AroAce in the Streets

Being AroAce is more than just a lack of sexual/romantic attraction. Here I explore how my asexuality and demiromanticism interact with my other identities and impact my everyday life

[hartsnkises]

Alan Turing and Ada of Lovelace did not invent computer science for the girls and the gays to claim they can't do math

[aroaceinthestreets]

Happy Pride Month! Time to remind all of your conservative Protestant family members that you actually can't go to hell for being queer in Protestantism and if they believe that, they're actually Catholic.

[papierchen]

Es ist irgendwie so wild, dass ich als asexuelle Person anderen allosexuellen Menschen erstmal erklären muss, was sexual attraction ist, damit sie meine Sexualität verstehen und akzeptieren. Like... ich hab doch selbst keine Ahnung, ich hab das ja nicht, du hast das!

[aroaceinthestreets]

Shout out to the main character of the book I'm reading right now who may or may not be aro/ace while also having insane chemistry with literally everyone he interacts with

[aroaceinthestreets]

Actual conversation from literally the next chapter:

"Hey so were you dating the savior of the known world or did he just want you with him on his deathbed because you were such close friends?"

"Well, it's not what you think, but to answer your question I'm originally from Oklahoma."

[aroaceinthestreets]

And the final count is in! The answer is: So extremely gay we may have wrapped back around to side stepping romance in favor of operating on levels of attractions I didn't even know existed, with a massive side helping of Loving Your Friends.

[aroaceinthestreets]

List of aro and/or asexual things Kai has done so far

Gave a heart pearl to his married friend "for protection" so that they can talk to each other in their heads

Accidentally got entombed with said friend

After agreeing to have kick start a dynasty: "Why would I marry someone?"

Exited marriage conversation so fast

Aforementioned Oklahoma conversation

Side eyed new friend for trying to see if her crush saw the cool thing she did in the middle of an active revolution

Touch starved, but won't tell anyone

I don't know how to explain it, but both conversations he's had with Dahin so far are so aspec friendship coded. Or maybe I'm just projecting because Dahin fascinates me.

Can I sit next to you? *Emphatic yes*

Describes unexpectedly encountering a friend you haven't seen in a while as walking into a dream

[drumlincountry]

Shoutout to Martha Wells for giving Witch King the most ungoogleable name possible

[aroaceinthestreets]

Shout out to the main character of the book I'm reading right now who may or may not be aro/ace while also having insane chemistry with literally everyone he interacts with

[aroaceinthestreets]

Actual conversation from literally the next chapter:

"Hey so were you dating the savior of the known world or did he just want you with him on his deathbed because you were such close friends?"

"Well, it's not what you think, but to answer your question I'm originally from Oklahoma."

[aroaceinthestreets]

Shout out to the main character of the book I'm reading right now who may or may not be aro/ace while also having insane chemistry with literally everyone he interacts with

[kenobi-gen-exchange]

Hello fandom! We would like to announce the 2026 Obi-Wan Kenobi Gen Exchange!

This exchange was created to encourage fanfics and fanart focusing on Obi-Wan Kenobi in a positive way that isn’t dependent upon ships or smut.

When is this happening?

The 2026 schedule is as follows:

Nominations: 16 May - 06 June

Sign-ups: 06 June - 20 June

Assignments sent out: 27 June

Assignments due: 29 August (No fault deadline: 15 Aug.)

Work Reveals: 05 September

Creator Reveals: 12 September

Who can participate?

Since this is hosted on AO3, anyone with a registered account! Need an AO3 account? No problem - just send a message here and one of the moderators will handle invitations.

How can I participate?

The tag set nominations will open on the 16th, and will be open to anyone.

There’s also signing up for a recipient, in which you can request fics from the tag set. Treating, pinch-hitting, and beta reading are options, too!

Where can we find you?

Dreamwidth and Discord, so feel free to drop by! We also track #obkgenex, and will be tagging all update posts accordingly.

[tboyreject]

a lot of conversations surrounding trans men having male privilege made me realize just how Eurocentric and white most people's view of trans people is, because it doesn't take into account so many countries where women are prohibited from pursuing education, refused independency or forced into child marriages.

male privilege does not save transmasculine people from violent misogyny, it is not a get out of jail card, and so the rights of transmasculine bodies are tied to women's rights. and if to gain access to male privilege you first have to be allowed bodily autonomy and then be legally and socially recognized as a man is it really a privilege at all?

[notebeans-galaxy]

it's so much more than white Eurocentrism too. It's completely ahistorical. White European women and trans men were prohibited from pursuing education, refused independence, and forced into child marriages en masse as recently as a century ago. They STILL are. That's just not their only possible fate anymore, so people act like those problems simply don't exist anymore in the US or western Europe.

But they still do! Child marriage is legal in multiple US states. It is for the most part not possible to go to college in the United States under the age of 24 if your parents/legal guardians are still alive and want to prevent you from going; you need to have someone who is willing to either cosign a loan, provide the money outright, or fill out financial aid paperwork to afford education, because no school has a low enough sticker cost to afford out of pocket without state and federal aid, even if you have savings from working in high school. And that aid requires your parent/guardian to fill it out if you are under 24 and do not meet a few very specific exceptions.

Homeschooling is a massive loophole that allows abusive families to completely deny children access to education and the outside world. The requirements to prove kids are actually learning while homeschooled are a joke in most states. There are people today with Tiktok accounts and a social media career who were never taught basic math or science or how to read past a 3rd grade level until they escaped abuse as adults; I'm talking 18 to 25 year olds. This is still happening. People just don't care because it's not 90% of the population anymore. This entire document is about this loophole with a highlight on how withdrawal from school after a social services investigation is strongly correlated with fatal abuse. Homeschooling is the abuse strategy in many religious cults that like denying women access to education.

If you're born into a religious cult like the LDS and you realize you're a transgender man, it doesn't make you more privileged. You've just realized your entire community views what you are as something evil and aberrant. It makes you even more oppressed than you already would be if you were a woman, because now your community doesn't just see you as a woman, it sees you as a deviant woman who is trying to usurp the men you're told to serve. You don't suddenly get resources you didn't have before. You don't suddenly have rights you didn't have before. You don't suddenly get the education you would have been afforded if you'd been a cisgender man. If you try to transition, you lose even more rights, and then you're also seen as evil and weird and a disgusting freak for even asking to be seen for who you truly are. For asking to be seen as a person at all.

This happens here, in the US. It happens outside of cults too. It's easier for people to conceptualize this kind of isolation within something like the Mormon church, the Westboro Baptist church, Jehova's Witnesses, or other similarly high control religious communities. The problem is that this isn't actually limited to religious groups at all. Any culture that is patriarchal, any culture in which men have a kind of power that is not afforded to women, has problems with trans men.

[aroaceinthestreets]

I know that 10 years ago when everyone was yelling at each other about passing privilege it was a mess of mostly unproductive conversations where people were already falsely equating passing privilege and male privilege, but every time I see a post arguing that trans men do or don't experience male privilege I feel like what people want to be talking about is passing privilege.

Because trans men who pass well and are assumed to be cis by the average stranger on the street do experience some privileges usually associated with cis men, that people who are not perceived as cis men do not. That in no way means they have access to all of the privileges that cis men do.

A trans man who passes well may be significantly less likely to get catcalled by a stranger on the street, or be talked over by a male coworker, but is still going to run into discrimination in other areas such as in the medical field or while trying to get names changed on documents.

And because any privileges they do have are dependent on strangers not knowing that they're trans, it would be insane to say that they don't experience transphobia or transmisogyny. If you not being oppressed is conditional on you never talking about or alluding to the reason people want to oppress you, than you're still being oppressed. You shouldn't have to pretend to be someone you're not just to avoid bigots. Trans men shouldn't have to avoid mentioning that they're trans, or even pass at all if they don't want to, to be treated with respect. That aside, passing privilege is not the same as male privilege. There is some overlap but there are a whole host of privileges that cis men experience than trans men don't, as has been thoroughly demonstrated by everyone who's posted on this topic

And all of that is only for the subset of trans men who are socially perceived as cis men. It of course also does not prevent intersections with other oppressed identities- race, sexuality, disability, ect.

[from-and-for-nerds]

idk if this is anything but i think a lot about how Riz must've felt in freshman year when the Bad Kids were laughing at Johnny Spells for not having sex.

ik that the whole joke was about how it was so against his vibe and that he wanted it but couldnt which is definitely not Riz's situation but i do wonder if, when coming to terms with his asexuality, he thought about how his friends teased and humiliated Johnny and if he was gonna be subject of those same jokes.

[specialagentartemis]

Aro and ace activism is housing reform, is well-funded public housing, is an expansion of affordable housing, is allowing single people to get affordable and public housing, is rent controls to make it possible for single people to be able to afford to live alone on a single salary.

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

Aro and ace activism means a better world for people without “normative” desires or “normative” social support, which means a better world for everybody

[guerrillatech]

[sew-birb]

My friend takes this one step further and refers completely accurately to his girlfriend Danielle as "My partner, Dan"

[charismat1c-megafauna]

Also i hate to say it but for some people, boyfriend/girlfriend feels a bit juvenile, say, if youre over 30, or perhaps youve been with someone for a very long time and are committed life partners but not married for whatever reason. Maybe husband/wife feels a little watered down to you and you want to establish the equal nature of your relationship.

Partner is a wonderful word and it should be normalized.

[caitas-cooing]

Also makes you sound like a cowboy which is cool I think

[aroaceinthestreets]

Howdy... pardner?

[arroscnleche]

just saw a video of someone talking about how their girlfriend broke up with them and half the comments are shaming them because the girlfriend in question made sure they had a nice day before the breakup and I'M LITERALLY GOING TO LOSE IT. if you're honest and don't do anything before the breakup, you're heartless and brutal and so evil, but if you're not you're leading your partner/s on and ruining things for them??? ¡¡¡just tell me you'd rather someone be in a relationship they don't want than single instead of making up shit excuses carajo!!! 😭

[aroaceinthestreets]

When I broke up with my boyfriend I googled how to let someone down easy and the most helpful advice I found was a blog that said, when you say you want to let someone down easy, what you mean is that you want to break up with them in a way that doesn't hurt them, and that is not possible. Break ups hurt. They just do.

In the best possible scenario you're telling someone who is invested being in a relationship with you that they can't have this thing that is important to them that they've staked a piece of their self worth on.

I think a lot of people can't/haven't accepted that. They feel that if you "really" loved me you wouldn't hurt me. They want there to be a magical way to end a relationship where there are zero hard feelings and no bruised egos and the other person is actually happy you broke up with them. The sad truth is that that break up doesn't exist. If you break up with someone the other person will be hurt. They just will. That doesn't mean your doing the wrong thing.

[theaspecyear]

People need to understand that the point ISN’T “being single is not a failure if you’re aromantic”, the point is being single is not a failure full stop.

You can be allo and be single; it’s allowed. You feeling attraction doesn’t mean your priority NEEDS to be finding romance (it can be! But it also can not).

Being single should be normalized no matter what your romantic/sexual orientation is. It isn’t a tragedy.

[vulpinesaint]

everyone wants to headcanon the aro character in a romantic relationship but nobody wants to headcanon the character in a romantic relationship as aro. except me. because my eyes have been opened to the truth

[thestuffedalligator]

I think that we should be grateful that, as far as I can tell, The Flintstones Christmas Carol is the only adaptation of Christmas Carol that featured Scrooge reconciling with Belle. I think we should be grateful that almost every adaptation takes the book’s stance of, “Scrooge never found romantic love again, but it didn’t matter; his life was made all the richer by the love of his family, the love of his friends, and the kindness he showed to the people around him” instead of the coward’s route of “And because he liked Christmas again he got the ultimate reward: pussy.”

And it sounds ridiculous to even say, but I have seen what Hollywood has done to Dracula. I have seen what Hollywood has done to The Island of Doctor Moreau. All it would take is one hack director’s adaptation of Christmas Carol in the ‘30s or ‘40s where Scrooge’s redemption was marked with romantic love, and that’s what Christmas Carol would be about in pop culture for the next hundred years. The Scrooge Fucks timeline is separated from ours by a layer as thin as an onion skin.