#archaro

isnt another aspect of aro that romantic attraction (if there is) is seperate from sexual attraction? /genq /nfta

so... there's been discussion about how non-SAM isn't a perfect term, because it technically has the implication you're seeing. but no other term really gained popularity, and so non-SAM aro has stuck.

essentially, while romantic and sexual attraction are different, they can be inherently tied together for some folks, and many non-SAM aros use the term to mean that. for our system, sexual attraction cannot be untied from the lack of romantic attraction. no matter what else is going on, it's aromantic, and that, culturally, is very different than what many folks mean when they talk about sexuality.

this could be expressed via other terms that have come around - archaro (ie, overarchingly aro identity), primearo (primarily aro identity), or some even smaller proposals I recall less. i honestly prefer "just aromantic", but I folks refuse to listen to that as anything but some new way of saying aroace, and emphasize their assumption of asexuality. all that said, non-SAM aromanticism is a community that I belonged to before those ever came around, and neither other term really feels like a totally accurate description either.

and - truth be told, it's not like most straight people use the SAM when calling themselves heterosexual either. in their case, they probably mean heteroromantic and heterosexual, but they come from the opposing experience of the normal. whereas non-SAM aro folks are just... inherently not the norm, either in the broader culture, or in the a-spec communities. we're hard to understand, and so we're easier to just... ignore, set aside for later, and worse - not try to accept.

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oh for sure - here's the coining post, actually, which also has a whole lot of the discussion that occurred around its formation linked to neatly.

i hope this helps!

so, i identify as aroace or whatever. but i generally think of myself as aro first. like the aromantic part has so much more of a weight on my identity and the asexual part is something i just. never really think about it really.

is that kind of whats meant by non-sam aro? is there another word for that? thank u in advance for helping a guy out. :]

it can be - there are folks who identify as non sam aro because they feel more connection to their aromanticism than any sexual orientation they may have. that's how we (mods are plural) generally mean it.

there's also a history of debate about what term is best for that. non sam aro, archaro (like "overarching identity is aromantic"), primearo (primarily aromantic), unit aro (like aromantic is the "one" ie "unit" identity), and honestly several we forget. it was a really active conversation for a minute, and then.... it kinda just never lead to anything tbh.

I think these terms all are useful for assorted reasons, but have different vibes which fit better for some folks. non sam aro has a history to it that we like, archaro sounds really good and i like the meaning, and unit aro is honestly just solid. primearo just... doesn't feel right for us, specifically, but I feel like I remember it having more support as a term at the time of this debate? that could be bias tho

i hope this helps?

I think our system broadly came to the conclusion that we were neither "totally" aroace nor alloaro, and there really... wasn't a comfortable label between that. there is, for example, aromid (or acemid, or amid), but that implied a... more stable "middle ground" than our experiences. for the most part, being aromantic was the important part for us - and that we do not label ourselves as asexual. the ace community just... never fit us. maybe it's better now, but we don't particularly have an attachment to it. we decided we didn't solely fit into allo or ace, and kinda eliminated that from the framework of identities we looked at.

note, I think plurality played a role in our personal identification of a term for the collective system as well. we all have slightly different ways of defining ourselves, and at some point, we threw in the towel around how to present our identity when acting as a singlet (since lets be real... people are not good with plurality IRL). all we knew was: we're aro, that's important to us, and we want something that there's a hope of a chance to say in non-aro communities and be understood.

when we were looking, it was around a period where a few aro blogs were talking about similar "I'm not aroace or alloaro or aromid/acemid/amid" experiences. the main ones we recall were primearo, archaro, and "just aro". prime aro was founded on the idea of aromanticism as the "primary" identity, but that felt a little too... rigid of a word for us. it wasn't bad, and it fit, but it was like wearing clothes that had an itchy tag, you know? archaro had a similar experience - the phrasing coming from the aro label "overarching" the rest of the experience. It sounded better to us as a label, but not as a way of explaining it. we were... just... aromantic and screw the rest.

one other thing we'd considered: aroqueer. we still are pretty fond of it as a microlabel, but it's in the sense of something we wear in a locket around our throat more than the way we present ourselves. we're queer in an aromantic way. our overall experience of queerness is so inseparable from aromanticism that it feels like a lie if there's a space and people call us aromantic and queer. and of course, aromanticism is queer, but we mean the "specific" label of being queer as an identity. I don't think we find this comfortable to explore as a term in broader queer spaces, but among aro folks, we do use the term. for us, we consider it part of being "just aro".

Because they’re different things but I don’t really understand how different if that makes sense?

hi! historically speaking, unit aro was designed to be a different term for the same experience as non-sam aro. the thought was that, as aromanticism explicitly refers to a form of attraction under the non-sam model, the term was self-contradicting, and it would be nice to have a different term. there were a lot of proposed terms, including unit aro. (two links)

unit aro was defined to describe the idea of experiencing attraction as a "unit", and that unit being "aromantic". prime aro was defined as aromanticism being the "primary" lens/identity through which you experience your identity. arch aro was that aromanticism was your "overarching" identity.

ultimately, the differences are... largely linguistic, but each does have a slightly different feeling to it. our system hadn't realized we were plural yet when this discussion was happening, and had a big problem with unit aro that we couldn't articulate then that was probably because of our plurality. we mostly just call ourselves aro, and in some circles may elaborate as per individual preferences (ie, phoenix identifies as gay and aro, alexander as just aro, myself as aroqueer).

we broadly don't expand on our identity beyond being aro in spaces that aren't solely aromantic, because being aromantic is the most important part of our experience in orientation. we vibe more with the concept of prime aro, but can't stand the shortening being primaro tbh, and honestly... just don't care.