Aro rights, babey!

So: repurposed vaguely Kinseyesque scale describing your aromantic and/or asexual protagonist's awareness of and relationship to their own aromanticism/asexuality:

Unaware That This Is A Thing People Can Be. Type specimen: Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Has never once considered that "not wanting romance or sex" is a thing people could feel, let alone identify as. He is normal, which means straight. It's just a coincidence that his relationship with his girlfriend was a disaster and now he's just way too busy in this new nightmare dystopia world for any of that! Anyway!

Aware They Have These Feelings, Assumes Everyone Else Also Does. Type specimen: Doug Eiffel from Wolf 359. Firmly believes that his aro-allo experiences are universal and everybody else is just better at acting like a functional human being than he is. Being a huge movie nerd also leads him to believe that "romance" as we understand it is massively exaggerated for drama in movies and people in real life don't actually do and feel that stuff any more than they mind-meld or can use the Force. He's just a fuckup at everything; why wouldn't relationships be included in that? For most of the show if you told him about aromanticism he would NOT be comforted about it, he'd probably take it as a diagnosis that his fuckup-ness regarding relationships was innate and incurable. (This doesn't have to be negative; this is also where Andy Wheyface from Arden falls and he is having a GRAND old time.)

Aware They Have These Feelings, Realizes That It Sets Them Apart From Others, Doesn't Conceptualize It As Part Of An Identity. Type specimen: Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary. His reaction to other people having sex is mostly "why would you do that." His single attempt at a serious romantic relationship didn't work out and he has a nagging sense that there is something in him that can't maintain serious relationships; attributes it to cowardice and fear of commitment. Ironically he does know what asexuality is. He's a middle school teacher in 2020s California, he has absolutely gotten LGBTQ+ Sensitivity Education at least in "pamphlet listing queer identities" form, he for sure has students with pride flag pins on their backpacks and pride stickers on their notebooks, and he is also not immune from the Culture War Bullshit around gender in schools. Knowing that asexuality exists did not even slightly lead him to apply this to himself.

Aware They Have These Feelings, Considers Them Significant, Attributes Them To Some Existential Feature Of Their Existence Rather Than A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries. Murderbot is very confident it does not want anything to do with romance or sex, and it attributes this to Being A SecUnit, and romance and sex are Human Things SecUnits Don't Do. Has not yet realized that this is an itself thing and not a SecUnit thing. Probably willfully at this point.

Considers These Feelings A Significant Aspect Of Their Selfhood, But Doesn't Name It. Type specimen: Sister Carpenter from The Silt Verses. Clearly confident in who she is and what she wants in her personal relationships, recognizes that as something that makes her different from others and out of step with what others expect from her, and is basically like, that's their problem. She knows who she is. Sometimes other people try to make it her problem but she has so many other problems that societal amatonormativity keeps getting pushed lower and lower on her list of Problems.

Recognizes Themself As Aromantic/Asexual As A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Nova NoStar from InCo. Clearly considers this part of her identity, but is allergic to talking about her feelings even at her therapy android's insistence and besides that's not anybody else's business is it?

Publicly Identifies As Asexual And Describes It With Period-Correct Sexual Orientation Language. Type specimen: Sally Grissom from ars PARADOXICA. The only character I've ever heard come out as asexual and lay out the definition in terms of sexual orientation and attraction to another character on-air that made me go "yeah she would do this, this is in character for Sally." Strongly feel like she would be an active commenter on the 2010s ace blogosphere. Would get in an argument about the correct definition of asexuality on AVEN.

Surgeries require having a designated person to look after you. Many injuries require driving to somewhere like an emergency room which can be hard to do if you are the one injured. If you're home with the flu, it's hard to tell when it's bad enough to go to the hospital without another person checking on you. And if you pass out it requires another person to find you like that to get medical aid.

If at home is out of reach of a phone and has a heart attack, a fall, a stroke, a freak accident: they are not getting help until someone finds them.

If someone lives home alone, it may be a full day or more before help comes. Most emergency conditions are fatal by that point.

But if you're married, your spouse will probably notice if you get up in the middle of the night and never come back to bed. They are more likely to hear a sudden fall, or to at least find you within a few hours when they come home from work. They may notice strange behavior that may indicate a stroke, and if they notice in under 24 hours it may be reversed.

Someone living alone having a stroke may not be able to leave their bed. They will not be found until someone comes looking for them. Their work will assume they're ditching, and only call in for a wellness check if they think that's out of character Classmates will assume they're sick or something came up. Maybe they call their family once a week and the lack of communication will be noticed.

But someone who lives with you will notice you can't get out of bed and will call you an ambulance.

Getting paid leave to take care of a sick roommate isn't often allowed, but if it's your spouse or significant other, your employer is more willing to accommodate that. Bereavement leave is for close relatives not friends or roommates. You can connect your spouse to insurance. Your sibling, parent, and bestie don't qualify.

There are a lot of very specific ways in which marriage specifically is accommodated that benefit all those involved in ways other relationships aren't recognized. Living with anyone changes things from living alone, but there's more going on than just that.

Today, 25 February, in 1971, New York newspaper The Village Voice published an article, titled Asexuals Have Problems Too. The article satirised earlier debates in the paper, which had argued over whether straight or gay people had things harder, positing that being asexual in a sex-obsessed world was the hardest of all. You can read the whole thing here.

Although the article was not intended to be taken seriously, it resonated with readers – some wrote in thanking the author for increasing the visibility of asexuality, others wrote in solidarity, hoping to learn more about how to support the ace community.

*picks up fantasy novel*

Oh this looks cool and oh it has dragons-

*reads description*

*“but then the female mc meets the quiet and charming and mysterious male mc“*

*realizes this is a romantasy novel*

*instantly looses all interest and walks away*