#aro survey adventures

[roguelibrarian]

So about a million years ago (read: in August) I posted something about how I've been taking notes on the books I'm reading and do people want to see my patchwork stream-of-consciousness book reviews and the overall response was positive but then I just...didn't do it but now I am!

So, time for Book Club With Rogue, part 1

The book: Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Everything Else by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca

If those names sound familiar, it's because the authors host a podcast also called Sounds Fake But Okay, which I have not listened to.

I got this book from the library as part of my quest to read a bunch of this new slate of aro and ace nonfiction that's been coming out lately (pun intended) and boy was it a bad way to start off this adventure.

(just gonna say off the bat: CW toward the end of the post for racism and transphobia)

So for one thing, the authors state outright that this is not an "Ace 101" book and that's true, but only in the sense that they never go deep enough to even reach 101 level on any topic. Everything is touched on in the shallowest ways possible. Sometimes they'll wander closer to some deeper ideas and then drop them immediately. Throughout the book there are quotes from responses to a survey that the authors did, and these brief quotes from other people provide the deepest content you'll see in this book, but they're never followed up or expanded on. They're just dropped haphazardly into the middle of the page and immediately moved on from.

Idk imo it's just a little...Something that a bunch of random aspec people (their listeners, presumably) wrote the most substantial parts of the entire book for them, for free, but these two are getting all the credit.

This book is also so ace-centric. Aromanticism is discussed in every chapter, which is unfortunately more than I expect, but it's treated like it's inherently an extension of asexuality and not its own identity. Those survey quotes I mentioned above? Yeah, it took until halfway through the book for them to include a quote from an aro person. There's also no acknowledgement of the existence of allosexual aromantics or their perspectives on anything. And of course the only ace and aro experiences that are treated like they're meaningful and worth anyone's time are those of sex and romance favorable aspecs.

There's also this weird, almost proselytizing bit about polyamory and how everyone should do it because it's the best and heavily implying that anyone who says polyamory isn't for them just hasn't found the right way to do it. It was so uncomfortable.

There's this weird thing that's repeated throughout the book where the authors will criticize some some aspect of amatonormative society and then immediately be like "now we're not saying XYZ" when "XYZ" is something you'd have to be reading in extremely bad faith to think they were saying. One of the ones that made me want to hit my head against the wall the most was "One last time, we'd like to emphasize that we are not anti-romantic-sexual relationships - Kayla is literally in one!" (narrator voice: it was not the last time). The other was after a (pretty bad) explanation of the spectrum of sex/romance favorability/neutrality/aversion/repulsion. "The purpose of sharing this spectrum is not to indoctrinate the entire world into our system of labels." To which I say, why on earth would anyone, even the alloest allo to ever allo their way down allo street, think that it was? Literally what purpose does this disclaimer serve?

Like I get that aros and aces online have pretty much been conditioned to expect super bad faith readings of everything we say and try to preempt people yelling at us about shit they made up but...this is a professionally published aro and ace nonfiction book, not a tumblr post. The authors are well past the point of being beholden to whiny aphobes on the internet. It was all just so annoying and so unnecessary and they spent just as much, if not more, time going "we're not saying this" than they spent saying what they were actually trying to say.

There are also so many areas where it's very clear that the authors are either uninformed or under-informed about things that people holding themselves out as authorities on asexual and aromantic experiences really need to be informed about. One example is "There is, in fact, very little dialogue on what [legal standing for platonic partnerships] might look like, much less the impact it would have." There's actually a lot of dialogue on exactly that thing, especially in aro and ace communities, and it is weird that two people who've had a successful podcast about asexuality for years and now published a book about it don't know that. They also do the "gay marriage is assimilation" nonsense and claimed that Obergefell v Hodges "harmed" the "queer cause" with zero acknowledgement of context or why it mattered.

There was a whole chapter about asexuality and aromanticism and gender (well...really it was about asexuality and gender) and I was so brave about powering through it seeing as it was written by two white cis women. It wasn't quite as egregiously bad as I expected it to be but at best it was still like, White Feminist Baby Ace's First Analysis Of The Intersections of Asexuality And Gender.

There is zero engagement with race other than a weird moment of the authors being like "our cis white upper middle class families are super cool and progressive and accepting but look at all these examples of those other cultures being queerphobic."

And finally, there is the H*rry P*tter shit. It's clear from the references made throughout the book that both of the authors are avid HP fans. But that's not what irritates me (though imo that would be enough). No, what irritates me is that at the very end of the book there is this completely random, out of left field little essay about how "many trans people" have gotten "hope and comfort" from the HP books and R*wling's "views on gender" (yes, that is how they choose to refer to her violent transphobia and her leading the charge on attack after attack on trans people's right to exist and her repeated, direct harassment of trans children) don't "take away" from that. Again, the authors are cis women. This is part of a weird, shoehorned-in, completely random bit about how "it's okay to like problematic media uwu" and it's like, even if you for some reason must write something like this into your book that has fuck all to do with this topic, it sure is A Choice for the example you reach for to be one of the most heinously transphobic (and racist and antisemitic and fatphobic and every other terrible thing) authors in the modern world. The whole thing really just came off as cis white girls getting defensive about their continued HP fandom and stomping their feet and pouting about even the hypothetical idea of someone criticizing any media that they like.

tldr - it was bad, 0/10 do not recommend, and definitely do not recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about asexuality or aromanticism

[ghost-inacup]

I posted 23,307 times in 2022

That's 14,034 more posts than 2021!

896 posts created (4%)

22,411 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@wholesalesoftie

@dingdongyouarewrong

@friendofthecrows

@augustbehindthemall

@wizard-email

I tagged 1,188 of my posts in 2022

#asks - 312 posts

#friend verity - 42 posts

#anon -

#flower child<3 - 25 posts

#bears in trees - 23 posts

#<3 anon - 20 posts

#spotify - 19 posts

#personal - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also if skizz was in dlsmp and he didn't get impulse as his soulmate im sorry but that'll be a crime. they share hearts all the time already

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

if bdubs changes his skin to a healed one we're gonna have so many impulse helped him heal, finally provided him space to , comforted him etc etc

and i for one want exactly that

116 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

#4

Pearl was alone.

In a world where people were soulbound, where the old stories all ended with a happily ever after, she thought she would never end up alone. The world operated on that simple principle, that somewhere out there, there's someone perfect for you, so perfect you share all your hurts and all your happinesses even when separated. So, no, Pearl never thought she would end up alone. It was a fact as obvious as the sky was blue, that her twin soul existed somewhere out there, and that when they would meet, they would be happy.

So Pearl was alone and confused.

This wasn't what everyone had said would happen. Soulmates were supposed to meet, supposed to come together and be happy. All the old stories said that your struggles would vanish when you meet your other half, that it would be magical, that life together would be full of bliss and trust. That the moment you know you would never leave each other's sides. So then why, why was she the one who was faced with revulsion? Why was she berated for something that wasn't her fault and left alone there standing, staring as her soulmate loudly declared that they refuse the soul bound?

Pearl was alone and confused and a little bit hurt. And she would swear that she was fine with her dog and her adventures, but she was still hurt. To be left alone not only by Scott but by Martyn as well, Martyn, the one who she had spent the day with, who she had adventures with, to be blamed for something out of her control, it hurt deeply.

The old stories didn't say anything about this. They didn't tell you your soulmate would berate you and leave you for not setting out to find them, for believing you would meet when the time was right and not actively searching for them.

The old stories lied.

And Pearl was left sad and confused and all alone.

129 notes - Posted June 19, 2022

#3

Fungi:cause of bad

169 notes - Posted January 7, 2022

#2

So, how does amatonormativity fuck a person up? (i made the aro survey)

omg okay so hi bestie sit down have some tea cause i might go on an endless rant here:

okay, so lets begin by defining amatonormativity: it is the societal expectation of everyone wanting an exclusive, long term romantic relationship and would be better off with it. some common assumptions made due to this are :

Assuming that everyone wants to get married, and unmarried/unpartnered people are unhappy or lonely

Treating romantic relationships as more important than friendships

The structuring of society around married couples (housing, taxes, etc.)

“Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend yet?” (sourced from: https://sophia.smith.edu/aace/about-asexuality-and-aromanticism/allonormativity-and-amatonormativity/)

Now, while this affects many queer identities, i can only provide an aro perspective on it.

Growing up, all around me, from as young as kindergarten, romantic relationships were prioritised. even 3 year olds who didn't even grasp the concept of romance were like, oh they're dating now, oh they're married now, etc. throughout my life, the expectation that everyone will eventually pursue a romantic relationship was a constant.

And that fucks you up.

Lets start with the fact that it forced me into thinking it would be my end all goal. i would meet a guy, have a romantic relationship, marry him, have kids, the whole package. And that led to quite a few situations where i forced myself to act like i felt romantic attraction, to convince myself to do things i was not ready for. It led to heartache and probably contributed to my depression. It led to destruction of friendships and led to an unhealthy relationship, which i will say is still affecting me. half a decade later and i still berate myself over those things, it has affected my self perception a lot.

then, when i discovered i was aro,(and its still going on tbh) it made me think i was not normal. it led to the realisation of my othering in a way, for i would never truly know what it is that society prizes and lauds so much. It led to a feeling of isolation and forced me to internalise a lot of shit, and probably bottle up things which i still haven't told anyone about.

then, the linking of my self worth with someone showing romantic interest in me. the feeling that something is wrong with me, physically, mentally, emotionally, just because someone never said hey i like you. the fear thats still within me that i am undesirable and not worthy. that even in movies the "ugly" girl sometimes ends up with a boy so why cant i? it led me to cling unhealthily to anyone who shows/ed me even a modicum of affection, to such an unhealthy degree that it destroyed a friendship, all in the wish that i was worthy of someone's love. all in the feeling that if no one likes me romantically, i do not have worth. i would be just someone people barely tolerate and leave as soon as they can.

also, as a cupioromantic: it fucks me up even more. cause i know wanting a relationship is sort of enforcing amatonormativity but fuck, it would be nice to have. and also, the fear that what will i say to an unsuspecting person, who gets in a relationship with me? with the expectation that it will be romantic? " hey sorry i can never love you romantically but i love you with my whole heart and i hope thats enough?" and then watching them leave cause if there isn't romance whats the damn point?

it hurts every time i think people getting in relationships, expecting me to relate about romantic attraction, them saying "you will also get one don't worry" them being allies but not even knowing aromantic and treating me like i'm a cold hearted monster who could never love truly and its the mourning in the corner of my heart for the fact that i can never experience what people say is a fundamental feeling and in the end,

it fucks you up.

232 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Self love is stored in watching bears in trees videos

400 notes - Posted February 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[marinsawakening]

I made a survey to examine the aro-spec community’s feelings toward romance and sex! The survey will be open until August 6 2018 (unless stated otherwise), and I’ll publish the results a week after it closes! The responses are anonymous.

@aromantic-official, would you mind boosting this?

[azzandra]

I’ve been firmly aro-ace for over a decade now, but I also decided a long time ago that if that ever changed I’d look on it as an adventure. Well, now The Day Has Come, and since my last internal survey I’ve been like ‘wtf, that wasn’t there the last time I looked’ so I’m kind of unsure what’s up with me right now.

[artswaps]

Voltron Survey Meme

I was tagged by @justheretobreakthings, thank you!! :0

How did you discover the show?

I’d seen a few stray posts about it on my dashboard, but didn’t really know what it was or take any notice. I’m laughing sm because the person who tagged me here had p much the same story, but eventually I stumbled across this video with Bob’s Burgers audio and for some reason it was what finally pushed me to go and find out what the show was. That was a month or so after season 2 had just dropped and here we are!!

Oddly enough, I’d actually binged all of Voltron Force quite a few years back when I was younger, but it wasn’t until a good while after I’d caught up on VLD and started dabbling in the fandom that I remembered that show and made the connection that it was the same franchise.

Was it love at first sight or did it take you a while to get into the show?

It was “Intrigued enough by certain elements that I’m willing to keep watching, but not totally hooked on the story,” at first sight. I really did love the characters from the get-go, and it was that and the humour + snappy dialogue that kept me around to give it a chance. 

As far as the story went and the fact that it was about giant transforming robots, it wasn’t really my thing. It was when it started getting into Pidge’s character arc- Fall of the Castle of Lions, with the flashbacks to her at the Garrison and meeting Lance and Hunk- that I became truly invested. 

Do you have a favorite Paladin?

Keeeeith!!! My son. 

Do you have a favorite Lion? (If it’s different from your fav paladin, why?)

Not really? I guess Blue, because she’s the first one they found and the one that knocked off the entire adventure. Green and Red are pretty cool, too.

Do you have a favorite Villain?

Haggar! Wonderfully creepy and sinister, and the added depth they’ve been giving her in the past few seasons- what with the OG Paladin backstory and her rediscovering her memories of being Honerva etc. etc.- have just made her so much more interesting. I’m excited to see where they take her character!!

Do you have a favorite Alien Race? (recurring and/or minor)

I actually wanna know so much about the Galra, I’m curious! The Balmerans were pretty cool guys, too.

Favorite side / other character(s)- Rebels, General, Blade of Mamora, Garrison, etc?

Kolivan is awesome and I’m sad he wasn’t in s6 and I want to know everything about his past. I also love Shay a lot!! And Matt, of course. Gotta love Matt. 

How/Why did you join the fandom?

I wish I’d known beforehand about the absolute chaos that is the VLD fandom because it’s just an automatic thing for me to seek out fandom content after I decide I like something lol. Still- I’m hyperfixated now so there’s no going back. I’m here already, so I ain’t going anywhere >8)

It’s also pretty much a given that if I’m fixated enough on something and love the characters as much as I do VLD’s, then I’m gonna end up making stuff. Gotta have people to share it with when I do, right?

Care to share a favorite headcanon?

Aro-spec Keith, hell yeah!! Unfortunately for me, his character tends to end up the centre of a lot of shipping content as we all know- so it’s an unpopular hc :(

I also really like bi Keith so I’m just great at picking all the unpopular ones I guess lmao 

What do you think is the best part of the show?

The characters, hands-down. They’re just so charming, they gel together so well. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t even be watching this show- it was when Pidge’s character arc came into focus that I became invested, and all of the character-driven moments are the ones I look forward to the most and remember more fondly. 

Also the humour. It’s snappy, witty, and charming when they do it right. A lot of that is once again down to how lovable the characters are and the chemistry they all share.  

Any hopes and wishes for future episodes / seasons?

As much as I’ve enjoyed the past 2 seasons and all that delicious drama/intense battle scenes, I really do miss the more easygoing atmosphere a lot of the first 2 seasons had. The kinds of scenes where the gang can just... stand around and argue over what a laser gun sounds like. I’ve loved what the show has given us, but I need a damn breather now lol. 

I really hope the gang gets a chance to regroup in the next season; just go back to a more casual feel, just for a bit, just a few scenes sprinkled between the plot. A chance for them to relearn how they all fit together, now everyone’s in one place again. A change of pace would be good for the show, I think.

Tying into that, I’ve seen a few people make this point already, but I would really, really love to see them start pushing that “found family” vibe the showrunners keep trying to sell. Things have been hectic with how fast the plot’s been moving, and I’m not at all unhappy with what the show’s given us, but I really do just want to see everyone.... being friends, getting to know each other, growing closer, being the family that they keep claiming they are. Maybe I’m feeling a bit salty because Keith has been left out of the mix for so long- I don’t wanna see him jump back into play, only for them to go back to their old dynamic where it was Keith & Shiro vs Everyone Else. There was always a distance there that I wanna see bridged, now that they’ve all grown a little. 

The massive Keith stan in me also just wants everyone to love and appreciate Keith for the incredible person he is and make it clear to him on no uncertain terms that they all care about him. The massive Allura stan in me just wants her to stop being so hard on herself and take a damn break. 

The part of me that’s falling more and more in love with Shiro is feeling strangely at peace after s6...... but please for the love of god let him dye his grandpa hair back to black dsfjgkhjhkhd

Do you think you’ll stick it out until the end of the show?

Well I’m kinda hyperfixated on it and that’s no easy thing to shake, so yeah. Besides, I love the characters too much to just pack it in halfway. Keith is just too special to me.

Tag your friends or someone you want to get to know better

uuh sorry if any of y’all have done this already

@sebayard, @fractalabomination, @kcgane, @starryeyedkeith, @haleykim84, @princessstaryknight, @a-sp4ce-g4y, @turtleduckfantasy

[wooe-in-blog]

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However, the individual should have qualified in Physical Fitness Test (PFT).Tradesmen with Aptitude Test – 30% Physical Fitness Test (PFT) marks + 30% Common Entrance Examination (CEE) marks + 40% Tradesman Aptitude Test marks.Tradesmen without Aptitude Test – 60% Physical Fitness Test (PFT) marks + 40% Common Entrance Examination (CEE) marks.Tradesmen Musician – 50% Physical Fitness Test (PFT) marks + 25% Aptitude Test marks + 25% Common Entrance Examination (CEE) marks. Havildar Survey Automated Cartographer – No Weightage. However, JCO Religious Teacher / Catering / Direct Havildar Sportsman (Meritorious Sportsman) should have qualified inPhysical Fitness Test (PFT).Important Document for Recruitment Rally:– Documents Required at the Rally Site Educational Certificate / Marksheet issued by the Recognized Education Board.Residence Certificate with photograph issued by the authorised signatory of the State Government / Tehsildar / SDM.Caste Certificate with photograph to be signed by Village Sarpanch except in the case of SIKH (Mazbi and Ramdasia), Gujjar and Gorkha candidates wherein it is reqd to be signed by the authorised signatory of the State Government / Tehsildar / SDM. 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In case of NCC Certificate holders relevant certificates and certificate for participation in Republic Day Parade to be produced for dispensation.Sports Certificate to be produced if represented in the followingRepresented India at International level.Represented State at National Level.Represented District at National Level.Represented University Team or Regional Team at District Level.Candidates having O+ Level Computer Certificate ‘Business Professional Programmer’ issued by the DOEACC Society.Latest passport size photographs. Both the ears of the candidates must be visible and SIKH (Mazbi and Ramdasia) candidates must have photograph in turban and without turban.Kandi area certificate for applicable candidates to be issued by Tehsildar / Authorised Government Signatory. Note: Documents Mentioned Above Are Required In Original Along with One Photocopy Of Each Document Duly Attested By Principal / Headmaster / Gazetted Rank Officer. Attested Photocopy / Printout Of Education Certificate Obtained From The Internet Duly Attested By The School Principal Will Be Accepted At The Rally Site For Candidates Whose Original Certificates Have Not Been Received From The Concerned Education Board After Declaration Of The Result Or For Candidates Who Have Deposited Their Certificates In Some Other Institute Where They Might Be Undergoing Some Professional Course. Alerts :-  All the candidates are strictly alerted that the Recruitment rally is totally free. So candidates are advised not to stuck in the Trap of the Touts who assure you to get Joined in the Indian Army. They can only mislead you and can rob your money. If any person do this with you, contact directly to the Officer in Charge Person. Have Faith At Your Hard Work not on touts. Remarks :-  candidates can add this website ( https://www.jobriya.in ) to their Bookmark for further latest Govt. Recruitment. Our team will update every Job opportunities at this Website. Stay Connected with us. Important Link Area Online RegistrationApply HERECheck Other States Rally ScheduleAll State Rally Detailed & Apply Online LinkDownload Admit Card For Banbasa Rally Available From 06/9/2019- 13/9/2019Download Admit Card For Banbasa Rally 2ndAvailable From 07/9/2019- 13/9/2019Download Admit Card For Kotdwara RallyAvailable On 19/5/2019Official Websitehttp://joinindianarmy.nic.in/ Read the full article

[eeee-lye]

@aurorashard​:

K.A. here, responding on my personal (so I don’t annoy people who follow @stimtoybox​ for stim toys by going on too much about my writing). Thank you so much for the compliment! I’m not sure my writing is ever as cool as it sounds, but I’m so thrilled that you’re interested!

I’m currently working on editing, layout and design for a few already-written stories I can publish as free reads, and I’ve got another short story in the planning works--an NB autistic royal protagonist (a Kit March character, actually, not Darius) doing a survey on dragons and their habits of keeping princes, only to end up educating said dragon on gender and the employment prospects of modern-day royalty. I’m hopeful I can finish and upload/post a story tomorrow, actually. I’ve just got to finish a last bit of text formatting on one of my files...

In the meantime, I can direct you to a collection I wrote a few years ago, Crooked Words, with the proviso that if I worked on it now, it’d be so different. It has mostly spec fic stories, but one or two aren’t. (One’s even a play.) Most characters are queer in some way, but not everyone is trans. I actually recommend reading the rewrite of the short story ‘Certain Eldritch Atefacts’ that I’ve posted to my website, not the Crooked Words version, because of the difference between writing that story not knowing I’m an autistic writer writing an accidentally autistic character and, well, knowing. ‘Old-Fashioned’ has had a rewrite, too, since Amelia is another character who suffers because of the difference between writing that story not knowing I’m an aro author writing an accidentally aro character and, well, knowing, but I haven’t posted it yet.

(Everything in Crooked Words is kind of awkward in hindsight, to be honest. I half want to recommend that nobody reads it.)

I’ve also got my serial novel, The Unnatural Philosophy of Kit March, which is fantasy with various kinds of trans and disabled queer autistic protagonists. Everybody is some kind of trans, queer, autistic and disabled. Most people are accidentally a-spec, but this time I know about it. There’s elves as antagonists, micro-gnomes that are a screwed-up genetic/magical experiment, a headmaster who sucks at it, protagonists who stim, way too many flights of stairs, a walking corncob and a talking sword belt...

There’s two short stories that go before it, the aforementioned ‘Certain Eldritch Artefacts’ and ‘The Adventurer King’, although the latter needs a little tweaking due to a few changes I’ve made. And the fact that I forgot to properly describe how there’s (magical) lighting at ungodly o’clock in the morning really bothers me.

I’ve got a lot of projects in various states of progress and disaster on my computer, some of which have been sitting there waiting for years, so I’d really like to get back to a point of finishing, posting and publishing them. There’s just too many words not to do something with them, even if my anxiety thinks this is a horrible idea.

Again, thank you so much!

[imnova]

Multi-shippers survey!

I always see ship surveys out there, so I decided to make a special one for multishippers.  :)  If you do this, please tag @notagarroter so I can see all the answers.

Name all your ships!   The big two are Johnlock and Mormor. Then, of course, I can see both couples swapping – honestly, I can see these 4 in any combination (Johnbastian, Johniarty, Sheriarty, Sherbastian) for a while, or in a big ot4 pile. XD

Then, of course, there is Jim/Mary(they coded Mary as Moran, so I consider it canon). And Mary/Janine. The only decent things to come out of season 4, aka Molly Hooper/DI Stella Hopkins and Jim/Eurus Holmes. (And possibly, Jim/Mycroft, and Jim/any and all Holmes who’s available, including the parents or uncle Rudy XD).

Oh, and I can’t forget the canon (according to Mary) Jolto, plus double angst Sholtolock (what even is the proper ship name?) and very happy Joltolock (my favourite ot3.) And unilock Victor Trevor/Sherlock Holmes!

And the crack pairings! Mycake, Mybrolly, Brolly/John’s Cane. Brollylock (I wrote one!).

Do crossover pairings count? Because I would love some Dr. Strange with either John or Sherlock (or both), and of course he can bring Everett Ross along. And Belstaff Coat/Cloak of Levitation! And there are more crossover pairings I read, of course. I feel like there might be more pairings in general, but I can’t think of them all.      

Pick three ships (or more!) and describe how you see the dynamic. (romantic? sexual?  other?  "it’s complicated"?)

Johnlock: in a word, they’re soulmates. In every way you can imagine and then some. Which doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be tagged “it’s complicated”, because as much as I see them as instantly clicking, I love that they’re messed up people and need a lot of work – mostly on themselves – to get their happy end.

Sholto/Holmes: Both sexual and the most delicious, painful, emotional – not exactly romantic - thing. I mean, Sherlock definitely has a military kink a mile wide, so one army boyfriend is his wet dream. But where I like them (just after tsot) they’re mostly both desperately in love with John, and comforting each other for having been too coward to pursue him when they did have the chance. Heck, my favourite headcanon is that both scream John’s name when they come. Of course, neither complains.  

Brolly/John’s cane: other. Definitely other. XD But well, when you have a Bulgarian umbrella (aka a weaponized one, firm headcanon of mine even before s4) that sees her potential squandered after her master climbs enough up the ladder that he can refuse any legwork, and a cane who used to feel indispensable and is now forgotten and kicked in a corner, how can they not hit it off? If they happened to end together in an umbrella stand or any corner of the flat, they so would empathise with each other, commiserate together…and being sentient objects, only your imagination is the limit! ;D

Do you have primary and secondary ships, or are they all equal in your mind?

Not really a difference of love or enjoyment, but a ranking given how likely I see them as in-universe and hence of how strongly I will defend them against judgemental people. Bash me for Brolly/Cane and I’ll laugh that you feel the need to judge my fun. Bash me for Johnlock and I will bring you books-worth of meta.

Do you have any aro/ace headcanons for your favs?

Not really. I mean, I acknowledge that you can interpret many characters as Ace/aro (with a very strong case for some), and I will occasionally read such a story, but I like my ship with a side of lovemaking. I have a dirty mind, and I won’t apologise for it. Heck, give me enough time and I can turn NSFW even the inanimate objects’ ships, which lack the relevant body parts. :-)

Do you headcanon a ‘verse in which all your ships make sense at the same time?  Or do some of your ships directly contradict others?

Not really. I mean, many of my ships can coexist – I am also rather fond of poliships, so that helps. But I have simply too many for them all to make sense together. Imagine Jim and Seb proposing to swap partners for one night if Sholto was involved with John and Sherlock. I can’t see Sholto agreeing to a wild night with the consulting criminal. Do you?  

Do you believe in OTPs/OT+s?  What does the term mean to you? I use the term, but loosely, as in ‘my favourite pairing/moresome’ or ‘the one I see happening more easily’. I’m sure people very passionate about that would disagree with me.

Rec a fic that gives you multishippy feels!   I’ll do you one better and give you a series! John and Sherlock’s excellent adventure by my heart sister, @notjustmom. Johnlock, Molstrade, Mythea, and even the Donovan/OC and OC/OC are awesome even if I usually don’t care for OCs at all.  

Tag some multishippers and pass it on!  Or if you’re a multishipper, don’t wait for a tag!  There are so few of us, and I don’t know everyone – I’d love to hear from as many people as possible.

@missmuffin221, @hiddenlacuna

[marinsawakening]

Romance and Sex Repulsion in the Aro-Spec Community Survey: Results

Here are the results from the survey about the feelings in the aro-spec community towards romance and sex (which I should’ve given a better name, in hindsight)!

@aromantic-official, would you mind boosting this?

I will put the raw data for this survey above the cut, and speculation, precise data analysis, and the discussion of sample bias and the ways I messed up while conducting this survey below the cut. 

Before we start, I’d like to emphasize that this survey was not professionally conducted, and the results will not be professionally presented. I am in no way a trained researcher (unless you count basic high school research as ‘trained’), and I did not set this survey up with the idea that it would be representative for the whole community. I was simply satisfying my own curiousity on the subject, and honestly did not expect to get more than a few dozen responses. Now that we’re well into the hundreds, many of the mistakes I flippantly made are really embarrassing, but moreover, the fact that I don’t actually know what I’m doing means that this survey should not be used in professional or scholarly essays. 

Instead, try to see this survey as preliminary research. I strongly encourage other people to recreate this research, to research any specific topics that they might find interesting that this survey already covers, and to use this survey’s results narrow down their field while researching similar topics. See these results as a basic start towards researching the aro-spec community’s feelings towards romance and sex, not the conclusive end (if there’s ever such a thing in research).

Now that we’ve gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let’s move on to the results.

Base Numbers

This section will contain the total number of participants, as well as the distribution of aro-spec identities of the people that took this survey. 

Total Number of Participants: 527

Aro-Spec Identities:

309 respondents described themselves as Aromantic, with no attraction at all, no matter how muddled or infrequent (originally described as ‘not on the spectrum’ which is obviously problematic, I’m very sorry for that, it’s discussed under the cut in the section ‘ways I messed up’). This was by far the largest group in the survey. 

135 respondents described themselves as Aromantic, as used as an umbrella term to simplify an aro-spec identity.

66 respondents described themselves as Questioning. 

48 respondents described themselves as Grayromantic. 

39 respondents described themselves as Demiromantic. 

24 respondents described themselves as Aroflux. 

21 respondents described themselves as Quoiromantic. 

15 respondents described themselves as Lithromantic. 

10 respondents described themselves as Arovague. 

and finally, 23 (4.4%) respondents described themselves with identities other than the ones listed above. This group contains all the identities only one or two people identified with. They were:

Nebularomantic (2 respondents)

Nonamorous (2 respondents) (note: nonamorous is not an aro-spec ID on its own, but it can be an important descriptor. One respondent gave no other descriptor, but they might very well still be aro. The other respondent had this in combination with other labels.)

Cupioromantic (2 respondents)

Frayromantic (1 respondent)

Cedromantic (1 respondent)

Aegoromantic (1 respondent)

Arofluid (1 respondent)

Akoiromantic (1 respondent) (note: this is a synonym for lithromantic, but the respondent did not check lithromantic, and I do not feel comfortable assigning this label when they specifically perfer the other term)

Idemromantic (1 respondent)

Recipromantic (1 respondent)

Queer (1 respondent)

‘I don’t care where I am on the spectrum’ (paraphrased) (1 respondent)

All other respondents were questioning and felt the need to describe their questioning status.

Note: this was a checkbox question, and quite a few respondents checked multiple options, which is why the total is more than 527 responses. 

Feelings Towards Romance

This section will examine the results to the four questions that centered around the participants’ feelings towards romance.

NOTE: I did not include any guidelines at all on what does and does not constitute romance-repulsion, romance-positive feelings, or being romance-neutral. This was done intentionally, because I wanted the participants to use their own definitions of the terms. These terms do not, to my knowledge, have any hard-and-fast rules set for them, and the results of this survey correlate with that statement. Many participants mentioned being confused as to what these terms actually meant, and different respondents used wildly different definitions of the terms while answering these questions. I believe that we might benefit from clearer definitions of romance-repulsed/positive/neutral and maybe some additional terms, but I am not comfortable creating those definitions myself without conversation in the community. More on that under the cut. 

Out of the participants, a majority of 43.8% identified as romance-neutral, with 28.3% identifying as romance-repulsed, and 15.7% identifying as romance-positive. 

In addition, 12.2% of the respondents identified as something ‘other’. Of those 64 respondents:

28 respondents (or 43.8%) stated that their feelings towards romance fluctuate

15 respondents (or 23.4%) stated that they felt different about romance under different circumstances (the most common being ‘neutral/positive when not directed at me, repulsed when directed at me’)

9 respondents (or 14.1%) stated that they were somewhere in between romance-repulsed/positive/neutral

12 respondents (or 18.8%) gave a completely different explanation, which included not understanding romance in general, being unsure about your feelings, etc. 

Regardless of their feelings towards romance, a majority of 65.8% of the respondents said that their feelings towards fictional romance are more positive than their feelings towards irl romance. In addition 23.8% said that they felt the same towards fictional and irl romance, and 7.2% said that they felt more positive towards irl romance than fictional romance. 16 people (3%) picked the ‘other’ option; the most frequent answers in that section were ‘it fluctuates’ and ‘it depends on the romance/situation’.

When asked if their aromanticism affects their feelings towards romance, 73.1% answered ‘yes’, 19% answered ‘I don’t know’, 6.5% answered ‘no’, and 1.3% (6 people) picked the ‘other’ option (one person probably answered this question by accident, and everyone else was either still questioning (could’ve picked the ‘I don’t know’ answer) or said it depended on the situation).

When asked if anything other than their aromanticism affects their feelings towars romance, 53.9% answered ‘yes’, 27.1% answered ‘I don’t know’, 17.1% answered ‘no’, and 10 people picked the ‘other’ option, but pretty much all of them were explaining what affected their feelings towards romance other than their aromanticism (which was what the next question asked), and the rest of them said things like ‘maybe’, ‘probably’, etc. 

For the open questions, I do not have precise figures, because, again, I thought I’d get way fewer responses than I actually got, and now I’m in a situation where I need to sort (in total) 1038 responses by hand, and uh. That’s not happening. Instead, I’ve read through the majority of them and picked out the common themes.

When asked how their aromanticism affects their feelings towards romance, people who answered that their aromanticism does affect their feelings towards romance had the following reoccuring reasons:

Romance-positive people named a fascination with romance because they are incapable of experiencing it themselves, an appreciation for the way it makes other people happy, an ability to distance themselves because they don’t experience romantic attraction, and amatonormativity (’society tells me I should be happy with romance, which has influenced me to the point where I am’) as reasons for feeling this way.

Romance-neutral people primarily named an apathy/confusion/inability to relate to romance as a result of their aromanticism as a reason for being romance-neutral. Other reoccuring reasons were: an appreciation for the way it makes other people happy while simultaneously not wanting it themselves, feeling repulsed but only when romance is directed towards themselves and still enjoying romance otherwise, and amatonormativity.

Romance-repulsed people primarily named a confusion/inability to relate to romance and amatonormativity (’society pressures me into a romantic relationship and forces me to see it everywhere, which has led me to despise it’) as reasons for their romance repulsion.

People who felt like they didn’t fit in the above categories didn’t answer this question frequently enough to draw any real results.

People who didn’t feel their aromanticism affected their feelings towards romance gave extremely conflicting accounts that have rendered pretty much all of their responses unusable. By that I mean that during this question, they started describing the ways aromanticism does affect their romance repulsion, only they stated that these reasons were ‘exceptions’. They generally did not give any account as to why they felt their aromanticism specifically didn’t affect their feelings towards romance. This could either be a problem with the way the question was structured, or it could be that the feelings for these respondents were just a lot more complex. For now, I do not feel like I have enough usable responses to notice patterns in their reasoning. I might later do a re-count just to be sure.

When asked if there were other factors affecting their feelings towards romance, the following reasons were given:

Romance-positive people mentioned neurodivergency, amtonormativity, asexuality, and romantic media as reasons.

Romance-neutral people mentioned amatonormativity, neurodivergency, their personality, and asexuality as reasons.

Romance-repulsed people mentioned amatonormativity, neurodivergency, asexuality, and their personality as reasons.

People who felt like they didn’t fit in the above categories mentioned trauma/previous negative experiences with romance, neurodivergency/mental illnesses, and amatonormativity as reasons. 

Feelings Towards Sex

This section will examine the results to the three questions that centered around the participants’ feelings towards sex.

NOTE: as with romance-repulsion/positive/neutrality, I did not provide any definitions for sex-repulsed/neutral/favorable. I also messed up a lot with this section, which will be discussed under the cut.

41.6% of the participants identified as sex-repulsed, making it the majority, followed by a 31.1% of participants who identified as sex-neutral, and 20.3% was sex-favorable. 6.6% (35) of the participants were something other, which most often (15 participants) meant that they fluctuated between two or all three states, were a mix of/somewhere in between two states (7 participants), or experienced different reactions to sex in different circumstances, or were unsure (five participants each). 

However, despite sex repulsion being the majority in the community, only 22.8% of the particpants felt like their aromanticism affected their romance repulsion. A majority of 46.1% felt that it did not, and 30.3% was unsure. For this question, only four people chose the ‘other’ option, one answering ‘possibly’ (aka ‘I don’t know’), and two people were already clarifying that their asexuality affected their romance repulsion, which wasn’t what I asked, so this data is negligible. 

When asked if they felt more positive towards irl or fictional sex, 48.2% stated that they felt more positive towards fictional sex, 44.9% stated that they felt the same towards fictional and irl sex, and only 5% said they felt more positive towards irl sex. Fourteen people used the ‘other’ option, but seven of those seemed to have misunderstood the purpose of the question (I wasn’t asking whether you weren’t repulsed towards either fictional or irl sex, I was asking if you had feelings that were more positive, one way or another) and were easily categorized elsewhere, which I took the liberty of doing, leaving only 1.3% of the participants with an answer that didn’t fall within the already presented categories.

Respondents who felt that their aromanticism didn’t affect their feelings towards sex mentioned the following reasons:

Sex-favourable people primarily mentioned that they distinguished between sex and romance (’you don’t have to be romantically attracted to someone to have sex, so romance and sex have little to do with each other’) and being allosexual as reasons.

Sex-neutral people also mentioned that romance =/= sex as a reason for their neutrality, and many also said that their asexuality affected their feelings towards sex, rather than their aromanticism.

Sex-repulsed people mainly said that they were also asexual and that this affected their feelings towards romance, rather than their aromanticism. Romance =/= sex was also given as a reason.

People who felt they didn’t fit in any of the above categories didn’t give enough answers to give accurate statements.

Respondents who felt that their aromanticism does affect their feelings towards sex mentioned the following reasons:

Sex-favourable respondents said that they associated sex with romance, and that their aromanticism does affect their feelings towards sex because of that.

Sex-neutral respondents noted that sex was normative in the same way that romance is, and that they felt that their aromanticism does affect the way they feel about sex because of that.

Sex-repulsed respondents said that they could only have sex with someone they are close with, and that this ability is affected by their aromanticism.

Respondents who didn’t feel like they fit in any of the above categories stated that they could only have sex with someone they are close with (which is affected by their aromanticism), and the fact that they don’t ‘catch feelings’ after sex in the same way alloro people sometimes do.

Please note that the sample-size for this question was small, and that results may be skewed because of that.

In addition, many aroace respondents mentioned that it was almost impossible to distinguish between their asexuality and aromanticism, and that they therefore didn’t know if their aromanticism affected their feelings towards sex.

And those are the raw results. Under the cut there is discussion about the results, and apologies for the ways I fucked up.

On The Terms Romance-Repulsed/Neutral/Positive 

As I’ve already stated, many of the respondents didn’t actually know what these terms meant, and expected me to provide definitions for them. I didn’t do this, specifically so people would be forced to use their own definitions of these terms. The results were... kind of worrying, honestly.

The vast majority of respondents had completely contradicting ideas of what romance-repulsion/neutrality/positive feelings actually meant. Respondents that felt positive towards fictional romance but repulsed by romance directed at them varied wildly in picking ‘romance-neutral’, ‘romance-repulsed’, and ‘romance-positive’. Many (maybe even the majority) of respondents who identified as romance-neutral specifically described very romance-repulsed feelings, but mentioned that they were okay with other people doing it as long as they kept it away from the respondent, which sounds like textbook repulsion to me. Romance-repulsed people often still described positive feelings towards either irl or fictional romance, and romance-positive people described repulsed feelings towards either irl or fictional romance. People who described the exact same feelings towards romance could either be using ‘romance-repulsed’, ‘romance-neutral’, or ‘romance-positive’ at any point.

What I’m getting at is that the responses were a genuine mess. While people over at the sex-repulsion/neutrality/favourable section at least seemed to have a general idea of what it meant, I honestly did not get that vibe from the romance section at all. In fact, I came extremely close to just declaring this entire survey null and void because of the contradicting definitions of the terms.

If this was just a small group of confused people who had probably not interacted much with the aro community prior to this point, I wouldn’t even be pointing this out. But it was the entire sample size of 527 people. Everyone had ideas that completely contradicted each other.

This speaks of either a lack of definitions, or a lack of proper education about those definitions. 

The main issue that I encountered in the survey was that many people experienced a dichotomy between their feelings towards romance when it was directed at them, and romance that wasn’t directed at them, either in fiction or in real life. To my knowledge, their currently isn’t a way to express this dichotomy, so many people forced themselves into a category that seemed to be picked at complete random.

Another reoccuring theme was of people asking me to use ‘romance-averse/neutral/favourable’ instead of the terms I was using. I have seen these terms used before with some frequency, but, to my knowledge, they are simply synonyms for the terms I was already using. I’ve never heard of a community consensus that we should use these terms instead of the ones that I was using, and I’ve only ever seen them used in ways that are completely interchangeable with repulsion/positive. Am I missing something? Because if so, my bad obviously, but I’m pretty involved in the aro community at this point, I like to think. If I don’t have any idea what the hell is going on here, then how are people newer to the community supposed to figure it out? I checked @aromantic-official‘s glossary and resources, and they say nothing about it. I’m really, really confused.

So, I guess the point I’m trying to make that we, as a community, need to look a little closer at the terms that we’re currently using. We need to start conversations towards a community consensus, because we currently don’t actually seem to have one (at least, according to this survey’s answers). 

I think that using ‘favourable/neutral/averse’ as a descriptor towards romance directed at a person themselves, while using ‘repulsed/neutral/positive’ towards romance not directed specifically at that person might be a decent solution, at least for the time being, but I’m not comfortable proposing that with confidence until I’m absolutely sure that I’m not missing something in the use of these terms.

tl;dr: this is a mess that we probably need to fix sometimes soon.

Discussion: Sample Bias

This section will discuss potential sample bias in the survey that could’ve skewed results.

This survey was only conducted on Tumblr, and as such, will probably have the sample bias that results when you do that (aka the majority of respondents will probably be afab nonbinary people or cis women). This seemed to be confirmed when I still had the question that asked respondents to list their gender (over half of the respondents, probably approaching 75% or even higher, were nonbinary or cis women). This means men and amab nonbinary people are probably underrepresented in this survey.

I never had a question asking about the ethnicity of respondents, meaning I have no way to confirm that there was a good representation for all ethnicities and races in this survey. 

I did, at one point, had a question asking whether or not respondents were on the ace-spectrum, and the vast majority of respondents were. I retracted this question at +- 300 respondents, meaning that I can probably conclude that even with the final numbers, allosexual aros are probably underrepresented in this survey.

The base results proved that the majority of respondents had no attraction whatsoever, meaning that aro-spec identities that still experience some form of attraction are underrepresented in this survey.

Discussion: I’m Not A Trained Researcher And Fucked Up

Alright. I’ll admit that I have not read through all the input people gave when I asked them to give me feedback to improve the survey. This is partially because it really flared up my RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria), which was incredibly not fun, and partially because conducting this survey really reminded me of why I hate doing research, and I do not plan on conducting follow-up research or any other type of research ever again (which was what I was going to use the feedback for).

That said, I still want to address some major issues with this survey.

The major one is the fact that I defined ‘Aromantic, without any romantic attraction, no matter how muddled or infrequent’ as ‘Aromantic, not on the spectrum’ for the vast majority of the time that this survey was up. This wasn’t out of any intent to devalue aro-spec identities that do experience some kind of romantic attraction, or to imply that they were somehow ‘less aro’, but because I simply didn’t know how to describe that particular type of aromanticism otherwise. It took me way too long to realize that I could literally just describe what I was talking about specifically not experiencing any attraction at all. 

Of course, regardless of intent, this way of describing aromanticism is inevitably dismissive towards aro-spec identities, and respondents were right to point this out and (in some instances) get angry about it. Intent =/= impact, and I sincerely apologize for dismissing and devaluing aro-spec identities. I have no other excuse than the fact that I’m a dumbass sometimes. I will attempt to be more inclusive and supportive of all aro-spec identities in the future, including those that aren’t my own.

Second problem with the survey was the fact that I didn’t originally intend for this to be about anything other than romance-repulsion, and made it a survey about general feelings towards romance at the last second. This is noticeable in both the title and the actual questions, and obviously doesn’t do the survey any favours, and may have skewed results for that. This is wholly my fault and I should’ve done better at proofreading the survey before going live.

The third problem is one I’ve been alluding to a lot alread: I did not expect or intend for this survey to get more than a hundred responses at most. A lot of the survey was based around the idea that I’d be able to spit through the responses by hand, and I ended up being completely overwhelmed when this wasn’t an option anymore. This survey was sloppily and unprofessionally conducted, and I apologize for vague questions, deleted questions, or any other problems that arose from this. 

And, lastly, I apologize for any rambling or vague statements in these results. I’m tired and already a week late and not going to proofread this more than once. If you need clarification, feel free to ask.

[marinsawakening]

I’m casually looking through the first answers to my aro survey and I want to give an official shout out to whoever wrote in “the devil works hard but amatonormativity works harder” as a reason they’re romance repulsed.

[marinsawakening]

It’s 3 AM so of course I’m not sleeping but instead thinking about the aro survey. 

Did a quick patch job because I finally had an epiphany and managed to find a better, less problematic definition of ‘aromantic’ as used to signify no atttraction at all, instead of using ‘not on the spectrum’, namely literally just saying that you... don’t experience romantic attraction at all. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to stay alive this far when I miss shit this obvious.

I’m also considering a much bigger ‘patch job’, namely removing the questions about gender/oriented aroaces/queerplatonic relationships/asexuality/anything not directly referring to aromanticism itself. I originally included these questions because I was planning on going through the questions by hand and sorting them into categories so I could cross-reference the statistics of romance-repulsed/neutral/positive/etc. people with them to see if they had any affect on them (for example, I was curious to see if misogyny, transmisogyny, and transphobia had any effect on people’s feelings towards romance). 

However, now that there are literally hundreds of responses, this has become completely unfeasible. In addition to this, I’ve also noticed that those questions don’t even begin to cover the sheer variety of aro-spec experiences that should be researched (for example, I deadass forgot to add a question about whether or not you experience platonic/liminal/aesthetic/etc. attraction, even though that’s partly what I intended to research with the oriented aroace question. Again, @ self how did you manage to stay alive). 

These mistakes are completely human and pointing them out to me is totally fine, but it makes my anxiety go haywire, and since it’s not really going to give any conclusive answers anyway I’m seriously considering to just drop them altogether and maybe make a more comprehensive survey about this stuff later on. But, on the other hand, I don’t like making impactful changes this far into the survey, because I don’t know what effect it will have on future results (and I also don’t know exactly what Google does when you remove questions. Do they also delete the responses that answer them? Or does the data for those specific questions just get lost? idk).

[marinsawakening]

Don't wanna be a bother, and I'm really sorry if I am, but I'm taking your survey and the question about aromanticism affecting my feelings towards sex. Is that supposed to be asexuality or aromanticism? *rolls away and hides under rock*

Aromanticism! The survey is specifically about the aro-spec community’s feeling towards romance and sex. My hypothesis is that aromanticism doesn’t affect our feelings towards sex much, but I’d like to research it explicitly. This survey wasn’t created to examine the relationship between asexuality and sex, but aromantism and sex(/romance). 

(Although it is the reason why I added the ‘are you asexual?’ question, so that I can potentially cross-reference the percentage of people who are sex-repulsed with the percentage of people who are ace-spec. But the survey has gotten so many answers I don’t know if I’ll get around to that, because I’d need to go through every single individual person that answered in order to build up a good canon, and that’s…. gonna take a while.)

And don’t worry, the questions about sex threw a lot of people off (I’ve gotten a lot of write-in’s over it, actually), so you’re absolutely not a bother and the confusion is understandable! 

[marinsawakening]

Think you posted the wrong link. It currently goes to an ADHD article???

*INTERNAL SCREAMING*

thanks for letting me know, sorry, i’m very tired. the right results are here.