#regardless still arospec acespec lol

[arcadequeerz]

Wishing everyone who legitimately Still calls themselves a 'reg' or 'exclusionist' a very: eat shit n fuck you.

[aceiduna]

so ok maybe it’s just sleep deprivation but like. i think im bi

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

I think I'm bi, but I've noticed a lot of my crushes, (specifically on men, I think it happens with other genders too, just not as frequently), are all mostly on celebrities or fictional characters-- read: unattainable lol. It's only been recently, that I've been sorta crushing, ig, on someone in person, that comes into my work a lot. I still kinda view him as unattainable, but it's, I suppose, more real if that makes sense?

Can I still call myself bi? I've been questioning a little too whether I'm arospec recently too, so, if any of the mods are aro, is that a kinda arospec thing to only be interested in celebs and characters?

I'd ask if it's an ace thing too, since I think I've seen some people say that only picturing unattainable people or faceless beings in sexual fantasies is an ace thing. And I know sex-favorable aces exist, but I like sex so....

I apologize for asking here, feel free to ignore this but I'm not sure if there's any blog like yours, that's still active and aro (or ace?) related, and I'm on mobile atm so I can't access the one page you have that lists other resources.

Hi anon

I don't know about active aro or ace blogs either but I'm bi aroace so I'm going to have a shot at answering this.

Firstly if you're experiencing some kind of attraction or have the potential to be attracted to more than one gender and the label bi resonates with you then you can call yourself bi, there isn't one single way you have to experience attraction or act on that attraction either before you qualify as a 'Real Bisexual', if the attraction you feel whether it's for people you actually know or celebrities or fictional characters is meaningful to you in some way and feels bi to you then you can absolutely call yourself bi. (And you can call yourself bi and something else as well (like aro) if you do decide other terms do fit you as well, you don't have to be limited to just one label if you connect with others too and find using other labels useful to you.)

There are certainly people who regard the attraction they feel towards celebrities or fictional characters as not that deep and not that important and don't count that as being relevant to their orientation, but there are plenty of people who do count that kind of attraction or those types of crushes as a key part of their orientation. Ultimately it's up to the individual to decide whether attraction towards these 'unobtainable' people is meaningful and relevant or not in how they label their orientation.

Also I think it's always helpful to remind people who are asking "can I still call myself bi (or ace or aro or whatever) if..." that even if you're not 100% certain about a particular label it's fine to try it out and see if it works for you; it's also fine to change it later if you realise later it doesn't actually fit you. Labels are not set in stone or something that can never ever be changed. I also think sometimes it's helpful to call yourself by that label or 'wear it' for a while (as you might with an item of clothing you're not quite sure about) and see how it feels as sometimes that's the best way to figure out if it actually does fit you or not, rather than thinking 'I'm not quite sure if I qualify to use this label so I'm not going to use it just in case it's wrong for me' about these labels that in many cases do actually fit you.

As to whether it's an aro or ace spec thing to mostly only be attracted to celebrities and fictional characters, I think it can be and perhaps it's something that's more common with aro or ace people but I don't think this is an exclusively aro/acespec thing. There are probably many and varied reasons why some people regardless of their orientation are largely attracted only to 'unobtainable' celebrities or fictional characters - for example some people who have experienced trauma with real people/relationships may perhaps be more likely to be attracted primarily to 'unobtainable' people as a sort of defence mechanism; for some people it's probably heavily linked to neurodivergence; meanwhile some people probably just simply find fictional characters much more interesting or fun than real people.

And even aroaces can still experience some kind of attraction towards real people and not only towards 'unobtainable' celebrities and fictional characters. I think you can take largely only being attracted to these 'unobtainable' people as a guide that you may be aspec but it's nothing more definite than a vague indication really. (And yes sex-favourable aces do exist so liking sex doesn't automatically rule out you being asexual/acespec too.) So ultimately what label or labels fit you is totally your decision. If you feel bi fits you then you probably are bi (and if you think some kind of aspec label might fit you either alongside bi or instead of bi then maybe you'll want to look into aspec identities further to see if any of those do resonate with you too).

Tiger