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.
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.
unpopular opinion but it’s cool if you don’t want to be in love
like, idk. I used to feel so compelled to make excuses for being single, whether it was self-deprecating jokes about myself or insisting that I was too busy for a relationship or making myself go out on uncomfortable and pointless dates just to make a show of trying to not be single. there’s such an expectation that if you’re single you should be actively working of changing that, and it’s like. nah. there are 9999 other things you can be focusing your time and energy on and if you don’t really feel like being in a relationship now or ever that’s cool.
there is an exact copy of this masterlist under the “resources” tab on my blog!
finding out your romantic orientation can be a struggle. it’s laborious, intense, and often unrewarding. there’s a dearth of information available to aro and aro spec people, and that’s a shame.
i’ve compiled a list of the links and resources that helped me the most: from the blogs that helped explain what aromanticism was to the positivity blogs that helped me not feel so alone. hopefully this helps someone out, because no one deserves to feel like they’re groping in the dark when it comes to something as vital as your identity.
(if there’s something that helped you out, message me, and i’ll add it to the list!)
definitions: what is aromanticism? (and all the other words associated with it)
AVEN Wiki — fairly basic. kind of clinical, really only for people with zero understanding of aromanticism. good as a tool to help explain to cishets.
About Asexuality and the Ace/Aro Spectrum — goes into the types of attraction that different people can experience. explains the difference between sexual and romantic orientation a little better.
That’s So Aromantic — a psychology today article that is a bit like the last source, but with more attached resources and extra definitions for words like queerplatonic and amatonormativity.
Turtle Analogy — a cute sketchy comic that explains aspec orientations in the easiest possible way.
AACE Club Resources — some definitions about aro spec identities and more resources.
5 Myths About Aromanticism — a buzzfeed article. pretty self-explanatory, but something i had to come to grips with was all the stereotypes about aro people—that we’re cold, unloving, etc. this definitely helped with that.
Meet the Aromantics — stories from actual aros on their experiences with being aro, and what that meant for them. this helped a lot in validating my own feelings and experiences.
Amatonormativity — a definition, written by the person who coined the word. also includes its own resources that you may find helpful.
am i aromantic?
if you’re here, you’re probably already questioning your romantic orientation, or maybe you’re just trying to learn more about the subject. either way, this list, compiled by anagori, is things they’ve seen in themself and other people. they also have a really good linkspam.
so you’ve realized you’re aromantic. now what?
chances are you’re probably gonna want to read up some more on the subject, whether on aromanticism in general, or queerplatonic relationships, or alterous attraction. here’s a few things to help you do that.
Commitment in Relationships for Celibate Asexuals and Aromantics — this article just resonated with me in a way that i can’t fully explain. in it, the author (of whose pronouns i am unsure of) discusses levels of commitment, and how to attain them in an increasingly amatonormative world.
Experiences of Loving — an analysis on the different types of love and how powerful non-romantic love can be.
related blogs to send asks to/follow any inactive blogs on this list are here purely for the archives.
(my follow page is also public. i follow mostly aro positivity blogs, with a few blogs that post both aro and ace content, and one or two blogs that post generalized LGBT stuff.)
Most of these are taken from the Wikipedia entry for “Timeline of Asexual History” With a few extra facts taken from AVEN’s wikia page, and other news sources.
Asexual History
1869: Karl-Maria Kertbeny uses the word “Monosexuals” to refer to people who only masturbate. While not really a distinction in modern asexual discourse, it is similar to other categories coined such as “autoerotic” and “asexual” people described by Myra Jonson in the 1970s, among others.
1896: A German sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, wrote the pamphlet “Sappo und Sokrates,” which mentions people without any sexual desire.
1948:The Kinsey scale included a “group x” for those who did not feel sexual attraction, which was roughly 1% of those surveyed.
1974: Singer and composer David Bowie discusses asexuality in the Rolling Stone in the article “David Bowie in conversation on sexuality with William S. Burroughs by Craig Copetas in the Rolling Stone February 28, 1974”
1977:Myra Jonson wrote one of the first academic papers about asexuality as part of The Sexually Oppressed. Johnson mainly focused on the problems still facing asexual women as they were ignored, or seemingly left behind by the sexual revolution going on.
1979:In a study published in Advances in the Study of Affect, vol. 5, Michael D. Storms of the University of Kansas outlined his own reimagining of the Kinsey scale, using only fantasizing and eroticism, and placing hetero-eroticism and homo-eroticism on separate axes rather than at two ends of a single scale; this allows for a distinction between bisexuality (exhibiting both hetero- and homo-eroticism in degrees comparable to hetero- or homosexuals, respectively) and asexuality (exhibiting a level of homo-eroticism comparable to a heterosexual and a level of hetero-eroticism comparable to a homosexual, namely, little to none). This type of scale accounted for asexuality for the first time. Storms conjectured that many researchers following Kinsey’s model could be mis-categorizing asexual subjects as bisexual, because both were simply defined by a lack of preference for gender in sexual partners.
1980: Writer and Artist Edward Gorey, Comes out as asexual in an interview. When asked ‘…the press makes a point of the fact that you have never married. What are your sexual preferences?’, Gorey responds “Well, I’m neither one thing nor the other particularly.” and goes on to talk about how his lack of attraction affects his work.
1983: The first study that gave empirical data about asexuals was published in by Paula Nurius, concerning the relationship between sexual orientation and mental health.
1993:Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians by Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony was released on November 17, 1993.
1994:A survey of 18,876 British residents found that 1% of the respondents “never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all”.
1997:First online Asexual Community appears in the comment section for an article titled “My Life As An Amoeba”
2000: A Yahoo group for asexuals, Haven for the Human Amoeba, was founded.
2001: David Jay founded the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which became the most prolific and well-known of the various asexual communities that started to form since the advent of the World Wide Web and social media.
2004: The New Scientist dedicates an issue to asexuality.
2004: Discovery dedicates an episode of “The Sex Files” to asexuality.
2005: L’amour sans le faire by Geraldin Levi Rich Jones (Joosten van Vilsteren) is released. The first book on asexuality. Geraldin was at the head of the asexual movement, launching “The Official Asexual Society” in 2000 and performing asexual comedy shows. She also was a prominent face in the early ‘00’s asexual media boom.
2005: A common symbol for the asexual community is a black ring worn on the middle finger of the right hand. The material and exact design of the ring are not important as long as it is primarily black. This symbol started on AVEN in 2005.
2007: Award winning Novelist, Keri Hulme, comes out as asexual in an interview, saying “It is part of who I am: the major impact is that I am not– and never have been– interested in sex. It was more a slow realisation that I was different from most people. By my mid-teens, I’d realised that what was of great moment and interest to other young people – their sexuality and relationships – didn’t intrigue me in the slightest.”
2009: AVEN members participated in the first asexual entry into an American pride parade when they walked in the San Francisco Pride Parade.
2010: A flag was announced as the asexual pride flag. The asexual pride flag consists of four horizontal stripes: black, grey, white, and purple from top to bottom.
2010: The New York State Division of Human Rights updated its discrimination complaint form to include asexuals in the protected sexual orientation category.
2010: Asexual Awareness Week was founded by Sara Beth Brooks in 2010. It occurs in the later half of October, and was created to both celebrate asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual pride and promote awareness.
2010: Fashion Consultant, Tim Gunn, says in an interview that he has identified as asexual since the 80s, saying “Do I feel like less of a person for it? No… I’m a perfectly happy and fulfilled individual.”
2010: Comedian Janeane Garofalo comes out as asexual while live on stage in Seattle.
2011: The Documentary “(A)sexual” is released.
2012: The first International Asexual Conference was held at the 2012 World Pride in London.
2013: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th edition changed the diagnosis of Hypoactive sexual desire disorder conditions to include an exception for people who self identify as asexual.
2013: American Comedian, Paula Poundstone, Comes out as Asexual in an interview
2014:The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, by Julie Sondra Decker, was published; it was the first mainstream published book on the subject of asexuality.
2015: George Norman became Britain’s first openly asexual parliamentary election candidate.
2017: ‘Asexual’ is updated in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to include the sexual orientation.
2018: ‘Ace’ and ‘Aromantic’ are added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and ‘Asexual’ is updated to include the sexual orientation.
I found most of these in a few quick searches on my other blog @amazingaro. I’m sure there’s more guides and masterposts out there; feel free to add on to this list if you know some!
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