ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

it's ok to be horny! it's good to be perverted! your sexuality isn't shameful and the things that turn you on are good and should be celebrated!!! even if its weird!!!! especially if it's weird and fucked up!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK!

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

"why can't they just be friends" not in the homophobic way but in the "their platonic relationship in the source material is far more dynamic and complex than the sanitized personalities they gain as a result of shipping" way

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

"that's not very aromantic of you" "that's not very asexual of you" WELL that's not very minding your own business of you

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

re: "qprs are just best friends"

this is an infuriating take but also at this point kinda funny for me tbh. yeah you're right i can't tell the difference between a qpr and a really good friendship that may or may not involve kissing and maybe fucking that person and maybe moving in with them at some point or not. yeah you're right it's entirely ~vibes based~. but really. tell me how that's different from your romantic relationship. that's also just a relationship with a person who is important to you who you might or might not want to have intimate physical interactions with and who you might maybe want to spend your life with. come on. tell me the difference.

(the secret is that i actually don't care and i can label any relationships i have ever as i and the other people involved want and we can do whatever we want forever.my relationships are mine. and actually i want my partners to be my friends first and anything else second. shut the fuck up and figure out what you actually want from life and stop pestering people who just live theirs)

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

A Better Explination for Queer Platonic Relationships

This post is gonna be very 101, so if you’re already pretty familiar with aro terms and don’t want to sit through all the definitions and explanations I have another post here that’s basically a very condensed version of this one.  

Anyways, I think the reason that a lot of non-aromantic people don’t understand queerplatonic relationships is that qpps as a concept are not just a type of relationship, but also a response to amatonormativity.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, amatonormativity is the societal view of romantic monogamous relationships as both the most important relationships you can have and as the end goal for happiness. While this norm disproportionately affects aromantic and non-monogamous people, it also has some very negative effects on people outside of these groups. If you’ve ever experienced peer or familial pressure to get a romantic partner when you didn’t want one, lost touch with a friend because they got a partner and stopped putting as much time into maintaining your friendship, or been told by a romantic partner that you needed to stop interacting with a close friend because they felt threatened by your friendship then you’ve experienced the negative effects of amatonormativity. This is not an aromantic specific issue, however, in this post, I will be discussing it within the context of aromantic terms and experiences.

For many aromantic people, there is a fundamental fear that all of their close friends will pair off into romantic relationships and they will be left alone. This fear comes from amatonormativity. If there was no expectation that people would prioritize romantic relationships over friendships then there would be no real need for people who don’t want/can’t have romantic relationships for whatever reason to fear being left alone and isolated from the support of other people.

I think this fear is one of the main reasons queerplatonic relationships exist in the first place. Sure, there are different types of platonic relationships with varying degrees of intimacy and commitment that aro people could participate in, but I think that if you look at how queerplatonic relationships are talked about you’ll find that aromantic people lean towards qpps because they are more then just another type of platonic relationship.

Qpps come in all shapes and sizes. They can be monogamous or polyamorous, involve lots of physical intimacy or very little, include lots of romantically coded things like dates, marriage, and living together, or be closer to the traditional view of friendship. The spectrum of what counts as a qpp is in fact so big that the term becomes almost impossible to define. The one unifying thread that I can see among all these different types of qpps is that they’re platonic relationships that still involve a high level of commitment. 

Essentially the only agreed upon factor here is that the relationship is platonic, but a commitment has been made somewhere along the lines to not abandon one another for a romantic partner, everything beyond that is pretty up in the air. This isn’t the definition you’re likely to get from those “what is a qpp” posts, but spend 5 minutes scrolling threw some popular aro blogs and it becomes incredibly apparent. I’ve seen people joke that “queerplatonic partners are like friends that don’t abandon me for their boyfriends” or that “all my friends got dates so I had to find a qpp”. These statements, while kind of morbidly funny on some level, do point to a larger trend. While most relationship categories are defined by level of intimacy, qpps are more of a commitment to break amatonormative social norms with someone you’re close to.

And if we’re going to agree that that’s what a queerplatonic relationship is, and for the purposes of this post we are, then it suddenly becomes very clear that the aromantic community is doing ourselves a huge disservice when we try to define qpps without talking about amatonormativity, or in some cases, even mentioning the aromantic community at all.  

There is a reason that queerplatonic originated in the aromantic community. There is a reason that qpp is an aro term. Non-aro people simply don’t have the same experience with relationships that aro people do, so they don’t have the context necessary to understand why we would need qpps in the first place. 

I think this is where a lot of the “aren’t qpp’s just friendships?” questions come from. Sure, there are people out there who just want to make fun of every aro/ace term and identity, and that is part of why the ‘don’t you mean friends’ response has become so popular, but in this case I really think a lot of it’s due to the fact that we’ve explained qpps so poorly. Someone who isn’t aro, and who hasn’t felt the devastating effects of your friends drifting away into romantic relationships while you can’t have one/ don’t want one, isn’t going to understand why aro people would need a whole new type of close, emotional, platonic relationship when just plain old friendship has worked fine for them. Without the context of amatonormativity and the experience of being aro, qpp’s becomes almost nonsensical, and when we leave those things out of our definitions of qpps people aren’t going to understand what we’re talking about. 

We need to do a better job of explaining queerplatonic relationships because otherwise, people are going to continue misunderstanding what they are. 

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

OP, I admittedly just skimmed your post (sorry) but let it be known there are many (“pro”-)shippers and smut writers in the asexual community <3

You’re welcome here and the aego-community is always happy to take new folks in

I just learned the terms aegoromantic and aegosexual, and they fit me 100%.

I despise looking in the normal aroace, aromantic, and asexual tags because they're filled with posts about hatred for shipping, which is the thing I find most comforting in my life.

I don't fit in with most aroaces because of my love for fictional relationships, and it bothers me that I can't look at a majority of posts about my own orientation without getting upset. But now I'm exclusively using the aego tags when searching. I've found my people. 🥰

When telling the average person what my orientation is, I'll still say aroace, and even that's confusing for some people. But to be more specific, I'm aegoromantic aegosexual. I don't want a relationship or sex for myself, but imagining fictional characters together makes me extremely happy.

I also like that I can use one flag that shows the asexual and aromantic ones together, because I'm not a fan of the aroace one, but adore the individual ones. (Not sure which of these is more accurate or if it matters.)

If you're someone on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrum who doesn't relate to this, please be nice or just ignore! You probably wanna block someone like me anyway, whose blog is revolved around shipping.

But we're all valid members of the community and deserve to find exactly where we fit in. I'm hoping this post will help others like me who weren't aware of these terms and may want to use them.

You can be completely against romance and/or sex for yourself while still enjoying shipping, romantic songs, Valentine's Day, etc. ♥️

#asexual community #aegosexual #aego ace

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

HEY! HEY YOU

if you like using microlabels and feel like they fit you better so that's what you use, YOU ARE VALID!

if you don't like using microlabels and prefer the general labels because that what you feel like fits you better, YOU ARE VALID!

remember, its YOUR box and YOU are the only one who gets to choose how you identify and what labels you use!

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

When you are alone and have a heart attack. What are you gonna do then?

Take a 2 minute break and read this:

Let's say it's 5:25 pm and you're driving home after an unusually hard day's work.

You are really tired and frustrated. All of a sudden your chest pains. They are starting to radiate in the arm and jaw. It feels like being stabbed in the chest and heart. You're only a few miles away from the nearest hospital or home.

Unfortunately you don't know if you can make it..

Maybe you've taken CPR training, but the person running the course hasn't told you how to help yourself.

How do you survive a heart attack when you're alone when it happens? A person who is feeling weak and whose heart is beating hard has only about 10 seconds before losing consciousness.

1. But you can help yourself by coughing repeatedly and very strongly! Deep breaths before every cough. Coughing should be repeated every second until you arrive at the hospital or until your heart starts to beat normally.

2. Deep breathing gives oxygen to your lungs and coughing movements boost the heart and blood circulation. Heart pressure also helps to restore a normal heartbeat. Here's how cardiac arrest victims can make it to the hospital for the right treatment

3. Cardiologists say if someone gets this message and passes it on to 10 people, we can expect to save at least one life.

4. FOR WOMEN: You should know that women have additional and different symptoms. Rarely have crushing chest pain or pain in the arms. Often have indigestion and tightness across the back at the bra line plus sudden fatigue.

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

"brbr but what if cishet aro men want to join the lgbt community to gain access to resources?"

A: what resources?

B: p sure "the lgbt community" is either opt in or opt out- it's not like you send an application and need a letter of approval

C: and? If you don't want to date him don't date him. If you don't want to fuck him don't fuck him. I assure you that you will survive.

"but what if he's just leading innocent women on?" Well those women are very capable of making sure they're compatible with their prospective partners so either he's a shithead that lies (in which case the problem is that he's a shithead that lies), or they talked about what their relationship means and are fine with the arrangement (in which case... why do you care???)

And like. Anyone can be a shithead that lies. Are we going to start quizzing everyone to make sure no one's lying about being lesbian gay bisexual or transgender? Do I need to get my queer license renewed every year or is this more a one-and-odone type of thing? What council of gayhood do I need to report to?

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

Just saw someone with “use whatever pronouns you use for yourself for me” in bio. I honestly never considered the depth the pronoun metagame could have, we’ve barely scratched the surface with this shit

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

i have a hard time with my sexuality because there are times when i am the horniest woman alive and times, like now, when nothing has stirred me in that way for weeks on end. i can't even get excited when i try. i well and truly feel, in this moment, asexual. completely and utterly. but i also feel weird saying that because i know that it's not an all-the-time thing.

part of it is for sure linked to my bipolar disorder. one of my manic symptoms is hypersexuality. but then, yanno, my hypersexuality is pretty standard for a lot of people. i sometimes wonder if i would feel this asexual all of the time if i weren't bipolar. as it is, i spend at least half my time in a state i would call "almost completely or completely asexual."

i would likely say that i'm at least somewhat demisexual. when i was with my last girlfriend, i was hornier than i thought was humanly possible. yanno, sometimes. not that we ever did anything about it. she had a hard time getting riled up, too, and when i told her i though i might be demi, she said she related to a lot of my reasons.

i have, on occasion, called myself acespec. i always felts dirty about it, like i'm stealing all the ace from the actual asexuals, but it's times like these that make me think i shouldn't feel so dirty. i'm a twenty-five year old woman who hasn't had any sexual feelings whatsoever for two months now. i opened up some ~adult content~ (porn) the other day to see if i couldn't get something started, then i got bored and went back to doing math (ya).

so, idk. i love women and they're beautiful and gorgeous and i want them to kiss me, sure, but, like, idk. if i find a stunning naked woman lying on my bed, the first thing i'd do at this point is give her a sweater.

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

hiii if you are aromantic/arospec and can take a bit of time to answer some questions about your experiences in the wider queer community, i'd really appreciate it. & if you are alloro please spread this around anyways!

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

It's alright to use a label and change it in the future. It's alright if a label that used to be right for you isn't anymore. It's alright if you needed to use a label that wasn't right before finding the one that was.

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

I didn’t know this was a thing at all, but I suddenly feel less weird about how I enjoy erotica and yet want absolutely nothing to do with an actual physical relationship. I feel attraction to people, but I never want to do anything with that attraction.

I’d always considered myself bisexual and aromantic for having that attraction to men and women but not wanting a relationship with them. But aegosexual is way more accurate.

[ace-aro-queerplatonic-positivity]

I dislike how clumsy it is to share Twitter threads but here is a portion from a guy I follow (for his trans porn and monster fucking content at that) echoing a sentiment that aces, traumatized people, people with low libido, etc. can fully relate to. The rest is here and it’s absolutely worth the read.