Anon, it breaks my heart that you’ve felt the need to send this in. It breaks my heart, because nobody should feel this way. Nobody should feel so isolated from and discouraged by their own community. This conversation shouldn’t be happening, anon, and that’s not on you–it never was and never will be. It’s on a situation, a shape of the community, and I think it says something profound that a few posts are generating other conversations and frustrations right now–I’ve seen it on this blog and on several others. I’ve seen it on several blogs just today!
I have a sense of a cork that’s been popped off the bottle, a hurt and a pain we’ve been holding in for too long coming out.
And I think that’s a good thing, because it’s time, past time, we had real conversations about the impact. That it isn’t a few aro-specs grinding their teeth and writing ranty posts about aro erasure. That this erasure and dismissal, this long-running amatonormativity and centering of romantic love (how many times have I seen alloromantic aces describe asexuality as “love without sexual attraction”?) has the potential to cause real wounds, real suffering, real isolation, real disconnect from a community that should provide support, real damage. Amatonormativity isn’t just fielding off questions from relatives about when we’re going to get married. Amatonormativity tells us that we are not the kind of humans society considers worthwhile, and you can’t live in this world without that weighing down on you.
None of us, not one of us, are strong enough not to be damaged by that: no human is or can be. It isn’t a failure in us. It’s a failure in everyone else. Some of us are better at hiding it, and some of us channel that pain into ranty posts or spite-motivated creativity, but we are all hurt by it.
Too many alloromantics brush off amatonormativity and the centring of alloromantic attraction as nothing, but it isn’t, and right now we deal with the pain of having our pain dismissed as nothing, even in spaces that are, ostensibly, meant to include us. It hurts worse from alloromantic aces because it feels like they should be better able to understand; ace-spec spaces feel like they should be more welcoming than they are. And I think it’s okay to feel hurt and even betrayed by that. We endure hate from outside together, all a-specs; we have every right to expect support, instead of erasure, inside.
Anon, as someone who deals with suicidal ideation myself, I do not miss the immense bravery it took from you to write about your pain and the way it makes you feel. But I want to thank you, too, for having the courage to be honest and real, to stand up as an example, to shine a real light on where erasure leads us.
I don’t have simple solutions to problems like the pressure of using ace as an umbrella term. (I’ve seen plenty of aro-aces talk about how they’d prefer to ID as aro alone but cannot because it isn’t accepted, and their loathing of ace as an umbrella term. If you feel this, I’d truly appreciate it if you could comment on this post as solidarity for our anon, because I know they’re not alone.) I also know that there are no simple solutions to mental illness and suicidal ideation, and they do not make amatonormativity easier to bear. I do think, though, that pride is the one real weapon we can bring to bear against a socialized worthlessness–pride and community.
As much as I don’t need an excuse to promote the aro-spec artist profiles, anon, I’d like you to go check them out. Read what other talented aros–including several aro-aces–are writing about being aro and creative. Go click on the links to their work–an awful lot of them have works available for free. There’s art and there’s stories, stories about aro-spec experiences, stories about resisting amatonormativity, stories about aro-spec and aro-ace feelings. Stories that normalise. We’re just getting started on building this canon, but it’s already a defiant cry that we are normal, we are wonderful, we are human, and it’s only going to get better.
(Likewise, check out all the fiction pieces submitted and reblogged here. Or the poetry. Or the artwork and visual pieces!)
Anyone who’s following this blog knows I write, that I tell stories. I do it because the world tells me that I don’t get to be the hero, that I am not deserving of being the hero, so I’ll break my hands on my words screaming fuck that. Even better, there’s a whole bunch of other aro-spec and aro-ace storytellers here who are doing the same. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learnt: it is easier, so much easier, to survive anything when there’s other people beside you. Stories are that person beside you. Stories are other aro-specs’ hopes and dreams.
I wouldn’t be alive today if not for the hope in the storytelling of others. It’s not enough by any means, but I hope it is the beginning of a feeling that the world, when it comes to aro-specs, is a thousand kinds of wrong and we do not have to listen to what it teaches us. If we can feel that, this kernel of understanding that amatonormativity is not only damaging but nonsensical against a world of wonderful and amazing and loved aro-spec people, it’s a little bit easier to survive it.
Anon, I know the aro-spec community alone isn’t enough for you, and it absolutely should not have to be, but I hope we here, at least, can work on making this space more supportive and welcoming of you. I want you here and I want you to belong here. If you are aro-spec in any way, this community is for you, and if we are not doing a good enough job of being welcoming to our own, come in and tell me, tell us. Because a community that isn’t devoted to celebrating and sheltering all our own, however different your experiences as an aro-spec may be from mine, isn’t one I wish to be part of.
Thank you so much, anon, for trusting me with your story.
(If folks are looking at starting spaces specifically for the support of aro-aces who feel alienated by the ace-spec community, please let me know and I’ll signal boost here. I may not be around a lot over the next week because I have a personal situation with my family that is unexpectedly on the precipice of being very awful, but I’ll get to it as soon as I can.)
Hey, to my fellow aces, can you please read this?
There was a rift forming between the aro and ace communities several years ago, pre-diskhorse. It came from a lot of these same frustrations; many aroaces felt like they weren’t be heard, and allo aros were tired of being shoved under the ace umbrella. There was a large push for the aro community to separate itself complete, and with the “aro renaissance” it seems like we’re asserting our independence more than ever. Yet it saddens me to think that even in a post-diskhorse world (not to suggest that it’s over by any means), we cannot strike a balance of uniqueness and unity.
If the aro and ace communities are ever to reconcile this and begin to heal, the ace community needs to be held responsible for its amatonormativity and its arophobia. Wanting to discuss and raise awareness for non-sexual romantic relationships is important, but the rhetoric surrounding those conversations can NOT continue to dismiss aroaces as a small, secondary minority and erase the experiences of allo aros altogether. “Still being able to love” doesn’t make you more human, it makes you more palatable. When you say “I’m asexual but I can still feel romantic attraction/can still fall in love!” aros here an unspoken “I’m still human” tacked on to the end.
Please stop making aroaces feel like an inconvenience for not fitting that agenda. When I tell people I’m asexual, they don’t assume I’m aromantic. The one time somebody followed up by asking what my romantic orientation was, and I told them, they looked at me with pity and disappointment.
Please, ace community, check your arophobia. It has real, dire consequences for aroaces as well as allo aros. Follow aro blogs and listen to what we are saying. As an aroace, I want my ace community to be there for me. All parts of me, not just my asexuality.
If you’re alloromantic and asexual can you reblog this? And change this behavior, if you’re guilty of it? Thanks.
@fuckyeahasexual I’m tagging you because you’re a huge ace blog, mostly. But also partly because you’re (the blog) guilty of what is said in this post – being arophobic and actively centering alloro aces.
I’m sure you want to do better, and you can begin something by sharing this post. But you’ve shared posts about those issues in the past while distancing yourself from it, as if you weren’t responsible when you actively erase aros.
So please, explore your posts, the way they push your followers to talk about aros, and please consider the ace community’s arophobia. There are a lot of posts about it on tumblr, the tag is often “arophobia in the ace community”.
I want us – aros and aces – to be better to each other, but the ace community has a responsibility towards the aro community (including allo aros, yes), as it’s the the bigger place and umbrella term. This responsibility stems from our shared history, and this shared history can’t be erased.
This is a difficult subject, but I wish alloro aces would question their behaviour and try to understand and change the reasons aroaces often feel so much closer in the aro community. Why we tend to abandon the ace community ship after some time. Hint: because you are excluding aros.
As an Aro ace person I’m starting to really hate the ace community . I hate that Ace is umbrella, I hate that I have to use two words to explain I’ll never be attracted to anyone ever and hence will spend my life alone . I feel the community is to obsessed with proving they still love that they need to pretend aro aces don’t exist . And it leaves my soul hurting . I’m at the brink of suicide these days and it sucks because I don’t know where I belong anymore and I’m feeling inhuman daily x.x
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