No Romo Zone

just a space for arospec things run by your friendly neighbourhood loveflux aroallo

[slowlyshytheorist]

My good people, I give you: Amatonormativity.

[frogsdocrimes]

[ID: a series of images of a person with light skin and short hair, gesturing and speaking into a microphone. captions in the images read:

You and this perfect person who you’ve never met before, to come out of nowhere, fit your life perfectly, complete you and make you whole for the first time in your life, much like your mother did for me.”

And even though what he said sounds sweet or whatever, what it manifested in my seven-year-old brain was this, “If you are not with someone, you are broken. If you are not with someone, you are incomplete. If you are not with someone, you are not whole.”

And that’s not just something my dad made me feel, that’s something that we as a society have made every single child born in the last 40 years feel. Every Disney princess has a prince, every prince has a princess, every television show or movie always has a character in it that doesn’t want to be in a relationship. They’re happy with who they are. But then by the end of the series, guess what. They were wrong! They were wrong for wanting to be alone, what a fucking idiot. Everyone needs someone, yeah. It’s all to do with love.

And when you raise children in that world, where everything points towards love, when you’ve raised them for 18 fucking years, when we become an adult for the first time in our late teens and our early 20s, we’re so terrified. We’re so trying to be an adult that some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece, and just fucking jam them into our jigsaws anyway, denying that they clearly don’t fit. I’m gonna force this fucking person into our lives, because we’d much rather have something than nothing.

Then five years later, you’re stood looking at a jigsaw you don’t recognize, being like, “Ah! There’s a fucking cunt in the middle of this.” And in that moment you have a very, very difficult question to ask yourself. Do I admit the last five years of my life have been a waste? Do I waste the rest of my life?

My generation has become so obsessed with starting the rest of their lives that they’re willing to give up the one they are currently living. We have romanticized the idea of romance, and it is cancerous. People are more in love with the idea of love than the person they are with. The worst thing you can do with your life is spend it with the wrong human being.

/ end ID]

[azariussummers]

This spoke volumes

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

“Oh I’m not aromantic/asexual so amatonormativity wont affect me”

Shut up and read this. Yes it does.

[our-aro-experience]

“we need more ‘weird’ queers!”

you can’t even handle aroallos

[what-even-is-thiss]

No I’m not attracted to you. Quit your evil putting your finger under my chin to make me look up at you. I know I’m your nemesis and all but we really need to set some boundaries when you’ve got me tied up like this.

[what-even-is-thiss]

No look I get it. You’ve got your evil plan, you’ve gotta get me out of the way but you also want to see me suffer as I watch the world burn, I know. But like, I’m not into this. Sexually or otherwise. Wait, you thought I was doing this because I liked you? I’m trying to stop you from using a death laser. No I don’t think death lasers are sexy what on earth are you talking about

[what-even-is-thiss]

Wait. That’s why you dress like that? I thought that armor was impractical. No I don’t find our relationship to be homoerotic I find it to be tedious. Look, man. We all keep trying to get you into therapy. No I’m not kink shaming you I’m saying you’ve completely misinterpreted this relationship. I actually do think you should answer for your war crimes. Yes, really. No you’re the one not listening to me in this situation. Yes that is the alarm the others will have cut all your wires and called in the fbi by now.

[what-even-is-thiss]

What do you mean you thought we had something special? I have other enemies. You’re not the only one. No I’m not doing kinky things with them either I blow up their nefarious devices. Speaking of which, you might want to move like… ten feet to your right.

[what-even-is-thiss]

No, enemies to enemies. And then still enemies.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Cannot stress enough how lovers will never be part of this equation even a little bit

[yellowhollyhock]

The henchmen in the tags who have been assuring the villain since the beginning that “of course he likes you back, why else would he keep coming to destroy your death lasers”

[what-even-is-thiss]

The henchmen have been reading too many romance novels.

[xxshadowcasterxx]

Awfully defensive are we? I think the henchmen are onto something.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You know I didn’t intend for this character I made up to be aromantic but this whole post has turned into being arospec at a family reunion simulator

[feline17ff]

#when the hero is aro but the villain thinks ''they can change them''

[aromanticofficial]

official aromantic post

[winterfoxo]

Something I touched up from a whiiiile ago in celebration of pride this year lmao

I also took this as an opportunity to add the grey in her hair this time around because I forgot to add it when i first shared this AAAAH

[hello-moonstone-deactivated2025]

Cupid's arrow? No no, I'm Cupid's aro. We hang out after work and he vents to me about amatonormativity. Yeah, I'm helping him find a new job.

[radioactive-yuri]

reflecting on it all, i really think one issue that the aspec community refuses to actually talk about (or, at least, those of us who aren't affected by it refuse to talk about) is that acceptence of aromanticism is still entirely conditional.

i'm not aplatonic myself, but even i can see how the aspec community excludes them. like, yeah, sure, being aromantic is cool!...as long as you still experience platonic attraction and have platonic relationships and replace romance with friendship at every turn.

and if you're aromantic, you also have to be asexual. because sex without romance is immoral and dirty and abusive. and every aroallo is an invader who's trying to destroy your perfect, pure, sex-negative aspec community. if an aromantic is not asexual, they are not a valid aromantic.

if you've ever found yourself wondering why aplatonics and aroallos alike have their own small communities instead of just being a part of the wider aspec community, this is why. you drove us away.

and your acceptence of aromanticism is still entirely conditional.

[e-cryptid-deactivated20180601]

It’s okay to not want to have sex ever. It’s okay to never even try it.

[thefisherqueen]

I was 23 before it even occurred to me that not starting with sex ever was an option. The feeling of relief was so great I actually cried. 

You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can have a fine live without ever having sex, I promise you. 

[impostoradult]

Also, it’s okay to never date anyone ever. It’s okay to never even try it if you don’t want to. 

I wrote a master’s thesis on intentionally single people, and the number of them that said in various ways, “I didn’t know not dating people was even an option at first” was absolutely tragic. They honestly thought they had no choice and it never occurred to them that opting out was even a possibility available to them.  

People honestly believe these are life experience you are required to have AND THEY ARE NOT.

You can just not have sex. You can just not date people. You can completely by-pass one or both of those things. Neither of those things are required to be healthy, happy, normal, mature, fulfilled, or any of the other bullshit notions that get attached to these things. 

[a-rabbit-obsessed-queer]

Aspec men deserve much more respect and recognition in the aspec community than they receive. They often face a different form of aphobia specific to them ("men are naturally sexual they can't be ace" "all men are unromantic that's not unique") this rhetoric is spouted by many, even members of our own community and I hope for a day where that is no longer the case. As an ace and demiro woman (demigirl but that's beside the point) I want to encourage folks to take the time to give the aspec men in their lives support and to the aspec men reading, you are who you say you are no matter what people say and you deserve the world. I'm sorry for the ways in which toxic masculinity has harmed you. You are a valued member of the aspec community and the queer community as a whole. No ace or aro person is broken and neither are you. I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you otherwise.

[cosmicredcadet]

With great power (aromanticism) comes great responsibility (destroying romance with my bare hands)

[radioactive-yuri]

they need to invent tags that you can block in order to not see romantic stuff on ur dash. like there are tags u can block in order to not see sexual stuff. but with romance there's literally nothing you can block in order to get rid of it.

[entropy-sea-system-deactivated2]

Maybe its just because Im sex favorable allosexual and (only romance favorable when I feel romantic attraction) demiromantic, but it sometimes just bewilders me that people find any happiness in just dating people and don't need sexual aspects to be a part of it to actually like dating. Like, I would be absolutely miserable if I forced myself to date someone, and I literally can't even feel romantic attraction until after being in a long term sexual relationship with someone. I just can't see the appeal in it. It sounds downright boring.

And I can't imagine not frequently feeling sexual emotions about my partners- I'm not capable of suppressing that or idk not even feeling that to begin with(?I have no idea what allorose people mean when they say their relationship is only sexual when they have sex and at no other time. Like- do they just not feel sexual attraction at other moments ?? wouldn't that be not perfectly allosexual?). I don't understand how people who feel sexual attraction apparently don't feel sexually about affection like hugs or kisses with their partners.

But the expected relationship model is generally that people romantically date someone then maybe, only if they both want to and feel ready, it becomes also sexual (although, generally it is still expected that it eventually becomes sexual), and that sounds like torture to me because I can't put myself through dating like that when Im not even romance favorable until I feel romantic attraction to someone. My experience is more like I want a sexual relationship but theres a low chance of me feeling romantic attraction and romance can only happen if I and the other person are ready for it(and Im polyam/polyerosous so I don't do monogamy anyways)

That's probably why I prefer to be with other alloaros and alloarospecs. So many alloromantics are just so obsessed with dating and it feels like even the ones who claim to like sexual relationships without romance expect you to eventually be okay with romance. And it feels like people only care about sexual consent and don't care about how romance (and other things like friendship etc.) requires consent too.

-

[keyboardsmashorsomething]

Hey aplatonics!

I found a picrew with the aplatonic flag!

Lgballt Creator

Make your own lgbta+ ball! ⭐Use the color options (brush icon) to see all of the available flags/options. OK -Profile pics/icons. -Sha

It also has the anattractional spectrum, anattractional, omniaspec, loveless aplatonic, and demiplatonic flags. Going to try to start an aplatonic picrew chain! Here’s mine!

[amorous-apothipl]

i would recommend following the creator! sol has a cool blog.

[it-is-only-a-novel-deactivated2]

Sooo much fun to make. I'm going to go and make another one.

Edit to add that they have an androgyne flag also and I'm enjoying this a lot. And also I forgot to actually add the apl flag, so here's another one I made:

[goobersnart]

if you're aplatonic you gotta live and make and create and exist you gotta.

[sparrrorow-art]

happy aro week from this aro bird

[aroxbetchio]

SHIT i forgot i made this last year as a halloween aroallo flag, while i don’t necessarily identify as aroallo anymore i wanted to share it

[subtle-wallpapers]

Arospec (+aplatonic) Joanna

Aplatonic l Aroace Green and Purple

*aplatonic is not an arospec identity*

Aroace sunset l Aroallo l Aromantic

Arospec l Demiromantic l Loveless

*(•⩊•) like and reblog if you save please! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) * If you have a flag you'd like to see me use feel free to send me a request! I'll make sure to get to it when I can

[theartofangirling]

I heard someone call barbie disappointingly heterosexual and I've never disagreed with anything more strongly in my life