#my ideal partner is Aromantic. is the conclusion.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Confirmed. There is something going on with me

[aroaceconfessions]

I’m very grateful to pages like this and the aro Reddit, because they have helped me clarify something. I DO want a relationship, and not just because society keeps telling me I do.

(I’ve come to this conclusion after asking several people why they like being aromantic. I received many answers that made sense to me, mostly relating to things like freedom and free time. However, the more I read the more I kept thinking “yes I agree, but I don’t see how wanting a lot of time to yourself/lots of freedom/lots of independence etc precludes a relationship?” As in, my preferred relationship wouldn’t be 100% cohabitation all the time. And if that person insisted, the relationship would work out anyways.)

Here were provided good reasons for living alone, yet I’m not using them to justify my singleness to myself. And while all of the perks of single life are indeed very appealing, I think I’d be able to keep most of them if not all of them, in my ideal relationship.

My point isn’t to shit on non-partnering aros here, just to share a revelation that sort of caught me by surprise. It’s kind of really nice to have the validation that you want something because you WANT it, not just because someone told you to want it.

Possibly if I wasn’t aro, I wouldn’t have such a flexible view of relationships. So maybe I am fortunate to be aro after all.

[singleroad]

Hello! SMBC journey starts here

This is my introduction post because... this will be a long journey that will take a few years, but it involves a lot of introspection, choices, and stops along the way.

Short facts:

I'm 30 years old (1992)

Chronically single and queer

A librarian

Planning on TTC in 2026

Primarily want to do IUI but might do IVF

Doing ID-release donor

Longer story

My name is Rebecca, and I'm a 30 year old Swede who realized a long time ago that the only way I wanted to have a child was doing it on my own. There's a lot of reasons why I came to this conclusion was that I never came across anyone that I both felt that I wanted to spend my life with and shared my central ideologies and thoughts on child rearing.

Then, a few years later, I realized that I'm aromantic and asexual (closer to demisexual but not quite)... and that put a damper on things. I realized that the partner I would want was a unicorn! There's a laundry list of things in a partner that would make me feel comfortable with them, and then to have some form of attraction to (which is complicated as an aroace person bc once in a blue moon it kind of happens?) plus all these other things. Through so many dating apps and trying, and introspection of the fact that I am probably not an ideal partner for anyone either. If it happens, it happens, I just doubt it.

After this I spent a few years working with myself. I wanted to be sure I wanted children, if I would be okay with a life without children, how to bring a child to the world in the most ethical way, and how to go about it realistically. I had doubts, because I developed chronic migraines, I had a severe burnout, and was diagnosed with ADHD and autism earlier this year. At first when I was diagnosed I thought becoming a mom was off the table, but after working on myself and finding resources that will work for me, I know I can do it, and I can make these thinsg my strengths. Except the chronic migraines, but I have a very good treatment for that right now and am down to 2-4 migraines a month which is amazing, and I'm trying new medications to get the best combo.

Finally, I decided that this is what I want to do. I had this idea that when I was 33 I would go through it, because 33 seemed like this perfect age. As I'm nearing 31, though, this timeline seems a bit tight. I'm just now graduating, with my second degree, as a librarian, and I'm starting my career in august with severe debt and a horrible credit score. So, you know, need to work on that to provide a stable home for a child. I also need to move to a bigger place.

There's quite a few things I can do prior to all this. I'm building financial and housing security, I'm working on myself and creating healthy and mind boosting routines which will enable me to provide a good mom to my child. There's a lot to work on here, because there always is.

I'm listening to donor concieved children and adopted children and their experiences and desires in all of this. I am aware that there are plenty of donor concieved children who are against what I'm doing, and I do appreciate them, I cannot assume what my future child will/would think about it. I am doing this research because I want to meet the needs my child may have.

I'm doing research on evidence based child rearing, child psychology/physiology and how to best support them through different developmental phases. At some point I will also decide on media policy, which is the thing I'm most undecided on (I'm leaning towards yes pictures on closed social media with curated and known followers and pictures that take the child's current and future dignity in mind, and maybe non-face pictures on open social media after 8 weeks - before 8 weeks all babies basically look the same). So much to think about!

Then finally, financial and housing, as I've touched on before. I have a plan to get mostly debt free before I start the process. My current apartment is small, and I could live in it until the child reaches about 3, but ideally I'd already be living in a bigger place by this point.

The practical

So uh... what am I doing?

I'm planning on doing an IUI with a donor where the ID will be released when the child is 18 (and I'm going to offer to pay for all the DNA services available if that is what my child would want).

There's a few questions I have prior to this about my fertility. This month I'm going to be removing my IUD (if all goes well) and test to see how I do without it. In the autumn I'm going to take a few months to track my cycles with ovulation strips to see if I'm ovulating regularly or not. Then I'm booking an appointment to check my ovarian ducts and to see about my fertility levels like ovarian reserves etc.

I want to know that an IUI is a good choice for me because the pregnancy rate isn't very high, and I have endometriosis. IUI is cheaper, but if I have to spend many cycles going through it... it will get more expensive than IVF. So, I want to go through this as soon as possible so if I need to I can do an egg retrieval before I get "too old". There are more complications as you age, as everyone knows, and doing an egg retrieval earlier may mitigate things like chromosomal abnormalities.

While I know my family is very fertile, this is not a guarantee that I am. Prior gynecological exams have shown that I do have healthy ovaries so... but information is good, IMO.

IUI for my profile, as I know it, has a success rate of up to 15-20% (and after about 3 tries you go to IVF anyway where I'm looking), the higher end being assisted cycles with hormones. IUI does have an increased risk of twins/multiples and this... is not what I'd want. If it happens it does, but there's so many risks and it's way more difficult. IVF has a roughly 50% success rate if you have no known problems, so getting pregnant within 3 tries is highly likely.

3 cyles of IVF excluding donor sperm and medication is €6400

3 cycles of IUI excluding donor sperm and potential medication is €2400

The bonus of IVF: one retrieval round and one donor sample, but each IUI you have to buy donor sperm which can range from €800 to €3000 (highest I've seen), and with IUI you need the more expensive sample (higher sperm count and better motility) whereas with IVF you can get the lower rated. However, there's more medications that can increase the costs of IVF, and possible complications to both me and the fetus (IVF conception for some reason increases risks like heart defects).

This is why you have to take time to decide.

Long story short: this is the start of a multi year process, and this is my journey there

[thinking-aromanticism]

Do allos really think that?

This is a post for the Carnival of Aros (August 2021). The prompt I chose is “What are some things you do to mitigate the impact of amatonormativity on yourself, such as with self-care practices?“

-

Encountering amatonormative sentiments in media can be deeply alienating. Whether it’s a casual comment or the basis of a whole plot, the idea that (committed, monogamous, sexual, man/woman) romantic relationships are necessary for human happiness can leave you feeling isolated, pitied, misunderstood, vilified, pressured, and more alone than ever. There are a lot of ways to react to process these feelings and the texts that inspire them. Critiquing or transforming the text through meta, headcanons, fanfiction, and other personal or community based reflection, walking away and not looking back, and talking through the feelings that the texts inspire. 

One particular question-critique that I see in a lot of aromantic discussions around media containing amatonormative sentiments is: do allos really believe this shit? They believe it, don’t they. Ugh, allos really believe this shit, huh.

But like, do they?

You may find it relieving to consider that a lot of the time the answer is no. Much of the time, you can find direct evidence for this in relation to specific media. Much of the rest of the time, you can extrapolate for yourself from general social attitudes and common analyses.

The Mirror Has Two Faces is a deeply amatonormative movie. A short summary: mathematics professor Gregory Larkin is tired of conventional relationships. He loses his professional focus and emotional composure in sexual relationships with romantic partners, but he wants company, connection, a person to be with. So he puts out a personal ad seeking a woman for a sexless relationship. This ad is answered by the sister of one Rose Morgan, an English professor at the same university whose unsupportive family and failed romantic affairs have left her feeling frumpy and alone. So pushed together, Rose and Gregory strike up an intellectual relationship, then marriage and cohabitation. She wants sex, he doesn’t. She gets a makeover, feels beautiful, leaves him, and the movie ends with him finally voicing the passionate love she wanted from him and them making out in the street while a neighbor sings opera off the balcony.

The movie casually equates sex, love, and romance. It supposes that a monogamous, sexual, romantic relationship between a man and a woman is the foundation for a happy life. It frames sexless romantic relationships as silly and doomed, and nonromantic sexual relationships as somewhere between impossible and cruel. It waffles a bit on whether achieving sexual desirability is a genuine antidote for low self esteem, but seems to suggest that it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Do allos really buy into this? Well, when it came out, reviewer Todd McCarthy called it “a very old-fashioned wish-fulfillment romantic comedy” and Edward Guthmann a "a silly affirmation fantasy.” Lisa Schwarzbaum claimed that “No modern romantic comedy could be more manufactured or … awful.” This wasn’t just a shitty movie. Barbra Streisand was praised for her appeal as a diva, and Lauren Bacall got a Golden Globe for best supporting actress. Culture writers in 1996, whether they liked the movie or not, consciously knew that this was a soppy, contrived plot cooked up for gay men to sigh over glamour shots of aging starlets and straight women to sigh over the idea of every family member and romantic interest in their lives lining up to apologize for not loving them in the right ways at the right time.

Granted, the reviews aren’t all so cynical, Roger Ebert of all people having opined that “it's rare to find a film that deals intelligently with issues of sex and love,” seemingly just because the movie addressed the concept of a relationship without sex. But in no small part, alloromantic-majority audiences recognize this movie as representing a scenario that is fun to think about but not reflective of real or ideal life.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is an amatonormative fairy tale - that alloromantic audiences frequently critique and that exists within a long textual tradition of likewise-critiqued adaptations of the same basic story, carrying differing and often complex messages about men, women, relationships, domesticity, threat, appearance, and love. If Disney doesn’t suit, why not investigate C. S. E. Cooney’s (NSFW, kinky, polyamorous) “Witch, Beast, Saint”, or some feminist film criticism? Learning the history of the story might inform, and give some better ground for understanding how the Beauty and the Beast tale has been produced and reproduced socially and how it functions as a romantic fantasy. Disney has also followed it up with multiple films about family, friendship, community, and culture, including films that have explicitly referenced the frequent feminist criticisms of romantic fairytales. Whether these films offer genuine insight into the problematics of the Disney ouvre is up for debate, but it shows that these criticisms are mainstream and that the empire of the Mouse has, at least performatively, turned away from such pat fare.

Amatonormativity in media is alienating and corny and makes for tired, unrealistic stories. And you are not alone in feeling that way! Your concerns are reflected in the mainstream, and there is plentiful, incisive criticism at every level of culture writing, academia, and blogging analyzing how amatonormative tropes set up unrealistic expectations, excuse toxic behavior, and create a social environment of romantic pressure.

When I read or watch or listen to media that features amatonormative, troubling representations of life and relationships, I think critically: what’s going on in these stories? Who is the intended audience? What is the author’s intent? Are these tropes that I’ve seen criticized before? By who? How frequently? What are the criticisms I’ve seen? What criticisms am I inclined to formulate? Based on my knowledge of popular and academic media analysis, how do I think others will react to this media? I look into professional reviews and fan discussions, and see what other people think. And much of the time, I find that other people are thinking critically too, and that other people have seen the cracks. I consider that many of these stories are meant to be compartmentalized as fantasy, and are produced specifically for audiences hungry for them.

Do alloromantics really believe in all this true love’s kiss, happily ever after stuff? I am comforted to come to the conclusion that the answer is, in large if not universal part, a hand-wobbling “well, what’s love anyway, it’s complicated, isn’t it?”

[bronte-deserves-better]

On LGBTQ+ Elves in KOTLC Canon

Aka more of my stupid ramblings.

So, obviously we have no canon LGBTQ+ rep in kotlc. And obviously I like to headcanon certain characters as certain genders and sexualities with a very ‘fuck canon’ sort of attitude. However, I also enjoy theorizing about how LGBTQ+ identities would work within the elven society. So, without further ado:

Gay/lesbian: Alright, I’m going to say it. Elves are probably homophobic, or at least the structure of their society is. The world is very heteronormative, and I can see elves pretending that gay people don’t even exist. Matchmakers focus on things like ideal genetic diversity, i.e. the people who would make the best babies together, i.e. straight couples. Given what we know about the elves, I’m guessing they would think that there’s something ‘wrong’ with gay people and generally pretend that they don’t exist. If you were a gay elf, the best you could do would probably be ‘single forever’ and live with your ‘best friend’.

Bi/pan: Again, given the heteronormativity of elven society, bi/pan elves’ attraction to people of the same gender would likely generally be discounted. Most bi/pan elves would probably get matchmaking lists as normal and generally pretend to be straight to avoid the scorn of society. That, or they could use the same strategy as gay/lesbian elves and be ‘single’ and live with their ‘best friend’ of the same gender.

Ace/aro: Like the other orientations, asexual and aromantic are not something that the elves would probably want to acknowledge. If one was aroace, the best option would probably be to simply never get match lists, but an alloromantic ace would have to try to explain it to potential partners, and an allosexual aromantic might or might not want to get match lists, all while their orientation is generally smoothed over by society. Demisexual/romantic and greyace/aro elves might have a bit of an easier time of it, but it would still be difficult.

Polyamorous: Given the general attitude of elves towards other non-heterosexual, heteroromantic, monogamous orientations, I think you can guess where this one is going. Elves are a pretty monogamous society, and having multiple partners would probably be seen as being unfaithful and morally wrong. Polyamorous elves would probably have to be quite secretive about it.

(Binary) Trans: Binary trans is a thorny problem, I could see elves going one of two ways on it. Either they would see it as an affront to nature and how they were born, or they would be fine as long as the person completely transitioned and passed as the opposite gender. I saw a fantastic post earlier along the lines of ‘elixirs could help trans elves transition’ and I think that could definitely apply. Elven society might not be 100% accepting but given that they quite possibly have the resources for a complete sex change, I think there’s a possibility that (binary) trans elves wouldn’t be quite as looked down on as gay, lesbian, bi, pan, ace, and aro elves.

Nonbinary: Nonbinary is a lot more difficult than binary trans, in terms of elven society being able to wrap their collective heads around it. Elves, as a rule, dislike deviations from the norm and people who can’t be put in neat boxes. Nonbinary as a concept would likely be difficult for them to understand. An alternate way this could go would be elves not placing much stock in gender in general, and/or seeing nonbinary people as a completely normal thing, but given what we know of elven society I would say it seems a lot less likely. Nonbinary elves would probably be consistently treated as their AGAB, unless they transitioned near-completely to presenting as the opposite gender, in which case they would be treated like binary trans elves.

Intersex: Frankly, given elves’ attitudes towards nonbinary people, again, I feel like they would try to cram intersex people into binary categories. They would likely try and ‘fix’ their bodies and make them either male or female, biologically. Which they might be able to do with elixirs, but which would be pretty shitty of them still. 

In conclusion, although it would be nice to think that elves would be more enlightened, given canon evidence it seems as if elven society would be pretty biased against LGBTQ+ people, with the possible (but not probable) exception of binary trans people. 

[shades-of-grayro]

The Relationship Between the Aro and Ace Communities: A Greyromantic Perspective

This is my submission to the Carnival of Aros hosted by @theaceandaroadvocacyproject. There are three parts: my personal journey with my ace and aro identities, a discussion of how the aro community can learn from the ace community in order to do better by gray and romance-favorable aros, and my thoughts on aro inclusion in ace communities.

Thank you for reading!

Part 1: My personal journey with my ace and aro identities

When I first realized I wasn’t straight, I played around with identity labels a bit, eventually landing on “greyromantic asexual,” which I still feel describes me well to this day. How I identify my orientation to others, however, has fluctuated over time.

For a few years, I identified solely as asexual without any romantic orientation, only occasionally disclosing my romantic orientation within ace communities with the specific intention of discussing the topic of romantic orientation. Even then, I often just called myself aromantic, because I still felt that was accurate. There were two reasons why I more strongly identified with my ace identity for this time.

The first reason is that it was easier. I absolutely hated having to explain my identity when I came out to someone. Leaving it at “asexual” meant that it was more likely that someone was familiar with the word, and also that it would be easier to explain if I needed to do that. No, this was not the best aro and ace activist approach, but it was what I needed early in my coming-out journey, and that is okay.

The second reason is that I liked the ambiguity of my romantic orientation when I only called myself asexual. My asexuality is solid. I can say with 100% certainty that I don’t experience sexual attraction. My romantic orientation is more nebulous — I am not convinced that I feel romantic attraction and I am not convinced that I don’t feel it, but either way I would still be somewhere on the aro spectrum. The identity “asexual” doesn’t imply any particular corresponding romantic orientation. When I identify solely as asexual, the amount of uncertainty others (should) have regarding my romantic orientation feels more accurate to how I feel about my romantic attraction.

A combination of entering a romantic relationship and starting to do more advocacy work changed my perspective on the first reason, and I have started actively labeling my romantic orientation again. Because I am in a romantic relationship, I now need to explain the bits I didn’t have to before. I also feel the need to assert my aro-ness in a way I didn’t before, both because I think it is important when I do ace and aro advocacy work that I clarify that I am coming from an aro perspective, but also because people (mostly other aces and aros) now assume I feel romantic attraction because I am in a romantic relationship.

Now that I have entered a romantic relationship and started actively labeling my romantic orientation again (as greyromantic), people have started assuming that I feel romantic attraction because of that identification. But I am not convinced that I do. I know I feel something — but that something is significantly different from what it seems that non-aros feel when they talk about romantic attraction. What I feel is probably more in line with what is referred to as alterous attraction, but I don’t experience any other emotion-based attraction to contrast it with, so I prefer to be more general and vague about it.

This assumption gets me to my next point:

Part 2: Learning from the ace community: How the aro community can better support gray and romance-favorable aros.

In my experience, the ace community does a better job including and discussing gray-ace and sex-favorable aces than the aro community does with including and discussing gray-aro and romance-favorable aros. I think we need to look towards the ace community in order to see how we can improve.

As was discussed a bit by Siggy in his submission and in the comments on the post, the ace community isn’t always perfect in this regard and the aro community should also look to the ace community to see what to avoid. Siggy specifically suggests avoiding empty affirmations and rather talking about specific experiences. I think that is an excellent idea, though with a caveat that sometimes the topic of sex-favorability and romance-favorability can be immensely personal and people don’t always want to share, which is okay. Honestly I think some of the empty affirmations probably come from aces who are sex-favorable and feel excluded in some way, but don’t want to share their personal experiences due to how personal they are. But that is just a guess.

Here are some personal experiences and ideas in no particular order:

Gray and romance/sex-favorable aspec people often experience attraction/romance/sex very differently from how non-aspec people experience those things. We should avoid characterizing these things (especially gray identities) as being half-allo(sexual/romantic) and half-(aro/ace), because that is not what it feels like most of the time.

As a romance-favorable aro, I grew distant from the aro community while I was single and planning on staying that way. I felt more aromantic when I entered my romantic relationship, because there is nothing quite like seeing a non-aro person experiencing the same situation to highlight just how different you are. People (aros) around me implied that I was less or only partly aromantic for being in a romantic relationship based on ~feelings~, and that just didn’t fit my experience.

I’ve seen several people who say they understand sex-favorability but not romance-favorability recently, and I think this is probably due to the fact that romance as a concept is less well defined and separated from other experiences than sex. Many people don’t understand how an aro person in a romantic relationship is any different than a qpr. Ultimately, I think it comes down to preferences on language usage, much the way the difference between bi and pan does. For me, I don’t really see a difference between my romantic relationship and an ideal qpr. But my relationship is romantic for my partner, the word romantic doesn’t bother me, and it is honestly easier to describe to people who aren’t ace/aro. Most of the time I just call them my partner, which doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) imply one way or the other whether it is romantic.

I just want to reiterate - There is a recent trend towards using the phrase “aromantic spectrum” to refer gray aros, and specifically to separate them from people who identify specifically as aromantic. I absolutely hate this, as aromantic spectrum has always been the unifying term for the whole aro community - aromantic and grayromantic alike. Ultimately this language shift makes me feel like others are calling me less aromantic because I have a less clear-cut experience, which I really don’t like.

I think we need to stop emphasizing the non-romantic nature of qprs (when talking about them as a whole, not necessarily individual relationships) and focus more on them not fitting into the traditional boxes of friendship and romance. Many aros, and gray-aros in particular, don’t differentiate between platonic and romantic feelings and they might feel that their qpr is partially romantic and that is okay.

Gray-aro identities are almost always very complex, fluid, and hard to pin down. People who are not also gray-aro might not be able to wrap their heads around it, and that’s okay. Us gray-aros have a hard time with it too. I more or less just accepted that our language is never going to be sufficient to describe my experiences.

Part 3: Aro inclusion in ace communities

Currently in aro communities, ace communities have a bad reputation for being aro-antagonistic. Personally, I don’t think this is a fair reputation, as ace communities tend to be much less of a monolith than people think.

Besides recently, I have seen criticism regarding poor aro inclusion and poor alloro inclusion in ace communities. And after talking with a few people individually, I have come to the conclusion that it is different in different parts of the ace community. Some in-person ace meetup groups are dominated by alloromantic aces talking about struggles with romance. Others, like mine, are dominated by aroaces. As an event organizer and leader in my local ace community, I have to politely correct assumptions that negatively harm alloromantic aces much more frequently than assumptions that harm aros. I genuinely believe that this is an issue that can go both ways.

Additionally, individuals can be individuals. Not every ace person is an expert on everything to do with asexuality, and they will sometimes say not-so-great things. This doesn’t excuse it, but in these cases I think polite education is generally the way to go. There is a big difference to me between individuals saying (unintentionally) aro-antagonistic things and community leaders saying or doing aro-antagonistic things. While the latter does occasionally happen, I think it is the exception not the rule.

Conclusion

Overall, I am really happy with the new independence of the aro community, and I am really excited to see where it goes from here. I think we all (aces and aros alike) have work to do to better understand each other in this process. This carnival has been a great start, and I have really been enjoying reading everyone else’s perspectives so far!