Hiatus

I don't use the sam due to mental health reasons and also because I feel like my aromanticism has a knock-on effect enough for 'aro' to be accurate all on its own. Conflating my experiences under aroallo or even aroace just kind of feels like I don't have the autonomy to be just aro. Intersectionality is important and I absolutely agree that it should be treated more equally in the aro community but it at the same time it's starting to feel like a requirement to be able to properly participate in aro spaces.

Happy Aro day everyone!!

In honor of it I wanted to present the completed compasses with each orientations flag on the arrow itself. Please feel free to use them if you want! And If you want a transparent version of any of the arrows shown above, let me know and I will send them your way!

Aros!

I’ve had to again message someone to ask if their project is inclusive of aro-allos and allo-aro-specific experiences–like the having of sexual relationships. Very rarely do I see projects that don’t require me to seek this clarification, and as a socially-anxious person, I find this frightening and difficult. It’s also tiring and disheartening to see projects made ostensibly for me that I can’t feel certain of that inclusion because the language describing this project doesn’t specifically mention catering to allo-aro needs.

So, if you’re advertising a project, community, space or anything else about aromantic people, here’s how you make it so that allo-aros don’t have to question our inclusion. The goal should be that no aro-spec person, regardless of sexual orientation identity, has to question their right to belong, interact, participate or signal-boost. This applies for everything from community events to a-spec fandom fic memes!

This is in part a rehash of my last reblog on making a-spec spaces safe for allo-aros and in part a development of it in discussing uses of language terms and the need to clearly define terminology. I don’t think this is yet a conversation had too often for a little reworking.

Understand that aromantic alone as an identifier doesn’t always, in practice, feel like it includes all aro-specs. It should and it’s meant to, but when I see aromantic used to refer to a project without any clarifying mention of the types of aro-specs included, I am never certain that I am. In practice, “aromantic” often means “mostly general-aro or aro-ace with maybe an allo-aro paragraph tacked on at the end, maybe”.

Understand that aro-ace experiences, media and needs in the aro-spec and a-spec communities, in any general discussion of aromanticism, tend to be first acknowledged. When a space moves from asexual to asexual and aromantic, it’s aro-aces who first find connection in that space. Content that serves aro-ace needs alone can’t always make allo-aros feel safe; we need specific and deliberate inclusion and mention alongside more general approaches.

Understand that “aro-ace” and “aroace” don’t refer to the entire a-spec community and is instead a specific identity term. They should not be used to title or describe anything meant to include the whole a-spec community. If it’s meant to include all of us, there needs to be a non-optional and between “aro” and “ace”.

Instead, always make sure to specify that all aro-specs are welcome to participate, and mention allosexual aromantics by name. I don’t mean that you should label something “aromantics and allo-aros”; please don’t do that! I mean that a paragraph welcoming everyone on the aromantic spectrum of all sexual orientation identities means we know for certain that aromantic means us, too.

(This applies to all aromantic-spectrum identities that aren’t just “aromantic” and “aro-ace”. We need to be clear about what aromantic means when it’s used in reference to the broader community.)

Use the language terms used by allo-aros to refer to us: “alloaro”, “allo-aro” and “allosexual aro” or “allosexual aromantic” are common. Don’t use terms like “non-asexual aros” to avoid writing “allosexual”! Right now many projects, publications, communities and spaces claim to include all aro-specs while never actually using words like “allo-aro” anywhere. It’s hard to have any kind of visibility when our community identity term isn’t being used in projects and spaces ostensibly including us. Please use our words.

(“Allosexual” is a word used with little contention in aro-spec spaces. When you try to avoid using it in reference to allo-aros, you’re making it harder for us to be seen and recognised as a growing sub-community.)

Remember that many allo-aros have felt as though we need to push aside sexual attraction and how it interacts with our aro-spectrum identities/experiences to participate in the aromantic community. We’re working now to make spaces where we don’t have to do this, but there is still a feeling that general aromantic spaces are for the aro spectrum alone and our sexual attraction identities are not connected to it enough to be centred alongside it. This is why aromantic alone doesn’t feel inclusive enough without further explanation; it doesn’t act to counter a culture of feeling as though we need to be quiet about part of who we are.

(The idea that we should have to keep our sexual attraction experiences out of the a-spec community is one that automatically centres asexuality as the default a-spec experience … something that inherently alienates allo-aros and harms all aro-spec people.)

Instead, provide spaces meant for discussion about sexual attraction experiences as shaped by aro-spec identities and make it plain that your project or community actively welcomes and includes discussions and/or depictions of sexual attraction and sexual relationships as shaped by aromanticism. Don’t assume that we naturally know this: we need you to make specific mention of it. I promise you that we never know if we are welcome to do this.

Also, if depictions of sexual attraction/experience as shaped by aromanticism are welcomed for a space, project or publication but there is a degree of how explicit said depiction can be, specify this. This is so important because we’re constantly caught between feeling afraid to speak about it at all and being afraid we’re being too detailed or explicit if we do. If you’re happy to include posts or stories about sexual attraction experiences as an aro-spec but you only accept content under a certain rating, please be clear about this. It saves awkwardness and anxiety on all sides.

Additionally, if there is specific content regarding sexual experiences or interaction that your community, space, publication or project will not accept while allowing general conversations/depictions of sexual experience shaped by aromanticism, specify this, too. Tell us what is and isn’t allowed so we don’t need to fear overstepping any boundaries.

(The a-spec community runs on an assumption that sexual content is a non-issue. This assumption means that allo-aros don’t know what we can include or how much detail is permissible if we do risk the inclusion, leaving us anxious about including sexual references or content even if it is allowed. It is so important that people be clear and specific on what is and isn’t acceptable for any given space and project. Please do not assume that aro-specs have no need to discuss sexual attraction and sexual experiences. Not experiencing alloromantic attraction does not mean we don’t experience sexual attraction.)

Remember, too that allosexual attraction communities have never been welcoming of allo-aro experiences. Any assumption that we can go over there to be supported in our sexual attraction means shoving aside our place on the aromantic spectrum. The idea that our aromantic-spectrum identities and our sexual attraction identities are completely unconnected absolutely does not include all allo-aros.

Be aware of community terminology and issues about terminology in a-spec spaces and how they may impact allo-aros. For example, the meanings of queerplatonic and platonic in ace spaces is often very different from the meanings in aro spaces, and a-spec spaces based more strongly in the ace-spec community may not use these words in ways inclusive of allo-aros. If you use these without qualification, allo-aros have no way of knowing if you mean “any relationship that isn’t sexual or romantic” or “any relationship that isn’t romantic”.

Instead, specify what you mean when using these words so allo-aros can quickly determine if your space is truly inclusive of us or not. We cannot assume that you’re using a definition that includes us, so please specify what you mean by the use of any words with alternate interpretations. (If you define “queerplatonic” as having no space for sexual attraction and expression, please acknowledge that your definition denies allo-aros space in a community-wide term and is not inclusive of us or our relationships.)

I’ve been feeling great and productive today so I also want to join the train of cake and dragons

For my ace and aro fellas have some delicious cake icons!!

So @bravelikejames was kind enough to tell me what this flag was and give me a link to learn more! This is the Oriented AroAce flag for those that are AroAce and feel some form of attraction (not romantic/sexual) that is strong enough to warrant a place along their AroAce identity.

“What is love?”

For me, love was the gaze of a man

who followed me home when I turned him down, love

was the kiss I pressed to my grandmother as she lay dying in her hospital bed.

Love, I’d thought, was the

grip I had on my best friend’s hand the day we parted ways for good, and the bony arms

I wrapped around my brother, for him to shrug off like a too-warm coat.

Love is something I’ve asked about before.

And I’ve seen people who tell me

“We’re in love,”

And that love is smiles and fingers twined together in bed when it’s cold outside,

it is history and in-jokes and fondness and need,

and it is not me.

I have pressed my lips to another’s skin, searching, and thought

“Is this love?”

I have perched on swings pushed by someone else and on benches

meant for four but taken by two, I have

watched Disney’s Cinderella twenty-one times and each time after the second I have chorused

“~So this is Love~”

and thought, in content times, surely

surely this must be it. But that was a thought born of despair, not conviction, because

still I would wonder, darkly,

what is “this”, what am I missing and—for  how long must I fake having it?

I have danced and I have sung and I have read,

and again and again I have asked and searched and still I have found

not nothing, but worse—

maybe sometimes

maybe something.

A fellow cynic once told me love is a cesspit, a festering

sewage of emotions from which, once you’ve fallen into, you may

possibly crawl out, but

you will never be clean of again. And I blinked at her, uncomprehending,

“But that’s life,”

And it wasn’t a protest but it wasn’t an agreement. She laughed at me, patronizing over

what might’ve been befuddlement, might’ve been pity,

and if she answered my unspoken query she did it so quietly

I could not hear her

over the silence of my own asking.

Love, another told me, is a lifestyle, a dedication to the one

you have to get up at three in the morning for because the baby’s crying

and sure you’ve only had five hours but they’ve

been asleep less than three; to the one

who’s hair you have to pull back, who’s sickbed you have made

a home. Love is a choice you make

day after day, to look that someone in the eye and say,

“Good morning, love,”

and decide that the flavor the words leave is truth. Yet when I spoke those same words,

tossed them through the unnaturalness that hung

between me and my friend-boy,

they did not taste of truth, and they did not taste of deceit, and I grew familiar instead

with the salt of desperation on my tongue.

My father likes to tell me, as we clear

the empty bottles from my mother’s TV throne together, that he loves

God. And in him that love is prayers and offerings is

the illusion of fervor unending—is a lesson he left to us, his children,

a worldview

that I do not share.

I have made my hollow prayers, sought my promises’ fulfillment, have cried and reached

out into that abyss, and yet,

not once did the abyss deign to reach back into me.

I have waited at that cliff where the world ends for so long, looking down in

an excess of resignation rather than a lack of fear, asked of the void,

“Is anything there?”

And the nothing replied its existence. Nothing.

Then what, I once begged, now absently wonder, is love? That’s, god, that’s

such a terrible question to have to ask,

because love is nothing less –or more– than an idea, as long-lived as humanity, real

only to its believers;

a thing 

of faith. And faith

was an ink I once drank deeply of, bled all my stories with, but now

now my pen taps the bottom of that shallow well, barely sipping

at something I ran dry of long ago.

So fine. For loyalty, for safety, for comfort, for that fluxing foundation of familiarity,

for these things I have found that are not love, I can settle. I

will settle.

And when it becomes my turn, and yet it is no longer me but my brother, and he 

asks of me,

“What’s love mean?”

The answer bubbles up to my surface, too feeble to be froth, and just as unhelpful

as any answer I’ve ever gotten to that question:

 Out of curiosity, I recently googled “Am I lesbian quiz”. Half the “Are You a Lesbian” quizzes just asked outright, “Are you attracted to women?” as though that isn’t the very answer a questioning lesbian is trying to figure out. The other half marked me as heterosexual for things like owning more nail varnish than dogs. I hope this list will give you more nuanced ideas to think about as you explore your identity.

These experiences are all really common among - but not universal or exclusive to - people who later realize they’re lesbians and find a comfortable home in the lesbian label and community.

It’s mostly stuff that I and other lesbians I know have wished we knew when we were first coming to grips with our lesbian identities, because the fact is it takes a long time to discover how common a lot of these experiences are among lesbians, and not knowing what to look for when trying to figure out if you’re a lesbian can be hard.

‘Attraction’ to men

Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities

Only developing attraction to a guy after a female friend expresses attraction to him

Getting jealous of a specific female friend’s relationships with guys and assuming you must be attracted to the guys she’s with (even if you never really noticed them before she was interested in them)

Picking a guy at random to be attracted to

Choosing to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but flipping your attraction on like a switch – that’s a common lesbian thing

Having such high standards that literally no guy meets them – and feeling no spark of attraction to any guy who doesn’t meet them

Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way (losing interest when a long-haired or androgynous guy cuts off his hair or grows a beard is common)

Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional guys or guys you never or rarely interact with

Being deeply uncomfortable and losing all interest in these unattainable guys if they ever indicate they might reciprocate

Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around men as attraction to them

Reading a desire to be attractive to men as attraction to them

Having a lot of your ‘guy’ crushes later turn out to be trans women

Relationships with men

Feeling anxious and put on the spot any time you interact with any guy who could conceivably be interested in you, even if he doesn’t make a move

Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man

Or looking forward to an idealized version of it that resembles literally no m/f relationship you’ve ever seen in your life, never being able to picture any man you’ve actually met in that image

Being repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my relationship to be like that”

Thinking you’re commitmentphobic because no relationship, no matter how great the guy, feels quite right and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it

Going along with escalation because it seems like the 'appropriate time’ or bc the guy wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.

Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with guys, trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness

Feeling like you have to have relationships with guys and/or let them get serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t identify

Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is totally realistic

Getting a boyfriend mostly so other people know you have a boyfriend and not really being interested in him romantically/sexually

Wishing your boyfriend was more like your female friends

Wishing your boyfriend was less interested in romance and/or sex with you and that you could just hang out as pals

Thinking you’re really in love with a guy but being able to get over him in such record time that you pretend to be more affected than you are so your friends don’t think you’re heartless

After a breakup, missing having a boyfriend more than you miss the specific guy you were with

Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone

Sex with men

Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted

OR: preferring to 'be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore

Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance

Only having sex with men that’s about fulfilling their fantasies or pleasing them

Spending the whole time making sure you look or sound hot and not really thinking about what feels good

Using sex with men as a form of self-harm

Feeling numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and that you’re crying etc for no reason)

Being bored with sex with men/not understanding what the big deal is that makes other women want it

Doing it anyway out of obligation or a desire to be a good sport/do something nice for him

Never/rarely having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while fantasizing

Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to

Early interest in women

Not recognizing past/current crushes on women until you’ve come to grips with your attraction to women

Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else

Wanting to kiss your female best friend on the mouth for literally any reason (”to practice for boys” included)

Getting butterflies or feeling like you can’t get close enough when cuddling with a close female friend

Looking at a close female friend and feeling something in your chest clench up and being overwhelmed with love for her - love you may read as platonic

Having had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent

Having had an unusually close relationship with a female friend growing up that was different and special in a way you couldn’t articulate

Thinking relationships would be simpler “if only I were attracted to women/my best friend who would be perfect for me if she/I weren’t a girl”

When a female friend is treated badly by a man, having your protective thoughts turn in the direction of “if I was him/a man I’d never do that to her/my girlfriend”

Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people

Having your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman (like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)

Feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable in locker rooms etc., when your female friends are less clothed than they normally would be around men, and being more careful not to look than they are

Spending a lot of time looking at women and appreciating/being curious about their bodies

Being really curious about women who defy gender roles in some way, finding defying gender roles in dress, behaviour, styling etc really appealing and cool

The 'straight’ version of you

Thinking that all straight girls feel at least some attraction to women

Thinking that your interest in seeing attractive women/scantily clad women/boobs is an artificial reaction caused by the objectification of women in media

Thinking you’re just a super intense feminist for genuinely thinking women are amazing and having an overwhelming preference for their company

Being really into how women look “aesthetically”/“just as artistic interest”/“fashion goals”

Thinking it’s objective and uncontested that almost all women are way more attractive than most men

Being a really intense LGBT+ “ally” and getting weirdly emotional about homophobia but assuming you’re just a Really Good Ally and v empathetic

Having like half your friend group from school turn out to be LGBT+

Getting emotional or having a strong reaction you don’t understand to f/f love stories etc.

Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay

Exploring attraction to women

Feeling like you could live with a woman in a romantic way, even if you can’t imagine doing anything sexual with a woman

Feeling like you could enjoy sexual interaction with a woman, even if you can’t imagine having romantic feelings for a woman

Thinking you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know

Interacting with het sex/romance in media by imagining yourself in the man’s position or just never/rarely imagining yourself in the woman’s position

Really focusing on the women in het porn

Being really into the idea of kissing/being sexual with a woman 'to turn guys on’

Being really annoyed when guys actually do express interest in watching or joining in when you do that

Only feeling/expressing attraction to or sexual interest in women when you’re inebriated or otherwise impaired

Gender Feelings

Having a lot of conflicting gender feelings that are only possible to resolve once you understand you are/can be a lesbian

Thinking that being gnc and feeling a disconnect from traditional womanhood mean that you can’t be a woman even if that’s what feels closest to right - many lesbians are gnc and many lesbians feel disconnected from traditional womanhood since it’s so bound up in heteropatriarchy

Knowing you’re attracted to women and not being able to parse that (esp + any gender nonconformance) as gay, taking a long time to figure out if you’re a straight man or a lesbian

Being dysphoric about the parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them, having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you

Wishing straight people and/or men didn’t parse you as a woman, but being totally comfortable with the idea of other women seeing you as one of them

Knowing you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian

Knowing you’re gay, but feeling like you’re struggling against comp het stuff – discomfort, obligation, fear, disinterest, self-objectification, etc. – when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man

Being nonbinary and taking a long time to sort through being able to respect/understand your nonbinary identity and your lesbianness at the same time

Considering lesbianism

Wanting to be a lesbian but feeling like if you don’t already know you are one you can’t be

Feeling alienated from all the male-gazey unrealistic depictions of lesbians as only being young thin rich white cis abled conventionally attractive gender conforming straight actresses in tv/movies/porn and thinking that alienation means you can’t be gay

Discovering that your type is gnc women or women who share your underrepresented demographic and that’s why you’re not really attracted to celebrities

Not feeling attracted to straight women but suddenly having lots of crushes when you know for sure certain women are bi/gay

Feeling guilty about wanting to be a lesbian, feeling like you’re just attention-seeking or trying to be trendy

Suppressing your lesbian dreams because you think exploring that desire would mean you’re a bad/homophobic person using lesbianness selfishly

Wishing you were a lesbian to escape the discomfort of dating men

Fantasizing about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you

Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that bc you can’t be 100% sure you’re not attracted to men and can’t be 100% sure you won’t change your mind, you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that you only want to be a lesbian because of trauma and that means your lesbianness would be Fake

Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of/lack of interest in any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian

Every item on this list is common among Real Lesbians. It’s all Normal Lesbian Stuff. If you’re worried that you can’t be a lesbian even though it’s the life you really want for yourself, I hope this gives you permission to explore that. You are allowed to be a lesbian. 

And if you’re not sure yet – if you took the time to read this entire thing because you’re curious about your identity, if you identified with a bunch of items on this list – you may or may not be a lesbian, but friend, you almost certainly aren’t cishet. Welcome.

♠️🏹 If you don’t want sex or romance as part of your life, they don’t have to be! 💚💜

[Image description: “Aspec or not, sex and romance are not inevitable” is written in white lettering over green and yellow tinted sky photos]