#loveless

[purpletrashcans]

I am so fucking annoyed and here is why

I recently made the discovery that i'm probably aromantic and i would like to do what i did when i discoverd that i'm trans which is go and watch/read everything that even has the tiniest bit of trans representation in it, but i can't because there is no aromantic representation

now obviously that's nothing new, i was aware of this problem before and it pissed me right off then as much as it does now

it’s honestly just such bullshit that whenever there is an asexual character in media, basically the first thing they say after coming out as ace is that "they still want to fall in love" like not wanting, not being able to feel romantic love, would make them less human or something like that and of course there are ace people who are not aro, i'm not saying that and i'm not trying to shit on anybodys identity, if you are ace and not aro you are just as valid as anybody else and this lack of aro rep is obviously not your fault, we also need more ace rep while we're on it, that's not the point i'm trying to make, what i mean is that media always tells us that romance makes us human and if you don’t experience that you are either immature, unstable or not human and that's just bullshit

also it is no wonder that when i told my grandma about Loveless by Alice Oseman and how much i love this book, she was worried that i was like Georgia because i never like anyone romantically, she has never heard of aromanticism before, when she thinks of adult people that have never been in a relationship and don't have children she thinks of lonely, sad people and she doesn't want that for me

it is no wonder that when i see my greataunt and -uncle once a year they ask if i have a partner and when i say that no, i don't have a partner, they tell me that i have time and i'll meet someone eventually

and it is no wonder that so, so many people think that they're broken, that they enter relationships and situations that they don't want to be in, that fucking therapist try to cure people, that it took me 21 years, almost losing my friends, actually losing 8 kg in two months do to disordered eating and reading Loveless two times to figure out that i might just be aro, when there is barely any representation whatsoever, when most people haven't even heard of aromanticism

we need more representation and we need it desperately, that way not only will aro people discover their identity sooner and safe themselves a whole lot of trouble, but allo people can also learn how to react to someone being aro and we can all learn that being aro isn't sad or inhumane or weird or lonely

and because i'm a fancy-schmancy college student (who wrote "collage" instead of "college" first because i can not spell)(and have watched too much criminal minds) i would like to end this with a quote by Mariah Wright Edelman (tho the quotes are the worst part of criminal minds, they are so cringe istg):

“You can’t be what you can’t see”

[touloserrrr]

[infiniteorangethethird]

sure "romantic" isn't the only type of love but also "love" isn't the only type of positive feeling. So maybe stop insisting everyone needs love to be happy and accept that loveless ppl exist? Pretty please?

[loveless-arobee]

It's always "aros can still date!" "aros can still be in (any type of non-romantic or romantic) relationships!" "aros aren't heartless!" "aros can still love in different ways!"

Well, sure, you do you.

But not all of us. A lot of us are *completely* non-partnering. There's loveless aros. Aplatonic aros. Hell, even heartless is a label some aros use!

We don’t need to do anything to "replace" the romantic relationships we don’t have. People can be completely happy alone! Without a partner! (Shocking, I know!)

I'm just a bit tired of all the amatonormativity I still see under some of the trending aro-positivity posts...

[loveless-yadriel]

Had a soulmate tarot reading done, in small hopeless aromantic hopes that I had a chance at love.

They described my cat. They even felt guided to say a name and it was my fucking cats name. I think they absolutely believed they were talking about a human girl but nope, just the goofiest cat that could ever roam. This is honestly the perfect possible outcome.

[normalpeoplethiings]

“It was something adults said all the time. “You'll change your mind when you're older. You never know what might happen. You'll feel differently one day.” As if we teenagers knew so little about ourselves that we could wake up one day a completely different person. As if the person we are right now doesn't matter at all.”

- Loveless, Alice Oseman (2020)

[awkward-aro-ace-princess-76]

I love villains that are the reverse of the idea that the absence of love makes you evil. Villains that love to the point of paranoia and obsession. Villains whose love for someone corrupts them. Love being used for awful, evil things. Using love to justify horrific actions. Anything that breaks down the toxic idea that people who don’t feel love are monsters and those who feel love are always pure and heroic and morally right.

[fallenrain40]

"but aroaces can still feel lo-" shut up. it doesn't matter if we can feel love or not. why is this always your defense to why aroaces should be valid? it gets even worse with alloaces and alloaros. people constantly saying "aces can still have sex!!" and "aros can still have love and have partners!!" YES, they can, but you aren't bringing that up just to bring awareness towards aroaces. No, you are using that fact as a way to ignore and condemn the part that makes us aroace; the lack of attraction. I'm sick and tired of seeing aces and aros have to defend themselves by bringing up all the other ways they can love. Why can't we for once celebrate the parts of us that DON'T love?

[redysetdare]

No I don't want to marry for benefits. No I don't want to be in a QPR. No I don't want to have a platonic life partner. Yes I do want to live with my friend and live a nice domestic life with them. No these are not contradictory things to want. Check your amatonormativity if you think so.

[romancerepulsed]

aspec terms for beginners!

since it's trending right now, i feel like it might be helpful to clear up some basic aspec (but particularly aromantic, as we are the center of attention currently) terms. if you have absolutely any questions, i would be happy to answer, either in the replies, dms, or my inbox!

★・・・・・・★

the split attraction model (SAM): a model of human behavior that posits that, for some people, romantic and sexual attraction are not the same.

[most often this will come in the form of someone being aspec on one axis and allo (not aspec) on another. for example, a biromantic asexual may be romantically attracted to two or more genders, but sexually attracted to none. some people may even use SAM for allo identities– a bisexual lesbian may be sexually attracted to multiple genders, but only romantically attracted to women (note that this is not the only way that someone can be an mspec lesbian, just one way!). the SAM does not apply to everybody, not even all aspecs! there are non-SAM aros, for instance, who do not differentiate their aromanticism from their sexuality.]

aspec: a collection of queer spectrums centered around the lack of a certain attraction or identity. the most common spectrums under the aspec umbrella are asexual, aromantic, agender, and aplatonic, though there are many other ways to be aspec.

asexual: experiencing little to no sexual attraction.

[aces can still have sex– whether its because they experience some amount of sexual attraction or they just want to participate in sex because they find the act appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aces who have not and will never have sex. it is a spectrum.]

aromantic: experiencing little to no romantic attraction.

[aros can still have romantic partners– whether its because they experience some amount of romantic attraction or they just find relationships appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aros who have not and will never be in a romantic relationship. it is a spectrum.]

agender: having no gender or little relation to any gender.

aplatonic: experiencing little to no platonic attraction.

[similarly to aros and aces, apls can still form friendships if they so desire– whether its because they experience some amount of platonic attraction or they find friendships appealing in some other way.]

aroallo: combination of aromantic and allosexual– allosexual being someone who fully experiences sexual attraction. an aroallo, then, is someone who is aromantic but not asexual. aroallos often do not have a standard relationship with sex due to its romantic connotations and the stigma against loveless sex. someone having sex with someone else they do not love does not inherently make them aroallo, much in the same way that having a nonsexual relationship with a partner doesn't inherently make either participant asexual.

aroace: someone who is both aromantic and asexual. because aro and ace are both spectrums, an aroace may still experience some amount of attraction on either or both of those spectrums, or they may experience attraction of some other kind (platonic, tertiary, etc.), and that attraction may be only for a certain gender or genders– these are known as oriented aroaces.

queerplatonic relationship: a type of relationship that is defined only by the people within it. i have a post dedicated to explaining this in larger detail.

partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has and/or desires to have a partnership or multiple partnerships– romantic, queerplatonic, or otherwise.

non-partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has no desire to form a partnership of any kind.

romance/sex/plato favorable: an aspec who desires or would not reject a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship. they are also generally not particularly bothered by seeing these relationships in their day-to-day.

romance/sex/plato repulsed: an aspec who does not desire a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship and generally does not like seeing those relationships in their day-to-day. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily judgemental towards people who desire or participate in those relationships, they just do not desire them for themselves. repulsion often takes the form of discomfort or annoyance. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily cruel sticks-in-the-mud– they are perfectly capable of being respectful, and they very often are. repulsion does not always stem from trauma, though it certainly can.

romance/sex/plato positive: not to be confused with favorability, [x] positivity is the belief that romance, sex, and platonic relationships are human rights that should be supported and uplifted. someone can be [x] repulsed and [x] positive at the same time, because favorability/repulsion revolves around the self, and positivity/negativity extends to others.

sex/romance/plato negative: not to be confused with repulsion, [x] negativity is an inherently judgemental and harmful ideology. most commonly in the form of sex negativity, these ideologies are centered around the opposition to or personal judgement of people who engage in romance, sex, or platonic relationships. sex negativity in particular is embedded in western white supremacist societies and it is important for aspecs not to play into that.

those are the basics, but i have more information below the cut!

★・・・・・・★

> how are aspecs queer?

aspecs are queer because "queer" does not only mean LGBT. queer theory is about far more than just LGBT people– though they are undeniably a large part of it– queerness is any subversion of the traditional cisheteronormative standard. this includes things that cishets may take part in/identify with, because you do not have to be LGBT to subvert those standards. cishets who are gender-nonconforming are queer, for example. a good rule of thumb is that if you have to explain what you whole deal is to cishets, you're queer. queer does mean strange, after all.

traditional cisheteronormative conceptions of attraction, gender, and relationships do not account for aspecs. it is expected that everyone will one day form a traditional partnership with one other person, and that relationship will include sex (even if only for procreation, under some dogmas). virginity past a certain age is seen as a point of shame and something indicative of a larger problem in someone– in men, a red flag even. people past 30 without a relationship are pitied. our economic structure is build for couples and families– it's near impossible for someone to live comfortably alone. romance, friendship, and love are placed on a pedestal, treated as the meaning of life, the best thing anyone could ever experience. "love is the point of everything," as many posts on this site like to claim. people who reject these ideas are undeniably queer.

> i can get behind aros and aces, but the whole "aplatonic" thing feels like a stretch to me. how is not having friends queer? "platonic attraction" isn't even real.

aplatonicism is more than just "not having friends," and many apls have friends anyway, much in the same way that aros can date and aces can have sex. someone who does not have friends is not inherently aplatonic, they only are if they identify that little-to-no platonic attraction in themselves and choose to label themselves that way (just like how virgins aren't inherently asexual). still, apls who don't have friends exist, and they are all queer. what is a greater subversion of traditional cisheteronormative relationship structures than an outright rejection of what's seen as the most basic, fundamental relationship our culture has to offer?

you may not feel that platonic attraction is a distinct phenomenon in your own experience, and that's fine! ultimately, a lot of aspec terms exist for the utility and comfort of aspecs themselves. the SAM isn't for everyone, and platonic attraction isn't for everyone either. you do not have the authority to tell people what their own experiences are, nor should you care.

> i think it's sad that you're limiting yourself with these labels. you'll find someone one day!

for the broad majority of aspecs, our identities are not self-disciplinary, nor are they necessarily permanent. all queer people are capable of misunderstanding their identity or having a fluid identity– it is not a problem unique to being aspec. that being said, a lot of us may always be aspec and completely happy with it. being aspec is not a tragedy. the only thing i don't like about being aromantic is the judgement i receive from other people about it. non-partnering aspecs are not "missing out" on anything, because we don't even want the things we're rejecting in the first place. many of us are romance/sex/plato repulsed and are far more happy engaging with the world and with other people in different ways, because there is so, so much more to life than relationships, and it's wrong to presume that relationships are universally fit for everybody. telling an aspec that they'll find "the right person" one day is no different from telling a lesbian she'll find "the right man" one day. there is no "right person" for an aspec just as there's no "right man" for a lesbian. a lesbian is not "missing out" on a heterosexual relationship just because it's culturally perceived as superior and more fulfilling.

[disclaimer before anyone tries to do a "gotcha," i'm talking about a lesbian who is fully not attracted to men in any way. it's not like homophobes know the intricacies of gender identity and nonconformity as it pertains to homosexuality anyways.]

lastly, i wanna give a special shout out to the loveless aros and the relationship anarchists.

loveless aros are those who either feel little-to-no love as they understand it, or they are someone who supports the de-centering of love. they're worthy of a whole post of their own, but in summary: the loveless experience is all about finding joy in yourself and the countless things our world has to offer that are not dependent on the vague idea of love.

relationship anarchy is another concept worthy of its own post, but in essence it's an ideology aimed at abolishing the standard hierarchy of relationships (in the USA, depending on who you ask, its typically friendship < family < romantic partnership or friendship < romantic partnership < family) and allowing everyone the autonomy to define their relationships for themselves.

if i made any mistakes, let me know! and of course i'm willing to answer any questions anyone may have. :-3 thanks for reading my long ass post!

[howlingtothevoid]

Tired of being used? Me too, pass the bottle

[poppletonink]

Asexual Books

Loveless by Alice Oseman

Sounds Fake But Okay by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca

Is Love The Answer? by Uta Isaki

City Of Strife by Claudie Arseneault

This Doesn't Mean Anything by Sarah Whaler

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning Of Sex by Angela Chen

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Vanilla by Billy Merrell

Paper Planes by Jennie Wood

Being Ace: An Anthology Of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection by Various Authors

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann

Rick by Alex Gino

Wren Martin Ruins It All by Amanda DeWitt

Love, Ace & Monsters: An Ace Anthology by Various Authors

Summer Of Salt by Katrina Leno

[touloserrrr]

[infiniteorangethethird]

loveless people. You agree. Reblog

[zephyr-heart]

I love you QPRs, I love you polyamory, I love you relationship anarchy, I love you aromantics with partners, I love you people who don’t want relationships, I love you I admire you loveless community, I love you ignoring amatonormativity <3

[zegalba]

my bloody valentine: loveless (1991)