"aro spec" : how to use it?

[Guest]

Hey. Just a question because i don't want to mess up something.

 

I sometime see "aro-spec" used as an synonym of "grey aro". I use it to mean "anyone on the aro spectrum" , grey aros and aros like me who are not grey

 

Like, when i make a post on tumblr (because i now have one despite my brain telling me no) about aromantism, aro things, etc... i also tag it as "aro spec" . Even if this don't necessarily talk about grey aros specifically. And even tumblr aside, it's still a good thing to know 'cause i am in many aro spaces.

 

I should not ? I didnt see anything that said i should not but i prefer to be sure. I have doubts now.

 

(i suppose this is the same question for the use of "ace spec" if anyone have something to say about it )

[nonmerci]

I use this term the same as you do. I think it is logical.

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

Yeah, that's pretty much how it's used.

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

I use this term the same as you do. I think it is logical.

 

11 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Yeah, that's pretty much how it's used.

 

Oh, well alright then. Thanks !

[raavenb2619]

I also use arospec as synonymous with “anyone falling under the aro umbrella in some way”. However, I remember reading some writing somewhere about how the asexual community uses “ace” and not “acespec” as their umbrella shorthand, and for similar reasons the aromantic community should use “aro” and not “arospec”, so I’d like to revisit that and reconsider its reasons. (My explanation is poorly worded and makes it sound like the main argument was “aces did x so aros should do x” but that’s not what it was. This also gets complicated with the whole “aspec” is/isn’t a synonym to “acespec” and it does/doesn’t cover all aros kerfuffle on Tumblr at the moment)

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, raavenb2619 said:

However, I remember reading some writing somewhere about how the asexual community uses “ace” and not “acespec” as their umbrella shorthand

Oh? I was not aware… I am not really in the ace community (not for itself at least. I hear from it sometime)

 

1 hour ago, raavenb2619 said:

nd for similar reasons the aromantic community should use “aro” and not “arospec”, so I’d like to revisit that and reconsider its reasons. (My explanation is poorly worded and makes it sound like the main argument was “aces did x so aros should do x” but that’s not what it was.

 

I am not sure i understand. Why not use aro spec and use aro instead? What would be the benefit? Or did i misread something ? (like i said, i don't really get it, sorry ^^ )

 

59 minutes ago, raavenb2619 said:

This also gets complicated with the whole “aspec” is/isn’t a synonym to “acespec” and it does/doesn’t cover all aros kerfuffle on Tumblr at the moment)

Oh yeah, that. 

[raavenb2619]

21 minutes ago, Cristal Gris said:

I am not sure i understand. Why not use aro spec and use aro instead? What would be the benefit? Or did i misread something ? (like i said, i don't really get it, sorry ^^ )

No worries, my explanation is a poor substitute for the actual article/writing. I tried to find it, but I can't. @Coyote, do you know what I'm talking about? I think it was a Tumblr user, and I think you linked to them either in the body of one of your Wordpress articles, or in the comments. IIRC the page had a mostly black background, and pointed out 3 or 4 issues with using "arospec" that the aro community would likely run into in the near future, based on what had already happened within the ace community with a different umbrella-ish word. (Or it might have been problems that the aro community was already facing?)

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

@Coyote, do you know what I'm talking about? I think it was a Tumblr user, and I think you linked to them either in the body of one of your Wordpress articles, or in the comments.

 

I'm not sure I know exactly what interaction you mean, sorry. Can you remember anything else?

 

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's how I use the term "aro": 

 

 

 

[raavenb2619]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Can you remember anything else?

Not really. It might have been titled something like "the case against arospec" and went through three or four reasons why arospec was a bad term. I think it made reference to ace community politics, probably talking about how people used various terms like "ace", "asexual", "acespec", maybe "ace umbrella", and noticed that since something about policing language or making graysexuals and other """non-gold star asexuals""" feel unwelcome or second class had happened, it was likely to happen in the aro community and that using arospec would facilitate that bad thing.

It might have been something along the lines of "acespec becomes briefly popular, people start using it more and more as a replacement to graysexual/graysexual umbrella, acespec starts to refer exclusively to those subgroups of the ace community, acespec starts being seen as """gold star aces" + a spectrum of acespec, acespec ends up being a way of separating """true aces""" from other aces and leads to value judgement and hierarchies instead of being an umbrella term." Another reason might have been "saying arospec is just performative allyship and lets people feel like they're including and supporting grayromantics, demiromantics, etc when they're not. But I could also be completely making one or both reasons up, I'm not sure. 

 

I know that there was a push a few years ago to move from "Aromantic Awareness Week" to "Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week", does anyone have information on why that happened? Maybe there's a comparison to be made with why (AFAIK) the ace community hasn't done the same? And does anyone have any complaints or concerns with the popularization of arospec as a term? 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

I think it made reference to ace community politics, probably talking about how people used various terms like "ace", "asexual", "acespec", maybe "ace umbrella", and noticed that since something about policing language or making graysexuals and other """non-gold star asexuals""" feel unwelcome or second class had happened, it was likely to happen in the aro community and that using arospec would facilitate that bad thing.

It might have been something along the lines of "acespec becomes briefly popular, people start using it more and more as a replacement to graysexual/graysexual umbrella, acespec starts to refer exclusively to those subgroups of the ace community, acespec starts being seen as """gold star aces" + a spectrum of acespec, acespec ends up being a way of separating """true aces""" from other aces and leads to value judgement and hierarchies instead of being an umbrella term." Another reason might have been "saying arospec is just performative allyship and lets people feel like they're including and supporting grayromantics, demiromantics, etc when they're not. But I could also be completely making one or both reasons up, I'm not sure. 

 

Oh, i see. It would make sense. Unfortunatly…

I have seen some "elitism" in the aro and ace communities. They don't Always use "gold star" but it's clear what they mean.

[Coyote]

13 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

Not really. It might have been titled something like "the case against arospec" and went through three or four reasons why arospec was a bad term. I think it made reference to ace community politics, probably talking about how people used various terms like "ace", "asexual", "acespec", maybe "ace umbrella", and noticed that since something about policing language or making graysexuals and other """non-gold star asexuals""" feel unwelcome or second class had happened, it was likely to happen in the aro community and that using arospec would facilitate that bad thing.

 

hmm.... I can't remember writing anything like that myself. The closest thing I can think of is Oriented Gray, which was mostly about the term "oriented," not "arospec," although point two there does include some discussion of spectrum terms. There's also this short tumblr post that's somewhat related (summary: there's no need to say "acespec" when "ace" means the same thing), although it sounds like you were definitely thinking of something else.

 

13 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

I know that there was a push a few years ago to move from "Aromantic Awareness Week" to "Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week", does anyone have information on why that happened?

 

...Not really. From collecting some info recently, I know that it was proposed sometime in 2014 on Tumblr (original post now deleted), but if there was a switch that happened, I'm not sure when it was. 

 

13 hours ago, raavenb2619 said:

Maybe there's a comparison to be made with why (AFAIK) the ace community hasn't done the same?

 

It... kind of has. The ace counterpart used to be called Asexual Awareness Week, but the old site now redirects to Ace Week.

[raavenb2619]

On 9/6/2019 at 1:35 PM, raavenb2619 said:

However, I remember reading some writing somewhere about how the asexual community uses “ace” and not “acespec” as their umbrella shorthand, and for similar reasons the aromantic community should use “aro” and not “arospec”, so I’d like to revisit that and reconsider its reasons.

This is probably the post I was thinking of, and I misremembered so much that it’s not super relevant to the conversation, but it be like that sometimes. 

 

(kudos to @Coyote for finding it)