Call for submissions on the topic of Coming Out and/ or Being Out as Aromantic Spectrum

I’m hosting the carnival of aros this month!

The Carnival of Aros is a blogging festival centered around aromanticism. For more information and to find previous months’ submissions go to carnivalofaros.wordpress.com.

The topic I’ve chosen is: Coming Out/Being Out As Arospec.

Here are some more specific suggestions for what to write about:

• Differences between coming out/being out as arospec and other orientations e.g. is it more difficult to come out as arospec than a more well known orientation?
• Coming out stories
• What it’s like to be out/not out as arospec
• What it’s like to come out/ be out as just arospec (especially if you don’t use the SAM)
• What it’s like to come out/ be out as more than one lgbtqia+ identity
• Any other thoughts related to coming out, being out, or not being out as arospec

(Please note the term arospec does include the identity aromantic.)

To submit post your submission in the comments or email me at lawtonlee@outlook.com anytime before the 1st of May 2019.

If you’d like to remain anonymous (or don’t have an account to post your submission to) send me the submission in an email and I’ll post it on this blog.

I will respond to submissions I receive so if you haven’t heard from me in a couple of days please email me or message me on my tumblr to check I haven’t missed it. Thank you. 🙂

Learning to Love Being Aromantic

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2019! I wrote this article to celebrate.

Disclaimer: This is the story of my personal experience and I am in no way claiming or expecting that it will be relevant to every aromantic and arospec experience. Our community is diverse in every way and this may not be relevant to you at all. But I hope it helps at least some people, and provides an insight to those who don’t relate.

So, today I was sorting through my old things, tidying up my bedroom, and I found an old notebook from when I was 10 years old. This, like every diary I have ever tried to start, is only a couple of pages long and consists of an introduction and whatever reason I had to start a diary in the first place. Some of them I’ve kept up for a month or two (sporadically) but this one is just two pages. The first page is the aforementioned introduction. The second page is this:

[Image description: A photograph of a torn off notebook page titled “Rosalie’s Love” with a heart drawn covering the whole page in blue biro. The heart is filled in with lots of smaller hearts and in the middle is written: “Rosalie loves” with a gap to be filled in underneath. Around the sides of the heart is written: “I will put the name of my boyfriend in the space when I get one!” and “can’t wait! (When I love him hehe!)” End description.]

This is… without a doubt the most embarrassing thing I have ever put on the internet. If I didn’t have a point to make I would destroy the thing and pretend it never happened, but Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week is coming up so here we are.

And here am I, a decade later to within a couple of months, writing this in between bouts of trying to tidy my room. The thing is, I do remember writing in this notebook and I was doing the same thing. Sorting through my messy room, daydreaming about the future. I took some time out, having discovered an empty notebook (just as I’m doing now) to write this diary entry. I remember being so excited by my childhood fantasies of romance that I felt the need to make a physical space which I could fill in when it finally happened to me in real life. That magical romance that I’d been promised by every movie and book I’d ever loved. It never happened. I never fell in love. I’ve never even had a crush. Because I am aromantic.

That little girl who wrote that. She was desperate to fall in love. Convinced it was the most important thing that could ever happen. That romantic love was the most important thing in life. She’d despair at the chase to the airport scene in rom-coms because how could they want to leave? What could possibly be more important than love? Now, it seems ridiculous to me that anyone could prioritise a fleeting romance over life long goals and a chance for happiness and stability. Now, I don’t identify as a girl anymore, and it’s a little ridiculous that I was so sure I was straight. My identity, my priorities, and my dreams have changed so much that on paper I seem like a completely different person. But the truth is I haven’t actually changed that much.

I’m still here, sorting through my mess and daydreaming about the future. But the future I’m dreaming about now doesn’t have a lover or partner. The future is just me, living my life exactly the way I want to. Indulging in my hobbies and finding emotional and financial stability. A little flat filled with houseplants and a pet or two. Writing articles for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2029, maybe. And it fills me with just as much childish excitement and happiness. An adults daydream, but just as fulfilling.

This blog post could have been about amatonormativity and heteronormativity and the way they create unnecessary pressure for little kids to conform to a specific ideal, and maybe I will write that article someday. But the message I want to give to baby aros who are only just discovering their arospec identity; to arospecs who wish they could fall in love; to arospecs who can’t get over internalised amatonormativity is this:

There was once a little girl who was obsessed with romance. Desperate to fall in love. There was once a confused teenager to whom the idea of being aromantic felt like the cruelest joke the universe could play on someone who wished only to love someone, anyone. I don’t feel that way anymore. Ever. I’m not just okay with being aromantic now. I love myself for my aromanticism and I’m excited to find out what the future will be like for me. It is possible to be aromantic, and permanently partnerless, and happy. It does get better. Give it time.

Am I Aromantic?

I wrote this article for Arospec Awareness Week which is the 17th – 23rd of February 2019.

The most common message I get goes something like this:

I think I might be [X identity] because of [x experience]. Am I [X]

More and more it’s less explicitly “am I [X]” and more: what do you/ other people who identify as X experience? But that functionally amounts to the same thing

I imagine this is a pretty common type of question for the entire lgbtqia+ community, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was especially common for lesser known orientations and genders

Before I continue I want to say that this is in no way a call out or a request to stop sending these types of asks. Keep sending these if you want or need to. I, for one, am always happy to answer them. And although some advice blogs don’t like to (for good reasons: we’ll get to that) there are probably advice blogs for most orientations or communities you can find that will. Although the less common your identity the more general you may have to go

Fun fact! I sent this exact ask to an asexual advice blog once. I wanted an answer, but also I just wanted someone to tell me, and me specifically, with all my specific doubts and questions, that I could identify as this thing I wasn’t sure I was. Which is why you can say “There aren’t any rules for who gets to identify as what label. If it’s helpful use it.” a million times and still get those asks. And it’s why I still welcome them even though the answer is always the same. I wanted to be given permission

The thing is: labels are not an exact science. A label isn’t so much a real empirical thing I can point to and say “hey it’s you!” but more of a collection of grouped experiences used because it’s useful to have a word that means: I experience this. This is my identity

Now, I try to respond to these asks by being as specific and personal to the question they ask as possible (this is often very difficult because people don’t seem to be sure what context I will need) because my goal is to make them feel heard and understood. However, I don’t think this way of doing things always addresses the underlying issue. The thing is, the answer is always “yes.

Okay, most people (including me, most of the time) will tell you the answer is “Maybe. Only you can say for sure.” Because that’s the answer to “Am I [X].” But what people mean when they ask this is almost always “Am I allowed to call myself [X]?” And the answer doesn’t actually depend on specifics at all. I can’t (and don’t) respond “yes” to these questions, not because I don’t think you should be allowed to call yourself [X], but because I don’t think I should be allowed to hand out permissions. Because the implication of that would be that I could then say, based on incomplete and biased information (as all information must be) that someone doesn’t have permission, is not allowed, to label their own experience of identity in whatever way they decide is best.

So I will tell you that you can identify however you like. I will tell you that if you think you might be [X] you might want to think about identifying that way for a while to see if it work for you. I will tell you it’s okay if you’re unsure and try to address any specific concerns you have. I will tell you these things because I want you to feel heard, and because it’s true. But I can’t give you permission to identify as anything. You don’t need it

Another thing is if you didn’t have that “Oh! This is me!” moment, (I didn’t. Lots of people don’t.) you probably won’t know straight away whether you have the right label or not. You kind of have to try it on for a bit to see if it fits. I can’t give you “permission” to ID as anything, but even if I could I wouldn’t because questioning is an important part of the process. Finding a label that works for you means you might have to live with it for a bit to find out. This could take a couple of tries or it could take years or you may never be sure and that’s okay

That said, you can be wrong about your identity. I feel like saying “there’s no right or wrong here” alienates people who just want a straight (pun not intended) answer, and it also isn’t really true. For example: a hypothetical person might say one day that he’s straight, because of, say, denial, or flawed ideas about what it means to be not straight, realise this, and then say “actually, I was wrong I’m gay.” This is totally valid. It’s not fair to tell him he used to be straight when he’s telling you that he wasn’t – he was incorrect

Or, to use myself as a real example, when I was 15 I came out as a lesbian. I didn’t really understand what it meant to be aspec and had not come to terms with being aromantic. I could have identified as an aromantic lesbian, but I definitely understood lesbian to mean romantically attracted to women, and believed that I did experience this attraction. I would now say I was wrong about being a lesbian. Conversely, I now identify as bisexual. But I legitimately did not experience attraction to men at all at the time. I would not say I was wrong about identifying as exclusively attracted to women. I was not bisexual yet. Also, I identified as a girl during this time, even though I experienced my gender the same way I do now. For me, I think its more accurate to say that I used to identify as a girl and that made sense for me at the time than to say that I was wrong about being cis

So labels can change. Maybe you were wrong the first time. Maybe you were right but your experiences changed. Or maybe you were right but decided to change labels to something that’s better now

I’m telling you this as someone who has been there several times with several different labels. It really doesn’t matter if you’re right or not. It really really doesn’t matter if you get it wrong or change your mind a few times. Of course, it matters to you and I’m not saying that isn’t important. Questioning can be really frustrating and and it’s hard to not get a solid answer from anywhere, including yourself

But what I mean by saying that it doesn’t matter is that it doesn’t matter to me. When you message me desperate for validation from a real human being who exists and you can speak to and share your doubts I’m going to give the most accurate answer possible, because I know that that’s what you want me to do – not because I care if it turns out you’re right or wrong. And this is the good part: you won’t care either. If there’s ever a time when you’ve figured it out, you’ve found the right label and it’s functional and you’re completely comfortable with it. It literally won’t matter how many times you got it wrong anymore. Those false starts aren’t wrong turnings but a part of the path to getting there. And every one is worth it.

So are you aromantic? Maybe. It doesn’t matter right now. If you think it might be helpful to identify that way for a bit. Please, do.

Why We Need the Aspec Community: An Aro Perspective

This is a submission for the February 2019 joint Carnival Of Aros and Carnival of Aces event on the topic of The Relationship Between the Aro and Ace Communities. Find out more here!

I first started to follow the asexual community when I was 16. I spent about a week reading through asexual advice blogs on tumblr and reading every WordPress article on asexuality I could find.

While I very quickly became somewhat of an expert on asexuality, my forays into the aromantic community were slower. There wasn’t as much to read, and I took my time because I was still questioning whether or not I was on the aromantic spectrum. But, eventually I came to identify as aroace and I kept up with the asexual and aroace communities on tumblr. There wasn’t really a specifically aromantic community at that time that I was aware of. I remember people talking a lot about separating the asexual and aromantic communities, which I suppose must have lead to the situation we have now, but to be fair I wasn’t paying that much attention.

Then, a couple of years ago, I joined the fyeahasexual discord server and became more active in the asexual community. This lead to me thinking a lot about being aspec, and the lack of aromantic specific resources, so last year I started my blog, ask-an-aro.tumblr.com. I wanted it to be as specific to aros as possible, and since I no longer identify as asexual, I rarely interact with the asexual community any more.

I’m not completely out of touch with the asexual community, however, since a lot of prominent aromantic resources are joint resources for/about ace and/or aro people. Also, a lot of the aromantic community are aroace or on the asexual spectrum as well as the aromantic one, and I still keep up with some alloromantic ace bloggers who create content I like.

There’s somewhat of an air of hurt and mistrust within the aromantic community towards the asexual one. A lot of aroaces and allo aros are sick of allo aces throwing them under the bus or erasing their existence completely, and aros are constantly having to wade through ace specific resources to find aro ones. I’ve had people tell me that the aromantic community and the asexual community are entirely separate, and I’ve had aspec people who don’t use the SAM (read my article about this here) tell me that that doesn’t work for them. Personally, I don’t see a future for the asexual or the aromantic community existing without each other.

I like to think of the aspec community being an umbrella that encompasses both the asexual community and the aromantic community, as well as those who belong in both and/or don’t really see them as split.

The term aspec is absolutely necessary to me. There’s far too much overlap in the ace and aro communities to separate them completely. In terms of shared language, history, and experiences, but especially in terms of people.

The aspectrum is wide and should be inclusive of anyone who needs it. Those who do and those who do not use the SAM. Aroaces, asexuals, acespecs, aromantics, arospecs. Those who are just one of those things and those who are more than one at once. Those who are questioning if they’re acespec or arospec, or both.

That said, there’s far too much history of aromantic spectrum people being ignored, erased, or denied in asexual places for the ace and aro communities to be seen as one and the same. Aromantics are consistently ignored in asexual and aroace spaces and we need our own community. The aspec community should not replace the ace and aro communities, but co-exist with them.

We could never have come this far without the asexual community. I may never have come across aromanticism if I hadn’t googled asexual one day. A large part of our history is fundamentally intertwined with asexuality and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I will forever be grateful to the asexual people who answered my anon asks and posted blog posts. Who kept telling me over and over again that it was okay to be aromantic until the day I believed it.

I’m thrilled that the aromantic community is coming into its own, and I hope it keeps flourishing. But I’m not annoyed that for the moment we’re inexorably linked with the asexual community as well.