#ace and aro community relations

[dead-inside-demiboy]

Im sorry but being aromantic and/or asexual is such a beautiful, complex identity that opens up almost endless possibilities and interpretations about sex and romance and relationships and struggles within those,

and i will always absolutely LOATHE how both the outside and the aro/ace community itself have boiled these identities down to just "doesnt have sex" and "doesnt date"

[dreamer0903]

I am not out to anyone and I don't really feel the need to, it's too difficult to explain what aroace means so I just shrug it off and say "nah I don't want a relationship"

Anyone like me?

[whatisgoingoninmyhead]

I loveeeee having an aroace blog, I love seeing all the little aspec flag icons in the notes, I love knowing people relate, I love seeing additions and experiences in the tags, I love having a community!

this is me saying you are all awesome!

[faggotryandtransjesterism]

for me, being non-sam aro isn't like. not being able to see the difference, or even not thinking the difference matters. for me it's like my romantic orientation is aro and my sexual orientation is... also aro. like i arguably do experience sexual attraction (which is why i sometimes call myself alloaro as well) but the way i experience it is so unconventional and so so influenced by my aromanticism that it doesn't really make sense to call myself ace or allo. which is why i'm just aro

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

Kiss Me, Maybe

contemporary romance

an ace lesbian has an accidental thirst trap go viral and uses the attention to talk about her experiences - which ends up developing into a silly idea to do a scavenger hunt where the winner gets to be her first kiss

she starts to plan it, with the bartender she’s had a crush on for years, and realises she’s starting to fall for said bartender - and as their relationship develops so does her understanding of her identity & connection towards her community

grey-ace lesbian MC

arc, out may 6!

[spitefularoandbi]

Aces don't care about aro specific problems unless it can be made mostly about them. Aces and aroaces don't care about aroallos unless it can be mostly made about them.

I am happy that the aspec community overall said "we're not doing aphobia in 2024" but in light of the post I just reblogged a bit ago, nobody actually gives a shit that aromantic ALLOSEXUAL (cishet aro) men were the ones directly attacked here.

I don't think I've seen a single aroallo flag come up in all this aro positivity junk. I thankfully am seeing aromantic flags, but I'm seeing a lot of aroace related commentary too. Hell, I've been tagging ace tags on posts already tagged as ace tags bc it seemed important. But the attack was on cis aroallo/aro het men. Not aroaces.

Idk. I'm mulling it over and I'm not happy.

[cosmicredcadet]

I keep seeing posts where people are saying "Valentines doesn't effect asexuals!" "romantic relationships have nothing to do with asexuality!" And while i understand the point they are making is to stop conflating Aromanticism with Asexuality, it is still extremely annoying to find people don't understand the nuance that comes with asexualities connection to romance - because it DOES have a connection to it. It DOES have problems in relation to romance. To say it doesn't is ignoring a huge set is experiences that ace people face.

One of the most common experiences for asexuals is the struggle to be in romantic relationships because they are asexual. a lot of romantic relationships expect you to have sex. if you're someone who doesn't have sex then unfortunately that causes a lot of people to lose interest in you romantically as well.

There's also non-sam aces, and let me tell you it's so very strange to hear someone bring up non-sam aros but then ignore the existence of non-sam aces in order to prove some point of it somehow being ace peoples fault that aro and ace are viewed as the same. Some non-sam aces do not date either. they are still ace and they can still face similar problems to aromantic people because of that. they are still effected my amatonormativity.

Aces DO have connection to romance. Asexual DID have a reason to trend on valentines day along with Aro and Aroace. Asexuality is effected my romance and amatonormativity. Sop acting like it isn't. stop acting like aros and aces have absolutely nothing in common. We can work together and have similar experiences and still be seen as separate identities. there is overlap. stop treating this as black and white where one identity can only be effected by one kind of problem. It's naive at best and down right hateful at worse.

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

[trigger warning: mention of sexual assault]

the specific breed of queer queerphobia is just as if not more frightening than non-queer queerphobia, specifically in this case as it relates to acespec/arospec people (terms which will hence be combined into "aspec" for the sake of clarity, see the tags for a quick note about this)

if it's not already clear from my posts, i am very supportive of the silenced, erased, and shunned parts of the queer community. i involve myself a great deal in breaking down the walls that queer people have decided to erect in order to determine who does and doesn't get to call themselves "queer". nothing breaks my heart more than seeing other people who experience the world in a way starkly different from perisex, allosexual, alloromantic, cisgender, heterosexual people, get shunned from a family who also experiences the world in such a difference way, simply because it's not different "enough", or not different in the way they want to be different

aspec people will always unquestionably be queer, regardless of anything else that would or wouldn't make them queer. period.

aspec people should not and should never need to "justify" themselves to attend pride, not just "as an ally", but as someone whose relationship with romance and sex (the act) differs from what is expected of a "normal" person. they are inherently different, they are inherently queer. full stop.

aphobia exists, regardless of whether or not you follow your blatant bigotry with "no it doesn't". you cannot erase your shittiness by following up your shittiness with "by the way, I'm not being shitty". and if you know you are being aphobic, and you are proud of such a thing, rethink the way you see queerness as a whole. you are a vile human being, and should unlearn the oppression olympics. you not only are an athlete in it, but you are the obstacles. you are the fucking problem.

aspec people regularly face discrimination and harassment for being aspec. the comments of "why do you refuse to give me grandkids" and "maybe you just haven't found the right person yet" and "you're broken" and "you're going through a phase" have all been said about gay people, about lesbians, and about aspec people. aspec people face violence for being aspec. aspec people face corrective rape for being aspec. aspec people face crocodile tears claws that intend to "help", aspec people face blood and claws that intend to hurt, aspec people face real, visible hatred. and even if they weren't "oppressed enough", WHICH THEY UNDENIABLY ARE, 1) there isn't an oppression goal someone needs to hit to become valid, and 2) queer people should not be defined by the oppression we face, anyway.

"b-b-but what about cishet asexual people!!!" i have never seen a sentence less scary in my life. cishet people can be queer, you know? cishet people can be intersex (if they choose to identify as queer), cis people can be asexual and aromantic, pericishet people can in fact be demisexual and heteroromantic, and guess what? they're still queer. they still differ from what's "normal". they're still allowed to pride, because pride is not meant to gatekeep.

pride is meant to celebrate our differences, to fight against those who try to suppress us, and to unite those who feel crushed by the heel of normality.

so don't fucking do their job for them.

[aro-bird]

I do have to say, as someone on the camp of "you could probably ship someone else who isn't non-partnering but honestly I don't care as long as you don't harass people over this", I think it's lost on some people that the reason why so many non-partnering aroaces may become defensive over these characters even if "it's just fandom" is the fact that a lot of aroaces who do fit these stereotypes and who may fall into this camp genuinely had horrible experiences about their social circles and yes, especially this fandom site, harassing them and saying they don't exist or that they're mentally ill and should "get fixed" among other things.

As common it is to see aspecs here on Tumblr, the queer social media site, you need to understand that there's still a lot of contempt for aroaces outside and inside this place. Hell, I received an ask calling aros and aces delusional just last Christmas Day 2023 that came with a wave of increased arophobia around that time. As much as that time period was definitely discourse against aroallo men, aphobes did not cherry pick on who they're sending hate to.

Besides this, a lot of non-partnering aroaces often receive this kind of dismissal in real life too and as much as some people may think it's not a big deal, it definitely fucks up your brain when people say you and your experiences not only don't matter but you are doomed to live a lonely and miserable life if you don't find someone. Even my otherwise very supportive relatives expressed this concern and it's absolutely out of care but it's fucking damaging to constantly hear that I will die alone if I don't find a partner (romantic, platonic, or otherwise).

This is besides dismissals like this or even non-acceptance had literally barred me from mental health care when I was a teenager because my specialist said I had a "distressed sexuality" and had specialists focused on that aspect rather than all my other issues.

The shipping of a non-partnering (typically romance repulsed or uninterested) character feels like another form of dismissal for someone like me, like my sexuality is not good enough or serious enough to be respected. The shipping of these characters sometimes reinforce the narrative that non-partnering aroace people can't find happiness on their own and do need someone (romantic, platonic, or otherwise) to be happy or they will become happier if they do find this someone. People are having fun with their ships but there are still many people who don't want to spend the time actually extending grace and understanding towards me and my experiences. I'm just another discourse topic and someone who's inconvenient to some of them.

This doesn't even account for how these fan communities aren't just filled with aspec people and do extend to allos who may take some of the discourse and actively apply it in real life to other real life aspec people. People who go and interact with real human beings and may hurt them or harass them. It isn't even accounting for the fact that even online things affect real people too.

Of course, I do understand that a lot more complex aspec identities often don't get the spotlight so they may express themselves through shipping fandom characters but non-partnering people should deserve more than these people isn't really the point of this post.

The point here is that there's a reason why a lot of non-partnering (typically repulsed or uninterested) aroace people get defensive about these things even in fan communities and it's very likely that it's because aphobia and especially against the stereotypical aroace™ still very much exist outside of our little community and they can be informed by media and the fans that consume it and this shit could genuinely have negative consequences. This of course extends to those who do have complex aspec identities as society does not treat those who don't live up to what is expected as "normal" in terms of romantic relationships and sexual attraction kindly.

Distancing yourself from these aroaces who do have frustrations with how media and fandom treat their sexuality because they're being "prudes" or are just affected by "purity culture" is unhelpful to say the least and honestly veers eerily close to shit I hear aphobes say about us.

Absolutely do stop people and block them if they're instigating and participating in harassment over shipping of all things, even these aroaces, but trying to say that every person who do have issues with shipping aroace characters are the same way with this is extremely lacking nuance and absolutely dismissive of other members of the community and why they may have the opinion they hold.

[macandcheese-inhaler]

Where are all the aro jokes?? Maybe I just don't hang out in the strictly-aro community enough, but ace people have Denmark, cake, garlic bread, dragons, armadillos, black rings and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. What do aro people joke about? Bows and arrows?? I need answers!

C'MON GUYS!! I WANNA SEE MORE ARO INSIDE JOKES!

[dreamer0903]

For me begin aroace is kinda wanting to be in a relationship but at the same time knowing that I can't give my partner what they want in a "normal" relationship.

I don't want to be alone, I just want to be with another person like me :)

Anyway here's a cat to make you feel better (it makes me laugh so yeah)

[hermitsdump]

kind of amazing how you can spend 99% of your life forgetting about someone's existence and still have nightmares about them for... nearly 20 years at this point. it's been 10 years since seeing them. fucj

[aro-barrel]

i used to go through the aromantic tags pretty often and i stopped for a while, but now that i'm looking through them again, it seems like there's an uptick of alloaros who seem constantly annoyed at aces? and like, my blog is mostly an aro blog (even though i'm aroace), so i get miffed when people mention asexuality on a post specifically about aromanticism. but the sentiment i've been seeing seems kinda hostile and rubs me the wrong way. there's a reason we formed a community together, all of us aspecs (including aplatonic people who everyone fucking forgets). we all understand being defined by what others perceive as our absence of humanity, of heart, of care, or whatever. and our aspec identities blur together—maybe not for us, but in the eyes of others. i just wish people in this community could better mediate our differences and have open conversations instead of jumping to policing and drawing lines in the sand.

[snrland]

I don't wanna identify as anything but the colours of the flags are pretty

[rainbow-beanie]

Tumblr really needs to stop calling everyone I follow my “crush” cause it may have been funny at first but now it’s getting really old, and frankly is really strange since it’s targeted at not just my mutuals, but also people I follow. (there has to be a thin line between someone you follow and someone you call your mutual) and I follow a lot of blogs, some I follow cause of their art, and thus don’t know very well, so that’s what makes it weird.

[flemmothy]

I really feel like the things op mentioned aren't even the quintessential queer experience, and we shouldn't treat them as such, for several reasons.

Because joy is something better to unite under than suffering. And because we are not really (or at least not only) fighting because we are in pain: we are fighting for the joy of living as we are, and for future queers to not experience our pain at all. (How can we fight having to come out of the closet when we define us over the shared experience of having come out of the closet?)

But most importantly because I don't want to unite under something that alienates fellow queer people

so guys turns out that being raised by queer people alienates me from the queer experience. probably not a good thing