So, its Aromantic Awareness Week

[lionheart]

twitter.com/i/status/1363843446616719363

I've read around (a little) but I'm still not sure why this constitutes an identity to be championed by Stonewall etc.

Anyone shed any light on this and on the language (spectrum; allies) ...?

Well instant sexual attraction does exist, as much as deep and abiding friendship. It's perfectly possible to meet someone and fancy them hugely right off the bat and it be mutual. It's never happened to me, but Gillian Anderson hasn't met me yet.

FWIW, my best friend of many, many years is as close to me as any romantic partner, and there's never been a hint of anything sexual between us. She's the first person I phone when I'm upset or happy or have news.

I'm not so sure people are actually oppressed for being aro, but there is an element of feeling they've made a choice about it rather than being born that way. But it must be irritating for them - imagine if you were happily in a faithful relationship and people kept saying, "Are you having an affair yet?" "Oh, you'll change your mind about staying faithful after a few years."

In some countries, forced marriages of aromantic/asexual women inevitably lead to rape and abuse.

What the actual fuck? What am I reading? This makes me so fucking angry. We need aromantics on a feminism board to tell us that forced marriage is bad? Do we fuck.

I'm honestly embarrassed for Stonewall. And curious about the average age of its employees. Surely anyone over the age of 30, no matter how much koolaid they've drunk, is thinking, deep down, WTAF?

BTW my brother doesn't like romantic relationships. He had one once. (ish) With a lovely lesbian who is now happily married and sprogged up to her wife. It served them both well at the time. He got to try out a relationship (didn't suit) and she got to decide to tell everyone later.

No one gives a tiny shit he is, and will remain, single.

Believe me when I tell you I got more shit of all kinds about my life choices by stupid relatives than he did. And none of it was abuse.

What exactly is romance? I've googled looking for it and there's no definitive list.

I get the just want to have sex/don't want to have sex it's all a bit whatever, you do or you don't, it's your choice.
But if aromantic is a label then I think it would be really useful to have a definitive list of what is considered romantic.

I'm not sure if I'm aromantic...
Flowers are dead before you give them to me and chocolate is just fuelling the fat in my arse so I don't like those.
I like shooting stuff though so a box of cartridges and some clays would be awesome. And maybe some more gun oil, that always comes in handy. Are these romantic?
Opening doors and car doors for me is something I probably take for granted, I expect it, is this romantic? Or just the norm?
Cuddles, hand holding etc... Comfortable and nice but not exactly wooing me.
Valentines day... What a load of bollocks!
My fella is a qualified masseuse, he took the course in secret to surprise me, that was kind of romantic I guess but then it's become something he has to do all the time now because it saves me a fortune at the chiropractor... Not so romantic and there's no way I can have sex afterwards!!!

I think if people understood what romance was and who decides what is romantic and what qualifies these people to decide on what is romantic or not it might be easier to understand aromantics and what issues they may face.

I find a lot of the time that there's a new word or label or something that we have to learn but it feels like we're not allowed all the information to learn what we need to learn so therefore we are horrible oppressors who need to educate ourselves but we can't educate ourselves without the proper information and on it goes.

@PotholeParadies

Was St Julian of Norwich aromantic and was she oppressed because of it?

You are confusing Aromantic with Anchorite. An easy mistake to make.

Julian oppressed herself by choosing to live in permanent lockdown.
She came up with an excellent mantra though, so it wasn't all bad.

Does it mean people who (may) want sex but no romantic relationship with it? If they want their washing and ironing done too does that change things? I think I’ve met a few, if so.

Well it's a spectrum of course, which is usually a convenient way of saying it can be absolutely anything and you're not allowed to argue.

For this chap, it means he wants to play the field doesn't want to be with one person forever. But he loves cuddling and romantic movies!

https://mobile.twitter.com/dragonecology/status/1363370226549669890

Now naturally I know nothing of this young man's intentions and I'm sure they're entirely honourable, but it does sound like rather a convenient way of gaslighting young women into no strings attached casual sex. "It's not you, it's me, I'm aromantic! And if you can't handle that, you're a bigot and invalidating my identity!"

Romantic love in the way we think about it came out of the middle ages. Of course people have always had all kinds of strong feelings related to sex and infatuation, but it's not typically given the same attention. Marriage was more often seen as a family tie based on duty, commitment, procreation, and economics. Romantic relationships outside of that were seen sometimes as ok if they were not actively sexual, and often problematic if they were.

That being said, neither of those were seen as the same as friendship, which has been given a lot more emphasis in many other societies than it is in ours.

@teezletangler

Well it's a spectrum of course, which is usually a convenient way of saying it can be absolutely anything and you're not allowed to argue.

For this chap, it means he wants to play the field doesn't want to be with one person forever. But he loves cuddling and romantic movies!

[[https://mobile.twitter.com/dragonecology/status/1363370226549669890]]

Now naturally I know nothing of this young man's intentions and I'm sure they're entirely honourable, but it does sound like rather a convenient way of gaslighting young women into no strings attached casual sex. "It's not you, it's me, I'm aromantic! And if you can't handle that, you're a bigot and invalidating my identity!"

Oh see now I've actually heard of this... A young girl doing a uni placement with me tried to "educate" me a few years back. She literally described my life as a single 30 something with an arse the size of 2 bowling balls and just a little bit fat. I miss those days... Im so glad I lived in a world where I could decide whether or not to shag someone based solely on whether or not I could be arsed that day!

Apart from the drop down menu on an online dating website, how is labeling oneself as ‘aromantic’ helpful? Who needs to know?

This endless labeling and categorization of entirely normal human variations strikes me as very imperialist. Like British explorers going into the African interior and deciding to label this insect as that Latin name and that insect as this Latin name based on tiny variations in their appearance. Categorizing people with labels is so reductive. It’s a puzzling mindset to me and seems like a waste of time.

Wassssssup pals, local asexual here, I've got the following for you:

So excessive amounts of labels is a controversial topic, and let me explain why:

1. So you know the whole "I identify as an attack helicopter" joke that was supposed to be offensive to trans and nonbinary people? Yeah, trans folk really hated that. Now, with all the xenogenders and xenosexualities popping up, there's stuff like 'batgender' and the like cropping up among people who claim they are not cis. Moreover, these people will say anyone who thinks their identity is invalid, including trans people who think that the aforementioned identity invalidates THEIR dysphoria, is scum, etc. So basically an 'attack helicopter' joke but from within, by people who genuinely believe that they're an attack helicopter and will scream at trans people if the trans people get offended.
2. So that was the side of the story for the first half of people within the LGBTQ+ community that struggles with the excessive amount of labels. The other half's opinion goes something like this: A lot of these identities help people describe how they feel about themselves and their relations to others in a deeper way than before. Xenoidentities are there for you to be able to explain to others and yourself how you feel, not necessarily to act upon it. This is true. In fact, less than 0.4% of people identify with a xenoidentity and less than 0.1% of those change any physical aspect of them after realising their identity. The identities are just there to help them explore themselves without having to reach out and say "hey I think I'm gay" or "hey I think I'm trans". It's a lowkey environment to experiment with yourself, and sure it's not as queer as the main rainbow identities and no-one claims it is so why would you go and hate on them if they didn't do anything to you?

Anyways, that was a summary of the LGBT+ friendly debate on xenoidentities, now for aromanticism:

About 1% of people identify as asexual, and about a quarter of those identify as aromantic. Of course, there are people who aren't asexual but are aromantic, but the numbers of those are exceedingly low, so your worries about the aromantics being a bunch of incels can be safely dismissed.

So why is aromanticism being celebrated by the LGBT+ community?
Ever get annoyed that one of the first things people want to know bout you is your kids or who you're dating? Obviously not the FIRST thing, but as you age, especially for women (which constitute the majority of asexuals, by the way), it becomes surprising that you don't have children or a partner. It's almost as if women have a societal expectation to bear and raise children, or a societal expectation to go and get married to a man. Yeah, this sucks for all women, in fact for all people, not just asexuals, but aces tend to have to deal with this more on average.
In addition, aces are in fact sometimes subjected to conversion therapy, especially in the USA, which I think we can all agree is something that isn't great at all.
Especially if you're female (hello inbuilt societal and historical sexism) and you try to explain your lack of sexual attraction, you're met with 'oh so you think you're some sort of pure snowflake because you never had sex'.

Anyways Aromantics and Asexuals don't claim to be more opressed than the main LGBT members. In fact, there's an ongoing discussion within the asexual community about whether or not they should be in the LGBT+ community, but the consensus is that yes, they should.

The reason why aromanticism is being celebrated by the LGBT+ community is because the LGBT+ community, before aknowledging aces and aros, decided that aces and aros should be part of it. People with the experience of what you call 'real opression' said "hey, those guys deserve to be here too".

Anyways, for a straight people website you sure seem to have a beyond manic interest in Queer folk. Isn't it sad that the majority of your posts on the feminism pages is about how trans people are scum? Don't you think you have more pressing issues to argue about? Or does it just feel really nice to be in an echo chamber?

Do we need a word for couples who loathe each other and have nothing in common, but stay together for the incredible sex?

Imagine if people hurtfully assumed that they actually cared about each other!

"That dickhead Roger? Do me a favour! We only got married to facilitate our constant hate-shagging!"

It strikes me now that this aro business is yet another US cultural import, as is all the language surrounding it.

No, the first thing people ask about me has never been "who I'm dating". Nor do I generally ask other people about their love lives, unsolicited.

However, this does seem to be much more a part of the culture we see in American TV shows and books. I grew up marvelling at stories about a family celebrating their child's "first date", or teenagers feeling the need to "find a date for prom", etc. This just didn't exist in my real life in the UK. Teenagers just hung around awkwardly in mixed packs, occasionally snogging at a disco or "asking each other out" in a way that prompted baffled parents to ask "but where do they go?" (Nowhere, they went nowhere).

My general impression is that dating and marriage is pressed much more in US culture than ours.

There are loads of experiences that aren't reflected in popular culture. I got married young to a nice bloke and had several children by aged 30. It's all very happy and there is never any drama, we still have sex (with each other!) and healthy friendships and persuits outside the home. That's not represented in popular culture either. It all gets a bit "I'm not like other girls" and I do think we all feel "different" or "apart from societal norms" at times.

It must be really hard for co-habiting siblings or those who live at home for their whole lives (now there's a group that is, imo, oppressed and looked down on - think Principal Skinner etc) as they don't have the chance of any tax advantages, pension passing on as the can't marry. Aromantic or queerplatonic relationships can at least in theory. I have long thought we need some sort of non-romantic, non-sexual commitment similar to civil partnerships. I do think the lack of that option is discriminatory.

Surely, everyone has an aspect of their personality which is out of step with mainstream culture?
I don't eat fried fruit. At Christmas, it's all about the dried fruit- have a mince pie! No? ok, some Christmas cake!
I don't drink tea.
People found it hard to demonstrate their hospitality to me, because I don't drink tea or eat mince pies, fruited scones, welsh cakes, Christmas cake, wedding cake etc.
It felt like a big deal at times- we had a big fruit wedding cake neither DH nor I even tasted.

Most people are out of step with society in ways society doesn't understand, surely?

And to a PP wondering why we care so much- well, stonewall are trying to make us care. It wouldn't be a very effective campaign if we didn't think about it, would it?

Hello. Someone’s child. Thanks for the patronising.
You seem to have made a lot of assumptions and have launched into a load of ‘splaining without bothering to read the forum contributions.
Not a straight website. No more than Stonewall is a gay one. All are welcome.
It’s interesting and we are allowed to talk about it but I don’t think anyone here appears ‘manic’ any more than you do. People are allowed to talk and if they don’t breathlessly agree with and admire the stuff coming out of Stonewall (which we are often forced to pay for!) then great for Stonewall. Some delicious new oppression to feed off.

Why do you think anyone here would think trans people are scum? That’s your assumption again and you know how women on a feminism board dislike being told what we think.
Echo chamber? You mean not enough people who agree with your viewpoint?

And your final point about whether there might be something more important to talk about? Oh the irony! . Those statistics FFS.

The words mole and mountain spring to mind.

Thing is, no one wants to be labelled as ‘privileged’ today do they, it’s like the mark of Satan. So it’s not wonder really people are trying to find a label to mark them as more ‘oppressed’ than the next person, because the more ‘oppressed’ you are the louder you can shout on Twitter. It’s bizarre.

This new myriad of labels are basically just a pissing contest -and we all know that you can piss higher with penis-

I have a couple of things to input but they are not necessarily going to add to the debate -
I think Stonewall has the spectrum thing covered because they like being the most popular society at freshers week.
I think educators have been too happy to go along with all this rather than ask students to think (especially secondary age students) about words and their meaning. Discrimination is not 'my preference is not to get romantically involved' as others have pointed out.

The current education system is really poor. It seems to be a case of thinking without any criticism or debate to show up the flaws in the argument. This has carried into real life, as though it is important when clearly in the grand scheme of things, wanting the whole world to know that women don't fancy you (Incels I think) used to be whispered. People are too concerned with the self and I think that has come about because the challenges of childhood have gradually been removed and the poor sods have nothing else to keep them interested.

I hope the restrictions of Covid will result in the young breaking out and having some real fun instead of disappearing up their own arses in a spiral of bespoke idiocy

Isn't it sad that the majority of your posts on the feminism pages is about how trans people are scum?

Outright lies in a long post makes me wonder how many other lies might be in there

Teenagers just hung around awkwardly in mixed packs, occasionally snogging at a disco or "asking each other out" in a way that prompted baffled parents to ask "but where do they go?" (Nowhere, they went nowhere)

Good point, i had quite a long and stressful chat with my mum about ‘going out’ and found myself replicating it with my daughter with the whole ‘speaking to, seeing’ thing that the youngsters seem to do now

When people hear 'platonic', they think: 'oh, they're just friends' (implication: relationship is non-sexual but not as deep or serious as committed romantic partnership). One's office colleague can be a 'platonic' friend; so can one's next-door neighbour, or one's yoga class friend. One does not necessary have a deep emotional soulmate-like relationship with all of these 'platonic' friends. i.e. In common usage, 'platonic' only means non-sexual/non-romantic, but nothing beyond that suggesting deep intimacy and level of commitment similar to a romantic partnership. The 'queer' prefix is meant to indicate a deep bond beyond a 'just' platonic friendship, one that conveys life-partner-like status. And such partnerships are NOT 'so completely and utterly normal' as you seem to think. (How many platonic best friends do you know these days who live together as working adults, sharing a life and commitment similar to romantic couples, and perhaps raising children together? Flatmates sharing a house / student accommodations, etc early in their careers before 'settling down' doesn't count, of course.)

I think this sort of friendship sounds lovely but I can't see why what other people think about it is so important. There are as many different types of friendship as there are people - I'm not sure why it is necessary to analyse and label and use it to imply that a person may be oppressed if others don't get it.

Stonewall is not doing anyone any favours by implying that they have a right not to 'be annoyed' (often by well meaning people) and by equating being annoyed with oppression and actual physical violence suffered by people like lesbians who Stonewall now vilify and try to get fired for being exclusively same sex attracted and trying to protect that concept for themselves.

Earlier on the thread there was a post that reminded me that there seems to be such a lack of understanding about what people's actual rights are. I think it is a common mistake to confuse rights with desires or preferences.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49119947

@ARoombaOfOnesOwn

Is it people who don’t bother with Valentine’s Day?