#arophobIa

[satyrradio]

day 20283737 of waiting for y'all to realize that maybe we should be going after the ppl that want us dead instead of. yk. each other

[thatqueergarbagerat]

Is this something?

[aropride]

(ID: two memes using the "it's 2024 i'm done arguing / if you hate X i'm straight up murdering you" meme format. the first says "aromantics" and has a picture of the aro pride flag, and the second says "asexuals" and has a picture of the ace pride flag. end ID)

[aptericia]

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.

[heartless-aro]

So much of the arophobia directed towards aromantic heterosexual men seems to be rooted in willful ignorance about what aromanticism actually is and how allosexual aromanticism differs from sexual objectification. Aromanticism is experiencing little to no romantic attraction towards others. That’s it. It isn’t the same as sending unsolicited dick picks to strangers or reducing women to their bodies. When a misogynistic man disregards a woman’s personhood in favor of treating her as a sexual object, it isn’t because he doesn’t experience romantic attraction to women. It’s because he chooses not to value women as people.

That has nothing to do with whether or not the man in question experiences romantic attraction. You can respect someone’s personhood without being romantically attracted to them. In fact, if you can’t respect a woman’s personhood without being attracted to her, then that is misogynistic. However, there is nothing inherently misogynistic about finding a woman sexy (even if you aren’t romantically interested in her!), nor is there anything inherently misogynistic about having casual sex with a woman who has enthusiastically consented to having casual sex. (Because, yes. Women CAN consent to having casual sex without being tricked into it via false promises of romance. Women are fully capable of deciding for themselves what they want to do with their bodies. Just because a woman does something with her body that makes you uncomfortable—like casual sex—doesn’t mean she’s a helpless victim who needs you to rescue her from her own autonomy.)

It also just seems so bizarre to me to claim that aromantic heterosexual men don’t face any stigma related to their aromanticism. Do you really think a man who has never had a crush on a woman won’t face any stigma for that? If a heterosexual man says that he has never gone on a date or has never had his first kiss, how do people react to that? Social norms for how men engage with romance are different from how women are expected to engage with romance; that doesn’t change the fact that men are still expected to engage with romance in certain normative ways.

Of course, aromanticism is not the same as just not going on dates or not kissing people. That is just one of many ways that aromanticism can look. But aromantic experiences are diverse, so it’s difficult to give a one-size-fits-all example of how aromantic heterosexual people are affected by arophobia. What I’m trying to express here is that aromantic people often don’t engage with romance in the way that society expects us to (if we engage with romance at all) and that, furthermore, men are often perceived differently when they do not conform to those expectations.

[gemsandjunk]

since aromantic is trending rn I wanted to point just how weird it is to me that whenever two characters are close to each other in an explicitly non-romantic way fandom immediately labels them as “family-coded” “siblings” “parent/child”

Like yeah I get the idea but at some point it feels like people just. Don’t view platonic relationships as something anyone would ever prioritize or risk their lives for, and has to be replaced with something *more*- if not romance, then family.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Aro beam

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

aromantics rn 🤝 transmascs rn

"you aren't really queer, you're basically cishet, and you don't face discrimination."

[perytonpred]

People will celebrate characters not being aro/ace the same way straight people celebrate a character not being gay and then act like it isn't aro/acephobic

[aro-bird]

I feel like some people within the aspec community need to check themselves for aphobia like it's seriously concerning. I'm not just talking about internalized aphobia btw, I'm also talking about straight up aphobia against other members of the community.

If you're ace, that does not mean you are immune to being arophobic. Same goes if you're aro, you are not immune to being acephobic.

If you're aroace, you could also be aphobic without it necessarily being what could be considered as "internalized" (e.g. being aphobic to a favorable aroace when you're repulsed, being aphobic to aroaces who are non-partnering when you're partnering, being aphobic to loveless aros when you aren't loveless or lovequeer aros when you aren't lovequeer, etc. etc.).

That's not even talking about the amatonormativity in the community either.

[starredwrites]

i'm having thoughts about amatonormativity and why it sucks and they're long-winded and hard to properly express bc it's late at night but i wanted to share them so i summarized them with a meme

this realization brought to you by the realization that a lot of people who say acephobic shit without actively denying asexuality exists just mentally swapped "virgin" for "asexual" and carried on with their lives. this best evidenced by people being "accepting" of asexual women but ignoring/erasing asexual men.

[kittydragondraws]

some aromantic people can still feel certain forms of romantic attraction

some asexual people can still feel certain forms of sexual attraction

some aromantic people can feel no romantic attraction whatsoever

some asexual people can feel no sexual attraction whatsoever

[waddlinglandshark]

Reminder ace people and aro people are valid no matter the other orientations thanx

Let them eat cake or something like that

[ryutarotakedown]

year 2024 can you all stop being fucking weird to aromantic people

[skeletalroses]

My (recently married, alloro ace) friend sent me this article tonight. I highly encourage everyone to read it, especially aspecs and people who are otherwise nonpartnering or sexual minorities. The women featured in this piece are awesome and so is their community-organizing game (which is why anarchists and people interested in mutual aid should read this too).

I reiterate: aromantic+asexual liberation and women's liberation are inescapably intertwined.

I hope everything these Korean women are doing takes off and expands to other communities and continents, because I cannot WAIT to join a No-Marriage Women's club.

Me and the girls destroying marriage and the nuclear family: 🎉🍾🪓🔥🎆🔪🎊🎇🪓🥂🔪🔥🎉

[beeziewe033]

Whenever i see a alastor ship the comments are always like

"isnt he aroace tho?" and the replies are

"Im pretty sure he's just ace"

"He was confirmed Aromantic too"

"No??? He's just ace"

"his VA said he's canonically aroace"

"aroace people can still date"

"thats not gonna stop me from shipping"

Like thats EREASING Aromantic rep and aroace in general, people are so obsessed with ereasing aromantic character

[meoskyan]