On “ownership” of the term queerplatonic relationships
Contents: the origin of queerplatonic, the controversy of QPR as ace vs aro term, what do we take from this
The term queerplatonic relationship seems to have originated here, in comments on a journal entry titled “A/romanticism” (make of this what you will in terms of it being coined as a term relating to aromanticism or asexuality). Context: the OP, Kaz, is a well-known ace blogger posting on their dreamwidth journal. OP didn’t make up the word itself - that was Meloukhia in the comments, but Kaz gives the word some meaning too. Okay, let’s dive in:
Kaz in this “A/romanticism” post mentions experiences of feelings that “didn’t really fit in with most people’s perceptions of friendship, and [were] furthermore pretty damn different from the desires that I’d seen other aromantic people express (which tended to involve a lot of stuff like being independent and living on your own)”. Kaz goes on to say “And, well, what the hell was romantic attraction anyway? I’m still looking for an answer to this question, by the way.”, “recently I’ve met a lot of ace people iding as aromantic who have expressed desires similar to mine - they want a BFF who’s also their life partner, they might want to live together with this person, they might want to raise kids together. I think some of them even mentioned a gender preference. I’m starting to realise I may have let myself be driven away from aromantic based on the fact that the other aromantic people I was seeing seemed very different from me and I assumed that theirs was the “right” way to do aromanticism. But surely aromantic can entail different things.”, “Under this kind of thinking, I am definitely aromantic - I lack romantic attraction. (I sort of deduce this by the fact that it’s only really aromantic people who I’ve seen asking the “but what the hell IS it anyway?!” questions; romantic people seem to know.) I’ve got something else, but that’s not the question.”, “more and more I feel like the whole concept of a romantic orientation is asking me to define myself in terms of boxes that just don’t apply - hence my constant back-and-forth not feeling comfortable with any of the options ending with me making my very own - that asking me “so what’s your romantic orientation?” is simply the wrong question.”. The entry is not tagged and the word queerplatonic isn’t mentioned in its body.
In comments, someone mentions “romantic friendship” as a term Kaz may be looking for to describe their relationship, to which the reply is “b) the focus on the relationship being nonsexual instead of nonromantic makes me wonder if it couldn’t end up being used to refer to asexual romantic relationships which makes me kind of unhappy”. It’s Meloukhia that comments “Although I kind of like queerplatonic as a definer for the attraction I feel to my zucchini; it neatly avoids discussing the gender of either party involved, while emphasizing the idea that it is a deep (almost symbiotic in some ways) emotional connection that transcends what I think of as friendship.” to which Kaz replies “Oh my I liiiike queerplatonic. I think I’ve mentioned before that one of the options I play with is “having a queer romantic orientation” - I really *like* this because I think “queer” works really well for these sorts of “YOUR BOXES, THEY ARE INSUFFICIENT” relationships” and “I think “queerplatonic” sort of evades [reinforcing the idea that heteroromantic aces can’t be queer] because it’s clear it’s about queering platonic relationships”.
This whole conversation is taking place between asexual people, one of them definitely aromantic, the other either greyromantic/aromantic/not making sense of applying the terms to themself, in an ace-focused space, though the topic of the exchange is that of romantic orientation and non-romantic relationships.
Meloukhia later introduces the term queerplatonic on their website and the introduction is preceded by “Asexuality has its own language and terminology, which it would behoove you a bit to explore if you are interested in engaging with the asexual community and understanding what we say and what we are talking about.” It’s where the definition is as following:
Queerplatonic is a word for describing relationships where an intense emotional connection transcending what people usually think of as ‘friendship’ is present, but the relationship is not romantic in nature; people in a queerplatonic relationship may think of themselves as partners, may have sex, may plan on spending their lives together, etc. The ‘queer’ is a reference to the idea of queering relationships and ideas about relationships, not for describing the orientations or genders of anyone in a queerplatonic relationship. Anyone, sexual or asexual, romantic or aromantic, straight, gay, queer, bi, lesbian, poly, cis, trans, etc etc can be in a queerplatonic relationship, can have more than one such relationship, and there can be more than two people in a queerplatonic relationship; couples, triads, quads, whatever. The key feature is the idea of being deeply connected to someone, without a romantic element (though a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual).
I also want to note that there are many different kinds of queerplatonic relationships; we’ve been jokingly referring to them with different vegetables (‘she’s my zucchini,’ ‘I definitely think of ou as my eggplant’ etc.). The point is that this is an umbrella term that encompasses many different types of relationship, rather than being rigid; it’s fluid!
This definition is also used by Meloukhia as s.e. smith (if I correctly deduced they’re one person - I’m not 100% sure about it) on a tumblr blog, preceded by an introduction “An outgrowth of a conversation about aromantic orientations, and the desire to be able to define relationships that are not romantic, that are also not friendships, and that play an important role in your life.”
The post that I’m writing is a direct consequence of the ongoing controversy in whether the term “queerplatonic” originated in asexual or aromantic communities and therefore if it’s an asexual or aromantic term. (Spoiler: I’m not sure if the place where it was coined should translate 1:1 to which community’s term it is.)
The argument for the asexual side is such: Back in 2010 the ace community was most of what there was for aspec identities. Early aromantic communities were too weak to survive or unfriendly and those bloggers who coined the term didn’t participate in them. The bloggers mostly identified as asexual, so this is an asexual term.
The argument for the aromantic side is such: This is clearly a discussion about romantic identity, lack of romantic attraction and relationships that are non-romantic. Considering this, even if it was taking place as an extension of asexual discussions, the term is an aromantic one.
Anyway, make of this what you will, though I’m going to tell you my opinion if you’re interested in reading it.
I think that it’s important not to forget that the talk about it was between bloggers who were mostly participating in asexual spaces. We have to consider the situation at the time though. There were virtually no aromantic communities, but the conversation was (to me clearly) dealing with aromantic spectrum experiences. I think the important things to establish there are: a) how did the situation change between then and now with aro communities now existing, b) is it the origin that makes QPR an “ace” or “aro” term, c) is it the meaning of QPR that makes the word an “aro” or “ace” term? ( There’s also d) what about people who don’t treat their romantic and sexual orientations as separate?, that honestly I have no idea what to do with…)
How did the situation change? Well, aromanticism is no longer only talked about in ace spaces or thought about as a subset of asexuality and there are aromantic communities now. At the time the term was coined, aromantic topics were brought up mostly in asexual spaces and it could have been thought of as a specific categorization within the asexual identity. Right now we’re seeing separation of aro and ace spaces, which are thought of as more distinct and independent identities.
The origin - a conversation between people who treated queerplatonic as an asexual word because they were asexual, and aromantic communities didn’t really exist outside of asexual ones - would point to it being an asexual word.
Taking into account how aromantic is treated as a separate identity now and the fact that queerplatonic relationships were meant to be specifically non-romantic, it could be considered an aro word. Say if a term related to being wsw/wlw originated in a conversation of two aromantic-identifying individuals, would it be a wsw/wlw term or aro term? This example is obviously not identical, because aromantic and wsw/wlw communities were never treated as one community, but I hope illustrates my point on how this debate changes when aromanticism is not an extension of asexuality.
Anyway, here are the things to consider when you’re arguing whether it’s an ace or aro term. Personally I believe it’s not as easy as saying it’s either of those things. I think it’s important to include the ace history of the word but also the fact it was discussed in relation to aromanticism, now a separate identity.
What do we take from this? Hopefully more willingness not to erase the historical context of the creation of the word (by people who meant it to be an ace term), hopefully more recognition that in the new reality, since it’s defining non-romantic relationships in context of discussion about aromanticism, it can be treated as an aro term. See, on one hand I understand - it wasn’t coined by people who meant for it to be an aromantic term (aromantic as a separate identity didn’t exist). On the other hand though I don’t understand the unwillingness to admit the word is (and always has been) thematically part of the aromantic spectrum side of the aspec discussions.
What it should translate to functionally? I think some phrases may be helpful to illustrate.
NO: Queerplatonic relationship is an ace term!
NO: Queerplatonic was coined by aros!
YES: Queerplatonic is an aspec term. Aspec means asexual and aromantic.
YES: Queerplatonic was coined back when aromanticism wasn’t a separate identity from asexuality by asexual aro-specs and was intended as an asexual term. However thematically it is related to aromantic experiences.
Edit: a slightly different perspective on the origin of qpr, including a more nuanced conversation about qprs being about romantic attraction/lack of it not applying as a concept, sparked by similar brain worms can be seen here: https://theacetheist.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/queerplatonic-is-not-an-aro-term/
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