#aroing

[melcirsium]

So for years I've struggled feeling comfortable around people I know have a crush on me, and for years I've chalked it up to being ace.

I just realized I do have a couple people where I don't mind it and thought hey! time to analyze for commonalities!

Uncomfortable: cis guys I'm not attracted to

Comfortable: trans women I really like

This is literally all of my data points.

Holy confounding variables, Batman.

[melcirsium]

Let's go back to "friendships are important" instead of "qprs are more than friendships", kay?

[melcirsium]

What even is attraction? A constructionist view

This is a submission to the October 2021 Carnival of Aces on “Attraction”. Within ace and aro communities, “attraction” is a concept that re

[melcirsium]

I am seeing an increase in “asexuality is neither queer nor straight” in my corners of the ace blogosphere, and while it hits a little too close to home for me to properly read and dissect their arguments yet, I do have a couple of thoughts on it:

asexuality (and aromanticism, and everything that falls under their umbrellas) is inherently queer, in the sense of socially deviant experiences of gender/sexuality

being asexual (etc.) is not necessarily being LGBT, in the sense of group identity

personally, I hold both senses true to my experience of asexuality and greyromanticism. I am both queer as in deviant and queer as in part of the “queer community” - I feel a sense of belonging with queer folks who don’t necessarily share my individual experiences

but I also believe that being asexual - or any other queer identity, not being gay, not being trans, nothing - does not require you to engage in group identity. it is a powerful force for social change and for individual sense of belonging and validation, but is not mandatory. it is, or should be, opt in

[melcirsium]

...i’m not sure i can use queerplatonic

i mean, i totally can. it’s accurate. but in my search for the Most Accurate terminology, that ideally doesn’t use a definition used by a minority of users, it is a bit off. seeing as it gets listed as essentially “significant relationship without sex and/or romance”, and my required definition is “??????”, specifically including that sex and romance are also defined as “???”... it is off enough that my nitpicky brain wants a more perfect word

[melcirsium]

romantic relationships and prioritization of relationships is really hard to talk about, because there are multiple models clashing and using the same terminology

so whenever i come across a post talking about the default position of romantic relationships as more valuable than others, it’s... confusing, because what exactly they mean by ‘romantic relationship’ is never clarified, partially because you can’t state exactly what is meant by ‘romantic relationship’? it is an incredibly nebulous term. it gets more complicated once you start looking into queer and non-traditional relationships, but it is not suddenly clearer if you only focus on cis straight monogamous Anglo-American romance, for example.

but the two models that i think are conflicting most (to me, right now, looking at these articles) are romantic relationships as clearly negotiated and categorized, and romantic relationships as a highly prioritized relationship (that doesn’t fall too far outside normativity)

posts that talk about how romantic relationships devalue friendships, or how to dismantle the notion that your romantic partner is automatically the highest priority person in your life, are confusing because they assume that these relationships are different things (romantic relationships as negotiated and categorized) and that they are highest-priority (romantic relationships as ...highest-priority; these parentheticals could’ve been planned better) and therefore, one of these things has to change (and usually it’s the second)

but... this isn’t the case? and this is where things get weird, because i know that the assumption outlined right above is the default assumption in my culture, but it’s also a really bad way to define romantic relationships, because defining relationships is a really slippery thing to do. and also why i opt out of it as much as possible beyond labels that literally mean “??? \o.o/” because i cannot apply that model to my life in a way that possibly makes sense

this is extremely rambly and my thoughts aren’t cohesive on this yet

maybe i’m just confused because the model people critique is a model i don’t actively use. idk

[melcirsium]

i do believe the Cat just flirted at me