Aromanticism and local culture

[roboticanary]

One thing I have mentioned a couple of times recently is that my aromanticism was effected by the cultural ideas about where I am from. I am from a place called Essex which has a reputation for being a bit lacking in class and the idea that the people are very promiscuous (this is usually said in a less diplomatic way).

In my case this local culture came head to head with catholic schooling which meant a lot of pushing towards the good traditional romantic relationship. It also meant that it took me a while to figure out I didn't want romance because I thought all the lads where I was were the same, wanting sex but not romance and when I was a bit older I would start wanting a more relaxed, traditional relationship. As you can imagine, that didn't work out.

So I was wondering if anyone else has any stories of local culture or ideas about where you are from that impacted your understanding of aromanticism?

[Blake]

My culture is one that is very sexual and romantic. I spent all my life through college on Puerto Rico, an island on the Caribbean. We have music and dances that are represented very romantic. (Ex. Salsa). Because I was raised in a very romantic environment, I went to dances, danced, I felt good but there was no connection between me and my dancing partner. For me it was just dancing, having fun, just doing something cultural but no attachment whatsoever to it.

Because of that, I didn't really understood I was aro until my early twenties. How could I, if everything I was consuming was from a romantic and sexual point of view. I did felt broken, because heteronormativity and amatonormativity, that I couldn't connect with anyone on a significant level. It was because I was living alone, outside of the influences of my environment that I was raised, that I began to understand my romantic identity. It also took me quite a while to come to terms that I was also ace. That is my story when it comes to the intersection between culture and my romantic and sexual identity. It had a lot to do, since it kept me from discovering I was aro for a while and even more to discover I was ace.

[Just a Bear]

I don't know if this counts, but in my life I haven't really heard people talk about romance and sex. it just never happened. I don't know why. so, I didn't have anyone to compare my feelings too. it's possible it took me so long to realize I'm not into tese things because of that. I had to be in a relationshi with someone who desired me to see that I was experiencing something different. 

 

but, even then, I thought se just wasn't a good match for me. so really I had to find (a)sexuality and aven to discover who I was. 

[nisse]

I grew up in a mix of muslim, christian, ex-christian, and atheist environment. Which is to say, I grew up in the poorer area of my city, with a bigger percentage of immigrants and multicultural stuff, and more muslims. My country is culturally (lutheran) christian, so that was very much present too; my mam grew up christian and (her words) broke up with Jesus when she was 15, so she is that particular ex-christian atheist; and my dad grew up in an atheist family.

As well as that I was brought up by feminist and otherwise leftist parents. As such I think I've been extremely lucky? I've been exposed to many different ways to view (romantic) love and sex, both religiously and otherwise - I don't know why this is, but my area also has a higher amount of parents who are either divorced, never married in the first place, or single parents. I've seen many combinations of families through my friends growing up: parents who got married at 19 and are still together, people who co-parent their child but the child was a result of a one night stand, divorced parents who still have sunday dinner together every week and bring their new partners. And less blissful ones too. My parents never pushed me nor my sister into thinking we HAD to get a partner. Even now, when my sister has been in several committed relationship and I have been in none, and I've never straight up told them my orientation, they've never questioned me about that. 

So while I've still felt that pressure of finding romantic love (I don't know anyone else IRL who are aro, AFAIK), I've been incredibly lucky in not having just one example of life - husband and wife and two and a half kids, like. It took a while for me to realise and accept that I am aromantic, but I've always felt surprisingly fine not dating and finding an SO. 

[roboticanary]

2 hours ago, Ashe. said:

I don't know if this counts, but in my life I haven't really heard people talk about romance and sex. it just never happened. I don't know why.

That certainly counts.

It is very interesting to me that there are some backgrounds where romance sems to appear far more or less often than others. I guess while my experience growing up focussed on romance quite a lot the other side of that is that I had some comprehension that I was different (even though I hadn't learnt about aromanticism)

[alto]

I was homeschooled.  Two of my best friends were queer, the other one was straight with a hint of bi.  I talked with the girl member of our little friend club about romance a lot.  That said...I thought I was lesbian at the time.  So that may color things.

[arofox]

On 9/25/2021 at 6:02 PM, Ashe. said:

in my life I haven't really heard people talk about romance and sex. it just never happened. I don't know why.

I relate a lot. I did have one friend (she's still one of my closest friends) who was constantly head over heels in love with someone, but the rest just never talked about it. So I thought she was just a special case and I'm just not that into romance.

I got into the lgbtq+ community through the art community and learned about asexuality and aromantism that way. That's how I found out quite early.

Interestingly I also live in a conservative catholic family, but somehow they never talked about either sex or romance to us, or at least very, very rarely.

Edited October 21, 2021 by arofox

[DeltaAro]

On 9/25/2021 at 5:53 PM, Blake said:

Because I was raised in a very romantic environment, I went to dances, danced, I felt good but there was no connection between me and my dancing partner. For me it was just dancing, having fun, just doing something cultural but no attachment whatsoever to it.

Partner dancing is one of those mysteries to me… what’s it for? What you’re supposed to feel? I simply do not get it. I do not get it all!! I mean we all learn that it is deeply entangled with romo stuff. Also that it’s supposed to be a “launchpad” for romo stuff. But how often is this the case exactly? I mean allos sometimes must also just dance for fun without any romo motives.

But more importantly why is there this connection to romance in the first place? You’re physically a bit close and you’re moving around and that is enough?!? That takes quite some imagination! Do allos regularly develop romantic feelings to e. g. their physiotherapists? I guess / hope not!

I also do not understand the strong connection of dancing and eroticism; it’s a bit more understandable, but I think you must have a rather wild imagination, too…

I’m always amazed about this convoluted romo culture which combines maximal complexity with maximal shallowness.

We were forced to do partner dancing in school. I found this completely unnerving. /rant-end

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

Having grown up in a standard poor American, somewhat-religious-but-not-really, household I often felt pressure into finding a partner mainly by society and those around me in public/school, than I do/did at home. I mean, because my family doesn't know much about aromanticism, other than the few times I've talked about it, there is that unspoken expectation that I may end up with a partner, but generally not much is ever brought up about who I supposedly may like or want to see/date.

Growing up there wasn't much talk about romance or sex, unless me and someone else started a conversation about it, or if I was just starting to learn about those things in the first place.

[MulticulturalFarmer]

On 5/30/2023 at 8:28 PM, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

Having grown up in a standard poor American, somewhat-religious-but-not-really, household I often felt pressure into finding a partner mainly by society and those around me in public/school, than I do/did at home. I mean, because my family doesn't know much about aromanticism, other than the few times I've talked about it, there is that unspoken expectation that I may end up with a partner, but generally not much is ever brought up about who I supposedly may like or want to see/date.

Growing up there wasn't much talk about romance or sex, unless me and someone else started a conversation about it, or if I was just starting to learn about those things in the first place.

Do you think it has something to do with being in a rural, conservative area? Or not really? There may not be a correlation at all to be fair.

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

16 hours ago, MulticulturalFarmer said:

Do you think it has something to do with being in a rural, conservative area? Or not really? There may not be a correlation at all to be fair.

It could be actually. It's hard to explain, because for a rural and conservative area, pretty much lot's of people (mainly the boomers and some gen X-ers) expect everyone to fill in the status quo: be straight, cis, and have a partner, and/or kids. But there's also this underlined "We kind of don't give a shit," to the area (that I live in at least) where, yeah, if you're openly queer there may be some people who will have a few thoughts, and the same for if a the community knows your business and so knows your single and that you haven't made any moves to change that - but take action on it? No.

So, conversations regarding romance and sex aren't ever really explored upon unless they're unoriginally only straight and cis focused. And even then, because there be quite a lot of religious people, some of them may not even want to dive into those topics at all even if they fit into a box of their liking.

[Collie]

My mom once told me when I was young "some people just don't have crushes". I immediately wanted to be one of those "people who just don't have crushes".

When I was 17 and still hadn't had a crush, that came back to me and I wondered about it. (I did have a couple crushes in the following years, so being on the aro spectrum did take me a long while to figure out.)

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

19 hours ago, Collie said:

My mom once told me when I was young "some people just don't have crushes". I immediately wanted to be one of those "people who just don't have crushes".

When I was 17 and still hadn't had a crush, that came back to me and I wondered about it. (I did have a couple crushes in the following years, so being on the aro spectrum did take me a long while to figure out.)

That's actually awesome of your mom to say. I don't know if she knows you're aro-spec, but maybe she'd be accepting of you?

My mom, based on relationships she has had, told me before when I admitted that maybe I'd want to be alone for, like, forever, that that was a valid option of living. I think she still expects me to just get married one day, but it made me feel good hearing her say that.

[MulticulturalFarmer]

On 10/14/2023 at 12:53 PM, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

It could be actually. It's hard to explain, because for a rural and conservative area, pretty much lot's of people (mainly the boomers and some gen X-ers) expect everyone to fill in the status quo: be straight, cis, and have a partner, and/or kids. But there's also this underlined "We kind of don't give a shit," to the area (that I live in at least) where, yeah, if you're openly queer there may be some people who will have a few thoughts, and the same for if a the community knows your business and so knows your single and that you haven't made any moves to change that - but take action on it? No.

So, conversations regarding romance and sex aren't ever really explored upon unless they're unoriginally only straight and cis focused. And even then, because there be quite a lot of religious people, some of them may not even want to dive into those topics at all even if they fit into a box of their liking.

Yeah that line of we don't care what you are doing but are silently judging you is super hard to navigate, I feel like. Cause you never really know what people are saying behind your back. So that's tough to handle for sure.

[dewy]

I'm a franco-american Texan which is. Certainly an interesting place to be culture wise.

For the Texan part, my family was never religious but it seemed like all my friends were so I felt I had to follow along, including that I had to settle down, marry someone, and have kids. When I was younger I was obsessed with the idea of family, and dreamed of getting married with kids, but as I got older that desire kept lessening. I thought I had to settle down and have a "traditional" family like all my friends did, but when I got older and saw others having different family structures I realized that's not the case and I would probably be miserable trying to have a family like that.

For the french part, we are a lot more open and relaxed about topics like sex and romance compared to where my family is currently living. So having moved to Texas my family had a hard time adjusting. I feel like I am on the fence between the two sides of my culture particularly with the very different views of sexuality. For french, it's considered a natural part of life and is not stigmatized, but for american, especially Texan, it's a lot more taboo. I learned a lot about this when I reconnected with my french side and I feel a lot more sexually liberated now. It's a very interesting topic to me, how the different cultures view sexuality.

Edited October 20, 2023 by dewy

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:29 AM, MulticulturalFarmer said:

Yeah that line of we don't care what you are doing but are silently judging you is super hard to navigate, I feel like. Cause you never really know what people are saying behind your back. So that's tough to handle for sure.

It can be. Especially, since the only place I actually live at, isn't actually considered a "place" by most people since it isn't in a town, but the middle of Bumfuck no where; with the only attractions being an abandoned orphanage I live near by, and some train tracks whose train is notorious for derailing constantly.

The actual town I live not so far away from, is rather small and is a tourist hot spot, but because of how small it is, you can easily get shunned out of it. Hell, I'm trans right, and I wore a T-shirt from iCarly that said "Uncle Female" on it, and already someone talked to my manager at my job about it, and they told me that I practically can't wear it anymore; because it will be assumed as a gender thing (which like, it was but c'mon), and they don't want their business, nor me, to be harmed socially.

Edited December 9, 2023 by The Newest Fabled Creature

[Holmbo]

I grew up in Stockholm. The  combination of individualism, atheism and love of American media (which really has a very different culture than the actual US) makes for some interesting views on sex and romance. Marriage is not seen as particularly important, many people don't marry at all even if they live together and have children. There's no such thing as a "homemaker" both partners work and if they are parents the children are in day care from when they are one years old. Sex is viewed very positively and as an important step into adulthood. Parents generally allow their teenage children to have their partner stay the night.

Because of the individualism I feel like the core family becomes more important somehow. Many adult Swedes don't have any close friends at all, they expect their romantic partner to be their partner in everything. And if they have children all of their attention and care is expected to go to them. The term "curling parent" is used a lot (for a parent that sweeps every discomfort or obstacle from their child's life) I feel it's generally expected that everyone wants children.

All that to say that I grew up assuming I would have children and because of this I needed a coparent. Apart from that though there was not an expectation for me to marry or any emphasis that it would somehow increase my worth as a person. As a teen I felt a lot of pressure to have penetrative sex, because it's seen as such an important step in growing up, and I tried to find a romantic partner to have someone to do it with. It wasn't until I was 25 or so that I really understood I just didn't desire a romantic relationship at all and that my sexual attraction was complicated.

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Holmbo

[Oko]

I grew up in Czech Republic. Here is normal for young people trying various romantic and sexual partners. Sometimes they have a short romantic relationship, and sometimes they just "enjoy life". It means they have one-time sex with various people, without assurances, just sex and bye bye.

About 20+ years of age they should "settle down", find one partner for life, marry and have kids. (Now a lot of people don't marry, just live together and have kids).

I have always had resistance to it. I have never wanted to have sex with "just someone" and imagine to live with somebody together and have kids make me sick.

So I'm still a "strange person". In my teenage years I didn't "enjoy life" and now (26 years) I live alone with my cat and I'm satisfied. Without partner/husband, without kids, without sex.