I Am Not Voldemort: An Essay on Love and Amatonormativity
Content Advisory: Discussions of and references to love, amatonormativity, ableism, neurodiversity, autism, familial abuse and partner abuse.
This June, I saw an increasing number of positivity and support posts for the aromantic and a-spec communities discussing the amatonormativity of āeveryone falls in loveā. I agree: the idea that romantic love is something everyone experiences, and is therefore a marker of human worth, needs deconstruction.
Unfortunately, a majority of these posts are replacing the shackles of amatonormativity with restrictive lines like āeveryone loves, just not always romanticallyā, referencing the importance of loving friends, QPPs, family members and pets. Sometimes it moves away from people to encompass love for hobbies, experiences, occupations and ourselves. The what and how tends to vary from post to post, but the idea that we do and must love someone or something, and this love redeems us as human and renders us undeserving of hatred, is being pushed to the point where I donāt feel safe or welcome in my own aromantic community. Even in the posts meant to be challenging the more obvious amatonormativity, it is presumed that aros must, in some way, love.
Iāve spent weeks watching my a-spec and aro communities throw neurodiverse and survivor aros under the bus in order to do what the aromantic community oft accuses alloromantic aces of doing: using their ability to love as a defence of their humanity. Because I love, they say, I also donāt deserve to be a target of hatred, aggression and abuse.
But what if I donāt love?
What if love itself has been the mechanism of the hatred and violence I have endured?
Why am I, an aro, neurodiverse survivor of abuse and bullying, still acceptable collateral damage?
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For those who prefer a shorter summary of my point, with fewer explanations of my history and more bitterness:
Miss me with this idea that I need to love anyone or anything in order to be deserving of being accepted by alloromantics as an aromantic. I am beyond tired of the aro communityās hypocrisy in its continued insistence on rebranding amatonormative concepts and considering it positivity or support.
Every time I see people talk about this, they reframe the argument as though itās somehow worth keeping. Not all aros love QPRs? Well, we love our friends! Not all aros love their friends or even have friends? Well, we love our pets! Not all aros love their pets or even have pets? Well, we love our hobbies! Not all aros love their hobbies or even have hobbies? Well, we love ourselves ā¦ and down, down, down the rabbit hole we go where people insist that love in some way is what makes us human.
This completely disregards those of us who have been hurt by love, donāt love or donāt wish āloveā applied to us.
It is not revolutionary to say āaros love their friends and family, so we can still love!ā in response to antagonism. It is not revolutionary to say āaros love their pets, so we can still love!ā in response to antagonism. It is not revolutionary to say āaros love their hobbies, so we can still love!ā in response to antagonism.
Each time, in order to be acceptably human to a community thatās supposed to know what it feels like to be dehumanised on account of a lack of love, I am required to use a word I am not sure I wish to apply to myself.
Each time, when I resist your limitations on my humanity, I am reminded of the ableism this community refuses to acknowledge. I am reminded that this community is happier to reframe and promote amatonormative rhetoric than it is to include, protect and defend neurodiverse and survivor aromantics who donāt feel or canāt perform whatever it is Western society deems āloveā.
