Iris in Rivendell

Call me Elian (they/them). Very ace, very aro, and very happy to be me. This was supposed to be a Tolkien sideblog but instead it's turned into a collection of aroace feels. Still posting occasional Tolkien content though.

[alcestas-sloboda]

a genuine question: does anyone apart from Ukrainians themselves and people from Eastern Europe still care?

do we still need to spend time translating texts about russian war crimes and historical pretext for the invasion? or are we doing it just for ourselves?

[everyones-story]

i love being arospec i love aromanticism it is the best thing in the world nothing is better than being on the aromantic spectrum

[orientedaroace-culture-is]

Wrong/joke answers only, why are you aromantic/arospec?

[gay-jesus-probably]

i refuse to date anyone that’s not in my league, so my standards are too high for anyone to meet

[noble-moon]

I’m always a little curious how people (trans or otherwise) come up with their own names because sometimes it holds special meaning or you’re like me and saw it on a license plate and were like ‘yeah that works’

[noble-moon]

Tag the source/meaning of your self given name if you want

[what-even-is-thiss]

The middle name I liked it when I found it on a list and the first name was the masculine variant of my birth name so if you too just picked the opposite of your birth name you’re valid

[aspecjournal]

❃❃❃ ASPEC JOURNAL: History And Mythology  ❃❃❃

Open For Preorders!

ASPEC JOURNAL is a charity LGBT+ art and literature zine, created by asexual/aromantic people and dedicated to the aspec community.

This issue contains 40 pages of content, exploring the history of asexuality and aromanticism throughout human history. Featuring; ancient Sumerian aspecs, real-life figures like J.M. Barrie and Florence Nightingale, Disney princesses re-imagined as aspec icons, this issue of ASPEC JOURNAL wants to celebrate the history, lore, and future of the aspec community.

Preorders will be open January 1st - March 12th.

Check us out here!

Preorder bonus: if we reach 150 orders, a brand new ‘aspec princesses’ sticker sheet is unlocked!

All profits will be donated to the National Center For Transgender Equality, a USA-based nonprofit activist organization dedicated to policy advocacy and media activism.

[dorkbunny]

Hello hoomins!

This is little gay bunny. He’s here to give all LGBTQ+ individuals a hug, a snuggle, and a little bunny kiss! (And we all know that bunny kisses are the best.)

Little gay bunny sends his love to every LGBTQ+ person out there! Gay, lesbian, bi, pan, poly, omni, demi, ace, aro, trans, non-binary, whoever you are and whatever you are…he loves you all! And he also sends his love to allies, too, to say thank you for supporting us!

Little gay bunny stands tall and proud for all of his LGBTQ+ friends! He is here to give you lots of luck. Whether you reblog this or like this or not…heck, whether you even see this post or not, little gay bunny gives you good luck!

Have a beautiful day, you beautiful hoomins!

Sincerely,

Little Gay Bunny (aka Cheerio)

[acespec-ed]

Romantic Attraction: A Checklist

Way too often I see people wondering if they’re feeling romantic attraction or something else. So I decided to make a checklist based off my own experiences. 

For the average person, aesthetic, sensual, and/or sexual attraction are intertwined with romantic, but I left out all the parts that could fall under other forms of attraction. (Example: many people feel urges to cuddle their crush. But cuddling falls under sensual attraction, so you can want to cuddle someone without being romantically attracted to them.)  Hopefully leaving stuff like that out will help distinguish romantic from something else. But I don’t think I’ve ever experienced platonic attraction so there’s a slight possibility some of these could fall under that too and I just don’t know it.

Like I said, this is based off my own experiences as a heteroromantic, ace woman. Others may experience differently. This is only a guide.

That aside…

You might be romantically attracted to that person if…

- You think about them often. (If it’s major, you may even lose sleep.)

- Whenever you hear a love song, your mind jumps straight to them.

- When consuming romantic media, you imagine the couple as you and that person without meaning to. 

- You “yearn” for them. Imagine something you’ve always wanted, but weren’t able to get. Maybe it was a video game, or a trip to Hawaii, or a dog or whatever. You really really really wanted it, but couldn’t have it for whatever reason. Or maybe someone was eating your favorite food while you’re starving, but there wasn’t any for you so you had to sit there and watch. Multiply that “want” feeling by 3. That’s how you feel about them.

- You feel nervous interacting with them. The same sort of nervousness you’d feel at a job interview, except you don’t need to feign enthusiasm when talking to them. (If anything, you need to stifle that enthusiasm.)

- You get self conscious of everything from your appearance to the way you say “hello.” If you’re more anxiety-prone like I am, you’ll spend a good amount of time worrying that you said something weird and now they probably think you’re a weirdo which is just, BAD!

- You lose your breath when you see them unexpectedly. You may even have to fight back an excitable gasp. Imagine someone surprises you with something you’ve always wanted. It’s like that, though you may also notice your pupils dilating like when you leave a movie theater. This will improve your mood. Doubly so if they acknowledge your existence.

- Your knees get weak. You feel a pull in your chest (again, yearning). You have to force back a goofy smile around them to not appear “obvious.” (If this is happening during COVID times, you will be very grateful for mask mandates, let me tell you.)

- You feel this strange… tension in the air when you interact with them. It’s not a bad kind of tension, but it’s there. You wonder if they feel it too.

- You know how in Disney Channel sitcoms or whatever, where the girl has a crush on a boy, and she and her friends get all jumpy and screamy whenever the boy so much as smiles at her? That’s a big Mood whenever I have a major crush.

- That dopey look cartoon characters get whenever they see the object of their affection? Also a big Mood for me.

- You’re willing to do almost anything (within reason) for them. You’ll go out of your way to help them. If they ask you for a favor, you’ll do it, even if it’s something you normally wouldn’t do for someone. 

- Hell, you’ll go out of your way just to look at them!

- You think about a future with them, mainly as a married couple. You might even wonder what kind of parent they would be. What your children will look like. Even if you don’t want to get married or have kids irl, the thoughts may plague your mind anyway. You wonder what your family will think of them. You wonder what their family is like as well.

- If you’re blessed enough to find their social media profile(s), you’ll find yourself scrolling through posts from 3 years ago. Accidentally clicking “like” on one of them is the stuff of nightmares.

- You have fantasies where they rescue you from perilous situations and/or vice versa. This can range from giving them a ride home after their car breaks down to the full blown “princess locked in a tower guarded by dragons” trope.

- Speaking of tropes, I want you to think about every romance trope you can. If it’s romantic attraction, you will find some of those to be good fantasy material. You will naturally imagine you two in many of the scenarios, no forcing required.

- If you have to force any ~romantic~ fantasies, it’s probably not romantic attraction. The fantasies will come to you whether you want them or not. But you don’t mind all that much because, free dopamine. (Might be different if you’re romance-repulsed/averse.)

Hopefully this helps someone out there!

[fluttershyplushie]

honestly the boundaries between friendship and romance don’t really matter that much like at all if everyone involved is ok with it

[fluttershyplushie]

like most of what is and isn’t romance is cultural/constructed anyways... you can take and leave what you want with it as long as you maintain boundaries. does that make sense

[cipheramnesia]

Maybe if you just transed your gender you'd calm down.

[cipheramnesia]

trans people keep winning

[yardsards]

when my friend came out as transmasc, i was outwardly supportive (or, at least as outwardly supportive as a 12 year old raised in podunk nowhere surrounded by evangelical republicans could be)

but internally i was like "EVERY girl wishes they were a boy. they're just trying to make themself feel special over a universal experience"

nope, turns out i was just an egg

(there was also a middle period between then and the egg cracking where i thought "okay every girl DOES want to be a guy, but the way he feels like a guy is just *different* from that. he is valid and i am still totally cis.")

[cipheramnesia]

One of my favorite notes, because this is like a near universal trans experience and a nice example of how much is shared across different trans people.

[roach-works]

i've said it a few times but when i was a teenager and i first found out about trans women i was absolutely fucking floored because

a) i didn't know anyone could just DISAGREE with what they were told their gender was! i didn't know that was an option!

b) i didn't know why anyone would ever pick being a girl if they didn't have to

anyway i defended trans women very fiercely for years because i was so astounded by their strength and bravery in being a girl on purpose and it turns out i'm a trans man now because you can also just quit being a girl if you don't like it

it's fun to suggest this to terfs and watch them scramble for reasons why you can't just quit being a girl, no matter how much you hate it, and also why no one should be able to opt into being a girl either, because it sucks so badly that only the girls who were born in that godawful condition can really understand what it means to have to be a girl or else.

anyway, real winners quit. if you don't like your gender go get a new one, there's plenty for everyone.

[dreamwaffles]

paradoxically, when I decided that I didn’t want to gender anymore (I’m a they thanks) I became a lot more okay with people perceiving me as one gender or another.

maybe because they can do what they want and have wrong thoughts about me if they feel like it, but I have stopped! no more gender for me! I’m done thanks.

[imladiris]

Sometimes, as an aro, I find it reassuring to remind myself that all the "issues" allos claim can be "fixed" with a romantic relationship can be worked on in other ways, too*. Fear of putting myself out there? I can overcome that by taking classes in something I've never tried before, or by travelling alone, or by submitting my writing to a publication. Fear of being emotionally vulnerable? I can explore that with a close friend, or by journalling, or in therapy. Fear of commitment? I can challenge myself by accepting a long-term work contract, or by adopting a pet, or by starting a complex art project. And so on.

There's no such thing as a problem that only romance can solve. Self-growth happens in the relationships, hobbies and practises that are most significant to us and that we are most willing to invest in, not in those that society dictates should be significant.

*This isn't to say that all these "issues" are necessarily bad and should be "fixed", either.

[trupowieszcz-moved-deactivated2]

people talk about gay coding villains all the time but never about aro coding villains and it’s honestly everywhere it’s like “oh this terrible guy cannot feel love and it makes them a horrible person”

[trupowieszcz-moved-deactivated2]

and before someone tries to debunk this with “oh but theyre not actually aro theyre cant feel any kind of love theyre a psychopath” that’s like saying buffallo bill from silence of the lambs isnt a transphobic caricature because he’s not actually a trans woman

[bananonbinary]

also. “No don’t worry, this isn’t arophobic, it’s just saying mentally ill/neurodivergent people are monsters.” is NOT the argument you think it is. like yall understand why that isn’t better, right?

in addition to just being blatant ableism, it’s entirely ignoring that queerphobic stereotypes go hand in hand with ableist ones, because being gay/trans/aspec/etc is pathologized. “they have this orientation because they’re mentally ill, and mentally ill people are terrible” isn’t refuting anything, it’s literally the thing the creators were going for. the response to being grouped in with another minority shouldn’t be “oh i see, you meant to pick on them, not me, carry on.”

Acting like the presence of ableist stereotypes somehow precludes the presence of queerphobic ones is shitty to literally everyone involved.

[raavenb2619]

the response to being grouped in with another minority shouldn’t be “oh i see, you meant to pick on them, not me, carry on.”

[tired-fandom-ndn]

I have a major soft spot for queerplatonic rships where at least one party is actually able to be attracted to the other. Queerplatonic ships where it's not "I would be in love with you if I was allo/gay/straight/bi/etc" but instead "I could be in love with you but I'm not because that's not the right relationship for either us and we're unbelievably happy with what we have."

Queerplatonic relationships are always treated as second string to romantic relationships, with an implication of "this relationship would be romantic if it could be", and that sucks. They're their own relationship, completely distinct from romance, and deserve to be treated as such.

[azeroundivided]

Coining something I'm calling the isolated aspec conundrum

[azeroundivided]

"Is this an attraction or have I been so deprived of healthy social interaction that any positive actions towards me makes my brain go fucking haywire"

[edgebug]

“how can you be intimate with someone if you’re aromantic??”

sharing secrets, trusting them with your life, telling them about that stupid thing you did when you were 14 and haven’t told anyone else since, being there for them any time day or night, talking til three in the morning, letting yourself cry around them, sharing grief, sharing joy, getting excited about the things they’re excited about just because you love to see them so happy about something

[dissociacetion]

an aro positivity post 😭😭😭 that lists ways to be intimate with someone 😭😭😭 that doesn’t alienate the touch averse 😭😭😭 and people with no/low empathy 😭😭😭

[kidrat]

honestly another reason i don’t like the whole ‘some asexuals have sex! / some aros date!’ Thing being so emphasised, apart from the fact it paints those aspecs as the default and allows allos to erase our orientations because in their mind well, we’ll sleep with/date them anyway, is that even for aces and aros who Do have sex/date despite being ace or aro, we’re not going to approach those things the same way allos are.

an aro who dates isn’t just a quote unquote normal person in a relationship who happens not to experience attraction. they’ll likely have conditions to being in a relationship, specific boundaries, different needs and goals etc. because aspec identities you know… actually effect outward action. because Funny That, Queer People Have Rich Inner Lives That Influence Our Behaviour (this all links back to people seeing aspec identity as an absence rather than a specific tangible experience but anyway)

like I’d rather that when allos think of those of us who do actually ‘do’ whatever, they think of individuals with different mindsets than themselves who they need to not assume anything of, rather than the mythical ace/aro whose orientation they can disregard because they’ll act exactly like the allo. not least because if one of these idiots does sleep with an asexual and discover that surprise! they’re not looking to get the same things out of it as the allosexuals you’ve slept with and saw the experience differently to you even though they did enjoy it! …the aspec party is likely to be blamed for that ‘misunderstanding’ even if they explained the situation perfectly well beforehand. 

[no-passaran]

I haven’t seen anyone talk about it on Tumblr yet but in Mexico they’re doing a huge step forward against conversion therapy for asexual people

5 Mexican ace people are suing Mexico’s health system for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness and for having forced them into conversion therapy which had the objective of turning ace people into allosexual (meaning non-asexual) people.

Translation:

Tweet by the organization Colectivo PTF Yucatán (Collective for the protection of all families in Yucatán): “📢 From the Colectivo Para la Protección de Todas las Familias en Yucatán, we will accompany 5 asexual people from the state [of Yucatán] in their recurso de amparo [a writ to protect the constitutional rights of a person] against the Mexican Secretary of Health and other authorities for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness. #NothingToCure 🖤💟💜 [hearts in the colours of the asexuality flag]

Translation:

ASEXUAL PEOPLE SUE THE [MEXICAN] HEALTH SYSTEM FOR THE CONVERSION THERAPY

Five asexual people from Yucatán have presented a writ of amparo against the federal Secretary of Health and other authorities of the National Health System for cataloguing asexuality as a psychiatric illness. They demand the protocols and internal practises be modified, as well as allowing healthcare, specially the psychiatric services, to access the right to healthcare without discrimination.

Asexuality is an orientation characterised for not feeling sexual attraction towards anyone or the lack of interest in sexual relations. It’s calculated that at least 1% of the population is asexual. This will be the first time that a writ of amparo is presented to defend the rights of asexual people in Mexico.

From the Collective for the Protection of All Families in Yucatán we accompany this law suit in which the plaintiff resorted to the Federal Justice after the federal authorities confirmed to them that asexuality is understood as a psychiatric problem under the National Healthcare System’s framework.

According to the Secretary of Health staff, if a person states that they don’t have sexual attraction towards anyone, first of all studies are done on this person to identify if [their asexuality] has a physiological origin. Once this option is ruled out, they [asexual people] are channelled to the psychiatry staff for therapy. This practise is in fact a conversion therapy, given that it seeks to cure people whose orientation is asexual. The healthcare authorities do not contemplate in their protocols the distinction between asexuality and physiological alterations.

The demand was admitted last Friday [July 16th 2021] in the Third District Court in Yucatán, who will resolve the matter.

[imladiris]

Hey, aros and aces who keep doubting your orientation and wondering if you’re “really” aro/ace, or aro/ace enough:

That’s exactly what society wants you to do.

More specifically, it’s the result of a society in which being cisgender, straight, alloromantic and allosexual isn’t just the default expectation of what we should be - it’s considered the best thing to be. So if there’s even the slightest chance that we might be cishetallo, we should jump on it - because how can we be happy and fulfilled as an aro/ace (or any other flavour of queer, for that matter), that is, as something less good? We shouldn’t want to be this way. We should keep hoping, keep seeking out signs that we’re not.

So many of us internalise this reasoning, often without realising it, and end up ourselves asking again and again: “What if I’m just repressing my true feelings?” “What if I’m a late bloomer?” “What if I’ve experienced attraction but I didn’t recognise it?” “What if I’m not acespec enough because I’ve felt sexual attraction before?” “What if I’m not a valid aro because I’m romance favourable?” All that questioning is society speaking, trying to force us into its mould by grasping at every last straw, every tiny possibility that we might not be this terrible, tragic thing - a person who isn’t cishetallo.

All too often, we try to deal with it through justifications. We read descriptions of attraction to reassure ourselves that we don’t relate, we insist we’re old enough that we would’ve experienced it by now, and so on. But here’s a thought: by doing this, we’re still playing into the same harmful reasoning, because we’re taking cishetallo experiences as the default, and treating being aro/ace like a last-resort identity that can only be claimed once we’ve excluded all other options. In other words, we’re not proving that we’re aro/ace. We’re proving that we’re allowed to call ourselves not cishetallo. (And even then, it’s flimsy, because how can we prove a negative?)

So here’s a tip, based on my own experiences: reverse the questions. Don’t ask yourself: “What if I’m not really aro/ace?” Try asking yourself: “What if I am?” Because what if you are, huh? What if the term brings you a useful lens to view your experiences through? What if it makes you feel understood? What if it helps you communicate your needs to potential partners? What if it gives you the knowledge and strength to seek out the life you find most fulfilling?

What your experiences are no better, no worse than anyone else’s, but equally valuable? What if it’s enough to be aro/ace?