Still stumbling my way out of the closet...

A party you host some time between the ages of 25-35 (or whenever it is that people in your region of the world tend to get married) where you invite all your friends and get to have the color scheme, dress/suit, cake, and dance playlist you dreamed of having at your wedding before figuring out you were aro.

srsly tho this is absolutely a thing that dudes do all the f***ing time

like where if he knows a girl doesn’t necessarily want to give him a hug, he will trap her in this position in front of witnesses where she has 2 options- both of which are undesirable for her, while simultaneously desirable for him

if she doesn’t want to hug him, whatever she does, it will suck for her.

she can 1. say nah and be the fucking asshole in front of other ppl or 2. forsake her corporeal boundaries and allow unwanted intimate contact

So I was on the transit bus alone one time. This was my first time riding, and so already I was PETRIFIED. I sit down, pull out my ipod, and begin to play some games. This guy sits down next to me, and begins trying to have a conversation. I don’t really respond, I don’t even look at him, just give half-hearted “mhm”s and “oh”s, as I don’t want to be rude if he was just striking up a friendly conversation. He then asks me on a date.

Now, as I stated before, I already was absolutely petrified. My heart stopped and I didn’t know how to answer. So I just didn’t. He didn’t let up and I could feel his eyes on me. I quietly stammer out a “no thanks” and my stop HAPPENS to be coming up, so I pull the string thing to let the driver know I want to stop there, and once we stop and the doors open I get up and he asks me, “Well, can I at least have a hug before you go if you won’t go on a date with me?” 

This makes me break. There are now people staring, as we are the only people standing up and not getting off… So I just start crying. Hell, I am bawling almost instantly. He looks so fucking freaked out and people are now getting up to come over and comfort me/question him. I don’t stop crying, and he keeps trying to comfort me by touching me, and people are yelling at him for that. 

AND THEN. AND. FUCKING. THEN. THE GOD DAMN BUS DRIVER. A VERY EASILY 6 FOOT BURLY MAN. COMES OVER TO US. PULLS THE GUY AWAY. AND KNEELS DOWN. HE THEN ASKS, IN THE MOST CALM VOICE, “Did you request the stop?” I very slowly and shakily nod, as I am still crying my eyes out. He then asks, “Do you want to get off?” I give a quiet “mhm” and nod once again, and he offers me his hand. I take it, he stands up, and he escorts me off the bus. He asks me questions such as where I was going next, if I was going to meet someone shortly, if I was going to transfer buses from there. He was very polite and waited for me to answer the entire time, and my friend (who I was going to be meeting there) showed up. He asked me if this was someone I knew, I said yes, and he said alright, have a good day. He then told me- and this is something stuck in my mind forever, so it is word for word-

“If some guy EVER starts harassing you like that again, do exactly what you did there. Cry. Cry and scream and have a temper tantrum. Not only will it throw him off, but it will get others to notice. They might not interfere, they might, but you will have gotten their attention and if you happen to go missing the next day the search for you will be a hell of a lot easier because everyone in that location will have seen you screaming and crying with a guy now very awkward with his actions. They will know. That is what my daughter did, and three days after she went missing she was back in my arms. I pray for you and every other person like you who has this done. You stay safe now, okay?” And after I began blubbering again, I nodded and he left.

It: 1. Gives them a sense of urgency in the situation, as the eye contact is a way to make them feel as though you are personally asking for their help and it is now their obligation to help. 2. Contains words so that if you’re in a public place but people aren’t necessarily watching, then they (as natural evesdroppers) can overhear the attention-grabbing words and then notice the situation. Note, this does NOT mean that they will come for help, but you might be able to look someone in the eye (as previously mentioned) or just get some people’s attention. 3. It shows that you have fight in you. As with rapists, those who are physically aggressive (ie. these huggers) choose women they see as an easy target. The moment you show them you are going/willing to fight them, they are less likely to continue. Sadly, this is not always the case, but every little bit helps.

So I used to be hot when I was young. I mean, model hot, because I actually used to model. Even now, I’ve let myself go on purpose because I was tired of the harassment. But I fit a UK size 6 with a pert ass from volleyball and a cup c breast. As you can imagine, I couldn’t wear anything or go ANYWHERE without being harassed. I sometimes even happened in church.

Anyway, I’m not a shrinking lily, and when I get angry enough I can do some crazy shit. So here are some of my coping mechanisms:

1) find a matronly looking lady, run up to her with ‘aunt may! I haven’t seen you in ages! ’ then whisper ‘please help he’s harassing me!’. 99.9 times out of 100, she will be scandalised and help you anyway even if she’s annoyed or in a hurry. If no older lady is available, find a younger one, or a nun, or a trans lady. We of the sisterhood know what it is to be harnessed, and I guarantee if you look frightened enough, they will help.

2) If you are out alone at night, and someone is following you, spot a house or apartment where the lights are on and knock, asking ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ or ‘john’ to let you in. Even if the people inside are annoyed, odds are they won’t turn you away, and you can phone someone to pick you up, or phone the police from a safe space

3) Make noise. Cry and scream loudly, call them out ‘i don’t know you and you are terrifying me! Please get away from me!’ if there are people around. Even if they don’t help directly for fear of their own safety, someone around you is calling security or 911.

4) speak a foreign language. If you know it, speak the language to them fast and incessantly, like you have just met someone you knew and you’re just giving the best performance rant of why your OTP is the best OTP. Make yourself ANNOYING. Think about what would be awkward and annoying to you and make it what you do to them. If you make them think YOU are something to get away from they will leave you in peace.

Now beware, the following ones are the CRAZY ones and may not always work. But they are a valid last resort:

5) stare at them. Stare at them like you’re hungry and they are a hapless deer you’re going to tear to pieces. Like yours the girl from the ring emerging from the TV to kill them. Don’t smile, don’t change your expression. DON’T BLINK. Hold their state like you’re Wednesday Adams about to do unspeakable things to a spider, and they are the spider. Even the most courageous of stalkers balk at this, but if they don’t…

6) Use the Hannibal Lector. After staring at them for and extended period of time (imagine all the things that have made you scared, imagine you could get revenge on them for putting you here, that’s the thought you need to have), if they are getting closer to you, whisper something like ‘i would fry your liver in garlic’. Even the hardiest ones will be taken aback, but keep it up while making sure you don’t let the others hear you. Things like, occult star readings requiring blood, wondering whether he is the offering the spirits sent. If you’re on this site you’ve read some weird shit at least once. Tell him that. Tell him you would like him to meet your lord, Vlad the Impaler, who requires much blood to be appeased. Be a stereotypical ‘crazy bitch’ like they see in the movies. Believe it or not, this has worked for me twice.

Above all, banish the notion that you have to be polite.

They were impolite by approaching you. If you can, ignore them. If you are not alone, pointedly put headphones in your ear, and don’t make eye contact, wait for them to realise that ‘youre a bitch anyway’ and move away. If you are alone, evade and find places and ways to fix that as soon as POSSIBLE.

Never underestimate the power of a good “EXCUSE me????”

Legit. It makes people STOP IN THEIR TRACKS. This is the one I whip out when people start swearing at me over the headset and always, without fail, they stop what they’re saying, shocked.

Go for offended, and go for loud. Not yelling loud, but giving-your-best-presentation loud. “EXCUSE me??? You approached me two minutes ago, I don’t even know your name, and you want WHAT? Creep.”

For one, the presentation will shock them. For another, that indignant tone? EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS GOING TO WANT TO LISTEN TO THIS JUICY SHIT.

Now the second key here is, DON’T LET HIM JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain). He smiles and goes “I just wanted–” FUCKING INTERRUPT HIM. Firmly. Irritably. “I heard what you wanted, and I’ve already declined once. Maybe you should go back to kindergarten where they teach you no means no.” Run right over the fucker. He’s not respecting your words, you don’t need to respect his.

The woman didn’t even hesitate to let me sit next to her for the entirety of her lunch break once I explained very quickly the circumstances.

Remember, you owe the world nothing and yourself everything, no matter what society has drilled into our heads.

Anon, it breaks my heart that you’ve felt the need to send this in. It breaks my heart, because nobody should feel this way. Nobody should feel so isolated from and discouraged by their own community. This conversation shouldn’t be happening, anon, and that’s not on you–it never was and never will be. It’s on a situation, a shape of the community, and I think it says something profound that a few posts are generating other conversations and frustrations right now–I’ve seen it on this blog and on several others. I’ve seen it on several blogs just today!

I have a sense of a cork that’s been popped off the bottle, a hurt and a pain we’ve been holding in for too long coming out.

And I think that’s a good thing, because it’s time, past time, we had real conversations about the impact. That it isn’t a few aro-specs grinding their teeth and writing ranty posts about aro erasure. That this erasure and dismissal, this long-running amatonormativity and centering of romantic love (how many times have I seen alloromantic aces describe asexuality as “love without sexual attraction”?) has the potential to cause real wounds, real suffering, real isolation, real disconnect from a community that should provide support, real damage. Amatonormativity isn’t just fielding off questions from relatives about when we’re going to get married. Amatonormativity tells us that we are not the kind of humans society considers worthwhile, and you can’t live in this world without that weighing down on you.

None of us, not one of us, are strong enough not to be damaged by that: no human is or can be. It isn’t a failure in us. It’s a failure in everyone else. Some of us are better at hiding it, and some of us channel that pain into ranty posts or spite-motivated creativity, but we are all hurt by it.

Too many alloromantics brush off amatonormativity and the centring of alloromantic attraction as nothing, but it isn’t, and right now we deal with the pain of having our pain dismissed as nothing, even in spaces that are, ostensibly, meant to include us. It hurts worse from alloromantic aces because it feels like they should be better able to understand; ace-spec spaces feel like they should be more welcoming than they are. And I think it’s okay to feel hurt and even betrayed by that. We endure hate from outside together, all a-specs; we have every right to expect support, instead of erasure, inside.

Anon, as someone who deals with suicidal ideation myself, I do not miss the immense bravery it took from you to write about your pain and the way it makes you feel. But I want to thank you, too, for having the courage to be honest and real, to stand up as an example, to shine a real light on where erasure leads us.

I don’t have simple solutions to problems like the pressure of using ace as an umbrella term. (I’ve seen plenty of aro-aces talk about how they’d prefer to ID as aro alone but cannot because it isn’t accepted, and their loathing of ace as an umbrella term. If you feel this, I’d truly appreciate it if you could comment on this post as solidarity for our anon, because I know they’re not alone.) I also know that there are no simple solutions to mental illness and suicidal ideation, and they do not make amatonormativity easier to bear. I do think, though, that pride is the one real weapon we can bring to bear against a socialized worthlessness–pride and community.

As much as I don’t need an excuse to promote the aro-spec artist profiles, anon, I’d like you to go check them out. Read what other talented aros–including several aro-aces–are writing about being aro and creative. Go click on the links to their work–an awful lot of them have works available for free. There’s art and there’s stories, stories about aro-spec experiences, stories about resisting amatonormativity, stories about aro-spec and aro-ace feelings. Stories that normalise. We’re just getting started on building this canon, but it’s already a defiant cry that we are normal, we are wonderful, we are human, and it’s only going to get better.

(Likewise, check out all the fiction pieces submitted and reblogged here. Or the poetry. Or the artwork and visual pieces!)

Anyone who’s following this blog knows I write, that I tell stories. I do it because the world tells me that I don’t get to be the hero, that I am not deserving of being the hero, so I’ll break my hands on my words screaming fuck that. Even better, there’s a whole bunch of other aro-spec and aro-ace storytellers here who are doing the same. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learnt: it is easier, so much easier, to survive anything when there’s other people beside you. Stories are that person beside you. Stories are other aro-specs’ hopes and dreams.

I wouldn’t be alive today if not for the hope in the storytelling of others. It’s not enough by any means, but I hope it is the beginning of a feeling that the world, when it comes to aro-specs, is a thousand kinds of wrong and we do not have to listen to what it teaches us. If we can feel that, this kernel of understanding that amatonormativity is not only damaging but nonsensical against a world of wonderful and amazing and loved aro-spec people, it’s a little bit easier to survive it.

Anon, I know the aro-spec community alone isn’t enough for you, and it absolutely should not have to be, but I hope we here, at least, can work on making this space more supportive and welcoming of you. I want you here and I want you to belong here. If you are aro-spec in any way, this community is for you, and if we are not doing a good enough job of being welcoming to our own, come in and tell me, tell us. Because a community that isn’t devoted to celebrating and sheltering all our own, however different your experiences as an aro-spec may be from mine, isn’t one I wish to be part of.

Thank you so much, anon, for trusting me with your story.

There was a rift forming between the aro and ace communities several years ago, pre-diskhorse. It came from a lot of these same frustrations; many aroaces felt like they weren’t be heard, and allo aros were tired of being shoved under the ace umbrella. There was a large push for the aro community to separate itself complete, and with the “aro renaissance” it seems like we’re asserting our independence more than ever. Yet it saddens me to think that even in a post-diskhorse world (not to suggest that it’s over by any means), we cannot strike a balance of uniqueness and unity.

If the aro and ace communities are ever to reconcile this and begin to heal, the ace community needs to be held responsible for its amatonormativity and its arophobia. Wanting to discuss and raise awareness for non-sexual romantic relationships is important, but the rhetoric surrounding those conversations can NOT continue to dismiss aroaces as a small, secondary minority and erase the experiences of allo aros altogether. “Still being able to love” doesn’t make you more human, it makes you more palatable. When you say “I’m asexual but I can still feel romantic attraction/can still fall in love!” aros here an unspoken “I’m still human” tacked on to the end.

Please stop making aroaces feel like an inconvenience for not fitting that agenda. When I tell people I’m asexual, they don’t assume I’m aromantic. The one time somebody followed up by asking what my romantic orientation was, and I told them, they looked at me with pity and disappointment.

Please, ace community, check your arophobia. It has real, dire consequences for aroaces as well as allo aros. Follow aro blogs and listen to what we are saying. As an aroace, I want my ace community to be there for me. All parts of me, not just my asexuality.