i pity people who say “yeah it’s nice to see these two characters as friends but their relationship becomes so much more meaningful if you see them as romantic.” how has the dredges of the amanormative world poisoned you this bad? have you never had a friend or wanted a friend who changed your life for the better? or if you do i feel bad for them because of so obviously little you value them

You don't gotta say your aro/ace to let us know you get no bitches, we can tell from afar

sounds like you're coping tbh <33

ace aro people stop derailing and being annoying challenge. we should bring aphobia back

man shut the fuck up ur lame as hell

told someone i was aroace today and their immediate response was "how terrible!"

like, i've read from others that things like this happen, but ngl, actually experiencing it myself was a little surprising.

I wasn't really all that offended tho. I've only known this person for a few days.

But still. my first response was "how is it terrible?"

I'm not exactly "missing out" on anything. How could I miss out on something that sounds like a nightmare to me?

“friendships are not lesser forms of relationships than romantic ones!” yeah!

“the idea that there’s a relationship hierarchy is bs!!” precisely!!

“you don’t need romance to be a good or ‘full’ person!!!” yes, yes, yes!!!

“because instead you can have friendship!!!! because aros still love, they just love their friends!! it’s not like we’re heartless monsters!! <333”

…sigh.

aphobia is so funny to me. like. you’re mad just bc i refuse to have some bitches and just wanna do my thing?

Honestly as much as I love Tumblr now, I’ll never forgive this site for the “ace discourse” era that nobody has ever fucking apologized for. Irreparable damage was done to aro/ace people and our communities and now that shit is being recycled on TikTok. And then aphobes have the gall to say “well it’s not like you guys have ever faced any hardship in your lives” as if they still don’t bully and discriminate against aro/ace people to this day.

Go rot.

(ID: two memes using the "it's 2024 i'm done arguing / if you hate X i'm straight up murdering you" meme format. the first says "aromantics" and has a picture of the aro pride flag, and the second says "asexuals" and has a picture of the ace pride flag. end ID)

Gonna yell "TEXTILES ARE WHAT MAKES US HUMAN!" at anyone spouting acephobic nonsense about how sex/romantic relationships make us human.

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.

every aromantic person who has to witness someone say “there is no non-romantic explanation for these characters” should be financially compensated

EDIT: if i see another one of you fuckers arguing “but sometimes they ARE just super romantic” i’m tired of being nice. i’m just gonna let you know that 1. amanormativity has rotted your fucking brain and 2. it’s people like you that are the reason why aros are suffering. other aros you are not absolved of this. just fucking listen to us for once and stop denying our experiences and pleas.

its all "aros can still date!" and "aces can still have sex!" when youre talking about canon aro/ace characters until someone headcanons a character as aro/ace and then its "but they've dated before?" "but they've had sex before?" "but they can't be aro/ace???"

“you can’t be asexual.. relationships like that are basically friendships, you need to have sex in one”

a REAL quote from my mother

it was said after i explained asexuality and just as i was about to tell her that i was ace myself, she said this

and somehow, shes okay with me being a lesbian, but somehow draws the line at me being an asexual one

literally how do i tell her a relationship can still be romantic just without all the sexual aspects

like YES i want to kiss a girl a lot so very very bad and we cuddle on the couch watching our favorite movies

YES i want to be cooking with my future girlfriend and she comes up to me hugging me from the back and kissing me

relationships without sex just sounds so peaceful? like no pressure to one day have sex with that person or to not expect anything like it

allosexual people just dont get it and it sucks

Thinking a lot about how exclusionary/reactionary ideology is so incredibly easy to fall into and act upon because it preys on and weaponizes people's existing insecurities. It gets people saying things like:

"I'm deeply dysphoric can't even access HRT yet because of transphobic policy so why should someone without dysphoria have access to resources before me?"

or

"I'm targeted by transmisogyny regularly. It is the biggest issue in my life. Therefore other trans people's issues are secondary and are either less important than or just side effects of transmisogyny, so why should I ally with them?"

or

"Ace people don't have laws attacking the ways they have sex like other queers because they don't have sex, why should I have community with them at all?"

or

"All men benefit from systemic privilege, even marginalized men. Men have everything handed to them by the patriarchy so why should I care about finding common ground with them when they are the ones oppressing me?"

or

"The word queer is a slur and it makes me uncomfortable so no one should use it for themself."

All of those lines of thinking follow the same pattern: "I am hurting, I am oppressed, I am beaten down, so why should I care about other people that either make me uncomfortable or I deem as having more privileges than myself"

And it is okay to hurt. It is also, genuinely, okay to only really feel passionate about issues that impact yourself. Compassion fatigue is real. It's very easy to get so swept into caring for others you forget to care for yourself.

But you can't let your pain harden you so much you stop viewing others as complex human beings trying to live their lives and start seeing them all as adversaries to your existence by virtue of existing themselves. That's no way to live.

"love is love", "you just haven't found the right person yet", "you're too young to be sure", "i could never be aroace", "love is human", "aroace people aren't actually queer", " *aroace representation* omg look at this ACE rep", "how do you even live without romance/sex", "y'all are just inhumane", "what if you fall in love", "the a on lgbtia is for allies", *ships aroace character with another character*

yeah no obviously, aphobia isn't normalized at all /s

this post is not directed to other queer people. the "love is love" slogan is used by many companies and that slogan doesn't include aro and trans people which are part of the community. I'm fucking tired of all of these aphobes who already called me a homophobe, telling me I'm not queer or creep around on my posts. STOP.

"No guys I swear this time it's reasonable to deny language to marginalized people! It's not at all like those other times when we excluded and downplayed the oppression of a certain group of people! This time it's definitely justified to tell people their oppression isn't real! And that they need to shut up and listen to the real oppressed people. We are definitely in the right on this one."