Feb 21
Every week is aro week if you're not a fucking coward
seen from New Zealand
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Every week is aro week if you're not a fucking coward
Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2026!
💚🤍🩶🖤
Today, I want to introduce you to the brief history of ASAW! Stay tuned for this week's upcoming Arospec Info posts 😊
Come get your aro critters here (and here and here and here)! I hope you all have a wonderful Aro-Spec Awareness Week, and never forget, you're all friggin' ✨amazing✨
Aromanticism in Academia 2026
It's that time of year again! It's aromantic spectrum awareness week, which means it's ALSO time for me to make an annual update to my aromanticism in academia list! Basically all the new additions this year come from Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition, because... I didn't read as many books and such about a-spec stuff as I wanted to. Ah well!
DISCLAIMER BEFORE THE LIST: Due to the lack of discussion of aromanticism specifically in academia, most of what I’ve found are texts that are primarily about asexuality but also discuss aromanticism. It’s unfortunate, but it is also where we’re kind of at right now in terms of academia, so bear that in mind.
Books:
Ace Voices: What it means to be asexual, aromantic, demi, or grey-ace by Eris Young - Definitely has the most focus on aromanticism of everything that I’ve read so far, this book draws from a combination of the author’s personal experiences and interviews with other members of the a-spec community, including aroace and alloaro people. A good source of discussion of aro issues and how they interact with things like gender stereotypes. Also notable for its discussion of QPRs, a topic which I find has generally been ignored in academia about a-spec identities.
Ace: What Asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex by Angela Chen - Primarily deals with asexuality, as the title suggests, but also contains some relevant discussions of aromanticism, including the experiences of aroallo people. If you’re going to check out the book, I would especially recommending looking at chapter 7: Romance, Reconsidered, which features most of the discussion of aromanticism and non-normative relationships
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J Brown - Again, asexuality is the main focus here, but I would still recommend checking out this book as it does still contain some useful discussion of aromanticism, particularly an extended critique of “singlism” (i.e. discrimination of single people) and how it is weaponised against aros. I also find Brown’s criticism of the dehumanisation of aromanticism in media to be very compelling!
Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law - I would be remiss not to mention Brake’s work here. While Minimizing Marriage is not specificallly about aromanticism and deals with marriage reform and the concept of amatonormativity more broadly, I think it’s fair to say that many of Brake’s ideas (particularly her coining of amatonormativity as a term) have become vital to the aro community and aro activism in recent years. Definitely a must-read for anyone interested in deconstructing amatonormativity and in contemporary critiques of marriage as an institution, though it’s worth noting that this is a work of moral/political philosophy first and foremost, and as such it gets very into the weeds of things.
Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity by Michael Paramo - An absolutely fantastic book by Michael Paramo, editor of aspec literary journal AZE magazine, that combines history, personal memoir, and analysis. Unique so far in that, as the title suggests, it has a pretty equal focus on asexuality and aromanticism. It was easily one of my favourite books I read last year, and does some truly monumental work in trying to trace a-spec history back to the Victorian times, as well as discussing the intersections between amatonormativity and colonialism. I haven't seen a lot of people talking about this one compared to other a-spec books, and I really encourage everyone to check it out!
Academic Articles/Essays:
“Why didn’t you tell me that I love you?”: Asexuality, Polymorphous Perversity, and the Liberation of the Cinematic Clown by Andrew Grossman - A really interesting and engaging analysis of the archetype of the silent film clown, and how it can be read as an a-spec figure. While Grossman uses the language of asexuality, his analysis makes it clear that he is looking at the clown as both an asexual AND aromantic character. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives.
On the Racialization of Asexuality by Ianna Hawkins Owen - A personal favourite of mine. I think many parts of this essay will be very relevant to aromantic people, particularly Owen’s investigation of how romantic love came to be pedastalised and her critique of attempts to normalise asexuality by distancing it from aromanticism. Available on academia.edu here. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives
Mismeasures of Asexual Desires by Jacinthe Flore - A critique of the pathologisation of asexuality that also discusses how aromanticism challenges common discourses around intimate relationships. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives
Toward an Ace- and Aro-Friendly Society: Reconstructing the Sexual Orientation Paradigm by CJ DeLuzio Chasin - An essay that I absolutely love! I feel like a lot of ace and aro writing can tend towards doomerism a lot of the time, or at least getting bogged down in the problems that we face, so it's really refreshing to read such an in-depth piece of writing exploring what an a-spec-friendly society could actually look like. Really great read with a lot of interesting dissection of the idea of orientation itself. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition
Ace-Ecologies: The Asexual Erotics of Loving Kin by Ela Przybylo - An interesting discussion of how a-spec thought can be applied to queer ecology and ways of relating with nature. Mostly written from an asexual and not an aromantic perspective, but does contain some discussion of how an "ace-ecological" perspective could disrupt amatonormativity, and how aromantic theory can contribute to expanding our thinking of ways to relate to people and the natural world. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition
Erasure, Camouflage, Exceptionalism, and Cultural Criticism: Asexuality and Masculinity Threat by Canton Winer - A really interesting analysis of discussions taking place in online forums for asexual men, focusing on how these men talk about the relationship between their asexuality and gender. There's some pretty interesting discussion in here of the differences between the experiences and attitudes displayed by aromantic asexual men and alloromantic asexual men, that I found pretty interesting to read. Published in Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition
Sexuality, romantic orientation, and masculinity: Men as underrepresented in asexual and aromantic communities by Hannah Tessler and Canton Winer - Hannah Tessler has published a lot of really great research on aromanticism, and this paper discusses the role of narratives around sex and romance in constructing gender. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
The stability of singlehood: Limitations of the relationship status paradigm and a new theoretical framework for reimagining singlehood by Hannah Tessler - Discusses how experiences of certain groups (including aromantic people) challenge the typical construction of singlehood. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
Aromanticism, asexuality, and relationship (non-)formation: How a-spec singles challenge romantic norms and reimagine family life by Hannah Tessler - Discusses existing norms around the nuclear family and monogamy, and how these norms are challenged by the experiences of a-spec people. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
The abject single: exploring the gendered experience of singleness in Britain by Ai-Ling Lai, Ming Lim, and Matthew Higgins - While this article doesn't directly discuss aromanticism (perhaps understandable considering it was written in 2015), many of the ideas discussed here will be particularly relevant to aro people. A lot of the points made are similar to those that had already been made by Brake and have since been made by writers like Chen and Brown, but this article links them to the ideas of academics like Judith Butler in a really interesting way, and the interviews on the experiences of single people are fascinating!
Still, Nothing: Mammy and Black Asexual Possibility by Ianna Hawkins Owen - While this essay focuses on asexuality and uses the language of asexuality, I think much of Owen's analysis is also relevant from an aromantic perspective. Another really interesting and valuable read for those who want to read about a-spec identity from a more intersectional perspective. Available from academia.edu here
And an online museum exhibition!
Nonlimerent//Monosexual: An Aromantic and Asexual History curated by Luciella Scarlett - Digital version of a now-closed Australian museum exhibit on asexual and aromantic history. It’s a really rich and interesting collection with a lot of historical interest, and I think it’s also a really great and useful and accessible starting point for finding lots of other sources on aromanticism. Available here
If anyone knows of any other academic writing on aromanticism, please feel free to add them in a reblog! It would be great to use this week as an opportunity to pool educational resources
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?
HAPPY AROMANTIC SPECTRUM AWARENESS WEEK!!!
it took a while to get here, but heres the annual art in celebration! featuring aromantic headcanons from myself and my mutuals :) its really important to me to highlight aromantic pride specifically, since it feels like people tend to forget we exist or ignore us on purpose. so for the awareness part of aromantic awareness, under the cut im going to explain a ton of labels on the aromantic spectrum that you might not have heard of before
It's Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, so let's go over some arospec/aspec terms and definitions!
(I'm including some important acespec terms here too, because understanding both asexuality and aromanticism helps to also dispel the notion that they are the same)
Split Attraction Model/SAM: The idea that romantic and sexual attraction can be experienced independently, so that a person can be aromantic, asexual, both, or neither.
Non-SAM: Someone who does not identify with the split-attraction model. For example, a non-SAM aro might not identify with allosexuality or asexuality, regardless of whether they experience sexual attraction, and a non-SAM ace might not identify with alloromanticism or aromanticism, regardless of whether they experience romantic attraction.
Aromantic/Aro: A romantic orientation where a person experiences little to no romantic attraction.
Alloromantic: Indicates that a person experiences a typical level of romantic attraction; the opposite of being aromantic
Asexual/Ace: A sexual orientation where a person experiences little to no sexual attraction. This is not the same thing as being aromantic.
Allosexual: Indicates that a person experiences a typical level of sexual attraction; the opposite of being asexual.
Aromantic Asexual/AroAce: A person who is both aromantic and asexual.
Alloromantic Asexual/AlloAce: A person who is alloromantic and asexual.
Aromantic Allosexual/AroAllo: A person who is aromantic and allosexual.
Aromantic Spectrum/Arospec: Describes the vast range of experiences of people who are aromantic, including those who experience little or no romantic attraction, experience fluctuating levels or romantic attraction, or only experience romantic attraction under specific conditions.
Asexual Spectrum/Acespec: Describes the vast range of experiences of people who are asexual, including those who experience little or no sexual attraction, experience fluctuating levels or sexual attraction, or only experience sexual attraction under specific conditions.
Anattractional Spectrum/Aspec: Describes the vast range of people who fall onto one or more of the following spectrums: aromantic, asexual, afamilial, aplatonic, asensual, atertiary, aqueerplatonic. Some people may include the agender community under the umbrella term of aspec.*
Romance Favorable: Someone who is personally receptive to the idea of romance. A romance favorable person may want to engage in a romantic relationship, regardless of whether they experience romantic attraction.
Romance Indifferent: Someone who is neither personally favorable nor repulsed by the idea of engaging in romance. A romance indifferent person may find a romantic relationship acceptable, regardless of whether they experience romantic attraction.
Romance Averse: Someone who is personally disgusted or repulsed by the idea of romance, but only when it involves themselves. A romance averse person may like romance for other people and in fiction, but feel disgusted when imagining themselves in a romantic relationship.
Romance Repulsed: Someone who is personally disgusted or repulsed by the idea of romance. A romance repulsed person may be disgusted by mentions or public displays of romance.
*Personally, I am agender, and I feel like that particular part of my identity is distinct from the aspec umbrella, but labels can be confusing and arbitrary and it is totally valid to consider agender as a part of the aspec umbrella, that just doesn't apply to me personally.
Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week everyone!
💚💚🩶🖤
Also aroallos and non-SAM aros should be allowed to launch anyone who calls it ace week or aroace wek into the sun