#autorose

[PT: Ectonormativity]

Ectonormativity is a subset of amatonormativity, centering around the social concept that every person must have attraction and/or relationships with a person outside of their physical self; the idea that autospec and in-system relationships/attraction are either problematic or not a "real" relationship. Common examples of ectonormativity include: -Referring to autospec or in-sys relationships/attraction as "selfcest", implicating that it is comparable to incestophilia, when they are not the same thing [link.] -Telling autospec people that they are "narcissistic" (also overlapping with saneism towards NPD) and "egotistical". -Telling autospec people that they "will never be satisfied with themselves." -Telling autospec people that its "just self-confidence/self-love, not a real orientation, and they're just trying to be special." -Making fun of autospecs for self-dates, self-marriages, etc, with no external partner to make it appear "normal." -Making fun of plurals for dates, marriages, etc, where only the shared body is present, with no external partner to make it appear "normal." -Diminishing the personhood of one or all of the sysmates involved in a relationship, claiming that all the sysmates are a singular being (which is both pluralphobic fakeclaiming and also anti-autospec.)

AUTOFICTOROSE

a term for when you feel romantically and sexually attracted to a fictional version of yourself. this can include sonas, kins, fictive sources, etc.

design based off of this autosexual flag

so i'm going to.

tws for the following rant :: Sexual and romantic attraction // autospec erasure & hate // ED mention // negative self-image // the words autophile and selfcest

I've been attracted to myself since I was very young. When I was little, I'd stare at myself in a mirror for as long as possible because I loved my face, my hair, everything about it. I was fascinated with my own body- I'd stare at myself in dressing room mirrors at any chance.

As I got older and started to date, I never understood why I was the only one who could fluster myself, why I preferred my own face over the ones of those around me. I found others attractive, and I wanted to date them, and I did- but they were never as good as I found myself.

People would call me narcissistic. Self-centred. Tell me to lower my ego. Say that calling myself hot and sexy was inappropriate and that I was oversexualizing myself. I never understood why. It was always consensual between me, myself, and I. I hid my self-attraction and became extremely self-conscious. I worried that I was a bad person for finding myself attractive, so I would force myself to criticize myself any time I found myself looking at the mirror and thinking I was attractive. It caused a lot of body issues for me and lead to me having an ED.

When I talked about how I would date my clone and found myself very attractive, I was called an autophile and people made selfcest jokes. It felt like something was wrong with me. The suffixes -phile and -cest aren't good.

Then I found the label "autosexual". It seemed to fit with what I felt. But most comments about it were all "this is just narcissism" or "you can only use this label if you're aroace".

I told my friends I was autosexual and half of them said "how is that any different from autophilia?"

When I boast about looking nice or cute, I'm self-centred and egocentric and a jerk. When people boast about their partners doing anything, they're a great partner and an adorable couple.

My relationship with myself is seen as flimsy, narcissistic, and a joke. It's seen as just the same as normal self-love. People question it when I feel unhappy with my body.

I love myself. I love my body. I love my voice. I love my hair. I love my face. But this isn't just positivity. I am smitten, head over heels in love with myself.

When I kiss myself, people call it weird.

When I give myself gifts, people say I'm just making things up and that I'm just buying things.

When I compliment myself, people call it narcissism or "normal positivity".

It's none of these things.

I need people to understand- being auto is not "being positive" or "being narcissistic".

Narcissism is a term that should only be used for people with NPD/Narcissistic Personality Disorder and using it to describe selfishness or egocentrism is ableist and rude.

Auto people can be self-conscious and have a poor self image and that doesn't make them any less auto and it doesn't make them a bad self-partner/friend if they are dating/friends with themself.

Rant over, I suppose. Please reblog to share around and share this message and feel free to reblog with any points you think I missed or questions you may have.

Might do a rant about autospec erasure in media later on or I might not.

Tags are below. Send me an ask if you want me to remove you from the tags and I will.

But what irks me is when people compare selfcest to incest and claim it would be evil to depict it (and incest as well) in stories. Like I grew up on sans shipping with the sans au stuff and people will say with their full chest sanscest shouldn't exist and is evil and disgusting and grotesque. Like okay... What do you think about REAL PEOPLE who are into themselves then? What do you think of systems who's headmates date and have sex with each other?

How do you treat people who do have incestuous attractions that they don't act on? Or people who just like fauxcest that isn't hurting anyone either. Or just liking incest in fiction? Because it seems you hate all of us.

I personally am not into incest much... Or well I wasn't but trauma stuff happened and I've gotten a bit into fauxcest- but essentially it's not my jam. But I feel so much for people who's it is because of how similar they're treated to me being into myself is.

Also may be worth noting I have NPD as well.

This is paramisia and ectonormativity [link.]

The attraction to oneself is known as being auto-. Whether or not you consider it a paraphilia depends on the person. Its similar to objectum vs objectophile [link], and how the distinction between them can be arbitrary.

My headmate Ally is autorose, and fae do not feel aligned with the paraphilia community, personally, and dislike being referred to as an autophile. But some autospec people do use the -phile suffix, it's a matter of preference.

Ally also agrees with you about the "selfcest" term, because autospec attraction/arousal is really different from incestual attraction/arousal for most individuals, and the conflation of such terms is just inaccurate.

I will say, it is interesting meeting autospecs who also have NPD, because the two things are often compared, despite the fact that most people with NPD aren't autospec, and most autospecs don't have NPD. Of those who have both, it's intriguing to see how half of them will say "my NPD and autospec attraction are interwoven", while the other half will say "these are two completely independent experiences to me."

Now, for the incest aspect of this. I think people with paraphilias that would be problematic to fully enact within reality should be allowed to have outlets. A lot of paraphiles, especially those with paraphilic disorders, need a healthy way to release their feelings, or else it bottles up and fantasies begin overtaking them or escalating.

It just needs to be tagged properly and given it's own curated space, as to not flood the pages of people who do not want to see that (or may be potentially triggered by it.)

like, spam is definitely autorose [link] and i believe with my entire soul that no matter which universe or which period of his life he's in, he falls deeply in love with you. you are an anchor in his life, you are his safe place, he wants to be with you, he wants you.