#arospec representation

me, an aromantic: uh, yeah, sure, cute?

I just want to let you know that I’ve been struggling with family issues, to the point where I had to have my psychologist come around today.

I haven’t been okay for many days and I’m still not okay. Today I learnt that the reason Mum doesn’t say anything positive to me about my writing is because she thinks it’s “too gay” and my psychologist phrased this judgement as a good thing I should take on board as important feedback--that, for my own benefit, I should consider being a lot less queer in what I write.

It will be better for my financial benefit, because we live in a world that often doesn’t financially reward queer indie creators.

For my emotional benefit, though? For my sense of worth as a person? How do I find any sense that I deserve to exist as the person I am if I’m editing myself out of my own work? How do I find the courage to have pride in my identities? How do I exist as a real person if I cannot be real in my own creativity?

It’s so hard for LGBTQIA+ people to find pride in who we are. I grew up in a house where my lesbian cousin was The Person We Didn’t Talk About to my Dutch Catholic grandparents. My grandparents died not knowing who I really am because I am something we didn’t speak aloud to them. Those are scars I still carry, this sense that I should not be bold and proud and defiant about who I am, and both the message and the damage it causes all the years after isn’t something the world likes to acknowledge. As aro-specs, in a world where we’re not even seen to exist and our existence is contentious even within spaces that should be safe (like parts of LGBTQIA+ Tumblr) we’re not free from this, even before we consider what amatonormativity says, more directly, about people who live and feel the way we do.

Before now, I’d been feeling positive about being really fucking aro in my writing. I’d been enjoying this process of expressing experiences that I’ve never seen in fiction. Of making myself a little more real, each story at a time, in a world where my existence feels intangible, impossible or undesirable. Of validating my feelings, of doing the radical thing of treating myself as the person I am as though I deserve to be a hero in a story about my identities and experiences, using my words and identity terms.

Privileged people have the privilege of not making their works appear centred on being cis or heterosexual or alloromantically-heteroromantic--in the sense that while their works always centre on these things, that centering isn’t treated as anything but normal. It’s just as obnoxious (depending on how much you like identity centred in a work); the difference is only one of true acceptance. Writing a story about a cishet couple is “normal”; writing a story with a non-binary aromantic character who uses aromantic terminology is “too queer”.

Today, I am being asked to be less of myself in my creativity by two people who think they are being accepting of me in saying this.

Please, please--support your aro-spec creators. Please let them know that they’re loved and appreciated. Please let them know that they’re needed. Please let them know that we’re grateful for the steps they take in making worlds that depict us--both as we are now and as we wish to be in the future. Please let them know that we are grateful for their courage in creating works that depict us even when the world is telling them that they’re only valuable, artistically and financially, when they limit or diminish their aromanticism and/or their queerness. Please let us make sure, as a community, that we can stand together, strong and proud, against an onslaught of messages that demand their erasure and silencing.

Please support your aro-spec creators so they can stand firm in the face of what I heard today and continue to write (or tell or draw or sing or however it is that one creates) the stories we need.

I think that Eloise is lands somewhere on the aromantic spectrum.

I do want to acknowledge that I fully understand that many queer women and non-men often describe their journey to fully understanding their sexuality by pointing out that a lack of interest in dating men was a “early warning sign” of their queer identity, and I in no way shape or form want to invalidate that. I also want to say that I fully understand that romantic and sexual orientation are two very different things, and in my mind the queer characters of Bridgerton feel sexual attraction and love for anyone regardless gender.

That all being said, I think it’s worth noting that when fandoms speculate and theorize on a specific character’s sexual orientation, they often bunch it up with romantic orientation, and I think that’s a huge mistake when it comes to Eloise.

We’ve seen in the show with Theo, that Eloise can and does experience romantic attraction to men. What differentiates her from her peers and siblings is that she requires a lot more than simply meeting and flirting. Similar to those on the aromantic spectrum, Eloise’s romantic attraction is atypical to the societal expectation of meet, flirt, marry; she requires more.

When she met Theo she seemingly had no romantic interest in him, however as they spent time to together and explored each other’s interests we saw that Eloise began to develop romantic feelings for him. And I know what some of you are going to say “that’s literally just the friends to lovers trope”, BUT ACTUALLY NO because prior to and after meeting Theo in season 2, Eloise does not experience any other explicit romantic attraction on screen.