Hi sorry, don’t want to come off as rude, but I’m not sure what all these ace flags are specific to? Pretty aeromantics are people who don’t feel “romantic” feelings towards someone. Wondering if you could explain the difference in aro flags?
Hello! There’s a lot of diversity in the community so there’s a lot to explain, but I’ll try to go over as much as I can! I know it can get pretty complicated, so feel free to ask for clarification or follow-up questions!
(If you want to learn more about aromanticism, I recommend aromanticism(dot)org which has a lot of resources, as well as searching the aromantic tag or tags of arospec identities here on tumblr!)
I also always tag the identities of the characters, so if you’re ever curious you could look at the tags and look up the orientation you see!
Asexual VS Aromantic
So firstly, I see you used “ace” up there in your ask, when your question was about aro flags. It’s a common mistake, but asexual is not an umbrella word for aromantic.
Asexuality refers to sexual attraction, and aromantic refers to romantic attraction.
Although it’s possible to be both, aromanticism and asexuality are more of a venn diagram kind of deal. There are asexuals that are not aromantic, and there are aromantics that are not asexual, and some people are both asexual and aromantic.
Instead of “asexual”, the word that does include both aros and aces is “aspec.” Aspec can refer to one or both of the a-spectrums. Which is why my url is “tokyo ghoul aspecs” and not “tokyo ghoul aces”. All aces are aspec. All aros are aspec. But not all aros are asexual, and not all aces are aromantic. (It does get confusing with all the “a” words, though)
“Pretty [sure] aromantics are people who don’t feel “romantic” feelings toward someone.”
That’s a common definition of aromanticism, and it’s not wrong! Aromantics are indeed people who don’t experience romantic attraction.
However, aromanticism is actually a spectrum! A more inclusive definition is “people who experience little to no romantic attraction.” Basically, some aros actually do experience “romantic feelings”! But how much and to what degree varies on the aromantic person, which brings us to your last question!
(If you’re a bit confused, I like to think of it in less technical terms, by this definition: “a person whose experience of romance is disconnected from normative societal expectations”. Although we aromantics may vary in how much romantic attraction we feel, none of us seem to experience it in the way most people tend to, or how society says we should.)
“Wondering if you could explain the difference in aro flags?”
I can’t do them all, as there’s a lot (flags keep being made, redesigned, new terms keep being coined, etc) and tumblr unfortunately only allows 10 images at a time.
But I can show you some of the arospec flags I’ve used on this blog!
Aromantic
Similar to nonbinary, aromantic can be used as a stand-alone identity, as well as an umbrella term for the whole aromantic spectrum.
The green in the flag was chosen because it’s the opposite of red, and red is commonly known as a romantic color.
Greyromantic and Alloaro
Greyromantic is commonly defined as experiencing “rare romantic attraction”. There is no limit on how few crushes you’ve had to be considered “rare”. If someone feels like they’ve had rare crushes compared to their friends or other people and finds comfort in the arospec label, then they can use it.
Greyromantic can also be used as an umbrella word for all arospec identities in the grey area of the aro spectrum.
Allo-aro (or aro-allo) is the shortened form of aromantic allosexual. They are aromantics that are not asexual. They experience little to no romantic attraction, but do experience regular sexual attraction.
Because of a mix of arophobia and sex-shaming, alloaros are often demonized, dehumanized, ignored, and erased, and so one way of gaining recognition and bringing together the community was @/arotaro creating this flag.
Demiromantic
Demiromantic is defined as “only experiencing romantic attraction after a bond is established.”
(If you’re thinking “but isn’t that everyone?” you might want to think about crushes again. The typical alloromantic (alloromantic = not aromantic) experience is romantic attraction at first sight. Some people prefer to wait to date until they have a bond with their crush, but they still felt romantic attraction before they began dating. For demiromantics, they do not experience any romantic attraction to a person until they have a bond, and bonding with someone is not a guarantee to experience romantic attraction to them.)
Once again, there is no time limit on this “bond.” For some demiromantics, it may be months and for others it may be years.
The flag is a bit controversial (there’s claims that the triangle is appropriation, although the design seems to have been going for a prism effect and any relation was likely unintentional) so there’s a few redesigns out there. The original triangle flag is still being used and is still most common, but some demiromantics have switched to using other flags.
The second flag there is a redesign by @/crimsxnflxwerz, which is my personal favorite. When I make demiromantic edits, I usually use both the triangle and this diamond one, so I included both here.
Lithromantic and Aroflux
Lithromantic is defined as “romantic attraction that fades upon reciprocation”. So lithromantics will get crushes on people, but if their crush is reciprocated then it will fade away.
Aroflux is defined as “fluctuating romantic attraction”. Again, the definition is loose and there is no time limit. For some it may fluctuate over months or years. For others it may fluctuate by the days.
Some fluctuate between experiencing romantic attraction and not experiencing it, and others fluctuate along different arospec identities.
Recipromantic
Recipromantic is only experiencing romantic attraction to someone you know is romantically interested in you first. The first flag is shared by recipromantics and recipsexuals, and the second is only for recipromantics.
Aroace
Aroaces are aromantic asexuals. For the longest time, aroace didn’t exactly have a flag. People would use either split the aromantic and asexual flags, or mash them together into this many striped flag you see on the right.
@/aroaesflags felt that their aromanticism and asexuality were not two separate things, but one whole identity, and they wanted a flag to properly represent that.
The orange and blue flag has taken off, and quite a lot of aroaces use it now, although some do use and prefer the green and purple flag, and there’s quite a few other redesigns out there.
Oriented Aroace & Angled Aroace
Oriented aroaces are aroaces who do not experience romantic or sexual attraction, but they experience a tertiary attraction that they feel affects their orientation and they want to label it alongside being aroace. For example, an oriented aroace lesbian is not romantically or sexually attracted to girls, but maybe she finds girls very pretty aesthetically and wants to be in a committed relationship with a girl instead of a boy.
There was a bit of gatekeeping with this term. I believe the coiner wanted it to only be used by aroaces who experience zero romantic or sexual attraction and tried to gatekeep it from aroaces in the grey areas on either/both a-spectrums. So Angled Aroace was coined by @/black-aros to be the term for those in the grey areas.
Quoiromantic and Nebularomantic
Quoiromantic is defined as someone who cannot differentiate romantic and platonic attraction, and is uncertain which they experience. It’s taken from the French word “quoi” which means “what”.
Nebularomantic is defined as someone who cannot differentiate romantic attraction from platonic attraction due to neurodivergency.
