Revisiting the term alloace again. I've spoken bout this already but now I think I can put into better words why I don't use it for myself and why discussions by both alloaces and arospecs about alloromantic asexuality is really lacking and underdeveloped (this is gonna be another long one):
First of all, semantics. The term is generally used as nothing more than a dating asexual or 'romantic asexual'. There's a large focus on alloromantic asexuality as the action of dating whilst asexual instead of the experience of romantic attraction with little to no sexual attraction or the experience of having predominantly romantic attraction outside of non-platonic, non-familial relationships. Dating is treated in a vacuum from how romance is represented in society and factors like gender roles, money and desirability. This leads to generalised and frankly incorrect statements like 'alloaces can just date' 'alloaces are seen as pure' 'people see romance without sex are pure' without a single look at how romance is shaped and enforced and the fact it's possible to be 'alloromantic' and still experience romantic based discrimination e.g. interracial couples, the policing of 'homosexual behaviours', the MacKinnon Innis study which showed homophobes admitted to homophobia even if gay people didn't have sex. Basically, it shows the same limitations as 'allosexual' in the sense we've taken the experience of (white) cis straight 'allo allos' and assumed it to be true of all people in the 'allo' category, in this case that the privileges of heteromanticism applies to every alloace regardless of context. It focuses privilege based on how someone is aspec instead of how different factors affect how they're aspec. Gay alloaces won't have privilege over aroaces or aroallos in a homophobic society because gay romance is not the one being enforced and when it's a form of love and romance that's seen as inherently deviant. A Black alloace won't hold privilege over a white aroace or white aroallo and be seen as 'purer' or 'cleaner' because racial sexual purity doesn't apply to Black people and our desires are seen as inherently animalistic. The benefits of alloromanticism are exclusive and instead of unpacking this nuance it's just generalisations about how 'easy' the alloaces get it.
The ace exclusionism movement heavily centred cishet asexuality as all asexuality was or could ever be, that all aces are cishet and so not lgbt and 'invading' the community from 'real' queer people. And whilst there was rightful pushback on it there hasn't really been much done in terms of how cishet asexuality became the face of all alloromantic asexuality. The 'You can't be heterosexual and asexual' rhetoric came from a good place but the repercussion of that was 'You can't be gay and asexual you're a homoromantic asexual actually' and it really isn't non-gay aces place to tell us how to identify and I'll explain later on how this is really backhanded. Whilst there's a large focus on affirming that cishet aces are queer the community hasn't done much for lesbian, gay, bi, pan aces, especially trans alloaces queerness within the community because it's assumed that because ace exclus would parrot 'only LGBT aces are LGBT' that gay and trans alloaces held some form of privilege in the 'ace discourse', even though ace exclus support was conditional and they still targeted LGBT aces anyway. There's loads of 'cishet aces are queer and valid' esque posts but you'll rarely find that for gay, lesbian, bi, pan and/or trans aces even though we're excluded from cishet society x2, from our romantic attraction to the same gender and asexuality. x3 for trans gay aces. Not to say cishet aces don't experience anything but that the rest of us won't ever access straightness or cisness. We'll never be seen as too cishet in any context because transphobic and homophobic society won't let us in in the first place.
Then there's the argument against alloaces 'existing' which came from ace exclus and certain gold-star/black stripe asexuals because asexual originally meant no attraction, so gay, bi and lesbian aces are just spectrums of lesbianism, homosexuality and bisexuality instead of 'true' asexuals but this flattens romantic and sexual attraction as being the same. From certain gold-star/black tripe factions there's the assumption we can just go to lesbian, gay and bi spaces instead of 'stealing' from the ace community with our alleged greediness, despite non-ace queer community helping shape the ace exclusionist movement to begin with. It's a weird and large contradiction in how the ace community is aware the queer allo community helped enable the ace exclsionist movement but then assuming gay alloaces can then go into gay allo spaces without any pushback 'because we're just gay'. It's also another contradiction when ace exclus will claim gay aces are just gays with no sex drive then assert sexless gay people are defanged, repressed and santised and so not 'really' gay anyway. The gap between anti-homoromanticism and anti biromanticism and anti-homosexuality and anti-bisexuality is a footstep. Puritans, queer ace exclusionists and 'anti allo' asexuals' anti-homoromantic stance is rooted in standard homophobia and compulsory sexuality. That attraction to the same gender is inherently sexual. The only difference is *how* this is used to pathologise queer people.
Alloace content almost exclusively focuses on dating but specifically ace-allo relationships and overall centring the needs of non-ace people in romantic pairings are inherently more important than the asexual partner. There's a large focus on how asexuals still have sex in romantic pairings without actually consulting our needs leaving sex-repulsed alloaces with barely anything to work with and sex-indifferent and sex favourable alloaces with the burden of being sexually available to non-ace people regardless of context or individual consent. Whilst the aroallo community seems to center unconventional standards of sex e.g. friends with benefits, non-monogamy, alloace content seems to focus on how asexuals can conform to romantic ones. The conclusion is that either alloaces need to 'compromise' aka participate in sex we don't want to have to be part of conventional romantic society or repress any romantic desires we have because romance 'can't' exist without sex. We're decentred in what was supposed to be for us in the first place.
Lastly, I don't like the idea of my romanticism just being a preference of who I date or an add-on of my asexuality. Speaking as a lesbian there's many parts of lesbianism that don't hinge on dating like how it affects gender. What it means to be butch, femme, stud, stemme etc. whilst asexual, what it means to reclaim masculinity and femininity when they've both been sexualised in specific contexts is a really interesting conversation that 'alloace' doesn't have the range to unpack of this and that's why I find it to be limited. I could also make a similar argument for bear, twink, butch queen, fem queen etc for gay men or bi and pan terms. To repeat the first point, from the stigmatisations of butchfemme, twinks, femboys etc. doesn't magically disappear if you're asexual and the constant giggling about gay love being cringe, amatornormative and essentially wrong from some arospecs in the community isn't gonna help us reach it any sooner.
I'd like to see less focus on dating and better push and support for gay, lesbian, pan and bi aces, especially ones who are trans. I'd like to put the asexual part back into asexual dating and asexual love and focus on what romantic pleasure looks like for alloaces instead of centering non-asexual people, more focus on unconventional romance like ace couples that don't want/have kids, non-monogamous ace couples where all parties are non-monogamous asexuals, aces in QPRs and long-term friendships, aces in platonic marriages, unmarried aces and ace4ace couples, looking at love and romance outside amatonormativity, support systems for alloaces who've experienced DV and SA in ace-allo couples, a strong coalition with the aroallo community on queer attraction and a strong coalition with the aroace community on rejecting conventional romances and love.
TL;DR; I'm alloace in theory but not practice. I'm an asexual lesbian, lesbian asexual, maybe homoromantic asexual but not an alloace, a 'romantic asexual' or 'an asexual that really likes romance and dating'. I am one as in I fit the definition but I have no strong attactment to it and it doesn't fully describe my experiences as a Black lesbian in a society that actively stigmatises and erases lesbian and Black love. There's no universal alloromantic asexual experience because romance just like sex has been/is shaped by various factors. It doesn't hurt to read queer theory on love and romance but also Black feminist and other feminist of colour works of love and romance before making large assumptions about alloaces. Read Michael Paramo!
