#aroace discourse

[thund3randrain]

“It’s fine to ship Yelena with people bc aroace people can also have sex and be in relationships-”

I am putting you in a meat grinder and making you into spaghetti bolognese, which I will share happily with my aroace moots who are also tired of this shit

[artic-peril]

I swear to god I'm going to rip aro and ace exclusionists to shreds with my teeth

ITS A SPECTRUM DUMBASSES

I'm sick of seeing people getting told they're not aromantic or asexual or anything under the umbrella because they engaged in sexual or romantic activities at all.

I am getting so pissed with it all. People don't stop being asexual just because they've experienced sexual attraction or sex itself.

People don't stop being Aromantic because they felt romantic attraction or are in a romantic based relationship.

People don't stop being demisexual if they have sex with someone without a developed relationship. Same with Demiromantic.

I'd also like to say: Aesthetic attraction doesn't equal romantic or sexual attraction. That doesn't invalidate anyone at all. Get it through your fucking skulls.

Like I said. It is a spectrum. I'm a hardcore AroAce myself. But I also feel some of what I interpret as aesthetic and sexual attraction to a small amount of the latter.

[flip-flopping-frede]

Aroaces do not speak for everyone in the Acommunity.

Aroaces are not the most marginalized group. Pushing this narrative of inclusion has reached the extent of erasure for more marginalized aspec identities.

Pushing this narrative of “lithromantic is included under aro” or “aro includes lithromantic” makes me feel like I’m not being heard as a lithro, who uses the lithro label + flag and doesn’t feel included. I feel like aroaces are trying to erase my identity and replace it with the aro label. “Aro awareness”-only doesn’t result in more awareness or visibility for my lithro label. Infact, “speaking over” lithros/arospecs/aspecs who don’t use the aro/aroace label, is a problem. It invalidates people and results in more exclusive awareness for the aro + aroace labels, and none for labels that desperately need awareness, like lithromantic, frayromantic, and fraysexual.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

it's always a little frustrating to me when aroallo people don't understand or care about asexuality

I know that aroallo-ness has it's own struggles, amatanormativity and heteronormativity hate us all in unique and intersecting ways and it definitely sucks for aroallo folk (especially with how I've seen plenty of people talk about how they get the least explicit canon rep in fiction out of all the aro/ace combos) ...but sometimes it feels like a lot of aroallo people start taking that frustration out on aroace/ace-ness, instead of amatanormativity/heteronormativity and the aphobic/uncaring allo folk who enforce it. Y'know, the people who actually dislike aromanticism and asexuality, and who really don't give a shit about nuanced and varied aro rep.

(presumably there's also alloace people out there who are the same about aromanticism too -- I'm just talking about aroallo people because that's what I have personally been seeing, and I don't want to just make shit up about the alloaces.)

[sanyu-thewitch05]

So I’m warning ya’ll, the Yelena Belova aroace erasure discourse might show up again:

[skys-archive]

Fandom Can't Handle Asexuality

I was watching this video and GOD this is so important. I haven't felt like making a post about everything that goes into shipping ace and around characters but this is really good to what I think. This is about Alastor from Hazbin Hotel but it's a really good watch even if you haven't watched it

Especially there's this one part, about loopholes. I fully love the idea of queer platonic relationships between fictional characters, but a lot of the fandom seems to be using it as a loophole to be romantic under the veil of qprs. A queer platonic relationship is NOT romantic. Depending on the people there might be affection of some kind but the whole point is that there's no romantic feeling.

I don't know, I don't have the energy to fully get into the aroace shipping discourse but please for the love of everything, us aroaces don't have a lot of representation, and when we do all everyone wants to do is try and use our words against us. Aces can be sexual, aros can be romantic. And yes that's true but not when these characters so clearly are NOT. Alastor is so clearly not interested in touch and and sex and romance, Isaac from Heartstopper is so clearly pained from the fact that he just doesn't want sex or romance AT ALL. I can't speak for other representation as I haven't watched it. Please stop doing this.

You don't want your gay characters in straight relationships, you don't want to take away representation it's what we've been saying forever so why are you taking it away from us?

I guess I got into it more than I meant to but really I could go on forever.

[hardlightvivisection]

"by joking about how your bloodline ends with you because you're aroace, you're denying other aspec people their humanity!"

my brother, you 🫵 are doing that by tying biological reproduction to humanity.

[unagrancantidaddepanes]

"allo people ship aroace characters in QPRs as an excuse for aroace erasure by still shipping them with other characters" is the most mind numbing take ive ever heard in my life. I cant believe I have to say that respecting aroace identities isnt aphobic 💀

[bloggingboutburgers]

I realized I was AroAce and got into the community apparently long after the dog days of AroAce discourse. I'm glad that it's somewhat better now, but I'm kinda disheartened that we were rejected in the first place. I still only have a partial picture of what went down, though. What was it like at the time?

I'm not gonna lie – I wasn't really that vocal about being aroace at the time, only occasionally, because I believed it'd probably get ignored or diminished anyway.

...Guess that sorta made me dodge a personal bullet, considering the stories I read. (Also full disclosure, whenever I stumble onto posts about it I can only read a certain amount before I have to stop. It's all pretty distressing and I try to avoid that.)

I'm really glad and very pleasantly surprised I now get so much positive feedback talking about my aroace experience, but I also still get the occasional aphobic comment on this website or others, and I bet many others do too, so let's not forget that it's not like the discourse is fully gone either. I'm really glad things are going good, but I hope everyone can stay safe from exclusionist being verbally harmful to them. Didn't think their words could get to me anymore but they still do sometimes and... Yeah.

[homerjacksons]

Why do you only write romance and ship fics if you’re aroace

Bc being aroace doesn’t stop me being a sappy little romantic fool???

[sheena-is-a-punk-rocker]

Ngl, it was a breath of fresh air becoming besties with my tattoo artist because he's legitimately one of the very few alloromantic people out there that holds his platonic relationships on the same level as his romantic ones. He got a gf and I never once felt like I was being pushed aside or abandoned and it's sad because THAT SHOULDN'T BE A RARE THING IN FRIENDSHIPS

being on the aro spectrum would be a lot easier if being single wasn't made to feel like a literal death sentence

[flip-flopping-frede]

You know how white women want black women to fight for abortion and other women’s rights. And black women have been leading and organizing the movement. And now, white women have failed black women by helping to vote for trump, and want black women to help them fight for abortion rights. And some black women have taken a step back and said “this is not our fight”?

I’m a lithromantic who doesn’t experience or see lithro awareness, education, acceptance, pride, positivity, art, representation, or anything for the lithro label. You know what I do see? Aro awareness, education, pride, acceptance, positivity, art, representation, etc. This is especially the case when it comes to the ace side of things as well.

I’ve witnessed how the aro community treats people like me. People who don’t want to feel bad about their ignorance on my identity non-consensually relabel my label as “microlabel” or “sub label” or “variant” or “type of aromantic” or “sub type”. You feel better about yourself when you attach and associate diminishing terms to my label, right? It’s easier for you to justify excluding labels like mine from awareness when my label is just a “type of aromantic” and “aro awareness is the only awareness that matters”.

No. As a lithromantic, I’m not ok with this culture of aros, aces, and aroaces “speaking over” and “speaking for” marginalized labels that don’t get awareness, like lithromantic. If you, as a label that has the privilege of having some awareness, are trying to “put my label down” by relabeling my label as a microlabel, or some other term with diminishing connotation (to boost your own awareness), you are hurting me and the lithro community from getting the awareness we deserve.

Hot take, but lithros deserve as much awareness, acceptance, pride, positivity, etc. as the aro community.

“The aro community includes everyone! The aro community includes you!” Yeah, that hyper-inclusive mindset of making aro the “poster label” is how I did not discover/realize I was lithro until about a year after being involved in the aroace community/aspec side of social media.

People in the Acommunity, especially fellow aspecs, need to recognize how diverse the Acommunity is.

I’m slowly starting to see more awareness and acceptance for being aromantic allosexual, or aroallo. What I’m not seeing is awareness or acceptance for aspec labels that experience romantic or sexual attraction, particularly primary attraction. I would say that even some people who use the demi/grey labels aren’t helping.

There are people who are so desperate to experience romantic attraction that they convince themself they might be demi/grey. Because they suffer with internalized arophobia being aromantic. I’m unsure what the grey label is exactly, but I believe it is experiencing attraction, rarely, weakly, or under certain circumstances. And demis typically only experience secondary attraction. My point is, it is easy for greys and demis to “fit” into the aro, ace, or aroace labels. Especially when demis are able find themselves in a long term relationship with someone they were able to experience attraction to, they can have a “happily ever after”, and no longer necessarily affected by aro, ace, or aroace struggles.

Another hot take is that I feel it can be really easy for demis to perpetuate amatonormativity. Because, for them, it is a matter of finding someone they connect with and being in/entering a traditional allo relationship after that. I have only seen blatant use their identity to perpetrate, justify perpetuating amatonormativity once, however, I strongly think the demi community especially needs to be educated on amatonormativity.

For me, I experience romantic attraction, but I can’t with romantic relationships. Getting romantically involved with someone is usually a very painful experience for me. I understand how bad it is pressure someone into a romantic relationship.

I feel like my experiences as a lithromantic should matter, and I feel like my label, lithromantic, and other labels that experience primary attraction, like frayromantic and fraysexual, are worthy of more awareness. This one sided, inequal awareness for labels that experience secondary attraction (demiromantic/demisexua), or rare/weak/only under certain circumstances attraction (greyromantic/greysexual) is obvious exclusion aspec labels that experience primary attraction. And it’s hurting people/these communities. How are you supposed to accept yourself or your identity when the aro/ace/aroace don’t see your labels as worthy of awareness, and actively try to diminish your identity by attaching diminishing, “othering” descriptors to your labels, like “variant” or “sublabel” or “microlabel”?

[satsuj1n]

this site's userbase is so sex positive that it circles back to being aphobic sometimes.

[sunbreathingcoward]

its really funny to me that agender and aromantic have similar flags but ace has purple. like, come here brother... be green with us... let the green infect you...

[takemetodragonstone]

the great thing about being an aroace nonbinary person is that half the queer community thinks I’m a privileged cishet invading their spaces and the cishets think I’m a mentally ill freak but both sides agree that I’m faking it for attention.

[kazbrekkerfast]

shoutout to the aromantics who don't feel love at all. shoutout to the aromantics who feel love deeply but not in the way society wants us to. shoutout to the aromantics who are repulsed by romance. shoutout to the aromantics who are romance positive. shoutout to aromantics who have conflicting feeling about romance. shoutout to aromantics that are neutral about romance. shoutout to aromantics in qprs. shoutout to aromantics who aren't in qprs. shoutout to aromantics who are also asexual or aspec. shoutout to aromantics who are allosexual. shoutout to aromantics with conflicting identities. shoutout to aromantics who are questioning. shoutout to aromantics who are in relationships. shoutout to aromantics who are happy not in a relationship.

shoutout to every aromantic person reading this because you are valid and a welcome part of the queer community no matter who you are or what you identify as. you are so loved and appreciated <33