#Romance Repulsed

[alastorsbroadcast]

Can romance and sex just stop existing now. Can we as a society move on.

[hybrix-hidings]

Honestly everyone give it up for repulsed aces/aros. Yall get so much shit for having boundaries and its frustrating to watch. You're all getting sent complimentary gift baskets

[fun-k-boards]

If I ever make a book it's going to be so painfully aromantic and asexual that any allos reading will die from a heart attack because of the lack of romance and sex

[redysetdare]

Hey... Hey if you say you support aspec people that means you also need to respect repulsed aspecs. Non-partnering aspecs. Loveless aspecs. Platonic aspecs. Other a-attraction aspecs. Old aspecs. Young aspecs. Aspecs who use labels you don't understand. Non-sam aspecs. Traumatized aspecs. Dysphoric aspecs.

You cannot only support part of the community. It's either all of us or none of us. You can't play favorites because one kind of aspec makes you feel more comfortable than others.

[oroniusn]

“you know I expect to be a grandmother! You had better settle down and-”

PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB PIPEBOMB

[romancerepulsed]

aspec terms for beginners!

since it's trending right now, i feel like it might be helpful to clear up some basic aspec (but particularly aromantic, as we are the center of attention currently) terms. if you have absolutely any questions, i would be happy to answer, either in the replies, dms, or my inbox!

★・・・・・・★

the split attraction model (SAM): a model of human behavior that posits that, for some people, romantic and sexual attraction are not the same.

[most often this will come in the form of someone being aspec on one axis and allo (not aspec) on another. for example, a biromantic asexual may be romantically attracted to two or more genders, but sexually attracted to none. some people may even use SAM for allo identities– a bisexual lesbian may be sexually attracted to multiple genders, but only romantically attracted to women (note that this is not the only way that someone can be an mspec lesbian, just one way!). the SAM does not apply to everybody, not even all aspecs! there are non-SAM aros, for instance, who do not differentiate their aromanticism from their sexuality.]

aspec: a collection of queer spectrums centered around the lack of a certain attraction or identity. the most common spectrums under the aspec umbrella are asexual, aromantic, agender, and aplatonic, though there are many other ways to be aspec.

asexual: experiencing little to no sexual attraction.

[aces can still have sex– whether its because they experience some amount of sexual attraction or they just want to participate in sex because they find the act appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aces who have not and will never have sex. it is a spectrum.]

aromantic: experiencing little to no romantic attraction.

[aros can still have romantic partners– whether its because they experience some amount of romantic attraction or they just find relationships appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aros who have not and will never be in a romantic relationship. it is a spectrum.]

agender: having no gender or little relation to any gender.

aplatonic: experiencing little to no platonic attraction.

[similarly to aros and aces, apls can still form friendships if they so desire– whether its because they experience some amount of platonic attraction or they find friendships appealing in some other way.]

aroallo: combination of aromantic and allosexual– allosexual being someone who fully experiences sexual attraction. an aroallo, then, is someone who is aromantic but not asexual. aroallos often do not have a standard relationship with sex due to its romantic connotations and the stigma against loveless sex. someone having sex with someone else they do not love does not inherently make them aroallo, much in the same way that having a nonsexual relationship with a partner doesn't inherently make either participant asexual.

aroace: someone who is both aromantic and asexual. because aro and ace are both spectrums, an aroace may still experience some amount of attraction on either or both of those spectrums, or they may experience attraction of some other kind (platonic, tertiary, etc.), and that attraction may be only for a certain gender or genders– these are known as oriented aroaces.

queerplatonic relationship: a type of relationship that is defined only by the people within it. i have a post dedicated to explaining this in larger detail.

partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has and/or desires to have a partnership or multiple partnerships– romantic, queerplatonic, or otherwise.

non-partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has no desire to form a partnership of any kind.

romance/sex/plato favorable: an aspec who desires or would not reject a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship. they are also generally not particularly bothered by seeing these relationships in their day-to-day.

romance/sex/plato repulsed: an aspec who does not desire a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship and generally does not like seeing those relationships in their day-to-day. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily judgemental towards people who desire or participate in those relationships, they just do not desire them for themselves. repulsion often takes the form of discomfort or annoyance. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily cruel sticks-in-the-mud– they are perfectly capable of being respectful, and they very often are. repulsion does not always stem from trauma, though it certainly can.

romance/sex/plato positive: not to be confused with favorability, [x] positivity is the belief that romance, sex, and platonic relationships are human rights that should be supported and uplifted. someone can be [x] repulsed and [x] positive at the same time, because favorability/repulsion revolves around the self, and positivity/negativity extends to others.

sex/romance/plato negative: not to be confused with repulsion, [x] negativity is an inherently judgemental and harmful ideology. most commonly in the form of sex negativity, these ideologies are centered around the opposition to or personal judgement of people who engage in romance, sex, or platonic relationships. sex negativity in particular is embedded in western white supremacist societies and it is important for aspecs not to play into that.

those are the basics, but i have more information below the cut!

★・・・・・・★

> how are aspecs queer?

aspecs are queer because "queer" does not only mean LGBT. queer theory is about far more than just LGBT people– though they are undeniably a large part of it– queerness is any subversion of the traditional cisheteronormative standard. this includes things that cishets may take part in/identify with, because you do not have to be LGBT to subvert those standards. cishets who are gender-nonconforming are queer, for example. a good rule of thumb is that if you have to explain what you whole deal is to cishets, you're queer. queer does mean strange, after all.

traditional cisheteronormative conceptions of attraction, gender, and relationships do not account for aspecs. it is expected that everyone will one day form a traditional partnership with one other person, and that relationship will include sex (even if only for procreation, under some dogmas). virginity past a certain age is seen as a point of shame and something indicative of a larger problem in someone– in men, a red flag even. people past 30 without a relationship are pitied. our economic structure is build for couples and families– it's near impossible for someone to live comfortably alone. romance, friendship, and love are placed on a pedestal, treated as the meaning of life, the best thing anyone could ever experience. "love is the point of everything," as many posts on this site like to claim. people who reject these ideas are undeniably queer.

> i can get behind aros and aces, but the whole "aplatonic" thing feels like a stretch to me. how is not having friends queer? "platonic attraction" isn't even real.

aplatonicism is more than just "not having friends," and many apls have friends anyway, much in the same way that aros can date and aces can have sex. someone who does not have friends is not inherently aplatonic, they only are if they identify that little-to-no platonic attraction in themselves and choose to label themselves that way (just like how virgins aren't inherently asexual). still, apls who don't have friends exist, and they are all queer. what is a greater subversion of traditional cisheteronormative relationship structures than an outright rejection of what's seen as the most basic, fundamental relationship our culture has to offer?

you may not feel that platonic attraction is a distinct phenomenon in your own experience, and that's fine! ultimately, a lot of aspec terms exist for the utility and comfort of aspecs themselves. the SAM isn't for everyone, and platonic attraction isn't for everyone either. you do not have the authority to tell people what their own experiences are, nor should you care.

> i think it's sad that you're limiting yourself with these labels. you'll find someone one day!

for the broad majority of aspecs, our identities are not self-disciplinary, nor are they necessarily permanent. all queer people are capable of misunderstanding their identity or having a fluid identity– it is not a problem unique to being aspec. that being said, a lot of us may always be aspec and completely happy with it. being aspec is not a tragedy. the only thing i don't like about being aromantic is the judgement i receive from other people about it. non-partnering aspecs are not "missing out" on anything, because we don't even want the things we're rejecting in the first place. many of us are romance/sex/plato repulsed and are far more happy engaging with the world and with other people in different ways, because there is so, so much more to life than relationships, and it's wrong to presume that relationships are universally fit for everybody. telling an aspec that they'll find "the right person" one day is no different from telling a lesbian she'll find "the right man" one day. there is no "right person" for an aspec just as there's no "right man" for a lesbian. a lesbian is not "missing out" on a heterosexual relationship just because it's culturally perceived as superior and more fulfilling.

[disclaimer before anyone tries to do a "gotcha," i'm talking about a lesbian who is fully not attracted to men in any way. it's not like homophobes know the intricacies of gender identity and nonconformity as it pertains to homosexuality anyways.]

lastly, i wanna give a special shout out to the loveless aros and the relationship anarchists.

loveless aros are those who either feel little-to-no love as they understand it, or they are someone who supports the de-centering of love. they're worthy of a whole post of their own, but in summary: the loveless experience is all about finding joy in yourself and the countless things our world has to offer that are not dependent on the vague idea of love.

relationship anarchy is another concept worthy of its own post, but in essence it's an ideology aimed at abolishing the standard hierarchy of relationships (in the USA, depending on who you ask, its typically friendship < family < romantic partnership or friendship < romantic partnership < family) and allowing everyone the autonomy to define their relationships for themselves.

if i made any mistakes, let me know! and of course i'm willing to answer any questions anyone may have. :-3 thanks for reading my long ass post!

[bloggingboutburgers]

Had a bit of a "community heartbreak" last week, yet another one in a life-long series (though it'd been a while), so I malfunctioned for some days, took exactly one painkiller, and then finally tried to make sense of stuff that hurt me over the years and that I kept being clueless to for a ridiculous amount of time, so that maybe, hopefully, it could save some people in cases similar to mine some confusion and hurt

[archivomeow]

can we just all collectively agree that it is okay for aroace characters not to date or have sex if they clearly show no interest in it or repulsion?

can we respect that and not ship them?

or are yall too deep into amatonormativity…???

[bored-boring-and-tired]

me currently:

“i want people to have crushes on me so badly because i thrive on external validation and im super insecure so i really really want people to have crushes on me”

also me, being aroace and sex/romance-repulsed (if someone has a crush on me):

“pleasepleasepleaseplease nobody have a crush on me and ESPECIALLY DONT TELL ME because then i have to reject you and i hate rejecting people and then i’ll probably have to come out to avoid hurting anyone because i overthink everything ahahahha”

[daybringersol]

as someone in the aro community (and i think this is also applicable to the ace community, which is why y’all are included), i think there is something to be said about people trying to find a moral explanation to their repulsion. in a some situations, it is helpful and there is a conversation to be had about it but in a lot of others, it’s just recycled purity culture, i’m going to be honest.

before you send a post about how you think it’s actually exhibitionist to kiss in public, or predatory to talk about people you want to sexually pursue with your friends, please ask yourself first if there is genuinely something wrong morally going on there, or if it’s just something that grosses you out. it’s completely okay if it’s something that grosses you out. you don’t need to make up a moral reason behind it. you can just say ‘it grosses me out’ and find a way to remove yourself from that situation, for exemple, by looking away, or asking your friends to not talk about those topics around you (if they refuse, that’s another problem entirely and you should get better friends).

it is as unhealthy for allo people to repress their romantic and/or sexual attraction than it is for us to repress our aromanticism and/or asexuality. this isn’t like an theoretical extrapolation, this is a proven phenomenon, we’ve seen it with the catholic church. i understand and empathize with the fact that it feels like all of this is forced upon us, because it is, but there is a difference between someone telling us ‘i like this’ and someone telling us ‘you’re weird/broken if you don’t like this’.

anyways, sorry for the rant, i keep seeing posts in the aro and/or ace tags that try to justify their repulsion with morality, and i don’t want to single out anyone so i thought i’d make this post. there is no issue with posting about repulsion itself, for the record, it’s the moral justification that i think is unhelpful.

you don’t need any justification for your repulsion, you can just be repulsed. that’s fine.

[alastorsbroadcast]

Being aroace is very important to me because I am in a world and society where romance and sex is valued so highly and those who do not participate in it are losers, boring and all sorts of other insults.

[natalinova]

Being repulsed is really fucking weird. Not wanting to see people kiss, being uncomfortable when witnessing romantic displays, that's all associated with childishness. I've genuinely thought there was something wrong with me or that I was a bad friend for not wanting to hear about my friend's new boyfriend for hours. Or that not liking to see my friend and her girlfriend kiss meant I was jealous somehow.

It's very alienating and othering and simply confusing because most of us go through this for years before discovering there's a word for it and other people feel this way.

[unrestrained-balderdash-art-blog]

Made this for ASAW, didn't post it because I made better things but might as well post it now

[redysetdare]

Accept and support repulsed people or die by my blade

[asphyxiatedredherring]

Hey, just so you know, it's ok for your feelings to fluctuate. It's ok to be sex or romance repulsed one day and not the next. It's ok to be indifferent one day and favorable the next. It's ok it you think you're sex repulsed and then realize maybe you're sex adverse. It's ok to be romance indifferent one moment and adverse the next. It's ok. Your experiences are valid.

[genderqueerdykes]

here's to the romance repulsed aromantics. not wanting to date or have a marriage or partnership is okay. it's not unhealthy, shameful or bad to enjoy being single and wanting to stay that way. not wanting to be involved in discussions about romance or other peoples' romantic lives is not a personal attack against the people who have them. not wanting to be touched, called pet names or shown affection is a proper boundary to establish if that's how you feel. not having an interest in fictional romances (romantic comedies, shipping, etc.). is not a moral failing. not wanting to be near or witnessing romantic displays, fictional or real does not make you an asshole.

you are allowed to assert what oversteps your boundaries. you are allowed to curate your experience online and have conversations with those you interact with in real life about your boundaries. you do not owe the world romance or time and attention for it when your needs aren't being met. your experience as an aromantic person deserves to be positive when and where possible, just like anyone else's- you do not deserve to be uncomfortable