in constant need of validation

this is a vent blog about avpd. oh also i’m arospec. these two parts of me interact in weird ways jsyk

[arovoidant]

like. this isn’t an ~aesthetic~ blog. this is the personal vent & mental illness blog of a trans & nonbinary person. r@dfem rhetoric is overly simplistic, hateful, right-wing, and it kills. TERFs, SWERFs, and other flavors of radfem are not welcome here.

[another-avpd-blog]

Hanging out with my friends??? The same thing that killed Jesus???

[clown-guitar]

[no beers in] do you think im ever going to belong somewhere

[avpdculture]

avpd culture is really loving a thing and finding unfair criticism of that thing so hurtful that you try to avoid seeing what anyone has to say about that thing, even if it's positive, because what if you get hurt somehow? and why do you care so much?

~

[arovoidant]

not even a year since my cat passed and now my parents’ other cat is showing concerning signs of heart issues. literally he is scheduled to see the veterinary cardiologist on the anniversary of her death. i can’t fucking deal with this.

[avpdculture]

avpd culture is despising expectations because i am nothing!!!!!!!! stop relying on me because it makes me lose my sense of self even further!!!!!!!!!!

~

[bardace]

Shut Up, I Don’t Care

[lawbreaker13]

Oh I hate this so much, incredible job OP

[avpdculture]

avpd culture is being too petrified at the notion of telling other people your boundaries or when things they do annoy you and as such resenting them increasingly more until you eventually blow up at them, ruining the friendship in the process

~

[xyl0n-z0mb1e]

They day people learn that autism doesn't cancel out personality disorders and stop thinking that any autistic person also diagnosed with bpd has been misdiagnosed, will be the day I feel a bit more at ease with the universe

[subaru-copilot]

looks inside procrastination -> it's anxiety -> looks inside anxiety -> it's fear -> looks inside fear -> it's shame

[teaboot]

Surely these circumstances will improve with additional shame

[rig0rm0rtiss]

me and my bestie

[avpdculture]

AvPD culture is thinking you’re completely fine and normal until you’re put in a space with other people and suddenly all the symptoms that you thought ‘went away on its own’ come back tenfold to bite you.

~

[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

[alloaroworlds]

Seeing one of my "a creative thing featuring the allosexual aromantic pride flag" posts tagged as "asexual" in the reblogs has reminded me why I should go back to never checking the comments.

It feels like a metaphorical gut punch.

I know, I know--I don't get to dictate someone else's tagging system. I should be grateful that anyone bothers to reblog a post I made. Checking the OP's tags before reblogging is too much effort to ask of anyone. It's inconsequential compared to the more pressing concerns of amatonormativity (or any shape of queer antagonism). It's a pretty online problem, not worth complaining about, so suck it up.

None of that changes the fact that this is erasure.

It's erasure of everyone who identifies with said flag as an expression of pride in our identity.

While this may not be intended, the above arguments frame the truth of our identity as less important than someone else's tags, time and consideration.

There are no vagaries in this case, no reasonable space for misinterpretation. Just a flag that is not representative of an asexual-spectrum identity any more than the ace flag is meant to represent agender folks or Australians. Nor is this unusual; it happens, repeatedly, to most allosexual aro crafters, artists, writers and bloggers.

While I know that folks have scant patience for discussions about things that scan as "petty", it'd be nice, in this week of heightened aromanticism, if you could think about why we can't overlook it.

Aromantic spectrum awareness isn't just about posting cutesy pride content (speaking as a proud purveyor of said content). It's about trying to make a world in which we can more easily and less painfully exist. A world in which we are visible to others as the kind of aro we are; in which we are respected by others as the kind of aro we are.

I need to be respected as the kind of aro that is also allosexual.

As an autistic aro, I'm not regarded as allosexual in the same way that many alloromantic and allosexual neurotypicals take for granted. I'm assumed too innocent for sex and other behaviours Western society associates with adulthood; as an aromantic who cannot be slotted into those relationship norms we also associate with adulthood, allo neurotypicals find it easy to strip me wholesale of any sexual identity. Not adult, not allosexual; just something child-adjacent and therefore disallowed any seemingly-conflicting behaviours.

When I say that I am allosexual, I am saying that I exist as a complex being in defiance of social norms (and ableism).

So is every other aro who does so, because allosexuality and aromanticism together defy those same relationship norms. We are oversexualised and desexualised, sometimes even simultaneously. We are cast as predators upon alloromantic allosexuals. Depending on the culture of a space or community, either our allosexuality or aromanticism must be sacrificed (silenced) for admission. Our experiences differ, but we together voice a fraught, hard-fought-for identity many societies and communities would prefer to not exist.

When someone labels us as asexual because we are aromantic, our struggle to exist as allosexual and aromantic gets swept away. It may be a mistake, or a tagging system in which "ace" stands for "the a-spectrum", but it happens far too frequently not to feel like yet another incidence in denying us our allosexuality.

It's an act that strips from us our authority: no, you make more sense to me when you're classed as asexual.

History tells us what it means to miscategorise the identity of a minority group fighting for acknowledgement and respect.

So why is it less harmful when it happens online?

Yes, I want a world in which long-term partnership isn't a requisite for affordable housing. I want a world in which marriage isn't the mechanism by which many disabled adults receive (still undersupported and underfunded) care. I want a world in which more people know the word "amatonormativity" and I don't have to fear old age as a non-partnering aromantic. I care about the bigger issues!

I also want a world in which I'm not erased on a post I created to display my pride in being allosexual and aromantic.

I want to be respected as an allosexual aro.

Is this really so big a thing to ask?

[shiftofgallifrey]

You people are normal right. If I learn how to be a person from you it would be fine right

[lerios]

tumblr users perfec t people for put friendship in to lea\rn! tumblr community very Normal and Informative learn safely put Shift in tumblr. put Shift In tumblr. no strangeness ever in tumblr users because good social skills and linguistic conventions for Shift brain full with big human interpersonal interactions. a tumblr yes a place for a Shift put Shift in tumblr can trust tumblr for giveing good social skills to Shift. friend tumblr users

[mentallyunstablebaddie]

Me: isolates myself, pushes people away, makes myself even more dry and uninteresting than i already am and avoids taking to people like the plague

Also me when people dont talk to me:

[heartless-aro]

One of my least favorite responses to discussions about arophobia in fiction is “That character isn’t aromantic though! They’re just a psychopath/sociopath/narcissist/[insert relevant stigmatized disorder here]”. Being aromantic and having a personality disorder — including ASPD or NPD — are not mutually exclusive. The trope of “This person doesn’t feel love, therefore they are evil” doesn’t stop being arophobic the moment it’s directed towards a character with a personality disorder (yes, even if they have one of the “scary” personality disorders). Ableism and arophobia often intersect in this way, and that doesn’t make the arophobia any less arophobic