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Our attitudes to AVEN


paporomantic

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I'm more involved with AVEN than with Arocalypse.  Mostly, that's because although I identify with aromanticism more than I identify with asexuality, I find asexuality easier to define and therefore easier to talk about.  Also, it's a lot more active, so games in JFF and the Arcade that require more frequent posting tend to be really interesting.  However, I do have to agree with a lot of the people who have said that the aromantic forum can be a bit of a mess at times.  I'm basically never in the aromantic forum on AVEN, even though I'm happy to discuss aro topics here.  For me, it's AVEN for fast-moving games and discussions on asexuality or gender, but here for slower-moving games and discussions on aromanticism.

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I'm fine with AVEN I guess. I don't really post there anymore because I don't really have much to say about asexuality anymore. That's probably because my asexuality doesn't really cause me problems like my aromanticism does since as long as I don't have a romantic relationship no one seems to expect me to have sexual ones. Therefore it just makes sense to me to talk about aromanticism more than about asexuality and AVEN is just not made for that. But I do sometimes go there just to read through the forums, especially the gender one since that's something I'm really interested in and there's just more conversation about it that in our little forum, but I don't have much to say about it, so I'm usually just a silent reader.

Yes, there are some terrible comments on AVEN, but if you avoid certain forums like Hot Box, it's not worse than in anywhere else. It's just something you sadly encounter wherever you go and I guess I got used to it enough to not be surprised about those posts on AVEN. 

Having said all of that, I have a different view on AVENde, the German AVEN forums. It's A LOT more arophobic than the main AVEN forums from what I have seen and amatonormativity is way stronger there. Also I don't think they really understand what aromantic means and when I saw someone explaining it to them they basically told them that that doesn't exist and that aromantics don't want any partners at all and that romantic relationships without sex are the exact same as a friendship... I could just go on and on about all the ways that AVENde makes me uncomfortable. Obviously I never even made my introduction post and never posted anything, the only thing I did was log out as fast as possible :/

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I haven't been on this site for a while. I notice a couple things in this thread. One being, I see a lot of people doing the same things they complain about being done on AVEN. The other is the comments on David Jay and having had sex. Is there a new movement or something that someone must remain a virgin or something? I'm divorced. I've had sex. I've experimented. I won't apologize for any of that. It's what helped me figure out who I am. 

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1 hour ago, Just like Jughead said:

I haven't been on this site for a while. I notice a couple things in this thread. One being, I see a lot of people doing the same things they complain about being done on AVEN. The other is the comments on David Jay and having had sex. Is there a new movement or something that someone must remain a virgin or something? I'm divorced. I've had sex. I've experimented. I won't apologize for any of that. It's what helped me figure out who I am. 

I have no idea what the issue with David Jay's sex life is, but to me, his sexual experience shouldn't matter unless he is using his influence on AVEN to claim all asexuals are like him.  As far as I know, he isn't doing that, so meh, doesn't change my opinion of AVEN. 

 

Despite being a virgin myself, I will never look down on other asexuals who had/have sex, because well, it's none of my business.  To me, and important message in asexual visibility that sometimes isn't emphasized enough is that all asexuals are different, and your actions don't determine your orientation.  If anyone tells you you have to apologize for your past sexual experience, I think they're wrong.

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9 hours ago, Just like Jughead said:

Is there a new movement or something that someone must remain a virgin or something? I'm divorced. I've had sex. I've experimented. I won't apologize for any of that. It's what helped me figure out who I am. 

Same here. Back when I thought I was straight I had boyfriends and I had sex. I was experimenting and as a result I realised I was ace. Non ace people don't seem to understand this. Action doesn't equal attraction!

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I actually post more on AVEN. I try to make sure to post here but idk, it's slow, and I'm impatient lol. I don't post in the arcade on aven anymore, and I don't like how this site has the arcade merged with the non-arcade threads, there should be a JFF-equivelent forum for me to be active there. I also wish that the arcade threads weren't in the sidebar on this site, actually I don't like how this sidebar is associated. 

 

honestly I would probably, if all things were equal, post on an aromantic site more often than an asexual site, since I am greysexual, and demiromantic. I associate with aromantic stuff much more than with asexual stuff.

 

I don't understand when people have negative feelings towards a site, as if the site has wronged them, or as if the community has. individual members do not represent the whole of the community, and if the community site isn't geared towards you, it's simply not geared towards you. 

 

I do understand the feeligns of not being able to be fully open, when a site is not well-established for you though. I am indeed frustrated with the romantic orientation representation, that asexuality has like 4 or 5 forums dedicated to asexuality but aromanticism doesn't even have its own forum, it's just part of the "romantic orientation" forum and that's pretty much all it gets. there's even multiple forums for the sexual side of discussion on AVEN. but, this isn't because aven is a bad site, or the builders are disrespectful, or the members amatanormative, it's just that AVEN is dedicated to asexuality, and so as such really ought to represent asexuality much more than any other identity. I expect it, if anything. 

 

I hope this site can gain popularity and traffic. 

 

one thing that I am wary of with a small site like this, is that while we should be rewarding to people of openly discussing how they feel, as members we should be cautious of self-fulfilling our beliefs. this is an issue on aven too, and I see it to a small extent here as well, that humans tend to say "I feel this way and I feel different, therefore I am different." but the reality is that sometimes we actually feel the same way other humans feel, but for some reason we talk about it more or in a different way. I'm not saying that I suspect anyone isn't aromantic lol. but, I just get a little worried whenever I see someone say "I hate [specific thing] therefore I am aromantic/asexual" and I think back to when I was in college, and think, well, I can think of several romantic/sexual people who felt the same way about that, actually. that, I like it better when people say that it is affirming for them, rather than confirming. [/nitpicky]

 

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20 hours ago, cute kitty Meow! Mewo! said:

I don't understand when people have negative feelings towards a site, as if the site has wronged them, or as if the community has. individual members do not represent the whole of the community, and if the community site isn't geared towards you, it's simply not geared towards you. 

 

I do understand the feeligns of not being able to be fully open, when a site is not well-established for you though. I am indeed frustrated with the romantic orientation representation, that asexuality has like 4 or 5 forums dedicated to asexuality but aromanticism doesn't even have its own forum, it's just part of the "romantic orientation" forum and that's pretty much all it gets. there's even multiple forums for the sexual side of discussion on AVEN. but, this isn't because aven is a bad site, or the builders are disrespectful, or the members amatanormative, it's just that AVEN is dedicated to asexuality, and so as such really ought to represent asexuality much more than any other identity. I expect it, if anything. 

 

I h. [/nitpicky]

 

The problem is that beside aven being a forum its also a site people use to gain information.

I think 99% of all awareness on aromanticism is comming from aven or other asexual resouces, and it was also on aven that aromantic as a word was firs created, So I do think Aven have a certain responsobility. For along time Aromantics had nowhere else to go beside aven (unlike in the sexuality/gender thread where there was already various of forums available) 

 

And for along time all the informaion people gained on aromanicism came from AVEN.

 

that means for a long time if aven wasnt accesible to aro people hen those had no where else to go, 

and if AVEN put out wrong information about aromanticism then it was a pretty large part who got it wrong.

 

I am aware that AVENs goal was to focus on asexuals and never on aromantics, but I dont think it would take much work to make AVEN a more inclusive place for aro people. as mention if aros had their own thread instead of being lumped together with alloromantics then I think it would help a huge part to make aros feel more safe. 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Natkat said:

The problem is that beside aven being a forum its also a site people use to gain information.

I think 99% of all awareness on aromanticism is comming from aven or other asexual resouces, and it was also on aven that aromantic as a word was firs created, So I do think Aven have a certain responsobility. For along time Aromantics had nowhere else to go beside aven (unlike in the sexuality/gender thread where there was already various of forums available) 

 

And for along time all the informaion people gained on aromanicism came from AVEN.

 

If you look up aromantic topics using a search engine you often find lots of hits on AVEN and the thinking asexual. Along with sites which may be quoting or referencing them.

 

It's also quite easy to find the likes of this series of videos which lump asexual and aromantic together.

 

 

4 hours ago, Natkat said:

that means for a long time if aven wasnt accesible to aro people hen those had no where else to go, 

and if AVEN put out wrong information about aromanticism then it was a pretty large part who got it wrong.

 

I am aware that AVENs goal was to focus on asexuals and never on aromantics, but I dont think it would take much work to make AVEN a more inclusive place for aro people. as mention if aros had their own thread instead of being lumped together with alloromantics then I think it would help a huge part to make aros feel more safe. 

 

Excluding aromantic allosexuals is going to make information on aromanticism incomplete, if nothing else.
Another possibility would be information about aromanticism to migrate off AVEN.

I wonder how well it would go down with aces to have a "sexual thread" which lumped them with allosexuals :)

 

Something which appears to be the case is that alloromantics tend to want similar things when it comes to relationships. Romantic relationships often having a lot in common.

Whereas aromantics tend to be far more diverse in their wants. One Queer Platonic Relationship differing from another QPR. (Even where both have one person in common...) Something which also becomes obvious when aros are asked about romantic coded activities.
 

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I have an account on AVEN. It's been mostly OK for me except I came across  some people who thought that there's nothing wrong with 13 year olds watching hardcore bdsm porn. Oh and some feminists got offended when I tried to have a civil argument about feminism's flaws. I also got a warning post by an admin, unbelievable.

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the thing is, it does take work to make AVEN more inclusive towards aromantic people, it takes work to change a site in any way.  Not only does it take a lot of work to change the structure of a site in the first place, but it also takes a lot of work to change the mentality of the community, and while both of these things are feasible endeavors for AVEN to do, AVEN's Board of Directives are needed to OK that work, and they have a lot of choices to make that require work that competes with the desire to make AVEN more aro-friendly. and on top of that, right now AVEN is short-staffed on the tech side of worker-hours available, and, naturally, work is needed to enable the site to have additional tech help.

 

 Hence, the rebirth of arocalypse! hehe. 

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To speak a bit on history, having been an AVENite for over a decade, aromanticism was even less known than asexuality for a good long while. The evolution of the site and the inclusivity of members as a general, unspoken goal, is what brought an AVEN aro subforum to come into being (in fact, it went through several versions).

 

I see a lot of people having problems with the "but we can still have romance" or whatever phrase, but I wonder if most have a full understanding of why that mentality even existed in the first place. As aces, we are constantly placed in defense mode of our behaviors, lifestyles and sense of being, simply bc we don't experience sexual attraction, or whatever people's personally identifying experience is under the asexual umbrella.

 

I imagine that there is a similar predicament for aros in the way of being put on the spot, made to feel shamed or wrong for not experiencing romantic attraction. Thing is, promotion of romantic attraction has never been a goal of AVEN, but a byproduct of the (defensive) arguments the community has had to make over the years to show:

 

1. Sex and romance are NOT mutually exclusive.

 

2. The CAPACITY for romantic attraction, behavior, etc. still exists for many aces.

 

3. For years, the "natural" [read: (hetero)normative] progression of what comprised a relationship, for many people, included the learned ideas involving romance--which society generally equated to sex as a display, thereof.

 

4. Aside from attempting to counter arguments about mental illness, medical disorders, or being just plain "broken" (according to society and various posted experiences, both on- and offline), there have also been attempts in trying to find common ground for mutual understanding. "Yeah, I don't feel sexual attraction, but I experience romantic attraction, and maybe we could start the conversation there to help explain some things."

 

5. Aromanticism was even less known than asexuality; especially on a site focusing on asexuality, so... room for growth is to be expected over the years. Hopefully, with more work, this can be further improved in the future.

 

Having Aro friends (I do not identify as aro, but relate to some "aro" moments in life) gives me the opportunity to expand my own horizons in how to categorize my relationships with people. Some might say those friendships have helped deconstruct what I learned and reconstruct how I feel about it.

 

It's hard to say what should or shouldn't be on AVEN, because hindsight is 20/20, and what seems like unreasonable questioning or pointed arguments, now, could lead to better definition/channeling for future discussions. After all, humanity has changed a lot over the past 15+ yrs that AVEN has been around, especially on the internet. Who knows what Arocalypse will look like within a similar timeframe?

 

*le shrugs*

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  • 2 weeks later...

Admittedly I did go through a "AVEN just hates me" phase because I can be an anxiety ridden mess, but Im over it. My main issues was to do with diversity of sex experience. It, for a minute, seemed like many on AVEN wanted to erase Aces who where sexually active and/or sex-favorable but the longer I stayed on, the more support I felt come my way and my mind was changed. I still love the site and am glad to have found it. The Asexual demographic is diverse but unfortunately outsiders have a very two dimensional view of it, portraying Aces as perpetual sex-adverse virgins; It's annoying.

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  • 1 month later...

I do have a generally favorable view of Aven and I'm relatively new to this site. Aven is a much larger website, many people have post counts in the thousands(including myself). It's true that you can find people there who will posts things that are sexist, racist, ableist(pretty much every ist you can think of) but for those whose only exposure to Aven is through this thread I think it's a bit unfair to judge the entire website by a few cherry picked bad posts. Of course it is genuinely not for everyone(Also if anyone has issues with any of my posts personally sorry about that, I don't think I have a big issue with that but I don't currently agree with everything I've ever written) Truth be told I genuinely enjoy some of the more intense threads in Aven's Hotbox. When I first joined Aven I thought I was panromantic and greysexual but within a few days I changed to panromantic asexual. I thought I was obviously romantic at the time but after some conversations with romantic people on Aven I came to realize that something was different about my romantic orientation to say the least. 

 

I'm new to this website but so far it's been really nice, nice is definitely the best word for it. On Aven it seems like the older members often do kind of identity police the newer ones instead of just letting them figure out their orientation for themselves. I think they want to protect the community from special snowflakism but I wonder if it's really worth all the defensiveness it causes. The identity policing seems much lower here. 

On 10/22/2016 at 11:29 PM, Bipolar Bear said:

To speak a bit on history, having been an AVENite for over a decade, aromanticism was even less known than asexuality for a good long while. The evolution of the site and the inclusivity of members as a general, unspoken goal, is what brought an AVEN aro subforum to come into being (in fact, it went through several versions).

 

I see a lot of people having problems with the "but we can still have romance" or whatever phrase, but I wonder if most have a full understanding of why that mentality even existed in the first place. As aces, we are constantly placed in defense mode of our behaviors, lifestyles and sense of being, simply bc we don't experience sexual attraction, or whatever people's personally identifying experience is under the asexual umbrella.

 

I imagine that there is a similar predicament for aros in the way of being put on the spot, made to feel shamed or wrong for not experiencing romantic attraction. Thing is, promotion of romantic attraction has never been a goal of AVEN, but a byproduct of the (defensive) arguments the community has had to make over the years to show:

 

1. Sex and romance are NOT mutually exclusive.

 

2. The CAPACITY for romantic attraction, behavior, etc. still exists for many aces.

 

3. For years, the "natural" [read: (hetero)normative] progression of what comprised a relationship, for many people, included the learned ideas involving romance--which society generally equated to sex as a display, thereof.

 

4. Aside from attempting to counter arguments about mental illness, medical disorders, or being just plain "broken" (according to society and various posted experiences, both on- and offline), there have also been attempts in trying to find common ground for mutual understanding. "Yeah, I don't feel sexual attraction, but I experience romantic attraction, and maybe we could start the conversation there to help explain some things."

 

5. Aromanticism was even less known than asexuality; especially on a site focusing on asexuality, so... room for growth is to be expected over the years. Hopefully, with more work, this can be further improved in the future.

 

Having Aro friends (I do not identify as aro, but relate to some "aro" moments in life) gives me the opportunity to expand my own horizons in how to categorize my relationships with people. Some might say those friendships have helped deconstruct what I learned and reconstruct how I feel about it.

 

It's hard to say what should or shouldn't be on AVEN, because hindsight is 20/20, and what seems like unreasonable questioning or pointed arguments, now, could lead to better definition/channeling for future discussions. After all, humanity has changed a lot over the past 15+ yrs that AVEN has been around, especially on the internet. Who knows what Arocalypse will look like within a similar timeframe?

 

*le shrugs*

Yeah, I agree, it's like when people say, "sex, masturbation, etc. is okay, everyone does it" and then the people who actually don't do it get offended because they weren't included in the statement. It wasn't said to try to exclude people it was said because it's a common experience and there's no need to feel ashamed of it(of course when you say *blank* is what makes us human then that is crossing the line) Anyway, that's not quite the topic at hand, but related.

On 10/19/2016 at 9:27 AM, cute kitty Meow! Mewo! said:

I don't understand when people have negative feelings towards a site, as if the site has wronged them, or as if the community has. individual members do not represent the whole of the community, and if the community site isn't geared towards you, it's simply not geared towards you. 

 

I actually do have negative feelings toward a website in general. I was on it for about a month(this was before I was on Aven). The people there were about ten times as aggressive as the people on Aven generally are and they were much more queerphobic whereas on Aven people are generally accepting and most people are gender nonconforming in some way. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

I was never really on AVEN; I think I made an account there, but never posted anything because I was 13 and terrified of strangers on the internet. I don't have much to say about it, other than being vaguely irritated that non-ace people seem to think that AVEN is the be all and end all of the asexual community.

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This is what I wrote in response to the Annoying Things That Aromantics Say thread

--

"Romantic attraction makes some people irrational and stupid, and they forget how to take care of themselves." - Me (mostly about my sister)

 

"Romance culture is toxic and restrictive." - also me

 

Wow I'm such an annoying aromantic haha

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12 hours ago, aussiekirkland said:

This is what I wrote in response to the Annoying Things That Aromantics Say thread

--

"Romantic attraction makes some people irrational and stupid, and they forget how to take care of themselves." - Me (mostly about my sister)

 

"Romance culture is toxic and restrictive." - also me

 

Wow I'm such an annoying aromantic haha

 

Is that... is that really a thread that exists? Please say no.

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I find it a really odd topic for a thread, on an asexuality forum of all places (given that many are also aro and we do face some common issues). It's like if someone posted an 'annoying things aces say' thread here (not a suggestion lol).

On topic, I liked AVEN a lot when I first found it, but I don't really go there much any more since I'm more interested/bothered by romantic feelings than lack of sexual attraction.

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9 minutes ago, Untamed Heart said:

I find it a really odd topic for a thread, on an asexuality forum of all places (given that many are also aro and we do face some common issues). It's like if someone posted an 'annoying things aces say' thread here (not a suggestion lol).

Yeah, that is a super weird thread. Sure, being able to make fun of yourself is good and all, but this doesn't feel so much like it. It's one thing when a romantic person gushes about romance, because those comments are everywhere, all the time, but quite another for an aro to affirm that they don't want romance, that the word 'love' doesn't just refer to romantic love, that one day our friends are most likely going to up and leave us for a partner and that's terrifying... you don't hear that nearly enough for it to be annoying.

 

I dunno, something about that thread rubs me the wrong way :P

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