myasexuality

[myasexuality]

When I was first telling my sister about my asexuality I somehow implied that I was christian instead so I had to quickly correct that by blurting out "I'm asexual" which was a very funny experience

[myasexuality]

Whats an aromantic flag and why you should include it in your pride posts

disclaimer: i know theres fighting every year about who should and shouldn’t be included in pride posts, this isn’t to argue with people who just hate aspec ppl, this is an informational post. don’t send me bullshit about it

Why should you include aro flags?

many people believe that aromanticism is covered under the asexual flag, so if they include that they’re including aros, however that’s not the case. aro and ace people share the aspec community, but one identity does not fall under the other. It’s less like using the trans flag as an umbrella for all trans and nonbinary people even if there’s a separate nonbinary flag, and more like using the transmasc pride flag to represent all transmascs and transfems. Aros are just not covered under the ace flag because both groups are separate identities. people can be aro and ace but not all aros are ace.

aro is also an incredibly important identity for a lot of people, something we take a lot of pride in. we get relegated to “minor or add on identity” all the time because people keep thinking of us as the -romantic version of asexual. we have multiple terms, multiple flags, and a huge array of different aro experiences, we are not a subset of asexuality and many of us wish for that to be more respected.

last on the reasons of why you should include aros in pride posts is that we have no larger umbrella flag, unless we’re counting the rainbow flag. the aro flag is the umbrella flag for arospec identities. if you don’t include it then we aren’t being included. and this isn’t me telling you you have to include an aro option for everything you make (tho that would be nice) ppl have the right to choose what flags they want to include. but theres been many times when i see people add  flags representing all parts of the community except aro, and then add on smaller more niche flags. i don’t want this to come across as another post like “how dare you include X flag but not Y flag!!!” because i think everyone should have the joy of representation, i just think many people don’t realize they’re even leaving aros out. either through lack of awareness or lack of knowledge on what the aro flag actually is, and that’s what i wanna help with this post.

What even is the aro flag?

Let’s start with what it’s not:

[ID: a flag with four horizontal stripes. from the top down they are green, yellow, orange and black. End ID]

This was the first proposed aro flag. We do not use it anymore for a couple reasons, the main one is that it resembled another countries flag too closely and was getting confused. I’d think this one would have died out by now but i literally just saw a post include it today.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, yellow, grey, and black. End ID]

This was the second popular aro flag. It is very close to the main aro flag now except the middle stripe is yellow. That stripe was changed due to causing some people sensory problems. This one is sometimes still accidentally used, probably because it looks very close to the main flag, but it’s not the main aro flag either.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, light green, and dark green. End ID]

I’ve actually seen this flag used a lot by people not very knowledgeable about aros. This is a flipped version of the aro flag. I also for the life of me can’t find an example of this but i’ve seen more than once a version that is flipped and removes a stripe of green so it looks like a recolored ace flag. These are pretty common, enough for me to have seen multiple people selling merch with this incorrect flag. I think it comes from people thinking the aro flag is the same as the ace one which does start with black at the top and has only four stripes.

[ID: A flag with seven horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

Yeah, this is the agender flag, not the aro flag. I see these get mixed up all the time. It’s not hard so see why with similar colors and a white grey black gradient, but as someone who is agender and aro, it kinda gets on my nerves when people mix these up. Also no this is not the same color palette as the aro flag. I’ve seen people make designs labeled as agender/aromantic that just use the agender color palette. The aro flag has two greens and they’re both different than the agender green.

[ID: Two flags next to each other. The first one has five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are orange, light orange, white, light blue, dark blue. The second flag has eight horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, black, grey, white, and purple. End ID]

These are two common aroace flag designs. These flags are used by a lot of people and you might see them included in pride posts. These are good flags, however, they should not be used to represent all aros. Including an aroace flag does not mean you’re including all aros and all aces, it means you’re including just aroaces. There’s plenty of aros who aren’t ace and aces who aren’t aro. It’d be like putting a gay trans flag in a post and saying its there to represent all gay and all trans people, when the flag is usually used to represent only people who are both gay and trans. Again, these flags are not bad, and them being included in pride posts is good actually, but they should not be used to represent all aro and all ace people.

Now let’s go over what actually is the aro flag:

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

This is the main aro flag. It’s the one most widely used and recognized. The color meanings are dark green and light green representing the spectrum of aro identities, white meaning friendship, and grey and black representing the spectrum of sexual identities in the aro community.

But wait there’s more!

The aro identity is a spectrum, meaning theres more identities under aromantic, and they have their own flags too. If you really wanna go wild and include some other aro flags heres some more. (this is not a full list of all arospec identities, just some i see around the most. feel free to look into more arospec identities and flags! also all of these definitions are coming from me and my personal knowledge of aro identities, i do not identify as any of these though, only as aromantic, so if i give the wrong definition please tell me so i can fix it!)

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, yellow, and dark yellow. End ID]

This is the alloaro flag. Alloaros are aros who aren’t ace. They deserve more support and attention because they’re really amazing members of the aro community.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, grey, white, grey, and dark green. End ID]

This is the greyromantic flag. Greyromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction rarely. The term greyromantic is also sometimes used to mean aro identities that still feel some form of romantic attraction.

[ID: A flag with four horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are black, green, aqua, and grey. End ID]

the quoiromantic or WTFromantic flag. It means someone who can’t or doesn’t want to tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction basically. It’s got a special place in my heart bc i used to id as quoi.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are red orange, orange, yellow, white, and black. End ID]

This is the Lithromantic flag. Lithromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction but doesn’t want it reciprocated, or may no longer feel romantic attraction when it is reciprocated.

[ID: A flag with a black, sideways triangle on the left side pointing right and three horizontal stripes. The first stripe from the top is a thick white stripe, the next stripe is thin and dark green, and the bottom stripe is thick and grey. End ID]

The demiromantic flag. Someone who is demiro doesn’t feel romantic attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone.

And there’s many more arospec identities!

I hope i’ve helped to clear up some misconceptions about aros and our flags! We’re not under the ace umbrella, we’re our own community. We all have different experiences, different relationships to our identity, and I hope to see more people represent aros this year!

Have a happy pride month!

[myasexuality]

Pride history posts on here seem almost exclusively to revolve around Stonewall which can leave the impression that America is the only place where anything important ever happened and obviously is not true so I have compiled a few links where you can learn about LGBTQ history in other countries! Feel free to add

The Brunswick Four and the Toronto raids in Canada 🇨🇦

Queer icons like Virginia Wolf, Oscar Wilde, and Freddie Mercury in Britain 🇬🇧

Cultural revolution in Weimar Germany 🇩🇪

The drag scene in Nigeria 🇳🇬

Gay and lesbian Mardi Gras in Australia 🇦🇺

Frida Kahlo and Mexicos fraught history 🇲🇽

Gay samurai in Japan 🇯🇵

Queer narratives erased by colonialism in Pakistan 🇵🇰

The modern world’s first legal same-sex marriages in the Netherlands 🇳🇱

The honoured Mahu (transgender individuals) in traditional Hawaiian culture 🌺

Hidden queer communities in communist Poland 🇵🇱

Husbands in ancient Egypt 🇪🇬

The Athens pride festival in Greece 🇬🇷

The Homosexual Movement of Liberation in Chile 🇨🇱

Gay rights protests in India 🇮🇳

[myasexuality]

Being asexual is good, actually. Talking about being asexual is cool and good. Aces can have fun with their sexuality and pride too. Ace pride is a good thing.

[myasexuality]

These info graphs are by flatbushgirl in Instagram

I thought these were some important facts to share since a lot of people don't know any of this

[myasexuality]

Hey! Happy international asexuality day!

[myasexuality]

The best analogy I can think of when describing asexuality is with glasses. Do you remember that fad a few years back where everyone wanted to be a hipster and wear 'nerd' glasses? Like, my older sister and her friends all had fake glasses that they would wear like an accessory. I think the people who say asexuals just want to be snowflakes are seeing it like that, but don't realize there are The best analogy I can think of when describing asexuality is with glasses.

Do you remember that fad a few years back where everyone wanted to be a hipster and wear 'nerd' glasses? Like, my older sister and her friends all had fake glasses that they would wear like an accessory. I think the people who say asexuals just want to be snowflakes are seeing it like that, but don't realize there are people who actually need glasses.

Some people who need glasses hide the fact for one reason or another with contacts, but this can be gross or painful for them, the same is true for asexuals when they feel they have to hide their sexuality and some will even force themselves into what is considered a 'normal' relationship having sex, even if they don't really want/like it.

Personally, I never realized there was anything wrong with my seeing. I usually sat near the front of class so I could see the board, and if not the teachers always said we could get closer to read it and there were plenty of others who moved closer just like me. It wasn't until I was asked to read something out loud and had to move closer that I realized others could read it from where I sat.

My asexuality was the exact same. I had absolutely no idea others felt sexual attraction, I was raised religious so I thought sex was just something you were supposed to do when you got married and that was it, it wasn't until I hit highschool and people started actually talking about sex and the adults were telling us that though we might feel tempted we should wait until marriage, and I realized everyone around me actually WAS tempted.

At first, I just thought I was a late bloomer, that's what everyone said when I wasn't interested in dating or boys. My period used to be all out of wack, and it wasn't until I started birth control to regulate it that I realized puberty was supposed to come with those feelings. I ended up staying on the pills way longer than it took to regulate my cycle, thinking they would fix me, that I was broken.

Learning about asexuality was just like putting on my glasses for the first time, I was amazed at everything I could see, that this was what my world looked like, and it was beautiful. It's the best analogy I can think of because anyone who has ever needed glasses knows what that's like. And also what it's like when you run into the people who think you're just trying to be a snowflake.

My Mom has always wanted me to get contacts, and I know she means well, but she just doesn't understand how uncomfortable they make me, and she's the same with asexuality. She's the type to say I haven't found the right person, who still thinks I'll grow out of it, but that's the same as thinking someone just needs to find a brand that's good for them, or use the contacts often enough to get use to them, but getting used to something, tolerating something, it doesn't make it any more enjoyable, it doesn't make it something you want, it's just something you have to do, and no one should ever feel that way about something as intimate as sex.

But then the glasses comparison carries over to the way some members of the LGBT community try to exclude asexuals, except it's less about trying to fix us, or say we're faking it for attention, it's more like when you're with people who also wear glasses, but they don't think your prescription is all that bad, that you shouldn't be wearing glasses because you can see just fine without them. That maybe you should wear contacts and go with the people who can see, because you shouldn't be grouped in with them.

Then you start to wonder if they're right, maybe you do just wear contacts, or maybe you stop wearing glasses all together, and then you're right back to where you started.

[myasexuality]

More bitching about being ace in the dating scene 😂😂

[myasexuality]

Out of curiosity, did anyone Google "asexual quiz" to see if it would help them figure out if they were asexual?

Because I've taken like 8 different quizzes.

[myasexuality]

When I came out as asexual to two friends, they laughed saying 'such people don't exist', it was hurtful

Reblog if you disagree with them, I'm trying to keep faith in humanity

[myasexuality]

Something that I had to learn to recognize was when something I said could be perceived as a sexual innuendo. Because I don't think of things in that way.

It's like I'm running an audit in my head so that I don't accidentally make an innuendo and then deal with the 5 min of "omg I can't believe you said that." I didn't mean it that way so can we please move on.

[myasexuality]

I laughed so fucking hard at this

[myasexuality]

One time my boyfriend leaned in to kiss me and I was so shocked by what felt like a sudden turn of events that I nearly fell out of the tree I was sitting in to avoid the kiss.

And it still took me 3 years after that to realize that my shock and confusion and avoidance may have to do with the fact that I'm asexual.

[myasexuality]

narcissus at the pond

[myasexuality]

sex-repulsed people are not prudes

sex-repulsed people are not all traumatized

sex-repulsed people are not immature

sex-repulsed people are not naive

sex-repulsed people are not broken

sex-repulsed people are not close-minded

sex-repulsed people do not need to justify to you why they are sex-repulsed.

sex-repulsed people should not be pressured or forced into situations that make them uncomfortable.

sex-repulsed people are valid and amazing and deserve your respect.

[myasexuality]

me_irl

[myasexuality]

Reblog if you are aro-allo, support aro-allos, or emit a faint humming sound that awakens a primal fear in everyone you encounter.