#loveless

[loveless-arobee]

My main gripe with the posts that are like "love is love includes platonic/familial/queerplatonic/etc. love" is ofc that they still fully ignore and exclude loveless people.

But what is also quite noticeable is that they also never mention sexual love. Because, it seems, in one stance about love (beside the "everybody loves"), a lot of aspecs still agree with society: that sexual love either just straight-up doesn’t exist, or that it’s inherently bad and abusive (that loving someone sexually without romance is abuse, "only using them for sex" etc.)

And on the other hand you also have aspecs acting like, on a societal level, sexual love is seen as equal to romantic love (with phrasing such as "love that isn’t romantic or sexual is devalued by society"), as if romanceless sexual love isn’t seen as basically the worst thing ever.

While I don’t experience love per se, the only type of love I can relate to even remotely is specifically sexual love. I care a lot for people I’m sexually attracted to, and sex is very important to me overall. And let me tell you, me expressing interest in a purely sexual relationship, no matter if I’d label my feelings as love or anything similar, are not ever treated any better than friendships or platonic relationships are.

I’m demonised to hell and back from queer people and non-queer allies and queerphobes all the same for my feelings and opinions on sex. Sex is seen as something that should only happen in very specific situations, and only then is it "good"; any other type of sex is "bad"; it’s just the definition that varies slightly between those groups—and I fit none of their definitions for "good" sex. No one sees sexual love without romance as a positive thing, least of all something equal to romance. (And especially not sexual intimacy and closeness without love and romance (or friendship, in slightly more progressive views, but that’s rare tbh))

Its just very noticeable that the majority of queer people, and between those especially aspecs because they do talk about non-romantic love the most, still don’t see sexual love as something that could just exist. It’s very noticeable when there’s hundreds of posts broadening the definition of love to include literally everything but specifically sexual love. Endless lists about what love is in non-romantic ways, and it’s glaringly obvious that people just do not believe anyone could care for someone they "just" want to fuck, "just" have a sexual relationship with, without wanting to be labelled as friends or anything similar even when they do things other see as friendship because they cannot grasp that people can care for their sexual partners even without having feelings for them that aren’t sexual.

Just still seems very sex-negative to limit sex to be something that either happens between people in a different kind of relationship (usually romantic, but again, some do agree you can have sex with friends, too), or something emotionless between strangers who then never interact with each other again (which is also most of the time treated as a bad thing which should stop).

Point is: Maybe question why you exclude sexual love specifically from your post about non-romantic love. (And at the same time, also stop acting like every person must experience some type of love)

[thebluekid-underyourbed]

I just saw a post on my Tumblr feed. It's overarching argument was "love is what makes us human, but everyone experiences some kind of love. There's lots of types of love, ex. Love for family, friends, pets, food, hobbies, etc and everyone experiences love for something in some way"

Okay. So. No ! Like I understand the full point that you're trying to establish, but I think it's wrong (and ofc, no hate to OP).

(Large rant under the cut)

Firstly, some people simply do not experience love. Some people quite literally cannot/will not ever experience love. That's okay. It's something that lots of people are comfortable with, and nobody should feel like their lack of love needs to be supplemented with other things that they enjoy

Second, you can't define people's very own experiences of love for them. Lots of people (myself included) reject the word love. That being said, I personally do use the word love to describe some aspects of my life. I use the word love towards my family, my hobbies, towards random passive objects, whatever I want. HOWEVER, other people may not. Other people might feel exactly the sensation that an allo person feels, but they don't need to call it love. That's how platonic attraction works for me: I feel what people normally describe as friendship, but it feels wrong for me to call that love. That doesn't change what I feel, I just don't want to call it love.

Last, and in my opinion most importantly, is that it's not the point. That's never been the point. It's not about whether someone feels love or not. The real question is why is anyone trying to impose their own opinions of humanity on anyone else. It shouldn't matter either way, and I don't need love to justify my humanity - I am inherently human because I am human. I refuse to define anyone's humanity for them, with or without love, and I refuse to be defined by others. Love does not make us human, our humanity makes us human. Anyone who can't understand the value of inherent humanity shouldn't be talking about anyone else's.

So the next time you feel like someone just "isn't admitting that they love" and that "all people love something, so that is what makes us human", remember that it's not up to you. Who are you to define me. Who are you to tell me that I'm human because I don't feel love. Who are you to tell me that I'm human because I do feel love.

I know what I am, and don't need anyone's permission to be human.

[ritsukaaoyagi]

I wish everyone who dies goes to hell no matter what

[our-aro-experience]

“love is what makes us human—”

WRONG!!

[infiniteorangethethird]

sure "romantic" isn't the only type of love but also "love" isn't the only type of positive feeling. So maybe stop insisting everyone needs love to be happy and accept that loveless ppl exist? Pretty please?

[fallenrain40]

"but aroaces can still feel lo-" shut up. it doesn't matter if we can feel love or not. why is this always your defense to why aroaces should be valid? it gets even worse with alloaces and alloaros. people constantly saying "aces can still have sex!!" and "aros can still have love and have partners!!" YES, they can, but you aren't bringing that up just to bring awareness towards aroaces. No, you are using that fact as a way to ignore and condemn the part that makes us aroace; the lack of attraction. I'm sick and tired of seeing aces and aros have to defend themselves by bringing up all the other ways they can love. Why can't we for once celebrate the parts of us that DON'T love?

[loveless-yadriel]

Had a soulmate tarot reading done, in small hopeless aromantic hopes that I had a chance at love.

They described my cat. They even felt guided to say a name and it was my fucking cats name. I think they absolutely believed they were talking about a human girl but nope, just the goofiest cat that could ever roam. This is honestly the perfect possible outcome.

[love-me-love-my-weirdness]

Cishet aspecs are queer.

Cishet aromantics are queer. Cishet asexuals are queer. Cishet aplatonics are queer. Cishet afamilials are queer. Cishet anattractionals are queer.

Aspecs are queer as hell and excluding them only isolates queer people from their community.

[aro-absol]

You know what I like so much about the aromantic community?

We have so many concepts that the average alloromantic person has never heard of. Concepts that make it so much easier to explain our experiences, desires and struggles to other people. They make it so much easier to exist as an aromantic person in this world. Of course, every aromantic person can decide whether they find these concepts helpful and applicable to their experiences. But I find it amazing how many cool concepts the aromantic community either came up with or took pre-existing concepts and made them our aromantic 101. I don't think the allos really get how being aromantic can fundamentally change your worldview. And to be honest, I think they're missing out because I think everyone would benefit from at least being familiar with those concepts.

Being aromantic is basically like this:

Aromantic shrimp colours are real.

Anyways, aromantic community, y'all mean a lot to me and I'm so happy I found y'all and now share your "secret" knowledge!

[normalpeoplethiings]

“It was something adults said all the time. “You'll change your mind when you're older. You never know what might happen. You'll feel differently one day.” As if we teenagers knew so little about ourselves that we could wake up one day a completely different person. As if the person we are right now doesn't matter at all.”

- Loveless, Alice Oseman (2020)

[jediwizard]

HAPPY PRIDE YA'LL

[loveless-arobee]

It's always "aros can still date!" "aros can still be in (any type of non-romantic or romantic) relationships!" "aros aren't heartless!" "aros can still love in different ways!"

Well, sure, you do you.

But not all of us. A lot of us are *completely* non-partnering. There's loveless aros. Aplatonic aros. Hell, even heartless is a label some aros use!

We don’t need to do anything to "replace" the romantic relationships we don’t have. People can be completely happy alone! Without a partner! (Shocking, I know!)

I'm just a bit tired of all the amatonormativity I still see under some of the trending aro-positivity posts...

[redysetdare]

enough stories about how someone learns to truely be happy through love. i want a story where someone is desperately seeking out love thinking it's the only way to be happy only for them to learn by the end that happiness is what they make of it and they don't need love at all to make it.

[tenderdevils]

POV you disturb the god of death chaos while he’s reading his stories. 🫠

I think he’d get around Loveless.

[infiniteorangethethird]

I don't know where this "if you don't feel love/empathy you're evil" idea comes from like if you can only be decent towards people if you love them/feel empathy towards them then I'm pretty sure I'm not the one mistreating more people of the two of us

[thetisming]

amatonormativity: a romantic partner should be the most important person in EVERYONE'S life

NOT amatonormativity: MY romantic partner is the most important person in MY life, but i understand this is not the same for other people

allosexnormativity: EVERYONE should have sex and sex is something EVERYONE needs/wants/should want

NOT allosexnormativity: I PERSONALLY enjoy sex and love having sex because it makes ME feel good, but other people dont feel the same and that's okay

platonormativity: having friends is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs/has/should have friends

NOT platonormativity: having friends is important to ME and I PERSONALLY love having friends, but there are people who dont and theres nothing wrong with that

faminormativity (is that the word?): family is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs to have their family

NOT faminormativity: family is important to ME and I PERSONALLY need my family with me, but other people dont feel the same and i understand that

lovenormativity (again, not sure if this is a word): EVERYBODY feels love and there's something wrong wiith you if you dont

NOT lovenormativity: I PERSONALLY feel love and love people, but not everyone does and that's completely okay!

NOT amatonormativity: i dont have friends/have any desire to have friends, i am happy with other relationships/no relationships at all

NOT platonormativity: i dont have any desire to be in a romantic relationships, and i am happy with my platonic relationships

NOT allosexnormativity: i like hooking up with people and having one night stands or friends with benefits

NOT faminormativity: i care about my family deeply and am close with family members

NOT lovenormativity: i feel love for people i care about

it's not normative to personally enjoy something, so long as you respect that other people simply arent like you and aren't going to like the same things as you. taking down normativity is a two way street, allos and aspecs need to do it. support your local aros, aces, apls, afams and other aspecs today! remember to challange all normativities, and to not enforce other normativity by saying how bullshit other normativities are!

nothing is universal. romance is not universal. sex is not universal. friendship is not universal. family is not universal. love is not universal. nothing is universal.