#i want aro art that's deep and complicated and messy and good and bad and so incredibly aro

[raavenb2619]

"I experience all of these as emotional reactions to romance depending on the context."

Same here. Out of romance-favorable, romance-indifferent, and romance-repulsed, I don't have, like, a label that I'd apply to myself. That'd feel kind of like applying sleepy or hungry or upset as a label. When mentioning romance-repulsion, I normally mention that something made me romance-repulsed, or that my romance-repulsion tends to flare up around Valentine's day. I less frequently use the phrases "romance-indifferent" or "romance-favorable" in reference to myself, maybe because (to me, personally) those seem less aro/more generally understood than romance-repulsion? But there are definitely romances in fiction where I'll be nodding at it thinking "I allow it" or smiling and thinking it's sweet and enjoying it.

Aros having complicated and varying feelings about romance reminds me of aros having complicated and varying feelings about love/humanity (loveless, voidpunk, lovequeer, etc). I wonder if there's something we can do as a community to facilitate discussion that acknowledges that, yeah, things are more complicated than simple definitions will allow?

I don’t like to use romance favourable, neutral, or repulsed as an identity for myself. I experience all of these as emotional reactions to romance depending on the context. I’m always romance repulsed towards myself being involved in romance but in fiction or other people irl it varies a lot. Like, I’m favourable to the queer couples/ships I enjoy in tv shows. I have romance repulsion towards super heteronormative and amatonormative relationships. I generally don’t like to see any form of PDA. Most other things I’m pretty neutral towards but sometimes the vibe makes me feel a bit ick or I might think it’s sweet, you know? Is this a common experience or do you pretty much always stick to one favourability? I’d love to hear some thoughts from other aros :)