#allonormativity

[bloggingboutburgers]

I was reading through some of the recent asks on this blog, and I was reminded of this time a couple months back when I was explaining to my brother (who knows jack shit about ace stuff) how I feel like I’ve learned how to put myself in an allo perspective out of necessity, and how it stings when he acts like sex appeal is the singular reason someone might enjoy something.

He seemed a bit offended. He told me that he believes that, as an allosexual, he could never understand an ace perspective, just as he could never understand a female or transgender perspective, and thus he felt it would be disrespectful to assume otherwise.

And like… sure. You don’t know what it’s like being aroace in a world that constantly conflates and centers romantic and sexual relationships, but is it really that hard to imagine how an ace person might feel about something? Maybe I’m just biased, but extrapolating the way you feel about people you don’t find sexually attractive to everyone doesn’t seem like a very complicated thought exercise.

I love my brother, but he can be real insensitive, especially when it comes to my asexuality. I don’t think I’d personally call him an aphobe, but he definitely has internalized aphobia that he’s doing nothing to fix.

To be honest, I think the main issue here is accepting you'll never truly understand vs assuming everyone thinks like you by default... It's not the same thing. Sure, it's fair to consider that it would be disrespectful to assume you'll ever understand such a unique life experience that you don't share... But that has nothing to do with acting like your own experience is the only one that'll ever be relevant, and that everyone shares it. So... I'm not sure I see his point.

Yeah, it's very possible, even just basic reality, that you'll never understand a life experience you don't share yourself. But that doesn't mean you can't hear out a person who tells you they live through that experience, and you can't consider said experience and be respectful of it (...tbh that's kinda what we have to do with straight people and allosexual people all the time ourselves, isn't it). If it meant that, we'd still be very much behind as a society. I'm really sorry you're going through that... Always reminds me how blessed I am that my own bros are as supportive as they are. I'll never take that for granted.

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[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.

[codthefishgod]

To all the people who think aspec people aren't LGBTQIA+ because we aren't "discriminated against enough", here's a lovely list of reasons why you need to educate yourself:

- We suffer from dehumanisation, people actively devaluing or even erasing our humanity because of our identities (The voidpunk community is heavily supported by aspec people because of this)

- We suffer from self hatred due to feeling as if and being told we are broken, that no one can be happy unless they're in a romantic/sexual relationship, because of allonormativity and amatonormativity that actively damages our mental health

- Amatonormativity shapes laws that put us at an active disadvantage, such as giving married people financial and legal benefits

- Aspec people have been victims of conversion therapy, correctional rape, a lower quality of life, and other effects of being a marginalised and oppressed group

- We suffer from our identities being pathologised and deal with medical stigma because of this, causing many of us to feel unwelcome in and even avoid health care settings

- We suffer from our identities being erased, which can range from people completely denying our existence and people equating it to celibacy, to an almost complete absence of aspec representation in the media (It's been getting better lately, especially for alloaces and aroaces, but I have yet to ever see a canon aroallo character, and representation for those on the spectrum rather than in the extremes is often ignored)

- YOU are creating a hateful, exclusionary space in a community meant to be about inclusion. The same thing that happens to us happens to bisexual people, to polyamorous people, and other identities that are "disputed." In a community meant to be about rejecting the norm, YOU are shoving us out because we don't fit the norm of being LGBTQIA+. Because we're not enough like you.

These are only a few examples of aphobia that people like me deal with. Discrimination and oppression against aspec people stretches far beyond this.

But even if it didn't, it is disrespectful and harmful to everyone involved to gatekeep membership in the community based on oppression and discrimination.

We aren't LGBTQIA+ because we experience oppression. We are LGBTQIA+ because our existence alone goes against heteronormativity and other societal norms forced upon us.

[aroacearchangel]

happy pride month. if someone is pressuring you into a romantic or sexual relationship you have the right to kill them with hammers

[sunny-rants]

aphobia is not just harmful to asexual and aromantic people. it hurts everyone when society tells people they are not complete without a romantic partner. that they are aren’t a whole person if they aren’t in love and sexually desirable. people spend some of the most fulfilling parts of their lives feeling like they’re wasting that time because they aren’t in a relationship. they spend so much time looking for “the one”. time that could be spent learning, travelling, building a found family. they miss out on meaningful relationships, on soulmates, because they are told that person can’t be the most important person in their life. it devalues the support that’s found in community, it devalues the love found in friendships, it devalues the importance for living for oneself.

[redysetdare]

Everytime I hear someone say "love is what makes us human"I think of that one guy who was trying to describe humanity and said humans were featherless bipedals and another guy responded to that claim by bringing in a plucked chicken saying "BEHOLD A MAN"

Like I could hold up a million animal species and say "BEHOLD A HUMAN" because they feel love. Something that isn't just a human experience.

The point being that describing a group based solely off a few features or emotions makes the definition too broad to claim that it is what makes that species said species.

Saying humans are humans cause they have no fur would include furless animals. Same with saying love is what defines humanity. Like either you think elephants don't feel love or elephants are human. Your dog doesn't actually love you or your dog is human.

You can't use vague overly broad concepts to define humans as a species. So maybe stop trying to dehumanize people for not feeling the same emotion as you in the same way you do?

[whispers-into-the-void]

ok but sometimes the aroace experience really is isolating. it's part of the deal. you keep seeing friends enter relationships and act weird about it around you because you don't fit into that system. you keep seeing everyone around you participating in something that you don't even want to participate in, but somehow you still feel left out and alienated from the people around you.

your mom keeps joking about "when you'll have grandkids..." but you're not sure if you'll even have kids.

and your pride stops you from telling your friends who are in relationships that you feel lonely. because pity is the last thing i want. and also, i don't think they'll understand, really.

[limetarte]

Let’s not describe asexuality and aromantism as a “lack” of attraction. It’s not a lack, saying that centers allosexuality and alloromanticism. It also implies that there’s something lacking in ace and aro people, that there’s something missing, therefore alienates us.

Asexuality is about experiencing sexual attraction whether it’s never, only under certain circumstances, varying or anything else.

Aromanticism is about experiencing romantic attraction whether it’s never, only under certain circumstances, varying or anything else.

The same goes for aplatonic, afamilial, asensual, anaesthetic, etc.

[library-fae]

allonormativity rots your brain because why do we only feel like something is intimate, beautiful, connected with each other... only if it involved kissing or sex?

[rolaplayor101]

Hey guys I love polyam representation as much if not more than the next guy but why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is why didn't they make Jughead the repulsed aroace that he is

[bloggingboutburgers]

...'Cus after a point nodding and laughing it off kinda wears you down (and sometimes it's not enough to keep you safe).

[gender-luster]

honestly, breaking down amatonormativity and allonormativity, etc. will truly do nothing but benefit us all. no one, regardless of aspec identity, should be belittled or dehumanized for not having or prioritizing sex, love, or relationships of any kind, or having them, but in ways that is outside of societal norm. sex, love, and relationships, of all kinds, should be a personal choice and not a societal expectation.

[ayspec]

nonpartnering and nonfriending folks who are lonely are valid. there’s this unspoken rule that to identify as either, you can’t ever be lonely because that means you’re a faker. if you really don’t want friends or a partner, then why are you lonely? you’re just lying to yourself and are probably depressed and repressing your desire for relationships.

and you know what? that’s bullshit. one: even if you are depressed and don’t want relationships due to repressed attraction, you are still valid in identifying as nonpartnering and/or nonfriending. you can be either of these due to mental illness, trauma, etc. and i’m done with this sanist rhetoric that you’re not allowed to be either if it’s because of mental health issues. i don’t care if you’re nonpartnering or nonfriending because you were born that way or experienced something that made you that way: we’re all equally valid.

two: loneliness does not inherently mean “i’m lonely because i don’t have friends” or “i’m lonely because i don’t have a partner.” for some it does and to not feel lonely they require relationships, while for others it doesn’t and to not feel lonely they only require talking to folks online or saying hi to someone at a store.

loneliness varies between individuals—that’s why an extrovert with a group of close friends might still feel lonely while an introvert with one friend they occasionally talk to might not feel lonely. some folks aren’t lonely because they don't have friends or a partner: one can be lonely for other reasons, and the “cure” for loneliness isn’t inherently to form relationships. you have to dismantle the idea that everyone experiences X the same and requires the same things as you. you’ll be surprised how much bigotry (not just aphobia) can be resolved by understanding this concept.

[super-ace]

Once you start going against everything society ever said you should feel, it really is game over. Sexuality? A social construct. Virginity? A social construct. Romantic relationships? A social construct. Gender? A social contrast. 9 to 5 working day? A social construct. How a body should look? A social construct.

[quadruple-a-battery]

Just realized something:

The only reason I‘ve been wanting a romantic relationship (without having a romantic relationship), is because I just want to be someones most important person.

As an autistic aro, it can be very alienating when all of my friends are in romantic relationships. I don‘t understand why they want to cancel seeing me (after a few months of no contact) because they want to meet their partner (that they‘ve been with for a week straight)

No matter how tight I feel like my relationship is with someone, as soon as they fall in love, I feel like air.

I want someone to feel that way for me, without actually having to see each other all the time, without kissing and hand holding and all that jazz.

I think what I need is a dog.

Thanks for listening to my ramble