Could you talk a bit about amatonormativity and how it related to you? I know the 101 (aka the definition), but I have trouble identifying it in real life, discussing how it permeates in fiction, etc. and this is kinda weird but I think an informed discussion about it would help? IDK feel free to ignore it if you don't have the spoons for it, but if you want to it would be a huge help!
Anon, I told you this was going to be long, but … well, it’s long!
The problem is that amatonormativity is a wall I keep hurling myself against, as an aro and as an aro creative, and there isn’t much conversational space where I am permitted to go all out in talking about it. I fear discussing this with too much vehemence, to go beyond the hand-holding 101 conversations about being aro, in case I alienate the alloromantic folks who do support me. Alloromantic people aren’t interested in conversations that undermine their sense of the world, and aro-spec spaces are small; both things together result in silence.
Because of this, I think it’s reasonable that this is something hard to grasp, for aro-spec and alloromantic folks alike: the educative conversations are hard to find or don’t exist. When you add to the fact that for the last two years a-spec people have been fighting targeted hate, that our conversations have fallen back to claws-out defence or the shield of validation, how the hell are we supposed to understand our own experiences, especially something as-yet-unquestioned as the practical impact of amatonormativity?
I hope you don’t mind, but because this is so long, I’m going to concentrate on amatonormativity in media and its impact on me as a creative.
In terms of fictional media, I think amatonormativity shows itself most obviously in the concept of a happy ending–that two people in a romantic relationship is by far the most common variant. No, not all stories end witha romantic happy ending, but so many do, even if it’s only a romantically-happy-for-now ending. Think Disney films; think action films shoving in an unnecessary romantic side-plot because the hero gets the girl once the explosions are over; think every story where the guy got the girl for reasons we the audience are expected to accept without question.
Likewise, a film with a tragic or unhappy ending is often shown by a protagonist not falling in romantic love or the dissolution of a romantic relationship. While there are other forms of indicating tragedy, the lack of a romantic paring for a character expected to be in one is common. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet has long been framed as a tragic romance even though the tragedy, I’d argue, lies more in the impact of feuding families on the next generation, not the death of two young people in a “star-crossed” romance.
Even genres that aren’t romantic in the sense that romance isn’t the focus of the plot will still include sexual and romantic tension between characters: many of the crime and thriller novels I’ve read, supposedly less romantic because they target a cishet male audience, devote a great many pages to depicting romantic relationships nonetheless. The majority of YA novels depict the development of romantic relationships (which is why I kept reading middle-grade books even when I was too old for them) and even low-romance adult fiction still has the protagonists having had or desiring a romantic relationship at some point. So many literary works deal with the breakdown of romantic relationships, affairs, being single, unrequited love, or the way dangerous or alien environments, or the tyranny of distance, places stresses on romantic partnerships. These often won’t have purely happy endings–often tragic or complicated–because they’re Literary, but they’re just as obsessed with romantic love as any romance novel. In constantly going on about romance’s failure without ever making the point that someone can be happy and self-fulfilled without it, literary works are as amatonormative as anything else.
Romantic love and relationships don’t have to be successful: we just have to show a character desiring these or struggling with these, just so the audience knows that the protagonist is human. Characters who are shown as disdaining romance, or being uninterested in it, are usually antagonistic characters who are beyond redemption, are aliens or robots, or are coded as robotic–characters who are literally inhuman or portrayed as such. There’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper becomes a kinder, more “normal”, less-autistic-coded man the more he falls in romantic love with Amy, despite being introduced as extremely aroace-coded, and it’s called amatonormativity.
This is the point in the post where we aro-specs are giving the world that long, pained stare, and for good reason.
Romantic love as a marker of human worth is the most succinct way I can describe the impact of amatonormativity. It’s not a flawless summary, but so often romance is treated as a universal concept, relevant to all, because Western society uses the possession of or desire for romantic love as an indicator of a person’s humanity. Romantic love makes us human, and so romantic love is everywhere, unquestioned and unassailable.
Elements of a more expanded sense of amatonormativity include:
- The idea that romantic attraction, love and relationships are universal to the human experience (predominantly a relationship encompassing, exclusively, one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromantic cis man and one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromanticcis woman).
- The idea that romantic love is the primary form of love and all other forms, once one gains a certain level of socially-acceptable maturity or adulthood, are naturally secondary.
- The idea that romantic love and relationships are relatable to and attainable by all, and any failure to relate to it or attain it is a personal or moral failing.
- The idea that people who do not experience, attain or desire a romantic partnership are, after a certain age, childish or childlike, immature, robotic, alien, inhuman.
- The idea that sex (especially non-heterosexual or non-vanilla sex) is only acceptable, for a person of high moral character, when it comes paired with romantic love. (Characters who have sex without romantic love are often coded as grasping, hateful, calculating, predatory.)
- The idea that the attainment of romantic love and relationships is a marker of character development, growth, adulthood or redemption.
- The idea that because romantic love and relationships are universal, to not depict them in media is to render one’s work childish or uninteresting. (Every aro-spec creator of narrative media knows the impact of this one.)
- The idea that the lack of romantic love or relationships, or the desire for these, is an indicator of a person of low moral character.
- The unquestioned idea that romance sells, accompanied with the assumption that the inclusion of romance in a work (or the story-arc of a protagonist) is a necessary part of making that work (or character) appealing to all audiences.
- No comprehension that romantic attraction can be felt and experienced in a diversity of ways and strengths, particularly with regards to fluctuation, intensity and circumstance.
- Very little comprehension of the difference between romantic attraction and romantic behaviours.
- An assumption that there is a certain set of behaviours that are only or best experienced with romantic attraction. (Engaging in these behaviours without romantic attraction is also often coded as predatory.)
Please note that all these discussions of romance are based on an alloromantic model: romance in and of itself is not inherently amatonormative. Aro-spec people’s experiences of romantic love and relationships do not fit the above because they do not and cannot assume that everyone fits this assumption of romantic attraction being a universal, unquestioned human. If your depiction of romance doesn’t assume that romance makes us a worthy human and everyone experiences it, it’s probably not amatonormative.
There’s heavy overlap with ableism, misogyny, heterosexism, whoremisia, etc, and this must be acknowledged. Amatonormativity hits hard on its own, but it seldom hits alone. More often it’s paired up with another form of oppression, which means people who better fit its norms can deny its existence by claiming the problem is due only to amatonormativity’s current partner.
Additionally, most mainstream amatonormative works are going to be about cishet romances (the romantic relationship between a cis heterosexual man and a cis heterosexual woman, presumed to be perisex and both alloromantic and allosexual). Women are far more subject to the need to be shown in romantic relationships than men; men are more often allowed to travel through the narrative without being subject to a romance, although most are shown as at least desiring it. Each experience of marginalisation is going to shape in different ways how amatonormativity impacts us, and this needs to be discussed (especially because if we don’t, antagonists deny the existence of amatonormativity altogether).
(I will say that amatonormativity and misogyny have a strange relationship in that excessive romance is treated as feminine and emotional, and denigrated because of it. We all know how literature is valued and respected over fanworks and genre romance. Cishet men, meanwhile, have a long history of treating the having of a romantic partner as a trap–phrases like “ball and chain” with regards to a wife, for example. Despite this, there’s still an unquestioned social expectation that men experience romance attraction and have, will have or want a romantic partner.)
I’ll use my experience as a trans aro to give an example of this kind of overlap.
Amatonormativity in LGBTQIA+ media is coloured by the fact that LGBTQIA+ folks have been denied romantically-happy-endings until recently; the rise of fandom and LGBTQIA+ genre media has done much to change this. Yet both are, predominantly, romance narratives, to the extent that there is little space for anything else. This history leaves me in an awkward position. The need for love stories featuring trans characters and trans bodies as worthy of romantic interest and desire is profound. In a world where romantic love is seen as the only kind of love worth talking about, powerful and primary, it’s natural many trans/NB stories are about just that.
I feel like I’m walking on thin ice if I talk about how depicting romance as the only acceptable trans happy ending defines my experience of gender by romantic experiences--and yet that is exactly what I feel. Furthermore, this is a narrative many alloromantic trans people need and deserve. In trying to tell stories about me, an aro trans person, who isn’t a target of romantic love, my stories are seen by alloromantic trans folks as mirroring the narratives that have long harmed trans people, treating us as unlovable. My work cannot provide the validation–that they are desired and loved romantically–alloromantic trans folks are looking for.
The amatonormativity isn’t in the existence of trans romance stories, but the fact there are fewer publishing options, and smaller audiences, for non-romantic/aromantic/gen stories about trans love and identity. The amatonormativity lies in the fact that romantic love for trans characters is the love on which trans genre media centres.
As a reader, I need stories that talk about different kinds of love, love for myself and my own body, a radical self-acceptance that isn’t tied to someone else’s romantic interest in me. Instead, I get stories telling me that I am accepted, as a trans person, if my identity is tied up in experiences I don’t have and don’t desire.
The intersection of amatonormativity and cissexism results in its own peculiar oppression for me as a trans aro, one that I find impossible to navigate in a world where it isn’t understood that romance doesn’t have to be the primary form of expressing love and acceptance for trans characters and even trans bodies. I’ve seen so many posts on my dash about people proclaiming a want for trans storytelling while getting no benefit from this movement because I’m writing about aro trans characters. That’s more than a little disheartening.
This kind of intersection does a lot of damage to aro-spec creators who are otherwise marginalised (so many marginalised experiences come with a heavy dose of we are lovable, our love is important, we deserve the right for our love to be accepted and protected and acknowledged, much of this conversation centred on romantic love) but just being an aro-spec creator who creates aro-spec narrative media comes with an inherent disadvantage that is difficult to surmount.
I’ve got some numbers for this disadvantage, actually. My latest work, The Wind and the Stars, has had fifty downloads in its first month, and I’m actually excited by that, because everything else I’ve posted with the tag “aromantic” has gotten approximately twenty downloads in their first months. A couple of works didn’t break the fifty mark until three or four months in! By contrast, with the same amount of promotion but published under a brand new name with no back catalogue to help (unlike my other works), my explicitly queer paranormal romance story got three hundred downloads in its first month. How am I supposed to provide representation for my community when I don’t have enough interest in my work to justify the work of its production?
The tag aromantic helps guide aro-spec readers, but it actively discourages most alloromantic readers (who exist in far greater number) from reading, and most of them won’t have any comprehension of why. They just see romance as normal and interesting, and anything that subverts this, be it specifically aromantic or just gen, undermines this worldview. It happens so subconsciously it’s near impossible to challenge.
In a way, one of the most damaging aspects of amatonormativity is its lack of recognition. Most people have some understanding, now, on what misogyny is and what harm it might cause, even if one disagrees with it or has a 101 understanding at best. There’s a social model for beginning to understand this. Amatonormativity, on the other hand, has no such basis. It’s so unquestioned that few people who aren’t aro-spec recognise it or need to, and it’s often seen as a lesser problem. As someone who is struggling as a creator because of amatonormativity, to the extent that I don’t know how I can possibly survive as a writer, it angers me to see this treated as less important than other forms of normativity. No, nobody will beat me up on the street as an aro, but if I can’t keep a roof over my head because only a small number of people are reading my free books and I have no belief they’ll buy my next book, how does this distinction matter?
Amatonormativity silences, erases and oppresses aro-spec people. It substantially disadvantages us in how we are seen by others and how we interact with the world around us. And almost nobody outside aro-spec spaces wants to acknowledge it.
Sorry for the rant at the end there, anon. Does this give you some idea on how amatonormativity is demonstrated through media and how it impacts aro-spec creatives?
@aromantic-official: Pride Week One, Aromantic Identity
It’s still the first week! We’ll just ignore that I’m posting this on Saturday, okay?
How did you realize you were aro/arospec? How long have you known?
It’s been a few years now, although I’m not sure on precisely how long, since I realised it at a time when I was too ill for blogging, so there’s no internet record of my realising it. I don’t even remember when I happened across it, as my memories of that period (thanks, clinical depression and dissociation) have more holes than Swiss cheese. I have this vague sense there was a lightbulb or eureka! moment after reading something online, but it wasn’t until long after that I put it into words or labelled myself that way.
There wasn’t much conversation outside asexual spaces on being aromantic as separate from asexual until relatively recently, and as someone who didn’t feel myself to be asexual at the time, I didn’t know this was a thing I could be. (I’ve decided since I’m abrosexual, shifting between pansexual, greysexual and asexual.) I had asexual and aro-ace friends and I still didn’t know I could be aro without being ace! For years I was writing so many posts in frustration about how my pansexual and agender/trans identities were only framed in media by romance narratives. I was dreaming of starting a LGBTQIA+ genre fiction press that published non-romantic pieces (it was one of my stated goals in doing my writing course, actually). I was tired and frustrated and alienated by an amatonormative, alloromantic world, and everything I said and wrote was just waiting for the word “aromantic” to identify it.
Have you come out to anyone? Share a coming out story (coming out to yourself also counts)!
I’m out online, everywhere. I’m out to offline friends, but I think they all know me online, or at least enough of me that there was no real coming-out process I had to deal with. I’m not out to my family, oddly enough--or at least I don’t know if they know I am aro, because as a writer, they could easily have jumped on my website and read all about me. My relationship with my family is not the best, and I’ve got a lot of reasons for not trusting them, so I don’t tend to gift them with personal information given how they’ve used it against me in the past. Likewise, if they know things about me, they don’t come forward with it, so it’s this complicated, silent mess.
For being aro, I don’t have any good coming out stories. My writing tends to signal my aromanticism before I have to, be it in my profile, discussion posts on my personal blog or in promoting this blog. For being otherwise LGBTQIA+, most of them are pretty awful, so I’ll stick quite happily with being the kind of person online who doesn’t have to come out.
Sometimes I feel cowardly, for being this person who is so out I’ll never find my way back to Narnia, yet still being so cagey (words like “queer” are useful to me for their lack of specificity) with my relatives. My reasons are good, and my safety matters, but being in the closet, even partially, is a crushing weight. I wish society understood that, how much being in the closet damages you, because it is so tiring to have to talk around my aromanticism with comments like “I don’t like romance much”. I wish I felt safe enough to be completely out.
How/Why is your aromanticism important to you/your identity?
I don’t have a whole identity in the sense of many pieces fitting together to form me; I have more segregated sense of identities that I switch between, although they definitely colour each other (look at the way I can’t not talk about autism here). There are definitely identities more important to me than others, though--autism, agender/trans and aromanticism are definitely the top three identities that come closest to my feeling a sense of me.
I am other things--physically disabled and mentally ill, abuse survivor, abrosexual--but I just happen to be or experience them. Autism, agender/trans and aromanticism are who I am. They’re the words that make sense of who I am in the world and why I feel the way I do. They’re the pillars on which everything else rests, and recognising each one was profound, a relief, so wonderfully sense-making and defining.
What are some misconceptions about aromanticism that bother you?
All the “aros don’t love” and “aros are heartless” nonsense cuts me twice because it draws from a well of rendering aro-specs too inhuman to be allowed, but it does so because we’ve been taught certain behaviours about love and connection, commonly associated with neurodevelopmental disabilities, mental illnesses and abuse survival, are wrong ways to be. As someone who is all of those things and aromantic, it puts me in an untenable situation: I come across as that touch-averse, heartless, love-doesn’t-describe-how-I-feel-about-people, alienated-from-people aro stereotype from a combination of autism and abuse/assault. I see my experiences used to erase or deny me as an aromantic but simultaneously rejected by my own community in their fight against these hurtful assumptions/stereotypes.
The blame for this is squarely on the people who hold these beliefs and use them as a weapon against us, but it is so difficult to experience this sense that I am a monstrous example of everything an aromantic should never be, that I damage my own community just by existing, that my community is fighting back against stereotypes that harm us by rejecting me. Where do I go then, when the autistic community is fighting back against the “autistics don’t love” stereotype by the amatonormativity of insisting on our ability to love romantically? Where do I go as an autistic, mentally ill aro?
Ableism shapes aromisia so very often, and the two twined together as they are hurt me in ways I struggle to describe.
What’s something you like about being aro/arospec? Something you dislike?
I have this profound contentment with this word, this identity, this experience. For me, it’s liberation: I don’t have to shove myself into a box that never fit me. I can just be me. I love not feeling romantic attraction, I love writing aro-spec characters, I love questioning and exploring what constitutes a happy ending, I love the discussions about non-romantic relationships and connections with other people, I love the art other aro-specs are making, I love the way aro-specs are coming together to support each other. I love being aro. There is no way I’d choose not to be aro, just like I’d never choose to have a gender or be allistic.
Everything I dislike is steeped in amatonormativity or aromisia/aro antagonism, not the experience of being aro. I hate, profoundly, how writing characters who are aro like me makes it that much harder to find a supportive and encouraging audience. I hate the lack of categories and visible tags for aro-spec writing. I hate the way gen/low romance/no romance works are seen as childish or uninteresting. I hate the way aro folks are unquestioned targets for hate because nobody wants to listen to us talk for long enough to understand.
I hate how amatonormativity impacts me as a creative so much I made this blog.
