norm is more alienated or distant the less you think of your orientation (or one of your orientational identities) as being “about” the canon categories (of sex or romance). With reference to this norm, we might think of romantic and sexual orientations as more in line with this “canon,” and we might think of other kinds of orientation (or other bases for an orientation) as more “noncanon.”
    

5. ORIENTATIONS BY AXIS: This is the norm especially prevalent in the ace & aro communities that all orienations must be specified along a specific axis, such as romanticism, sexuality, sensuality, platonism, alterity, and so on. Under this norm we are expected to “map” every orientation label along a specific axis on a grid. One’s relationship to this norm is stronger the more that all of your orientations align with a specific axis (or bundle of axes) and the more you feel comfortable with this way of sorting and defining your orientational identities. These are identities that we might describe as more “axial.” One’s relationship to this norm is more alienated or more distant the more you do not subscribe to this framework. The less you bind or map your identity to this norm, the more you might describe that identity as “non-axial.” Again, think of this as a sliding scale.

 

 

Since this is a WIP, I'm gonna just quote this whole section so that people can more easily follow the conversation after new edits have been made. Future proofing!

 

I'm... not feeling parallel/nonparallel here. I find it really confusing and when used in this context, think it feels like a particularly arcane academic term, which could be a barrier to understanding. And... I guess I don't understand why a dyad would have things positioned as parallel or nonparallel to it, as if it's a place/location? ("Excuse me, sir? Can you give me directions to the romantic orientation/sexual orientation dyad please?")

 

I don't have a specific wording suggestion to replace it, but maybe whatever words you choose should somehow reflect comfort / discomfort with the dyad instead?

 

I understand what you mean with canon/concanon, and I automatically think of it in literary terms because I was an English major, but I agree with @luvtheheaven about the fandom stuff too (EDIT: sorry, realized that might not be too clear... about how its association with fandom etc. could cause clarity issues). And also... you know, what's considered "part of the canon" changes all the time. (Seriously, CONSTANT fighting about who belongs in "the canon" and who doesn't.) So there could be some meaning drift there over time. Even less of an idea of what could replace these though.

[Mark]

On 3/24/2019 at 4:53 AM, zhyrs said:

Part of, I think, some of the huge-ish problems is even beginning to untangle the knotted up mess that the tumblr discourse caused to a lot of this identity/attraction/whathaveyou model work. (like attraction and orientation being conflated in "Split Attraction Model" ... pre-discourse there was talk about mixed/match orientations and separated attractions, but because tumblr is one big game of telephone, where half of it is just hatefully not listening and subbing in your own words, instead of a nuanced discussion about how this is one way to describe divergent orientational directions which can happen if someone feels separate attractions (and how the aspec community talks about this model a lot because many in the community experience it) we get, I don't even know, the aspec community forces everyone to feel attraction separately, I guess?)

IMHO tumblr is a poor platform for discussion of any kind. It's like Twitter without a character limit.

I'm not sure we have an  "aspec community" currently. At the time this "tumblr discourse" happened there was only an "ace community".
 

On 3/24/2019 at 4:53 AM, zhyrs said:

It's the same reason why sexual and romantic attraction is heavily prioritized and why there's almost no discussion about orientation language around the other attractions (if they're even brought up). There was little chance to reinforce the idea that this was a model and that there was a model for those with "one" orientation (or whose attractions either lined up where there was just "attraction" that could not be, or didn't want to be, separated out) it was just unnamed because it was what everyone was already generally working with.

I think this kind of model does work well for many asexuals. With this also being the case for many aromantics.
This is, undoubtedly, the case for the majority of asexual and aromantic people. There are a significant minority for whom it works poorly, if at all. Regardless of if they identify as 'aro ace', 'aro ACE', 'ARO ace', 'ace', 'aro'...

 

On 3/24/2019 at 4:53 AM, zhyrs said:

Varioriented and perioriented was a step to work that into being named, but, well. Like, obviously, now mixed and matched isn't enough, or doesn't capture the full picture, but I think we'd be a lot further along with things like... "oriented" aroaces.

The term perioriented covers something like 89% of people. They are likely to see nothing wrong with or embrace conflation of romance and sex. Something which is as common within subcultures such as LGBT+, BDSM, polyamory, etc as mainstream culture. Effectively this kind of conflation is normative. It's also the assumption with every sexual orientation except for 'asexual'.
The term varioriented covers around 11% of people. It could be further subdivided into 'overlapping' and 'mutually exclusive'. These people, especially the latter, are going to see conflation of romance and sex to be an issue.

[bydontost]

9 hours ago, Prismatangle said:

Since this is a WIP, I'm gonna just quote this whole section so that people can more easily follow the conversation after new edits have been made. Future proofing!

Oh good idea!!

 

7 hours ago, Mark said:

The term varioriented covers around 11% of people. It could be further subdivided into 'overlapping' and 'mutually exclusive'. These people, especially the latter, are going to see conflation of romance and sex to be an issue.

Hm I think the problem with this is that there are people who don't subscribe to the whole sexual or romantic orientation at all?? Even if they're a minority, they need a language and we'd benefit from having nuance brought to attention 

[Coyote]

10 hours ago, Prismatangle said:

I'm... not feeling parallel/nonparallel here. I find it really confusing and when used in this context, think it feels like a particularly arcane academic term, which could be a barrier to understanding. And... I guess I don't understand why a dyad would have things positioned as parallel or nonparallel to it, as if it's a place/location?

 

I'm not jazzed about it either. Previously I had it as dyadic/nondyadic, but Rowan pointed out that has probably too much similarity to intersex terminology. And naturally I also threw binary/nonbinary right out.

 

10 hours ago, Prismatangle said:

I understand what you mean with canon/concanon, and I automatically think of it in literary terms because I was an English major, but I agree with @luvtheheaven about the fandom stuff too (EDIT: sorry, realized that might not be too clear... about how its association with fandom etc. could cause clarity issues). And also... you know, what's considered "part of the canon" changes all the time. (Seriously, CONSTANT fighting about who belongs in "the canon" and who doesn't.) So there could be some meaning drift there over time. Even less of an idea of what could replace these though.

 

Naturally. I'm actually hoping that some of these norms will change, but in the meantime I'm looking to hammer some kind of "Spit Orientation Model" that doesn't simply end up replicating the same SAM/non-SAM binary all over again.

 

Anyway, I'm happy to change that one too, once we settle on something. Possibly... "traditional"/"non-traditional" could work as a placeholder, for now. Siggy also recently suggested "planar." But could just as well make it something more specific, I guess -- like if we can agree on "RoSe" or "ROSO" or something.