Hey, I wanted to post sort of my Official Stance™ on this ridiculous new allo aro discourse. After talking it out with a few lovely aroace friends of mine, I’ve come to realize that a lot of the problems are a result of miscommunication. I am directing this post at aroaces with the hopes of helping to clear up confusion and hurt feelings. This may include topics that are sensitive to you. Rest assured that I mean no ill will, and if you want to help stop community infighting, I really recommend you try to read this. Please try to set aside your emotions and listen. I will do my part to try not to speak in anger.
As an allo aro who has kinda been at the forefront of this whole shebang, I’m going to try to break it down as simply as I can, from what I understand. In a nutshell:
Allo aros often feel excluded and pushed to the edges of the community, because of the fact that the aro community sort of grew from the ace community and has yet to pass that “baby’s first steps outside” phase. Aro is often taken to mean aroace by default, aro representation as a whole is often conflated with aroace representation, and many aro events- although it is important to recognize our shared history with the ace community- cling to this too much, making them aroace events first, aro events second, despite disclaimers that allo aros are welcome too.
This obviously is not terribly inclusive towards us, especially those of us who may have been personally hurt by the ace community.
Many allo aros are particularly upset that the Carnival of Aros, a big event meant to be for the whole aro community, started off with a theme about relations between the aro community and the ace community. Once again this puts aroaces in the spotlight, and made many of us allo aros who have been hurt by the ace community feel very shut out, as we don’t feel comfortable being honest about our opinions on the matter. When this caused obvious backlash, TAAAP, the organizers of the carnival, primarily responded not with “You’re right, we messed up, and we’re sorry. We’ll try to do better in the future,” but with justifications as to why they felt it was ok to hurt us. And, often, when we say this isn’t good enough, supporters of the carnival take this as an excuse to tell us we have no right to complain. (I’ve also been told that apparently, this issue was predicted and brought up to the organizers before the event even started, and they basically elected to ignore that critique, so… 🤔 But that’s a story for another day.)
Essentially, what most allo aros want right now is just more representation and acknowledgement. Many of us have begun calling for a separation of the aro community from the ace community- Meaning, we want the aro community to truly be the aro community first, aro-(insert sexual orientation here) community second, with no specific group getting more focus or prioritization over others. We just want to stop being considered second class aros.
However, many aroaces seem to be taking this to mean that:
We hate all aces. (That’d be like saying every time we complain about allos, that we hate all alloromantics. Not true!)
We hate you, specifically, as an individual.
We want to completely excommunicate asexuals, and make it so that nobody can ever talk about being ace in the aro community.
We want to separate from the aro community because we hate aroaces, or we want to kick aroaces out of the community (see previous points).
None of these things are true! All we want is equal prioritization. Saying that we want to exclude aroaces by calling for a separation from the ace community is like saying that separation of church and state means no government officials can ever have religions, or talk about those religions. Believe me when I say: the last thing we want to do is divide the aro community. It’s small enough as it is. We’re the ones upset about being excluded, it’d hardly make sense to react to this with a decision to exclude others instead.
However, because this is the way many aroaces are interpreting our discussions, it’s led to some painful backlash against us. We are often told that we’re being unfair to aroaces, that we’re dividing the community, hurting others, etc., or worse- that we owe the ace community, that we would be nowhere without them, that we should be thanking all aroaces for our very existence. That we owe the ace community, the community that has hurt many of us, a tangible debt. It’s basically become impossible to talk about allo aro issues without someone coming along to say, “Not all aces, you bigots!”Â
Because of the way aroaces often respond to our discussions, many of us feel silenced. We feel that it’s not ok for us to talk about our feelings or our needs as a community with other aros, be it because of a simple “aroaces will get mad about it”, or either due to genuine guilt because, yes, believe it or not we do care about our aroace friends and we genuinely don’t want to hurt anyone. This feeling of not being able to talk freely has led to discussion of creating separate allo aro spaces where we can do so, but this is a problem because a. talking among ourselves about problems we face in the greater community will do no good, we need aroaces to listen, and b. this often results in us being told we’re dividing the community, which loops right back around to start the whole process over again.
Whether intentional or not, aroaces have always been at the forefront of the aro community. You have the loudest voices. This is not at all to say that aroaces are privileged! We both face different issues, but they’re all very real and very unfortunate, and we should be working together to help each other solve them. However, many of the most influential aro blogs are run by aroace bloggers, and that’s… Not good when those bloggers decide to paint us as the villains. Even if you say you support allo aros as well, think about what kind of message it puts out when you talk about this issue as if we’re the root of all evil, the ones (gasp) dividing the community, the ones who are demanding too much, the ones who are somehow forcing people to choose between one community or the other. Allo aros are a very lost group as it is, being unable to turn to alloromantic communities or the asexual community for support; Seeing prominent aro bloggers talk about us in a way that gives the impression that we’re bad for talking about our feelings does not make us feel welcome. I personally feel like I can’t trust many aroace bloggers anymore, including a few of my friends. (If you’ve spoken to me directly about this issue and talked about it in depth, it’s not you. If you haven’t… Yes, it may be you. I’m sorry.)
Please, please slow down and listen to us. Please be mindful of the things you say publicly, and the power some of you hold as influential aro bloggers. I promise you none of us have anything against you, and none of us want to divide this community. We just want our voices to be heard. It’s time for influential aroaces to start making amends for the hurt they’ve caused us, even if that hurt has not been intentional.
As one last note, I will say this: It’s absolutely understandable to be upset by this discourse. It’s ok to be hurt. Nobody can control their feelings. But I think it’s important for aroaces to reflect on why they feel hurt. Why is it that, when we say “Your community has hurt us, we wish it would stop,” this upsets you? Why is your reaction not “I’m sorry; What can I do to help?”, but rather, “Oh yeah, well YOU’RE hurting ME by saying that, so you shouldn’t talk anymore!”? Your hurt is real and important, but I think it could help to identify where that hurt is actually coming from. Reflect on what, specifically, you are feeling, and try to separate that feeling from what’s actually going on.
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