Do not assume what kinds of relationships aromantics do or do not want. Do not assume friendship is universal. Do not imply that the only connections aros can have are friendship just bc you think all aros are plato favorable, romance averse, ace, and sex averse.

Do not imply that every aro must want and immensely value friendship bc its 'the only thing left other than romance and I assume sex is out of the equation'. Aplatonic and/or plato averse or nonfriending aros exist. We matter. Aros who are romance favorable and/or experience some romantic attraction exist.

Aros who are sex favorable and/or alloaro or are otherwise not ace exist. There are other relationship types than the ones I mention in this post, such as qpr's. Don't forget aros who may not fit your ideas of what an aro person looks like.

[Do not fucking add your commentary on how you like friendship or whatever. You're allowed to like friendship obviously! Just maybe try to give a shit about ppl who don't, and don't fucking derail when we talk about our experiences. Make your own damn post or literally add on the numerous posts about liking friendship. I don't care if this post makes you sad for some reason. Alloplatonics and/or Plato favorable ppl you can rb but don't clown.]

Reblog this edited version instead of the original please!

The lack of consent on friendships has always disturbed me.

Platonic/amical relationships are the only type of relationship that you can be entered into without even been asked.

Friendships "just happen". You aren't supposed to be asked or ask people to be your friend, that's a silly thing kids do because they don't understand. People can just call you their friend and you have to accept it.

And if you don't want to reciprocate the title you were given without even been asked, if you don't want to enter that relationship with that person, YOU are the bad person; because we aren't supposed to reject friendships.

Shoutout to demiromantics who don't want friends!!

Plato repulsed culture is being sick of positivity posts that proclaim the op loves whatever group(s) are mentioned in the post platonically

Plato averse alloaro apl culture is not relating to having 'squad goals' and instead the closest thing you like engaging in that even resembles a 'squad' is a polyerosous alloaro4alloaro polycule (-Rift)

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i love you sex-repulsed aces

i love you romance-repulsed aros

i love you plato-repulsed apls

i love you sex-averse aces

i love you romance-averse aros

i love you plato-averse apls

i love you sex-ambivalent aces

i love you romance-ambivalent aros

i love you plato-ambivalent apls

if you're aspec and your relationship to sex, romance or platonicity includes repulsion or aversion i love you and my blog will forever be safe for you

So, for myself, I hate the romance/sex/plato repulsed/averse/indifferent/favorable system. I do not fit in it. Well, okay, I'm allosexual and pretty damn sex favorable, but in terms of romance and platonic stuff, I'm really not any of the above. But I figured out a term that does describe me.

I'm romance and plato tolerant. In fiction and reality. I can handle a lot of them. It does not repulse me. I don't even see it negatively. But dealing with it and interacting with it everywhere all the time does still eventually strain me. I'd still much rather have relationships without it. I can absolutely deal with and handle being a friend or girlfriend, or reading and writing stuff about friendship and romance, but I will be vastly happier if it isn't there. Because I am tolerating it. Like the dog that doesn't really mind the kid petting him, but still would rather be left alone. It's not averse because I can handle it and don't really mind... But it's not indifferent either because I mind eventually. So, I'm romance-tolerant and plato-tolerant

“Further, they shall not confuse the infernal deities and their rites with the Gods who are termed heavenly and their rites, but shall separate them, giving to Pluto his own in the twelfth month, which is sacred to him, according to the law. To such a deity warlike men should entertain no aversion, but they should honour him as being always the best friend of man.”- Plato, Laws (Book VIII) (trans. Benjamin Jowett) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.)

Happy month of Hades!

In my practice, I interpret Hades as a god of endings: the end of life, of girlhood, of the harvest. It makes sense that his sacred month takes place at the end of the year. Hope everyone honors Hades this December 🫶🏻

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Mar 12, 2024

Every human interaction carries the potential to cause offence. There are almost no words that are bereft of connotations, and even silence can be a source of discomfort. We can all therefore agree that to insulate ourselves from the possibility of feeling offended is to withdraw from society altogether. 

To a degree, it is healthy to shield ourselves from those who would wish to hurt us. We do this in our choice of friends and associates, and on social media this can be accomplished simply by ‘blocking’ aggressors. An important aspect of freedom of speech is the right not to listen. To claim that using the block function on social media is a form of censorship is akin to saying that one violates Stephen King’s free speech by not reading his novels. 

But the avoidance of conflict is a tactic that can only ever be effective when it comes to navigating a familiar landscape. In order to live a fulfilling life, we must interact with strangers about whom we know very little. There exists a broadly agreed social contract that protects us from harm, one that is continually subject to revision, but there will always be those who feel compelled, for whatever reason, to transgress the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. 

In your adult life, you have taken great care to avoid causing offence wherever possible, but you have not always been successful. This is because our thoughts and intentions are only ever communicated in a partially accurate way. Our choice of language is the most direct means to express what we know ourselves to think and feel, and even then might not best reflect our true sentiments. Even in our moments of greatest clarity, we cannot be certain that our words will be interpreted in the anticipated manner. 

When I was a boarding school teacher, one of my charges was a German pupil who had somehow managed to offend every one of his peers. He had developed a reputation for rudeness, and schoolboys are rarely willing to indulge those who are perceived as antagonists. I spoke to the German boy on a number of occasions. Although his English was strong, his utterances would often sound cantankerous or needlessly curt. For instance, rather than say ‘Would you mind shutting that door please?’ he would say ‘You must shut the door now.’ As I got to know him better, I soon began to realise that something was being misrepresented in the process of translation. In other words, we were experiencing a version of his personality that was very different from his authentic self. 

In a sense, we are all speaking our own unique dialect, even if our language is the same. This is why generosity of interpretation is always to be advised in the first instance. As Socrates observes in Plato’s Meno, given that misery is the desire and possession of evil, and that nobody desires to be miserable, there can be nobody who knowingly desires evil things. In most cases, it is safest to assume that those who commit acts of which we disapprove must believe them to be good. Similarly, opinions that we find repellent often originate from the best of intentions. Once we understand this, we unlock the potential for meaningful dialogue. 

When we are offended, we should think carefully about why we have chosen to take offence and, more importantly, whether or not the offence was meant. In many cases, those who would wish us harm are explicit in their objectives. After all, an expletive-ridden insult is unlikely to be thrown in the spirit of benevolence. But even in such instances, is it right that our personal sensibilities should be the justification for curbing the speech of our traducer? 

In part, this is the inevitable corollary of years of risk-averse parenting and teaching strategies, as well as the implementation of anti-bullying measures that have a tendency to catastrophise. As Greg Lukianoff argues, ‘People all over the globe are coming to expect emotional and intellectual comfort as though it were a right. This is precisely what you would expect when you train a generation to believe that they have a right not to be offended. Eventually, they stop demanding freedom of speech and start demanding freedom from speech’. An overdiagnostic culture has reframed distress and emotional pain as forms of mental illness, rather than aspects of a healthy human existence. To feel upset is not an aberration; it is a sign that we are alive. 

Let us consider what exactly it means to be offended. There is little doubt that the feeling of offence arises from the disconnect between how things are and how we feel they ought to be. We can be offended by phenomena that do not directly impinge on our lives because they violate our sense of justice. More commonly, we are offended by matters that relate specifically to ourselves. Our pride is injured when we believe that someone holds us in low regard and, as status-seeking primates, we are bound to feel deflated when disparaged. 

Once offence has been taken, there are two likely reactions: we might feel that the slight was deserved, and that we should modify our own behaviour in order to avoid similar incidents in the future; alternatively, we might decide that the fault lies with the offender. In these cases, we might seek an apology, retaliate through criticism or mockery, or seek to stop this person from speaking. It is this latter impulse that explains the appeal of censorship as a means to safeguard the feelings of ourselves and others. 

To recognise that there are aspects of existence that offend us is not to suggest that the feeling of offence is meaningless. There is nothing wrong with being offended, and it can often spur us into action when it comes to redressing injustice as we see it. That said, if the source of our offence is a general discomfort that others do not behave or speak in accordance with our own specific values, we are engaging in a kind of solipsism that is best avoided, not least because there is no end to the endeavour. This is the kind of mentality that sees people take umbrage on behalf of others, an increasingly common phenomenon by which speech is judged to be ‘offensive’ even when there is no evidence of any offence being caused. 

A compulsion to change the world around us to suit our personal sensibilities is evinced by the tabloid columnist who calls for a film to be banned, the heckler at the comedy club who is outraged at the topic of the joke, the member of staff at a publishing firm who threatens to strike over a ‘problematic’ author, the student activist who sets off fire alarms to prevent a visiting speaker from upsetting his peers. We understand the impulse because we all feel it from time to time. However, to make the leap from the natural revulsion we experience at certain alternative worldviews to actively silencing them is to surrender to the authoritarian tendency. By doing so, we degrade ourselves by subordinating our reason to baser instincts. 

This is an excerpt from Free Speech and Why It Matters. You can buy the book here. It’s also available as an audiobook.

This pride month remember that aplatonicism can be a beautiful thing. Aplatonics are not 'missing out' on friendship if they are plato averse or repulsed, or nonfriending, or indifferent. Aplatonics are not being 'insincere' or 'fake' if they are plato favorable and/or want friends. Aplatonics who only experience platonic attraction conditionally or infrequently or in a non-traditional manner are an important part of this community!

Aplatonicism is not inherently miserable or lonely. One's value does not depend on whether they have or want friends. Aplatonicism which is romance favorable and/or alloromantic is not 'amatonormative'. Ask yourself why you have double standards about friendship and romance and why you can't comprehend that amatonormativity is a societal mindset ( not something that people can be just by being into romance but not friendship lol) if you think it is.

Another person's preferences with regards to friendship or socialising (or lack thereof) is also not something you need to comment on or pathologise. It is not necessary to hold everyone up to alloplatonic standards. That is platonormative and yes platonormativity does harm people. And so does aplphobia/aplmisia.

Aplatonic Swag Bracket!!

Currently accepting nominations, we will have 32 initial characters (Edit: Nominations are now closed!!)

Aplphobes and apl exclus (ppl who dont think apl is queer) etc. go away this isnt for you

main @entropy-sea-system

We accept headcanons (thats often all we have bc apl is not v visible in media). When submitting headcanons, please mention the media the character is from!

(we do not accept hcs from any media made by jkr. such as hp)

We may not be able to add all the nominations due to a limit on how many characters we want to start off with (32)

This page supports all apls and aplspecs, including plato averse, plato favorable, plato repulsed, nonfriending, loveless, blue stripe apls, etc.

[Blue text above as title says Aplatonic Swag Bracket!!]

The lessons of Plato’s myths, however, point us to another way. If we remain allergic to the presence of myths in our cultural landscape, we miss the larger point, and risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Plato’s insight was that myth is a powerful, enduring force in politics and culture – a point of common ground in both Nietzsche’s and Popper’s critiques of Plato. Not taking this seriously risks falling into denialism about the very real ways in which such symbolically rich narratives influence our worldviews. But Plato’s own philosophical reinvention of myth also suggests that myths can be reworked in creative ways. Myths are not monoliths impervious to change, but dynamic stories open to reinterpretation every time they are retold. Our inherited aversion to myth not only keeps us from fully appreciating Plato’s incisive understanding of myth. It also keeps us from recognising – and learning from – people in our own communities who are already doing the kind of creative work it takes to engage constructively with it.

Tae-Yeoun Keum, Why philosophy needs myth

Plato repulsed culture is cringing every time someone suggested that you'll make friends when you start university.

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Translated parts of T. Kallifatides’ “Timandra" (PART 2)

Part 1 (and intro)

Part 3: coming soon

(p.102) Many hated him and many more loved him and did everything to please him. Like that merchant who sold all his belongings, took the money and went to give it to him. “I am for sale, of course” replied Alcibiades “but not with this amount” He wanted to be loved. “If I had been born a woman, I would have become an hetaera” he would say. “You were born a man and became a politician, it is the same” I told him. “I would have become a philosopher if it wasn’t for the various Platos” he joked. He had a thing against Plato, who everyone said would soon surpass everyone, both wise men, sophists and rhetoricians. And Socrates told in the agora of the dream he’s seen right before meeting him. He had seen a swan, the sacred bird, hiding in his embrace. The next day in the morning, Plato was standing outside his door along with his uncle. Alcibiades had his objections. “I know Socrates. It’s not enough for him to be the wisest human in greece, he must also have the best student. “But that’s what all teachers want” I said. “Perhaps…But Socrates doesn’t know that his best student will one day bury him in his writings.” Suddenly he spoke like an old man who see the youths as a threat. Life replaces us all. Only, Alcibiades did not want to understand it. Like so many others, like so many others. (transl. notes: that’s kinda sad there at the end wtf)

(p.116) Only one other human gave me this feeling. A singer, many years ago. I had invited her to my house for a dinner with a few friends. My daughter’s father was away at war*. When at last the rest left, the singer stayed with me, as if we had made some secret deal, even though in essence we didn’t know each other so well. The night was calm and warm. We sat one opposite the other without speaking, without wanting anything more than to sit like that, one opposite the other. Some time passed this way, when suddenly, but not unexpectedly, she started half-singing a melody and the silence around us got even bigger. Slowly her song grew like a small spring turns into a river and the river turns into sea. I had heard that song before but it seemed to me that I was hearing it for the first time and like I saw it being born inside her. At last, her voice became an irresistible temptation. I had to touch the source of that tortured, deep and victorious voice and I sat next to her, taking hold of her hand. What took place next had never happened to me before and it’s the most correct description of what I call the dithyramb of love. Because at her hand, at her thin fingers and her palm I could touch the song. I never felt this close to a human with the sole exception of my daughter. Because she is the song of my body, its highest note. And there, next to the singer, sleep took me, completely exhausted, as exhausted as I was when I had birthed my child. (transl. notes: timandra sleeps with several women throughout the book, her best friend roxani is the one who “takes her virginity” earlier in the book (interresting to read, as usually virginity is, as a patriarchy-fueled concept, focused around penetrative sex) and every time it’s described like some metaphysical experience. I have a personal aversion to some of the cheesiness but I think it’s worth mentioning) (*timandra at some point reveals that she has a daughter whose father is alcibiades, that she let herself conceive as an emotional reaction when he got married, but never told him about her, and from that point onward she often calls him “the father of my daughter”)

(p.119) I remember particularly one symposium, at which I was not invited, but Alcibiades took me with him nearly by force, only to piss off the rest of them, as most of them either were still in love with him or loved him once. First and foremost Aristophanes, sulky as always and with poisonous comments that found their mark like a persian archer. He lost no chance of ridiculing Alcibiades, his speech or his walk, and did everything he could so people wouldn't understand how in love he was, and perhaps he fooled some, but not me. (transl notes: i ship alcibiades and aristophanes with my entire shipping department, and if I may, here’s an AMAZING fanfic with them: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21828574 I’ve read it a bunch of times, it’s so so good. )

He had recounted the story to me many times and the details were not always the same but in general the thing had as such: He had spent the night with one of his more persistent admirers. They woke up late and Alcibiades was in a rush to go to a quail fight. Luckily he had the bird with him, he took it under his chiton* and took off running to make it in time. Passing by the agora, he saw people gathered. His curiosity did not let him continue on his way, but he stopped to learn what it was all about. It turned out it was a fundraiser for the war expenses. He gave all he had on him and th epeople who saw his willingness clapped for him and asked him to give a speech. He was in a rush, but he hesitated to leave and in all the commotion his quail got loose. Immediately everyone started chasing the runaway. The bird was especially trained and gave a harsh fight, jumping here and there, attaching with its beak and talons, until someone funny shouted that it was easier to catch the bird’s master than the bird of the master. Of course the others started laughing at the joke’s double meaning. Alcibiades was not thrown off, after all he was never thrown off, and answered immediately that whoever catches the bird will have the right to try it too and naturally everyone broke their neck hunting the quail. The one who managed at the end to catch it was he who would later become one of his best friends and who unwittingly would destroy his life. It was Antiochus, the reckless pilot of his trireme. Some time later Alcibiades continued his way with the quail in his arms. But he had tasted something he had not tasted before, the drunkenness of power. For a few minutes he had all those people in the palm of his hand. “To be loved by everyone is the most dangerous poison” he said afterwards.”Since I tasted it I could not live without it” He spoke like that and meant without understanding it that he’d left love behind him. To be loved by everyone is the same as to be loved by nobody. Any hetaera could have told him that. But I doubt if that would change anything, since he believed not only that everyone loved him, but that they had to. He would consecrate his whole life to prove it.

(transl. notes: in regards to the quail incident, the word “bird” in greek is used to refer to genitals. Since this author does not often write in greek, I feel like the joke even in the original text doesn’t land exactly right, and the explanation he gives right after, of the double meaning is unnecessary if you’re writing for a greek audience but i think with some tweaks it would be great and very on-brand for alcibiades.)

Part 3 coming soon.

plato-averse aplatonic culture is having to be explicit about the theme of certain posts to ensure your line isn't crossed.

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