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aromanticismI know this submission is a couple of days late. I hadn't planned to post it at all, actually, but a friend who had seen my draft said she thought it was something that should be out in the world, so here goes.
What little I do know about the ace community is only what I've seen talked about in aro communities. More often than not, what I've seen is frustration with the way many attempts to include aromanticism under the aspec umbrella seem to pay it little more than lip service. Aromanticism is an add-on, an also-ran, with little recognition of aro experiences as unique and different from ace ones - at least, that's what I'd heard second-hand from other aros who vent about such things in aro spaces.
I'm a firm believer in being the positive change I want to see in the world, so when I heard an ace blogging initiative had spawned an aro-centric offshoot I was excited to contribute. Scanning the list of past ace blogging carnivals threw up some really interesting-sounding topics, and I wondered what had been chosen for the inaugural Carnival of Aros, to really kick it off as a distinct event.
If you caught my switch to past tense you can probably guess where I'm going with this.
Here's the thing: I'm not ace, and I have absolutely zero experience of ace communities. I looked at the theme for the first ever Carnival of Aros and was like... oh. Never mind then. That's clearly not for me.
This isn't to say that I'd expect to have something to say about every aspect of aromantic experiences, or for my experiences to be relevant to every theme that might come up. But I feel like I'm beginning to understand where some of that aro frustration with the ace community comes from. There's something to be said for the tone-deafness of choosing, as the first ever theme of a carnival that aims to support aromanticism as distinct and separate from asexuality, a theme that puts asexuality right up alongside it on centre stage. A theme that requires knowledge of and familiarity with the ace community to answer almost all of its prompts. A theme that explicitly focusses on ways in which aromanticism is "inextricably linked" to asexuality.
I hadn't planned to submit a contribution, because I didn't want to respond with negativity to what is clearly intended to be a bridge-building exercise. But I've seen more than one conversation in aro spaces where people have been struggling to think of things they can contribute to this theme. We want this initiative to succeed! We want to write positive things! But for at least some of us, choosing this theme in this context aggravates a bit of a sore spot.
So here's my constructive advice:
Many aros are already primed to expect to be treated as secondary to aces in aspec spaces. To counter that, an aro-centric initiative has to build trust before it can build bridges. To establish credibility as a space that will prioritise and lionise aro needs and issues in their own right, not just in the context of asexuality.
If you're building a space, a resource, an event, an initiative, that's intended to cater to aros as well as aces, it might be worth getting someone who's not ace to give it a once-over for unconscious bias before you send it out into the world.
If you're aroace, you're awesome and you're one of us, but please remember that many of us don't share your connection to the ace community. Stuff that may seem even-handed to you may hit our sensitivity to being treated like a subsidiary identity.
If you're ace but not aro, you're awesome too, but please remember that many of us came to aromanticism entirely independently of asexuality. We aren't part of the ace community or familiar with its history, and may not be thrilled about people assuming we are.
And all that said, I will be following the themes for future months with great interest, and hope to contribute something more positive next time.
---
Edited to add: We are now hosting the second Carnival of Aros here at Aromanticism! Check out the Call for Submissions here!
What little I do know about the ace community is only what I've seen talked about in aro communities. More often than not, what I've seen is frustration with the way many attempts to include aromanticism under the aspec umbrella seem to pay it little more than lip service. Aromanticism is an add-on, an also-ran, with little recognition of aro experiences as unique and different from ace ones - at least, that's what I'd heard second-hand from other aros who vent about such things in aro spaces.
I'm a firm believer in being the positive change I want to see in the world, so when I heard an ace blogging initiative had spawned an aro-centric offshoot I was excited to contribute. Scanning the list of past ace blogging carnivals threw up some really interesting-sounding topics, and I wondered what had been chosen for the inaugural Carnival of Aros, to really kick it off as a distinct event.
If you caught my switch to past tense you can probably guess where I'm going with this.
Here's the thing: I'm not ace, and I have absolutely zero experience of ace communities. I looked at the theme for the first ever Carnival of Aros and was like... oh. Never mind then. That's clearly not for me.
This isn't to say that I'd expect to have something to say about every aspect of aromantic experiences, or for my experiences to be relevant to every theme that might come up. But I feel like I'm beginning to understand where some of that aro frustration with the ace community comes from. There's something to be said for the tone-deafness of choosing, as the first ever theme of a carnival that aims to support aromanticism as distinct and separate from asexuality, a theme that puts asexuality right up alongside it on centre stage. A theme that requires knowledge of and familiarity with the ace community to answer almost all of its prompts. A theme that explicitly focusses on ways in which aromanticism is "inextricably linked" to asexuality.
I hadn't planned to submit a contribution, because I didn't want to respond with negativity to what is clearly intended to be a bridge-building exercise. But I've seen more than one conversation in aro spaces where people have been struggling to think of things they can contribute to this theme. We want this initiative to succeed! We want to write positive things! But for at least some of us, choosing this theme in this context aggravates a bit of a sore spot.
So here's my constructive advice:
Many aros are already primed to expect to be treated as secondary to aces in aspec spaces. To counter that, an aro-centric initiative has to build trust before it can build bridges. To establish credibility as a space that will prioritise and lionise aro needs and issues in their own right, not just in the context of asexuality.
If you're building a space, a resource, an event, an initiative, that's intended to cater to aros as well as aces, it might be worth getting someone who's not ace to give it a once-over for unconscious bias before you send it out into the world.
If you're aroace, you're awesome and you're one of us, but please remember that many of us don't share your connection to the ace community. Stuff that may seem even-handed to you may hit our sensitivity to being treated like a subsidiary identity.
If you're ace but not aro, you're awesome too, but please remember that many of us came to aromanticism entirely independently of asexuality. We aren't part of the ace community or familiar with its history, and may not be thrilled about people assuming we are.
And all that said, I will be following the themes for future months with great interest, and hope to contribute something more positive next time.
---
Edited to add: We are now hosting the second Carnival of Aros here at Aromanticism! Check out the Call for Submissions here!
Re: Topic origin, community history, and aroaces with good experiences
Date: 2 Mar 2019 17:52 (UTC)With the vocab - I'm on the fence actually!! The words and meanings are changing (and it seems to be a natural process), but I don't fancy words changing meanings on people who used them to mean different things. The greyro vs aro-spec conflation you mentioned for example - I'm not sure if at this point it's possible to change the meaning of aro-spec (as an identity at least) not to mean "somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, but not aromantic". The misuse of positive and favourable I'd like to correct. Anyway, this is a topic for another discussion.
Okay, I think "the only option" is a better description for this - I know this was the case and the situation of older aroaces is different in this regard. But it's not the only option anymore and from my point of view shouldn't be treated as a default option (for newly discovering aroaces) because the ace communities were here first. I think it's fair to make the fact that not all aroaces who interact with aro communities are dissatisfied with ace communities a more accessible perspective for sure.