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TAIN - The Answer is No.

There’s two versions since I couldn’t decide which one I liked better.

This flag is for people who are any flavor/level of all of the following:

agender*

aromantic

asexual

aplatonic

touch-repulsed

sex-repulsed

romance-repulsed

use it/its pronouns (you don’t have to exclusively use it/its)

don’t want a QPR (I’m not sure if there’s a specific term to describe this, platonic-repulsed feels too broad)

(*if you identify with xenogenders, but find that agender is the best way for you to communicate your gender to most (usually cis, lol) people, you can use this)

Pretty much as long as you use it/its pronouns and just do not experience any attraction and do not want to be in any comitted/long-term/special relationship, this flag is for you.

It pretty much encapsulates what I mean when I say “I’m a fucking hermit, just leave me alone”.

TAIN - The Answer is No.

And I guess people who identify with this term can call themselves tainic. It doesn’t always have to be capitalized.

[ID: Two versions of a pride flag. The first has five stripes, the second has six. The stripes are in order from top to bottom: black, dark grey, light grey, white, and pale orange. The second flag is the same as the first, but with an extra dark orange stripe under the pale orange one. End ID.]

I designed this after taking sleeping medicine so I really cant’ remember what the colors mean, though I do remember that they definitely mean something…

This flag can be used for whatever you’d use a pride flag for. Art, icons, headers, moodboards, redbubble designs, whatever.

I’m going to talk a little about how I personally experience being aplatonic along with being alloromantic.

First of all, I am panromantic and hyperromantic. I have the capacity to be attracted to people of any gender, and I tend to have many crushes at the same time, and it is relatively easy for me to develop those crushes.

I do not have any drive or attraction to become close with people unless I have a crush on them. When I develop a crush on a person, I will put effort into my relationship with that person. If the crush fades away, my interaction with that person will quickly die off. I simply cannot maintain any sort of platonic relationship with a person unless I am romantically attracted to them. I never experience platonic attraction on its own.

For me, this often used to resemble the platonic friendship that everyone experienced, because I develop crushes on lots of people of various genders all the time. However, I started to notice that I always desired a romantic relationship with those people. I never had a close friend that I didn’t have a crush on. I confessed to a few people, and my friendships continued afterwards, but that drive to maintain a friendship lasted only as long as I was romantically attracted to them.

Based on these experiences, it is entirely possible to be aplatonic and alloromantic. I simply do not feel a connection to people unless I am romantically attracted to them.

"loveless" is a very complicated and new identity that's heavily based around aromantic people's traumatizing experiences with the use of the word "love", specifically in how it's forced onto us while also being something we are excluded from, amongst other things. You can read the essay that coined the term here.

"Loveless" does not mean "I never experience care, affection, or community". It is much more complicated than that. You are thinking of love as a natural, inherent action instead of a construct, in my opinion. People treat "loveless" like aros are saying "I can live without water" instead of "I am rejecting the social construct of love and this word specifically." This is what I mean when I say other people outside of our community never listen to our discussions or theories on love; the term "lovequeer" arises from the same situation.

I once said I’ll do a AplAro flag and I did

it’s more of a combo of apl and aro flag colours but they fit eachother so well

lovequeer | lovequeer aro(mantic/spec)

lovequeer: someone who fully rejects the concept of love as society applies it to romantic and redefines the word around themselves and the types of love neglected by amatonormativity (platonic, familial, towards pets, etc.)

lovequeer aro(mantic/spec): someone who is both lovequeer and aromantic/arospec

lovequeer flag for anon, plus a flag specifically for lovequeer aros!

both flags use shades of pink, pale gold/orange, and light yellow to represent nonromantic types of love and general queering of the concept of love; the lovequeer flag uses shades of grey to represent rejection of the idea that love is romantic; and the lovequeer aro flag uses shades of green to represent how one’s aromantic identity ties into their rejection of romantic love and redefinition of love!

flag id: the flag on the left has 9 stripes. in order, they are pink, yellow, light yellow, dark grey, light grey, dark grey, light yellow, yellow, and pink. the flag on the left has 9 stripes. in order, they are pink, yellow, light yellow, dark green, light green, dark green, light yellow, yellow, and pink. end id.

Image description plus more info: AVEN user Mr. Shuttershy, whose profile indicates identifying as asexual homoromantic, says the following on April 6, 2012:

Alright, I’m going to have to explain this really carefully.

I am in love with my best friend, a story you’ve heard if you’ve seen any of my posts. I’ve come to realize that this is not the first time. However, I have also been really evaluating my other friendships lately. If you saw my post in the Tea and Sympathy on not loving my friends, good, but in short I’ve come to understand that most people in my life could be considered an acquantance at best. Now, I have a few friends who are nice, but I don’t feel a psrticular bond with them. If the aromantics are to be believed, platonic love is a type of /love/, and a love that is not to be under-estimated. It runs deeps and means a lot.

I have never had that.

Sure, the people I’ve ‘friended’ are nice, and I’d want nothing but for them to be happy, but I don’t really have a bond with them. The only people in my life that I’ve bonded with are those I feel romantic attraction to.

So, don’t get me wrong, I have friends and care about them; but love is a powerful word, and one I cannot apply to them.

I’ve theorized its because my parents were abusive, so I never learned how to love those I don’t feel romantically for; bur how would one even change that? I’m an adult now, and I don’t know if I can learn to have feeöings for friends.

That’s where the title comes in.

Aplatonic.

I was just wondering if anyone has shared my experience? Do you think aplatonic can exist? Its not that I don’t want to bond, but I just feel so indifferent. I’m not neccesarily looking for a label, but I’m more looking for others who share this experience. I feel empty to feel as I do.

Arospace

A personal work from me to my fellow aros. We get underrepresented in Pride merch and I want to help change that.

Thought this was pretty clever on my behalf.

like. some alloaros ARE heartless (read: loveless) and slutty. some aros ARE standoffish and robotic and cold and blunt. telling people to never write aro characters these ways isn't helping aro people, it's just making sure the people who do fit these stereotypes never see themselves in an aro character (if they ever see an aro character)

aplatonic DOES NOT mean "doesnt want friends"

aplatonic DOES NOT mean "has no friends"

aplatonic is a term some aromantic ppl may use if they dont want a tomantic relationship, dont wish to replace romance with a friendship, and does not care for being in a qpr

its not an orientation

aplatonic is: little to no platonic attraction which may or may not include a lack of desire for friendship

aplatonic can also mean having difficulty making and/or maintaining platonic relationships which may or may not mean we have less friendships than average

aplatonic is a term ANYONE can use if the above definitions resonate with them, it exists independently from the concept of romance/romantic attraction; conflating aplatonic with not desiring a qpr** comes from when its assumed qprs must include platonic attraction (they do not have to)

for many of us it literally is a part of our orientation, aplatonic was made by neurodivergent aros not just with aros in mind but especially with nd and/or trauma survivors in mind

not making fun of aplatonic includes not joining ableists in the erasure or demonization or infantilization of those who dont experience/desire, and/or have difficulty with platonic relationships; by distancing aplatonic from things you may see as "cringy" or "childlike" when in fact those things are not inherently either, you are associating us that have these qualities with ableist assumptions

[ID: The allo-aro and non-SAM aro pride flags, with three different designs beneath them in the colors of the flag.

The allo-aro flag has five horizontal stripes, going from top to bottom: dark green, pale green, white, yellow, and gold.

The non-SAM aro flag has five horizontal stripes, going from top to bottom: Dark teal, sky blue, white, pale green, and dark green.

The three designs for each of them consist of a set of fangs against a black background, with the teeth in the colors of the flag, 

flying saucers and stars against a black background, with the ships and stars in the colors of the flag,

and designs made up of a single large star, surrounded by smaller stars against a transparent background, with the stars in the colors of the flags. End ID.]

The transparent star designs…………..and you know what you can go ahead and use the teeth too (and the other pride teeth designs I’ve made), are free to use for headers or icons, preferably with links back to this post so other people can save them! 

Redbubble:

Allo-aro: Flag, teeth, aliens, stars

Non-SAM aro: Flag, teeth, aliens, stars

If you would like to make requests for more pride flags with these designs, you can leave a reply, or send an ask to this blog, or @rjalkers-redbubble if you want to be anonymous :) if possible please include a picture of a flag or where I can find it so I can match the colors! 

@rjalkers-redbubble is also where I have my master lists for the different pride designs I’ve made if you don’t feel like scrolling through the redbubble! 

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[image description: four block text banners of the word “pride” in a squared-off text, coloured in four different five-stripe pride flags. Identities: allo-aro (green/light green/white/yellow/gold), aromantic (green/light green/white/grey/black), aro-ace (orange/yellow/white/blue/navy) and non-SAM aro (blue/light blue/white/light green/green). Banners are shown in two versions: one on a black background with a white frame, the other with a transparent background.]

Pride Month Block Text Banners

Flags: Allo-Aro, Aromantic, Aro-Ace, Non-SAM Aro.

All banners/stickers are available for free personal or non-commercial use with credit to one of my accounts. They are not available for commercial use.