#lithro positivity

[aro-polls]

I'm lithromantic myself and everytime I see lithros mentioned, the poster usually only includes one definition of lithromantic instead of both definitions. I'm curious how other liths/akois feel about the multiple definitions.

Lithro/Akoiromantics, how do you feel about there being two definitions for "lithro/akoiromantic"?

-Positive

-Neutral

-Negative

-See results

And for the record: the two definitions (as per AUREA identity terms glossary) are as follows:

Describes a person who can feel romantic attraction towards others and enjoys romantic relationships in theory, but does not need that affection to be reciprocated or to be in a relationship with the one the feelings are directed towards.

Describes a person who may stop feeling romantic attraction once in a relationship or stop enjoying it.

[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”?

[crappypastah]

Painting my nails in the colours of the lithromantic pride flag to tell my internalised amatonormativity "fuck you"

[aspec-selflove]

Read me

Nothing is wrong with asexuals for being asexual.

Nothing is wrong with aromantics for being aromantic.

(More identities under the cut, this post is SPECIFICALLY FOR ASPEC’S, PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS ABOUT OTHER IDENTITIES.)

Nothing is wrong with cupiosexuals for being cupiosexual.

Nothing is wrong with cupioromantics for being cupioromantic.

Nothing is wrong with fictosexuals for being fictosexual.

Nothing is wrong with fictoromantics for being fictoromantic.

Nothing is wrong with lithro/akoisexuals for being lithro/akoisexual.

Nothing is wrong with lithro/akoiromantics for being lithro/akoiromantic.

Nothing is wrong with quoisexuals for being quoisexual.

Nothing is wrong with quoiromantics for being quoiromantics.

Nothing is wrong with aspec’s for being aspec.

NOTHING IS WRONG WITH US. WE ARE NOT BROKEN. WE ARE NOT WEIRD. WE ARE HERE, AND WE DESERVE TO BE ACCEPTED.

[aro-ace-artemis]

Acespec and Arospec pride snails and slugs ! Inspired by an ask I saw @aspecpplarebeautiful get !

[Image ID: two images on a transparent background. The first has five sea slugs, all curved around each other and floating, in the colors of the frayromantic, lithromantic, quoiromantic, aroflux, and aromantic pride flag colors. The second has five snails, all floating around each other, in the gray-ace, aceflux, aroace, reciprosexual, and asexual pride flag colors. On both images, the characters have a thin white border around them. End ID]

[chelousy]

It’s ace week! Can’t forget our lithromantic pals 👏

[niamhuncensored]

I hope lithrosexual and lithromantic people have a good day, today and always!

[red-honeysuckle]

All arospecs are awesome and they're awesome people. And they're definitely not broken. If you think they're broken, and that they're not LGBTQ+ and don't belong in the community, I will gently ask you to

Go Fuck Yourself

[a-space-for-aspec]

aspec people should invade canada.

there’s about 7.6 billion people on Earth right now

there’s about 36.71 million people in canada right now

according to statistics, about 1% of the population is aspec (although i’ve also seen reports saying the new generation shows 4-5% of the generation to be aspec, but for now, let’s just go with 1%)

so 1% of 7.6 billion is roughly 76 million

so aspec people in the world almost DOUBLE the current population of CANADA

BUT, yes there’s more, Canada has a lot of open space that isn’t inhabited, and due to its amount of land and resources, it could probably fit about 105-140 million people, possibly over 200 million if necessary

(this is based on a comparison of the rivers in Canada to the population sustained by similar rivers in other parts of the world, the amount of land, and the resources)

so basically, i think, every aspec person should go live in canada together and be platonic soulmates and happy and have pride day every day and lots of food puns and no aphobic people :)

[aroacekith]

Lithromantics are fire

[cinnamonrollace]

You are valid!

Yesterday during a study session, I got to explain asexuality to my friends and all of them understood and accepted me as I am. I got hugged and told that they support me no matter what (My allosexual friends even joked about how they're the exact opposite of me lol). I even mentioned how I'm still confused about my romantic orientation and they told me that I don't have to pressure myself, that I still have time to know myself better. It was a relief for me.

Last night, I also got to finally talk to this guy I've been having mutual pining with (He's straight af) and clarified what we really are because our other friends kept on asking about it. I had to ask my other group of friends from my previous school for a call to help me not panic in the situation. It was a pain to talk about relationships and stuff because I am personally not into romantic relationships but I really really like him. His presence makes me feel less shitty. I enjoy moments with him. I explained to him about my sexuality, my exact thoughts on relationships and he told me that it was okay, that he understands me. I was hesitant at first, I wasn't sure what was really happening and I was really scared. I've had romantic relationships before and they weren't good experiences. So I kept asking if he was sure, if he was serious, to which he replied that he will adjust and that he is really okay with it. He said that I shouldn't worry because he will do his best in whatever we have. We didn't say anything about it, about a relationship. We just guaranteed what we really feel. For me, that was enough. I really didn't want to establish a relationship, I just know to myself that I really like him and he feels the same way. We even agreed not to answer our friends' questions because I'm uncomfortable with it.

I am still scared but I also want to risk it and see the whole thing develop. It's a big risk but I want to let myself let go for a while and have personal growth, with discovering who I really am (I often have identity crisis and it causes me breakdowns) and understand myself more, knowing what I really want. I discovered that I'm asexual just last year and I still remain unsure with my romantic orientation (I'm sure that I'm bi, but romantic relationships are just...idk). There is still a lot of time to grow. I sometimes feel invalid but with the support I have from my friends, I believe that I'll be okay. I'm not out to my family. My mom has made homophobic, transphobic comments and my dad is extremely homophobic. My siblings are okay, I might come out to them soon because I know they're the ones who will understand. They also hate how our parents are like this.

Right now, I'm just relieved. It's been going well. I'll be okay. I'm writing this post to let everyone who feels the same way I do extremely VALID! There's so much time for growth and you will get to know and understand yourself better! It sucks that feeling really complicated with oneself makes us feel shitty but I just want to let you know that you are going to be okay, and that you are still valid! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜♥️💞💕❣️💗

[lithro-akoiromantics]

MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE

You know I see a lot of negativity coming from a lot of lithromantics / akoiromantics, and I know it is hard. It is hard to not being able to love someone back. It is hard to have to tell someone you lost interest in them. And gosh it is hard to realise we may never be happy in a relationship so many others have.

But let us be proud as well. Proud that we’re learning about ourselves and our type of attraction, be it romantic or sexual. Proud that we’ve found others who are experiencing the exact same thing. Proud that we’re doing our best. We’re not intentionally hurting someone, we’re not trying to lead someone on, or being mean. Absolutely not. And let us be proud of that. Let us be proud of each other. And know that I am proud of you all. Whatever your circumstances, whatever your orientation, even if you’re still not sure about anything yet. You guys are amazing and deserve so much more love.

Just be you, and be proud ♥

[flip-flopping-frede]

My attempt at Lithromantic Positivity

I want to preface this by saying I am ~in general~ not a fan of positivity. Trying to “force positivity” is quickly a slippery slope to toxic positivity and superficially. Nonetheless, I feel like I could have realized some lithromantic positivity, and thought it was necessary to share rather than keep it to myself.

It is ok that there’s nothing good about being lithro. It is ok if there are no benefits that we can exploit from ourselves and take advantage of ourselves (or our relationships) with. Lithromantics not necessarily having *any* positives to being lithro (besides our dope flag) means that those of us that have accepted ourselves, are some of the most compassionate, kind, strong, and resilient souls. The amount of self-compassion one has to develop before they can radically accept themselves as lithromantic, is so much higher than essentially any other queer identity.

In a world that has yet to be educated on aromanticsm, aromantics and cupioromantics are scared to date alloromantics, due to alloromantics behaving like it is a “dealbreaker” or “end of the world” if their [romantic] partner is not “in love” [essentially experiencing romo attrac] towards them. It’s valid for both aros and cupioros to be scared to date alloros because of this arophobic mindset they have, tho.

Anyways, a lithromantic might “seem” more appealing to an uneducated alloromantic, since we do experience the romo attrac, or what alloros mistake for “love”. At the same time, once an alloro experiences and returns that romo attrac towards the lithro, the lithro’s romo attrac fades. Not necessarily fades, but flees and turns into romance repulsion (for most lithros). Uneducated, insecure, and/or unaccepting alloros might feel very hurt for the lithros sudden change. Simultaneously, the lithro may also be hurting for not being able to “keep” or “hold on” to the romo attrac. It feels like, being lithro leaves everyone worse off (and is potentially traumatizing for the lithro). This is why lithros who have accepted themselves have learned how to be compassionate and kind to themselves to an extent that most other queer identities never have to go to before they can accept their queer identity, due to there being more external support, education, and acceptance for their queer identities (including for aros).

It is so easy for lithromantics, especially lithros that have chosen to remain closeted, to drown in a sea of their own self-hatred and shame of being an arospec identity that leaves the alloromantics that reciprocated the romo attrac angry and confused. In a world where alloromantics have all the privilege and amatonormativity is everywhere, lithros are so strong, brave, and resilient for existing as our lithromantic identity in a world that refuses to see us, acknowledge us, validate us, support us, accept us, or understand us.

This is where the lithromantic positivity comes in: lithromantics can relate to everyone. Lithromantics know what it feels like to experience romantic attraction; and we know what it feels like to have a romantic relationship look you dead in the face and not want it. We are also romance ambivalent! We understand what it means to have more than one attitude towards romance. We can understand both apothiros and cupioros. We can relate to another largely unknown arospec identity—frayromantism, since frayros also experience involuntary, primary romantic attraction, just like lithros do. We can even relate to alloros in terms of experiencing romantic attraction involuntarily and getting crushes. And finally, we can relate to aros with struggling to desire romantic relationships in the same way an alloromantic does.

There are so many other identities lithromantic is similar to, like aegoromantic, bellusromantic, and frayromantic. Lithros belong in arospec spaces, and lithros’ voices are so valuable to the arospec community. Lithros are essential in terms of helping to bridge the distance and alienation that is only growing between aromantics and alloromantics.

At the same time, lithros need support. Unfortunately, a lot of lithos hate their identity, and feel no pride for it. We don’t feel seen or validated, and a lot of us feel a lot of shame for being lithromantic. I personally didn’t really see any actual lithros celebrating their lithromanticsm during this year’s arospec awareness week, which is sad. We need the arospec community to affirm that are voices are valuable and that our experiences are valid, especially as we are struggling to accept ourselves.

[aroaceconfessions]

(I'm aroace, lithromantic specifically)

Some of my friends seem to find it hard to accept my sexuality because I'm so romance and sex positive 💀 I love talking about crushes and relationships and celebrating my friend's joy in them, plus I'm always like "wow x is so hot and pretty please marry me" with people I form my little temporary lithro crushes on

They don't seem to understand that just because I can't experience sex and romance the way they do and that I don't want relationships in *my* personal life doesn't mean I can't enjoy celebrating it in *their* lives

Like jeez sorry I'm happy for you 🙄

[kelvintimeline]

Wait so are you acephobic?

Have to copy/paste myself:

Ace individuals are fine. There’s nothing of moral value negatively or positively in not experiencing sexual attraction. It is a frankly irrelevant piece of information, the same way I don’t care about how people experience any of other facet of their sex life or lack thereof. I do not judge people on how they feel about sex unless it deals with rape.

But I have major issue with anyone who claims that cisgender straight people who don’t feel sexual attraction have a spare orientation that magically makes them LGBT despite oppressing Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, and Trans and Nonbinary people. I have major issues with ace rhetoric sexualizing LGBT identities via the SAM. I have major issues with ace rhetoric that you can healthily fuck people you aren’t sexually attracted to and date people you aren’t romantically attracted to, seeing as that is rhetoric taken directly from conversion therapy where LGBT people are told to forego their feelings and marry into a straight relationship and remain closeted.

I have issues with the idea that 10-18 year olds are being told that they are oppressed for being disinterested in sex or romance and that if you haven’t finished puberty yet, you’re LGBT and are Different From Your Peers which is fearmongering and just… fucking offensive.

I object to ace rhetoric that sexual orientation is just about your relationship to sexual intercourse when sexual orientation/ the suffix sexual is about sex as in gender, thus saying WHO you are attracted to and nothing more about said attraction.

I have issues with the ace history of using holocaust imagery in their flags and symbols on AVEN. Of using stripes in their flags so people associate them with LGBT people “but not too much" because a lot of cishet aces actually DIDN'T want to be associated with "those people."

I take issue with aces comparing cishet exclusion to TERFs excluding trans women from women’s spaces. When one is LGBT people protecting themselves from their oppressors and the other is cis people treating those they oppress like fucking shit and leading to actual real life violence and suffering as well as legislation that could fucking kill people.

I take issue with ace inclusion going hand in hand with the corporate take over and pride and the liberalism in mainstream LGBT activism.

I’m tired of ace inclusion rhetoric being identical to kink, polyamous, intersex, and pedophile inclusion rhetoric.

I’m tired of people thinking it’s okay o tell strangers and minors their relationship to sex.

I'm tired of those same people thinking that when I use the word bisexual instead of biromantic I am also telling people who I want to fuck when bisexual isn’t about sex. Bisexual aces, minors, and sex repulsed people exist.

I'm tired of people like you dogging me because you so desperately just want me to say "aces are valid!"

When… validity means nothing. Just like the word asexual. Asexual can mean doesn’t experience sexual attraction (except if you’re grey, demi, cupio, lithro... then yeah you can) but does experience romantic attraction, doesn’t experience ANY attraction (unless you’re grey, demi, etc), or just doesn’t want sex. I’m tired of people whose words mean nothing going into the LGBT community and trying to make OUR words mean nothing through shit like the split attraction model or claiming cishets can reclaim queer. All to promote the idea of microidentities that supposedly make you more “queer” the more terms you collect, even though a solid 20% of them just mean shit like “so addicted to porn you can’t get off to real people anymore.”

So, yeah, if you don’t feel sexual attraction, I have no fucking issue with you. But if you support ace rhetoric and the ace community’s destruction of language around sexuality and LGBT identities, then, that’s what I have an issue with.

Not aceness. But ace “activism” which isn’t about destroying rape culture or promoting enthusiastic consent in sex (which I would support) but rather about bullying LGBT people for not including every fucking scatter brained hot take the cishets at the helm of your community can come up with in between watching episodes of Camp Camp and Steven Universe.

That enough for you? Have I made it clear?

LGBT aces are LGBT. Not experiencing sexual attraction and not desiring sex are completely valid, morally neutral things. There is nothing wrong or broken in not desiring sex or romance.

On that front, I am not "acephobic."

But if you're gonna cry "acephobia" when an LGBT person excludes their oppressors who become NO LESS OPPRESSIVE just because they MIGHT not want to fuck their romantic partners... than sure, yes I am.

If it is aphobia to criticize ace terminology instead of taking it on the chin and letting it hurt LGBT people, then... sure, buddy.

If it feeds your victim complex to read this, I Hope you feel full and content. Enjoy being fed.

[greyro-problems]

i'm a greyro who's closer to the alloro part of the spectrum; can i get some positivity/validation?

You are absolutely valid! The aro spectrum is a spectrum for a reason. There is no maximum number of crushes or “level of attraction” allowed to be part of the greyro community.

We all have our own experiences and struggles that we face, but that’s what makes our community so beautifully diverse. Aro, greyro, lithro, quoiro, demiro and all the many, many other arospec folks - we will stick together and stand our ground against amatonormativity.

Love should be something wonderful to be celebrated, not a requirement that we are forced into. There are so many different kinds of love and while we unfortunately live in a society that places a lot of value on one specific subset, it doesn’t make your love for your friends or pets or hobbies or yourself any less beautiful and valuable. Seeing all the focus on romance, it’s easy to swing in the opposite direction in the arospec community and devalue romantic love, but that would be just as wrong. We are all different and we love in different ways, none of which are worth any more or less than another person’s love.

If you experience crushes or romance, maybe even frequently, that’s wonderful. It doesn’t mean that you’re any less greyro. Emotions are so much more complex than labels could ever be and you’ll always be welcome in this community.

Have the courage to exist, just the way you are. Have the courage to love, whichever way you do.

That’s the most any of us can do.