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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 20:29 (UTC)What I'm trying to express is, hm, you wrote almost 800 words on the relationship of ace and aro communities and identities up there (again, including some very valid points), that someone who didn't already know better could come away from with the impression that aros are a sort of ace splintergroup.
And that may or may not be indicative of you opinion overall, 800 words is not a doctoral thesis, and you're certainly not obligated to name-check every possible constellation of identities when talking about your own community - I'm honestly not trying to pin any wrongdoing on you. It just stuck out to me, in a way that felt kind of... symptomatic of the thing crou was talking about in the first place.
Re: Topic origin, community history, and aroaces with good experiences
Date: 3 Mar 2019 23:41 (UTC)I wouldn't call it a splintergroup because that implies that it is a group that could fit in with the ace community, but there is something that is disagreed upon that makes that not work. The aro community by nature should have a significant separation from the ace community, so that label wouldn't apply.
That being said, there are some individuals who migrated to the aro community for splintergroup-type reasons, sometimes valid (not feeling accepted), but also sometimes bigoted (thinking grey-a and romance/sex-favorable people are just allos pretending). It is also true that the aro community did start as a part of the ace community that split off (adding some people who wouldn't fit in the ace community as it split). We may not like everything about our history, but we can't go back and change it or pretend that it doesn't exist.
Recognizing this history is important, ESPECIALLY when you consider that there is anti-grey, anti-romance-favorable sentiment in our history as a community, because there are still echos of that bigotry today. And that is really at the heart of why I can sometimes be contrary with these things; a lot of the "alloros are stealing our things" arguments inadvertently use anti-grey, anti-favorable rhetoric to get their points across. I just want us to be able to address the issues between our communities without throwing grayromantic people under the bus. Acknowledging our history is the first step towards that.
Re: Topic origin, community history, and aroaces with good experiences
Date: 5 Mar 2019 11:49 (UTC)Crou wrote about creating spaces that should "prioritise and lionise aro needs and issues in their own right, not just in the context of asexuality", including allo aros' perspectives on events catered to aros as well as aces, rememebering "many [allosexual aros] don't share [aroaces] connection to ace communities" , not being thrilled at being assumed a part of the ace community. You focused heavily on the history of the beginning of aro communities and pointed out various reasons why some aroaces started building aro communities splintered off from ace communities, that there are aroaces who are satisfied with ace communities, that there are aroaces who left ace communities for bigoted reasons, mentioned how greyros don't feel included in the aro community sometimes because of this history.
All this is okay and good to know, but I don't understand those points' relation to the post that's in a big part about the lack of focus on aromanticism separate from asexuality and consideration for allosexual aros in ace-led initiatives that are meant to be inclusive of all aros and not just the ace ones.
I meant (and am assuming Snocks did too) that your focus on aroaces and their connection to ace communities or lack thereof, in reply to Crou's post that's about needing to talk about aromanticism not only in relation to asexuality is kind of symptomatic of focusing on aromanticism only in connection to asexuality, which should be lessened at least to the point of including allosexual aros.
Re: Topic origin, community history, and aroaces with good experiences
Date: 6 Mar 2019 22:20 (UTC)If I am understanding correctly, you are expressing the need for aromanticism to be respected as an identity in its own right, independently of asexuality. And I can see how you and others felt that this need wasn’t being met in the context of the misunderstanding that the topic was chosen as the first topic for the carnival. As I’ve mentioned, the truth to the situation was that the topic was the impetus for starting the carnival in the first place.
To me, within the context of understanding how the carnival and the topic came to be, comments like “alloaros don’t feel like they have anything to share,” “I don’t want to share what I do think because it’s too negative,” and “It might have been okay as a topic later on” ended up sounding like the following, even though I now recognize this is not the case for the majority of people commenting on these issues:
“I don’t care about solving the problems between the two communities. I say I want aces to treat me better, but I am unwilling to have a conversation with them about how they can do that. I am fine with saying negative things indirectly on the internet, but when aces explicitly invite me into a dialogue trying to solve the issues I have brought up, suddenly being too negative is a problem. Additionally, I think allo aces need to change their behaviors that negatively affect aro people, but at the same time either I don’t recognize or don’t care how I may have some behaviors that may negatively affect aces. I don’t care about how the problems between the two communities negatively affect aros who are also ace, and I think they should be fine with just waiting until this conversation is more convenient for me, which will only happen once the problem that this conversation is looking to find solutions to has already been solved.”
Or, more succinctly:
“I want the problem to be fixed but anyone who tries to fix it is part of the problem.”
Now, I didn’t want to think that that is what any of you actually believe, which is why I commented on here explaining how the carnival and topic came to be and why a conversation on this topic is so important to us, in the hopes that you will express that this all is not what you meant. I’m here because for me, and many aroaces like me, there is also an intense need for the ace and aro communities to come to a resolution of the conflict between us. Not because I don’t think it is important for aromanticism to be respected as an identity in its own right. (In fact, the belief that aromanticism should be respected as an identity in its own right is part of what inspired this topic. We wanted to workshop ways of working towards that.)
And largely I think I have learned that the above is not what you think, and I did not intend for my responses to come across as if I didn’t think that your need here was important. Thank for taking the time to explain what you were thinking to me so I could clarify this. We are just both expressing different needs, and expressing one of those needs doesn’t necessarily mean that either of us thinks the other’s need isn’t valid.
To reiterate, the two needs being addressed here are:
1. For aromanticism to be respected as an identity in its own right, independently of asexuality.
2. For the ace and aro communities to come to a resolution of the conflict between us.
I am still at a loss for a way we could have approached this situation where both of these needs could have been met, because the solution of dropping the topic or waiting (6 months? a year? How long would be enough?) is just ignoring need #2 (while it gets worse), which wouldn’t have been a good solution either. Any thoughts? I’m kind of at a point where I am thinking there was no good solution...
Re: Topic origin, community history, and aroaces with good experiences
Date: 7 Mar 2019 06:30 (UTC)As for not wanting to post negative things
... well, I think for some people it was fear of being declared "too much work to come to any agreement with those whiny aros" by aces because of their previous experinces with ace communities. This is why Crou wrote about building trust first - so that people like those could maybe see you're really interested in hearing them out and won't just drop the joint initiatives when faced with criticism (sometimes harshly worded too).
I can see how those are conflicting needs right now with the attitudes and fears people have. Tbh I think April would have been fine - because the conversation between the communities is an important subject and it being the 3rd theme wouldn't carry as much meaning and weight as the 1st one. Tho I'm sure some people would still have a problem with it