alterous-yearning

[alterous-yearning]

Pride Shipping Containers - 05/2024

[alterous-yearning]

[alterous-yearning]

Star Trek: Enterprise // S02E14: Stigma

[alterous-yearning]

Star Trek: Enterprise // S02E14: Stigma

[alterous-yearning]

Star Trek: Enterprise // S02E14: Stigma

[alterous-yearning]

[alterous-yearning]

hey who wants to hold hands and play with my hair and be so gentle with me i might shatter into a million pieces

[alterous-yearning]

your company makes the sun in my chest beam.

[alterous-yearning]

You make my soul heat up

Giant Rooks, Heat Up

[alterous-yearning]

- sandyferal

Alterous attraction: A type of love that is neither completely romantic nor platonic.

Merthur Week 2022 | Day 2: What does Merthur mean to you?

[alterous-yearning]

having a ponder about being aromantic and the kinds of friendships or qprs I might want to have

[alterous-yearning]

if you dont mind explaining, what is alterous? (I hope I spelled that right)

Alterous! Aka Alterous Attraction is a type of attraction that does not fit within the boundaries of strictly romantic or platonic labels. For some it may be completely non romantic and non platonic but a separate kind of love within the larger spectrum. It’s kinda like the nonbinary/agender spectrum of attraction.

Sometimes alterous attraction can be very platonic/friendship based where they may never want to partner with whoever the user feels the feelings towards. They may also not want to be physically affectionate, or they may want to very physically affectionate. (I.e. someone may be aro allosexual and grow a strong bond with someone that is more than friends but definitely not romantic). That being said there are definitely QPR’s that are alterous and that’s apart of their queerplatonic attraction.

Sometimes alterous attraction can be very “romantic” or partnering based. Wanting to go on dates, being very physically affectionate (preferring hugs, kisses, cuddles, sex), investing in a home together, possibly having kids together, getting tax benefits off of each other.

Of course this is a veryyyyyyy like. rigid way to view relationships. Like platonic is just One Thing and romantic is just One Thing. you could do either of these things in whatever relationship you are in. The main defining feature is that the feelings are not as simple as being able to be prescribed to “platonic” or “romantic” labels. It may have bits and pieces of one of those things, it may have a bit of everything and more. it may have no platonic or romance involved. And this is without even including polyamorous alterous experiences. But those are just as vast as well!!

Coined in 2015 on tumblr it’s one of those terms that I’m glad stuck around until my lil aro egg ass found once i had cracked and I was like holy shit. This is what I’ve been feeling. Thankfully this also helped me come out as aplatonic bc i…. i don’t go there sisters im so sorry. It’s all just alterous love to me.

[alterous-yearning]

i love you alterouses who are still in the egg. i love you alterous teens just figuring out yourself. i love you adults who are starting the process or have been in the process for years. i love you people who are confused as to what this feeling is and are trying to figure it out. i love people who have an alterous crush or squish or equivalent preferred descriptor and are falling for someone. I love you people who are so happy they aren’t dealing with alterous feelings rn bc they are happy where they are. I love you people with alterous feelings who can never tell the person /people you feel it for. I love you people who are figuring out how to tell the person/people they feel alterous care for. I love you people who are in a happily committed alterous relationship. I love you alterous monogamous people. i love you alterous polyamorous people. I love you aro alterous people. I love you allo alterous people. I love you relationship anarchy alterous people. I love you trans alterous people. I love you cis alterous people. i love you het alterous people. I love you the relationship between alterous feelings and adding that as the subtext to your sexuality (i.e. bialterous, homoalterous, etc). I love you allos happily breaking the cycle and destroying amatonormativity in their lives. I love you people of color who are coming to terms with how their culture was influenced or impacted by amatonormativity and patriarchy and trying to deconstruct their old thought processes. I love you people who have always known something was wrong but now you have the language. I love you people who are deconstructing what they’ve been taught a relationship is “supposed” to be. I love you allos who happily come and enjoy an aro spectrum term. I love you aro’s digging deep in our community finding new terms to understand their feelings by. I love you people who are in love, and I love you people who are so grateful for their life with their alterous partner. I love you people who relate alterous more towards platonic feelings. I love you people who have alterous sexual feelings. I love you people who relate alterous more towards romantic feelings. I love you people who don’t relate their alterous feelings to any platonic or romantic feeling. I love you people who experience this in a flux or fluid state. I love people who experience it in a specific grey area. I love you people who experience alterous attraction, who have had the confusion haunt and hurt other relationships before they found alterous, who have found so much honest joy in realizing these are their feelings. I love you the ups. I love you the downs. I love you the joys. I love you the happiness. I love you the sadness. I love you the loss. I love you for giving me something special. Something that’s sometimes temporary but beautiful. Sometimes dangerous but giving me the opportunity to stand up for myself and express myself. I love you feeling like icarus far too close to the sun. And the blush that comes when you don’t die immediately. First you hold the suns hand. I love the wide vast beautiful experiences so many people have, and all the kind souls that come together here during these trying times.

[alterous-yearning]

My small issue with the current Alterous Attraction Flag design...

So, I wanted to make myself a personal pride flag design - combining all of my own personal pride flags and orientations into one - and suddenly found myself hitting a bit of a wall when it came to the alterous attraction one.

Because, what's absolutely amazing about the romantic v.s. sexual orientation "binary" is that, when it comes to their flags, both flags are the same, except one has a heart on it.

Left: Pansexual. Right: Panromantic.

Therefore, you can combine both orientations into a single flag, by having the heart show your romantic orientation, and the "wallpaper" in the background showing your sexual orientation.

Ex: Bisexual Panromantic.

Or, when they are the same, doing "half and half, or adding the little Pansexual heart somewhere...

So, it works great!

But there's no such symbol attached to alterous orientation!

And there's no guaranty that the person's alterous orientation is going to be the same as their romantic and/or sexual one, either!

And, as a demisexual, it is SPECIFICALLY alterous attraction that triggers my sexual desires for someone, not romance!

What typically happens, is that I'll develop alterous feelings for one of my friends, become deeply committed to that "friendship" and very much "in love" (with absolutely no romance nor desire for us to ever become an actual "couple", live together, etc.) with them.

And, because I feel so emotionally close and like I could trust them with anything, should they also be aesthetically attractive also, I'll (very instinctively, very strongly) desire to have sex with them.

It's that sense of emotional intimacy that runs soul deep, and where I could no longer imagine my life without them, that makes me want to sexually connect as well.

That being said, I can also desire certain people romantically and have powerful crushes.

It's just that I never sexually desire my crushes until we reach a level of emotional intimacy that can match my alterous friendships.

And, when I find myself desiring a romantic partner both romantically and sexually - should they also be are monoamorous - then I'll stop experiencing any sexual desires for my alterous friends. We usually remain physically intimate/at ease with each other (heartfelt hugs, hand holding, etc.), but those intense friendships lose their sexual appeal.

So basically, I was trying to combine my:

Panromantic

Panalterous

Pansexual

Demisexual

Ambiamorous

identities all into one flag...

And was getting heavily frustrated by the fact that, thus far, people were simply making different color schemes for each alterous orientations!

For example, here are two of the suggested bialterous and panalterous flags I found...

Beautiful flags! The person that designed them did a very nice job with the colors!

That's not the problem.

It's just that there's nothing on them that screams that we're talking about a form of emotional attraction that is different, yet just as important and significant as romance.

Romantic attraction has its very own love symbol. It makes no sense that alterous attraction shouldn't be a symbol driven orientation as well!

I'm also having a bit of a hard time connecting those designs with their romantic and sexual equivalents, and recognizing the "bi" or "pan" elements in both. And I don't know where to place them on my own flag design, either, so that people understand that I'm talking about a form of emotional attraction...

What I needed, was a symbol, similar to the heart of the romantic flag, but specific to alterous forms of love...

After obsessing a bit too much over this, I eventually came up with my own personal versions:

Alterous Flag

Meaning

Possibility of replacing the white areas with other personal flags.

Example of a Panalterous Flag.

Example of a Homoalterous Aromantic Demisexual Man

Example of a Panalterous Panromantic Flag

Example of a Bialterous Greyromantic Queerplatonic Asexual Flag

My personal Pride Flags (Panromantic, Panalterous, Ambiamorous, Demisexual, Pansexual).

When combined into a single flag design.

So yeah, I did like the color scheme of the originally designed Alterous Flag, it's just the lack of potentially recognizable symbol for alterous attraction that bothered me.

And I thought that putting 3 hearts like that would have people ask "Wait. Why 3 hearts?", and give us the opportunity to explain that the one in red (or with the red border) means romantic attraction, the one in yellow (or with the yellow border) means platonic attraction.

The flag inside the yellow (if there is one) is about Queerplatonic relationships that are unconventional friendships where the two friends might share the same level of intimacy as romantic partners, but without the romance and/or sex.

So the yellow includes all types of friendships, from the less emotionally intimate to the most emotionally intimate ones.

And the one in the middle, with the pink border reminding us about how those relationships all share affection, is about alterous attraction, a form of love that feels neither romantic nor platonic, but somewhere in the middle and/our outside of it. It can be accompanied by the eventual desire to form a queerplatonic relationship (or not), a need for different forms of emotional and physical intimacy, including sexual in some cases, etc.

The "romantic" crowd sort of "stole everyone's heart" with the romantic flags.

Now, the people on the aromantic spectrum are left without anything to symbolize their own "love".

We need to put the love into the aromantic flag to remind people that love and romance aren't synonyms.

When you remove romance, all that's left isn't "casual sex" or "casual friendships".

I kinda want to see a visual counterpart to romance on flags out there!

Even if that's not my own design!

The reason why I put the "Alterous" heart bigger is not because I believe that "Alterous orientation" is more important than "Romantic orientation" nor "Queerplatonic orientation and relationships".

It's simply because the focus of the Alterous flag should be Alterous love.

It is connected to romantic relationships and queerplatonic ones, but romantic orientations already have their own well-known flags and tons of visibility.

As for the Queerplatonic flag(s), well, let's say that those are relationships we need to talk about about, and having them there on the flag opens the doors for curiosity and conversations, and lets people know that some friendships run as deep and are as powerful as romance.

So I've kept both the same size (romantic orientation + queerplatonic relationships).

And they're not spaces that HAVE to be filled. It's more an added option for convenience's sake to be able to describe what's included in the "red heart" (romantic attraction) and in the "yellow heart" (friendships, if left yellow, or queerplatonic relationships, if a flag is added).

It's a design that I personally could play and have a bit of fun with...

So, if some of you guys enjoy the idea, and want to start using them to express yourselves, until the day we eventually have a more official agreed upon flag, here are the .png files , enjoy!

If you have other ideas that could improve on those designs, too, I'd be very glad to hear them!

(If you want me help you make them, I might be open to do it if I have the time...)

[alterous-yearning]

Fudddddddddge yall

You ever Alterous attraction?

It’s like- woahhhh

[alterous-yearning]

why do I have a whole sideblog for someone I haven't seen in years? I should have a sdieblog for my boyfriend🤔......jk lol that would be the most basic thing to ever exist. i rather just text him

[alterous-yearning]

"Relationship" is not synonymous with "romance."