#apl
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One of the most important aspects of the aromantic community as a movement is championing the belief that "friends can be just as important and fulfilling as romantic partners."
My problem with this is that a majority of the aromantic community takes that to mean friendships are fulfilling and important instead of the full meaning of the phrase.
However, what the meaning of the original phrase says is both "friendships are fulfilling and important", and, "friendships don't have to be important and fulfilling at all."
It says both "Friendships can be fulfilling enough to fill the emotional need that alloromantics fill via romantic partners", and "If romantic partners are not important, then friendships can be just as unimportant as romantic partners."
However due to the general phrasing of the question it skews the interpretation to only include the first meaning. I think it should be "Human emotional need and the way it becomes fulfilled is highly varied, and that's a fact of our species" but I think that comes with the drawback of being a Bit Too Radical (TM) for the average uninformed person, so in practice I think as friendships are recognized as equally or more fulfilling as a romantic relationship, we should shift to that "human emotional need is varied" as a next step.
Overall, I just have a general distaste for the way most people think only other people can fulfill one's emotional needs. Pets and hobbies and books and art and shows and games can all fulfill those emotional needs as well. But the average person would laugh at you if you said your emotional needs are fulfilled by wikipedia.
My emotional needs are extremely fulfilled by reading about cyanobacteria and microplankton, thank you
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people who exclude straight trans people and straight aspec people are my worst enemies. btw
#trans#ace#aro#apl#transgender#asexual#aromantic#aplatonic#im not straight but guys do you not realise how important they are#I love you straight trans people I love you straight aspec people
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Imagine
#tumblr please this would be so cool#abrosexual#achillean#agender#alloace#aplatonic#apl#aroace#aroallo#bigender#demiboy#demigender#demigirl#enbian#genderfluid#genderflux#genderqueer#maverique#neutrois#omnisexual#pangender#polysexual#pomosexual#sapphic#toric#trixic#xenogender
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A podcast run by an asexual, an aromantic, and an aplatonic called "AAA" and every time an episode starts, one of them welcomes the audience by screaming into the mic
"hello and welcome to AAA!"
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aspec terms for beginners!
since it's trending right now, i feel like it might be helpful to clear up some basic aspec (but particularly aromantic, as we are the center of attention currently) terms. if you have absolutely any questions, i would be happy to answer, either in the replies, dms, or my inbox!
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the split attraction model (SAM): a model of human behavior that posits that, for some people, romantic and sexual attraction are not the same.
[most often this will come in the form of someone being aspec on one axis and allo (not aspec) on another. for example, a biromantic asexual may be romantically attracted to two or more genders, but sexually attracted to none. some people may even use SAM for allo identities– a bisexual lesbian may be sexually attracted to multiple genders, but only romantically attracted to women (note that this is not the only way that someone can be an mspec lesbian, just one way!). the SAM does not apply to everybody, not even all aspecs! there are non-SAM aros, for instance, who do not differentiate their aromanticism from their sexuality.]
aspec: a collection of queer spectrums centered around the lack of a certain attraction or identity. the most common spectrums under the aspec umbrella are asexual, aromantic, agender, and aplatonic, though there are many other ways to be aspec.
asexual: experiencing little to no sexual attraction.
[aces can still have sex– whether its because they experience some amount of sexual attraction or they just want to participate in sex because they find the act appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aces who have not and will never have sex. it is a spectrum.]
aromantic: experiencing little to no romantic attraction.
[aros can still have romantic partners– whether its because they experience some amount of romantic attraction or they just find relationships appealing in some other way. that being said, there are still plenty of aros who have not and will never be in a romantic relationship. it is a spectrum.]
agender: having no gender or little relation to any gender.
aplatonic: experiencing little to no platonic attraction.
[similarly to aros and aces, apls can still form friendships if they so desire– whether its because they experience some amount of platonic attraction or they find friendships appealing in some other way.]
aroallo: combination of aromantic and allosexual– allosexual being someone who fully experiences sexual attraction. an aroallo, then, is someone who is aromantic but not asexual. aroallos often do not have a standard relationship with sex due to its romantic connotations and the stigma against loveless sex. someone having sex with someone else they do not love does not inherently make them aroallo, much in the same way that having a nonsexual relationship with a partner doesn't inherently make either participant asexual.
aroace: someone who is both aromantic and asexual. because aro and ace are both spectrums, an aroace may still experience some amount of attraction on either or both of those spectrums, or they may experience attraction of some other kind (platonic, tertiary, etc.), and that attraction may be only for a certain gender or genders– these are known as oriented aroaces.
queerplatonic relationship: a type of relationship that is defined only by the people within it. i have a post dedicated to explaining this in larger detail.
partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has and/or desires to have a partnership or multiple partnerships– romantic, queerplatonic, or otherwise.
non-partnering: an aspec (usually aromantic) person who has no desire to form a partnership of any kind.
romance/sex/plato favorable: an aspec who desires or would not reject a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship. they are also generally not particularly bothered by seeing these relationships in their day-to-day.
romance/sex/plato repulsed: an aspec who does not desire a romantic, sexual, or platonic relationship and generally does not like seeing those relationships in their day-to-day. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily judgemental towards people who desire or participate in those relationships, they just do not desire them for themselves. repulsion often takes the form of discomfort or annoyance. [x] repulsed people are not necessarily cruel sticks-in-the-mud– they are perfectly capable of being respectful, and they very often are. repulsion does not always stem from trauma, though it certainly can.
romance/sex/plato positive: not to be confused with favorability, [x] positivity is the belief that romance, sex, and platonic relationships are human rights that should be supported and uplifted. someone can be [x] repulsed and [x] positive at the same time, because favorability/repulsion revolves around the self, and positivity/negativity extends to others.
sex/romance/plato negative: not to be confused with repulsion, [x] negativity is an inherently judgemental and harmful ideology. most commonly in the form of sex negativity, these ideologies are centered around the opposition to or personal judgement of people who engage in romance, sex, or platonic relationships. sex negativity in particular is embedded in western white supremacist societies and it is important for aspecs not to play into that.
those are the basics, but i have more information below the cut!
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> how are aspecs queer?
aspecs are queer because "queer" does not only mean LGBT. queer theory is about far more than just LGBT people– though they are undeniably a large part of it– queerness is any subversion of the traditional cisheteronormative standard. this includes things that cishets may take part in/identify with, because you do not have to be LGBT to subvert those standards. cishets who are gender-nonconforming are queer, for example. a good rule of thumb is that if you have to explain what you whole deal is to cishets, you're queer. queer does mean strange, after all.
traditional cisheteronormative conceptions of attraction, gender, and relationships do not account for aspecs. it is expected that everyone will one day form a traditional partnership with one other person, and that relationship will include sex (even if only for procreation, under some dogmas). virginity past a certain age is seen as a point of shame and something indicative of a larger problem in someone– in men, a red flag even. people past 30 without a relationship are pitied. our economic structure is build for couples and families– it's near impossible for someone to live comfortably alone. romance, friendship, and love are placed on a pedestal, treated as the meaning of life, the best thing anyone could ever experience. "love is the point of everything," as many posts on this site like to claim. people who reject these ideas are undeniably queer.
> i can get behind aros and aces, but the whole "aplatonic" thing feels like a stretch to me. how is not having friends queer? "platonic attraction" isn't even real.
aplatonicism is more than just "not having friends," and many apls have friends anyway, much in the same way that aros can date and aces can have sex. someone who does not have friends is not inherently aplatonic, they only are if they identify that little-to-no platonic attraction in themselves and choose to label themselves that way (just like how virgins aren't inherently asexual). still, apls who don't have friends exist, and they are all queer. what is a greater subversion of traditional cisheteronormative relationship structures than an outright rejection of what's seen as the most basic, fundamental relationship our culture has to offer?
you may not feel that platonic attraction is a distinct phenomenon in your own experience, and that's fine! ultimately, a lot of aspec terms exist for the utility and comfort of aspecs themselves. the SAM isn't for everyone, and platonic attraction isn't for everyone either. you do not have the authority to tell people what their own experiences are, nor should you care.
> i think it's sad that you're limiting yourself with these labels. you'll find someone one day!
for the broad majority of aspecs, our identities are not self-disciplinary, nor are they necessarily permanent. all queer people are capable of misunderstanding their identity or having a fluid identity– it is not a problem unique to being aspec. that being said, a lot of us may always be aspec and completely happy with it. being aspec is not a tragedy. the only thing i don't like about being aromantic is the judgement i receive from other people about it. non-partnering aspecs are not "missing out" on anything, because we don't even want the things we're rejecting in the first place. many of us are romance/sex/plato repulsed and are far more happy engaging with the world and with other people in different ways, because there is so, so much more to life than relationships, and it's wrong to presume that relationships are universally fit for everybody. telling an aspec that they'll find "the right person" one day is no different from telling a lesbian she'll find "the right man" one day. there is no "right person" for an aspec just as there's no "right man" for a lesbian. a lesbian is not "missing out" on a heterosexual relationship just because it's culturally perceived as superior and more fulfilling.
[disclaimer before anyone tries to do a "gotcha," i'm talking about a lesbian who is fully not attracted to men in any way. it's not like homophobes know the intricacies of gender identity and nonconformity as it pertains to homosexuality anyways.]
lastly, i wanna give a special shout out to the loveless aros and the relationship anarchists.
loveless aros are those who either feel little-to-no love as they understand it, or they are someone who supports the de-centering of love. they're worthy of a whole post of their own, but in summary: the loveless experience is all about finding joy in yourself and the countless things our world has to offer that are not dependent on the vague idea of love.
relationship anarchy is another concept worthy of its own post, but in essence it's an ideology aimed at abolishing the standard hierarchy of relationships (in the USA, depending on who you ask, its typically friendship < family < romantic partnership or friendship < romantic partnership < family) and allowing everyone the autonomy to define their relationships for themselves.
if i made any mistakes, let me know! and of course i'm willing to answer any questions anyone may have. :-3 thanks for reading my long ass post!
#barking#aromantic#aspec#romance repulsed#aroallo#aplatonic#asexual#aroace#loveless#queer#lgbt#queerplatonic#alloace#queer theory#relationship anarchy#split attraction model#aro#ace#apl#agender#long post
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it's very important to support aspec rights. but i think it's even more important to support aspec wrongs
#give your local aspec a sword#aspec#aro#ace#apl#aspec memes#aromantic#asexual#aplatonic#aqueerplatonic#queer#lgbtq+
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either you support the entire spectrum of aromanticism and asexuality and aplatonicism (etc) or you don’t support the aspec community at all.
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i can't describe these myself, if someone can help i'll reblog that version!
#no id#lgbt#mogai#queer#lgbtq+#gsrm#lgbt+#asexual#aromantic#aplatonic#quoi#ace#aro#apl#acespec#arospec#aplspec#aroace#aspec#quoiromantic#quoisexual
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aphobes are just jealous. like, yeah, we live our lives outside the fundamental societal norm, even beyond the queer community. we're just that rad. you wish you could be like us. go throw a tantrum about it somewhere else.
#lgbtqia#queer#aromantic#aro#asexual#ace#demiromantic#demisexual#demi#frayromantic#fraysexual#aplatonic#apl#there are so many identities within the aro and ace spectrums#too many to tag#like i said#we're just that rad#fuck amatonormativity
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Aspecs. Acespecs. Arospecs. Aplspecs. Reblog if you agree.
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This might be a hot take for some of the aphobes and whoever else, but I would much rather "let cishets into our safe spaces" than deprive a single queer kid of community on the basis of "what if"
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"No platonic explanation for this" DAMN RIGHT !!!!!!!
[Image ID: the aplatonic flag. /End ID]
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In a society where friendship is a stepping stone to a 'next stage' of romance and sex, and romance/sex is not only viewed as a combo package yet also held superior and as the end-goal to all other forms of relationships, it is only natural that 'friendship' becomes a deeply unvalued form of interaction.
Ask any allorose person in your life how they view friendship. I did - it's defined by most as a very casual "i want to hang out more with them; i like them; they click with me" sort of thing. The only people in my former friend group who responded that friendship was about the actual attraction to one another felt were a-spec some way themselves.
Most people view 'friend' as a label that needs no consent to use, to the point where children are mocked for asking if another kid wants to be friends. All throughout my life I've been forced into friendships without ever being asked if I WANTED to be there in the first place. And then once they perceive that "we're" close, they bring on social and emotional obligations I never asked to be burdened with, and then get mad when I don't comply with them, when they never asked how I felt about them in the first place.
I think the focus on friendship in the aromantic community is a double-edged sword. Yes, it is important to value friendship as much as romantic relations are valued! However, the movement from aromantics largely revolves around people not discrediting and throwing out friendships in favour of romance.
I think an addendum is long needed: friendship should be treated as consensual as romantic relationships are. It should be verbally acknowledged and agreed upon by both parties. One of the consequences of amatonormativity is that confessing romantic feelings is seen as this huge important thing, and I honestly don't think it should be that way, but if asking someone to be your romantic partner is a world-shattering all-or-nothing thing like some alloromantics treat it, so should asking someone to be your friend.
And if I didn't make it clear enough, asking someone to be friends before treating them as such should be viewed as mandatory.
TL;DR "friendship and romance should be viewed as equally important" and "friendships should be treated with the same amount of seriousness and consensuality as romance" are statements that can and should co-exist
also this post is explicitely about aplatonicism and the aromantic community. don't derail kthx
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If you ever want to say "everyone wants-" (sex, romance, friendship, something else), or (love, empathy, something else) "-is what makes us human", stop!
There is someone out there that doesn't want something most others do, or doesn't experience something that others do. Saying something like that is hurtful, and alienating. So don't.
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It's always "I may be aromantic but I still love my friends!" and never "I'm aromantic, but that does not mean I have to 'make up' for the love I 'lost' or am 'missing out on' by loving friends or family."
#not to say you shouldn't try to love anyone at all if you're aro!!#just saying that no one needs to replace their love for a partner with love for friends/family#aromantic#aro#loveless aro#aroace#loveless aromantic#arospec#aplatonic#aplspec#apl#love on general is kinda... ehh for me
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Shoutout to all the a-specs who don't want or need friends (or contacts in general) 💚💜
#sleepyfred rambles#aromantic#pride#aroace#asexual#aro#lgbtq#lgbtq+#ace#aspec#acespec#aromantic asexual#aromantism#a spec#asexuality#apl#aplatonic#loveless#loveless aro#loveless aromantic#aplspec
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