a-spectrum love

1) A thin person with dark skin and black, coily hair wearing a yellow top stands in front of the aromantic flag with closed eyes, a green heart on their chest. Text around them reads: Black aros matter. ("Aros" is in green, the rest is in black)

The aromantic flag has five horizontal stripes, in green, light green, white, gray and black.

2) A thin person with medium-dark skin, no hair, a beard and brown eyes wearing a purple flannel shirt stands in front of the asexual flag smiling, with a dark purple heart on their chest. Text around them reads: Black aces matter. ("Aces" is in purple, the rest is in black)

The asexual flag has four horizontal stripes, in black, gray, white and purple.

3) A thin person with dark skin, long, colorful locs and brown eyes wearing glasses, a yellow hat, a green shirt, and black suspenders, smiling in front of a rainbow infinity symbol. Text around them reads: Black neurodiversity matters. ("Neurodiversity" is in rainbow colors, the rest is in black)

4) A black fist stands in front of a green and turquoise splash of paint, with text around it reading: All black lives matter. ("All" is underlined and hot pink, the rest is in white)

It is incredibly frustrating to be aromantic and for people to treat you like you’re heartless, or could never care about anyone at all. We are also put in the unfair and uncomfortable position of justifying our lack of romantic love and explaining the “validity” of other relationship types. It can feel like you’re still stuck within the system, because either way society is telling you that you yourself are not enough, and that you need to be partnered in some way. some people never want a partner, and that’s incredibly fucking valid and should be respected. In trying to navigate aromantic identity in relationships, I also have to deal with the frustration of being a gender nonconforming Black woman as well. I am hypersexualized, told i’m ugly, expected to perform emotional labor for free, subject to hella micro- and macroagressions, told that i’m scary, and always trying to make myself palatable for someone else. this is exhausting. and so it is fun to dream and think about love and relationships, and i have some very important and meaningful relationships with folx, but because of my undesirability, because of my Blackness and Black womanhood, and because of my aromantic identity, I feel very much cut off from having the types of relationships that I would like to have. It can be difficult and frustrating and isolating to see friends, family, strangers, move in and out of casual, serious, or no labels types of relationships knowing that if they one day decide to have a romantic partner, they will be supported in that choice. Perhaps not by all of society, perhaps not everywhere, but there are models for what their relationship could look like. Society has given them options on how to find partners–as a Black Aromantic, I have been given nothing.

To all aroallo transfems:

You are not dangerous or perverted for desiring sex without romance.

You are not a bad person for desiring sex without romance.

You are allowed to want sex without romance.

There is nothing "wrong" with you.

You are not "broken" or "dirty" for your romantic and sexual identities.