No, I won't be making cross-platform comments on the thoughts of other autistic people??
I wouldn't have said anything about this except that I've now seen it happen twice to other people.
If you drop me an ask that's focused on discussing what another specific person said, ESPECIALLY when it's not a person I can address directly on this platform, I'm going to delete the ask and move on.
Maybe the questions are in good faith, maybe the nautistics are just trying to gain different perspectives and understand why different people think differently, but having been the victim of a cross-platform bullying campaign, I'm not willing to risk being involved in putting someone else through that.
I've seen my own posts popping up here and there, and that's cool with me. I'm glad these words are useful and that people find them meaningful enough to share.
But asking me what I think about what another person thinks, even implicitly, when the stuff you're asking about is stuff I haven't been able to shut up about for three weeks?
Can I ask that, when we’re discussing and recommending creative media that isn’t just pride art content, like comics and music and fiction, we take the time to specify if something depicts aro-ace, non-SAM-using aro and/or allo-aro characters and/or experiences? That this, as much as it is possible to observe, becomes a standard part of how we communicate media in aro-spec spaces?
I acknowledge that it won’t always be possible, depending on the nature of the work. Some short pieces don’t have time to explore this, focusing more on general aromantic experiences; some works that are more about coded characters may not provide enough information to determine this. Some works will include lots of different kinds of aro-specs! If it is possible to determine that a character is a particular shade of aro-spec, though, and therefore their narrative is about that set of experiences, I’d really like to see folks make a point of observing this in their discussions and recommendations.
I’m seeing some circumstances where folks recommend aro content as simply that, aro content, but I click on it to discover that it’s really about aro-ace feelings and experiences, nobody ahead of me taking the time to observe this. If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up alienating allo-aro folks in assuming allo-aros can and should relate to all aro-ace representation.
(It can go the other way, too, where allo-aro content isn’t specified as allo-aro as opposed to generally aro, but I usually see this in places where aro-ace or aromantic and asexual is used as an identifying term but allo-aro is lumped under “aromantic”. In this case, the problem seems more a lack of recognition that allosexual aromantic is a term or category in use--uncommon outside of a-spec Tumblr.)
If an aro-ace story/character leans heavy on sexual repulsion or lack of interest, I struggle to find that it speaks to me as an aromantic. Even if it doesn’t lean hard on asexual experiences, aro-ace is something I relate to on the strength of my aromanticism, but it doesn’t depict my experiences of aromanticism shaped by allosexual attraction. (Something I increasingly wish to see in fictional media!) This is just a reality of the state of representation and a-spec history, not something I see shaped by intent; our dreams are several steps ahead of the shape of the broader a-spec community at present! But I would like an acknowledgement that any given aro-spec work depicts aro-ace, non-SAM-using aro or allo-aro characters/experiences (if appropriate for the work) so the community as a whole demonstrates the understanding that this particular story does not and should not represent all aro-specs.
For the same reasons that we specify a character as demiromantic or quoiromantic (if appropriate for the work) we need to say if they’re aro-ace, non-SAM-using or allo-aro. (And more detailed information on all characters’ a-spectrum identities, if extant.) It’s giving me the ability to make informed choices. All I want is to know that a piece is about aro-ace experiences, just so I don’t click on something labelled and tagged as generally aro only to discover that it requires me to also relate to experiences on the asexual spectrum. That is, I’ll admit, becoming increasingly difficult to take.
(The more I find myself as allo-aro, the harder it is for me to always find comfort and representation in media that treats asexual experiences as a universal accompaniment to aromanticism. And that, I think, is right and okay. You know I’m writing stories about allo-aro experiences right now; I have no expectation that aro-aces should connect to these. It is right and okay that not all creative works serve all aro-specs, especially when we’re writing about our own experiences and feelings! The goal of this blog is to support and encourage diverse aro-spec creativity so that every aro-spec someday finds representation that speaks to their unique intersectional identities and experiences--not to force aro-specs into writing stories that don’t speak to their own experiences, unless they freely wish to do so. People should write stories where aromanticism and asexuality are naturally inseparable; I’m just asking for an identifying tag.)
Again, I’ll stress that some media cannot be distinguished along thise lines; some works are just generally aro, neither aro-ace nor allo-aro. (Visual pride-flag works are often just aromantic and shouldn’t be shoved into an irrelevant category.) But if there is the capability to distinguish, if it is clear that not experiencing sexual attraction is part of an aro-spec character’s identity (or experiencing sexual attraction is part of a character’s identity), I’d really appreciate if observing this in our conversations becomes community habit. Just so folks can make informed choices as suiting their current needs of a work.
The aro-spec community is, generally, fairly good about this, but I have seen an increasing tendency to lapse. Before this becomes a widespread issue, I’d like to ask that my fellow aro-specs keep in mind the importance of letting folks know--by tags, by headers, by a mention inside a post--what kinds of aro characters or experiences any given work depicts.
I’ve had a few different pride flags cross my radar over the last couple of weeks. I think it’s important, in a flourishing community with a resulting growth of flags and pride colour schemes to represent us, to have a conversation about representation and design.
A-Spec Versus Aro-Ace Pride Flags
If you’re making a specific a-spec pride flag, I ask that you consider designing it in such a way that it is somewhat distinct from aro-ace pride. Most of the flags for both combine both the ace and aro flags together in various ways, which is reasonable enough given that ace and aro folks are part of both identities, but it results in neither flag looking distinct from the other. I’ve seen multiple flags that combine aro and ace pride colour sets together, leaving some stripes out or adding another purple stripe, and while some are aro-ace and some are a-spec, they all blur together to me. I can’t tell the difference, and I doubt I am the only one with this inability.
Aro-ace is not an umbrella term for the a-spec community. It’s its own identity and needs its own pride. Aro-aces should have their own pride design to distinguish themselves and their experiences from other ways of being a-spec, while allo-aros and allo-aces shouldn’t be forced to find their a-spec pride under something that looks more like aro-ace representation. As aro-aces rightly have a history of combining the ace and aro flags together for their pride, I think a specific a-spec flag should shift away from this combining of two flags to something new that speaks of both but represents a-specs as a whole.
There’s many ways one could make both flags different, even with using the same colour schemes but changing order or arrangement, or adding other simple designs across a striped field. What about vertical stripes for one and horizontal for the other? Or colour bars taken from ace-spec and aro-spec identity pride flags, together with purple and green, to celebrate and centre the a-spectrum? Or an a-spec flag that’s half green and half purple for the aro and ace spectra, but with a single narrow black stripe (black for unity?) in the centre?
It’s important to have both ace and aro colours represented in a specific a-spec pride flag, but I think it is also important that aro-ace be seen as distinct from a-spec in the minds of flag designers and the community promoting, discussing and using these flags.
Design Authority and #Ownvoices
People not of one identity should not be making flags/pride colour sets for that identity unless they have been commissioned to do so by someone of the identity and have had feedback and consultation from someone (preferably more than one person) of the identity.
This happens quite a bit in broader LGBTQIA+ spaces, so I absolutely understand it not seeming like a problem here. It’s common for people to realise that a flag is missing and then make a flag to fill the gap or complete a set while not being of the identity in question, which is then collated by the many pride-flag collecting blogs and reblogged to the community. I do not see malicious intent in this; I absolutely understand that best intentions are meant. But I also don’t think that this stepping-in serves the best interests of the community the designer intends to represent. Colours and designs are often chosen without any consultation from the people for which this flag is intended.
Pride colours come to be a visual shorthand for our identities, and on a visually-heavy platform like Tumblr, they often result in a lot of creative media. If that pride set takes off, especially if other bloggers give it attention and promotion or the designer is well-known, we suddenly have a flourishing of art representing a certain identity, used by people not of the identity in making pride art sets ... and that identity having had no say in the colours and designs now representing them.
It’s even worse when the designer assigns symbolism to the colours: I’ve seen a few flags created by folk not of the identity where the symbolism offered is designed to match relating flags but says nothing distinct about the experience of the identity (my identity) in question. This is why it’s so important that people of the identity are determining their own colours and symbolism, because most of the time, the outsider designer won’t know what’s desired or important in the symbolism. I don’t feel connected to these flags; they’re not made with my lived experience in mind and it so often shows.
If you’re a designer and you see an identity that isn’t yours in need of a flag or pride colours, approach someone of the identity and ask if they’d like you to help. You must be willing to take on their advice on colour, design and symbolism, but if you’re working with the people for whom the flag is meant, this is fine and awesome. Don’t step in and just decide on a flag yourself.
Speaking for the people lacking pride colours isn’t what pride flag design should be about. Helping people lacking pride colours to speak for themselves by providing software, file formats and design skills should be the role of a designer. If we value the importance of #ownvoices representation, it should start with pride colours. Promoting designs made by someone of or commissioned by someone of the identity in question is vital to keep in mind in a world where flag variants and alternate flags are becoming increasingly popular.
Allo-Aro Flag Design
There’s only a few allo-aro pride art pieces on this blog, compared to multiple and regular aro-ace pride art pieces. Unlike aro-ace, which has a visual shorthand in various ways of combining asexual and aromantic pride colours, allo-aro has nothing as a whole. Sometimes the aro flag is combined with allosexual pride flags, but that still doesn’t group allo-aros together in the sense of having shared experiences both within the aro-spec community and outside it. Pride colours give us an immediate visual representation, easily reproduced, and for this reason they are an important step in recognition and validation.
Since much of my reblogged content is visual art based around pride colours, I can see the creation of an allo-aro pride theme/flag helping to fill that lack. I’d really like allo-aros to get together and discuss pride colour/flag options and symbolism so that I can feature more visual representation for us on this blog. I want to be clear that I see it as more as an addition to our pride; I don’t mean it to replace our aromantic pride colours or our sexual orientation pride colours. (And I’d love to see more pride art posts that combine allosexual orientation identities with aro-spec identities!) Just as many aro-aces use the ace, aro and combined flag variants depending on situation, we can and should use our sexual orientation, aro-spec and allo-aro flags as suits us.
I see an allo-aro flag as an additional shorthand to give us a sense of connection and community, particularly in the sense of a currently-lacked visual presence in aro-spec and a-spec spaces. Without something to represent us, it’s harder for us to be seen, and my hope is that a flag can and will change that.
I’ll be honest: I want an allo-aro flag that veers away from current a-spec flag approaches to colour, design and symbolism/meaning. My thinking is that we need a flag with colour stripes relating to sexual attraction in addition to our aromanticism, as our experiences of allosexual attraction as shaped by our aromanticism is so often an afterthought in a-spec spaces. It’s worth considering that we already have the aro flag representing our aromanticism, often with references to things like friendship and platonic/queerplatonic attraction in the colour stripes. The allo-aro flag shouldn’t, in my opinion, reproduce what already exists. It should represent the allo-aro experience, specifically focusing on those things that aren’t covered by current aromantic pride interpretations and meanings--and for me, that’s the intersection of allosexual attraction and aromanticism.
The flag idea I have in mind has a pink stripe for attraction to femininity, a blue stripe for attraction to masculinity, a white stripe for attraction to gender and genderless identities unaligned to the binary, and a yellow stripe for attraction irrespective of gender, with narrower aro-pride-green stripes placed above and between these four coloured stripes. My thinking is that the sexual attraction stripes with green aro stripes interspersed between them will show that our aromanticism is the thing that connects our diverse experiences of allosexual attraction. I suspect using pastel variations of those colours would be easiest on the eyes and I have no knowledge of colour theory and what hues go comfortably together. This idea is based more on colour symbolism than colour theory, so I suspect it may not work that well in practice.
This is only a suggestion and I’d love to see what other allo-aros come up with. I’m posting this as an example for how I’d like to see a flag that isn’t similar in meaning and design to pre-existing flags, but I’d gladly toss it for any better ideas!
My feeling is, though, that an allo-aro pride flag will fill a gap in the visual media on this blog, and I’d love to kick-start a discussion on making, together, the pride colours that represent us.
Wanted to share some expriences in regards to the latest ask: I've seen a webcomic character that has Explicitly stated, about herself, that she does not feel romantic attraction, without using the word aro; and yet I've only seen maybe 2-3 people in this (very big) fandom who ""headcanon"" her as such. This is to say that it is not the author's fault if alloro fans ignore their characters' identity just because the specific word isn't used, bc they will go to incredible lengths to ignore aros
Because it’s been a little while, I’ll link to the referenced ask about indicating aromantic characters.
Yes, anon! Yes! That sort of thing is exactly why I think that throwing ourselves at a wall in trying to make representation unmistakable is perhaps not the best use of our efforts, because many alloromantics will refuse to see the bleeding obvious. I mean, the situation you described really couldn’t be clearer; anyone with even a vague awareness of LGBTQIA+ identities should be able to pick that up, and I’ll hazard an argument that most people who write an aro character the way you’ve described are targeting a readership that will have some slight or passing knowledge, at least, of LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences.
Even using the word “aromantic” in text or in the blurb/authorial discussions will not stop some alloromantic people from shipping a character. We live in a world where a book aro-ace character is made allo-ace in the TV adaptation and this is seen as progressive “because it’s showing that asexuals can still love”. (I’m only slightly paraphrasing posts I’ve seen about Raphael in Shadowhunters.) Placing an aro character in an alloromantic romantic relationship isn’t seen as erasure; it’s perfectly acceptable social justice.
I will mention that in a digital age readers can Google something like doesn’t feel romantic attraction to get results about aromanticism. If they want to learn, there’s a wealth of resources available. A fiction author’s job is to tell a story, not hold the reader’s hand, and I really don’t feel we should prioritise the ignorant and amatonormative over aro readers–to put explanations and definitions above our storytelling. Not when we can write THIS CHARACTER IS ARO in capital letters on every page and it’d still be ignored.
I honestly believe we are better to just write (and enjoy the writing of!) our stories, using language and terminology as the nature of the story demands, than to stress over whether our characters will be visibly aro to alloromantic readers.
(And if we see folks misidentify aro-spec characters, as much as is within our safe ability, we need to talk about it. We need to start discussions; we need to reblog/signal boost posts. This is especially important for alloromantic/ally creators of aro-spec characters. Don’t let audiences interpret an aro character as alloromantic without consequence; be an ally to aro-specs and address it. Just including us in their work is not enough if they won’t defend their character’s aromanticism. I don’t require ally creators to use the word, as I can think of plenty of circumstances where it isn’t in-story appropriate. I do require ally creators to stand up and insist to their audiences that their aro-spec character is aro-spec and should be respected as such in fancontent and meta. If they can’t do that, they have no business creating an aro-spec character and they’re no ally to me.)
So, yes, anon, I am nodding furiously at you. Nodding while shrivelling up inside at the thought of “headcanoning” an aro character as aro, but that’s far from the worst thing I’ve seen when it comes to aro representation.
So I was just kicked off of a famous ace blog chat room for saying Ebeneezer Scrooge is Aro ace , they told me to not headcanon gross characters Aro ace and I was like “ it’s not headcanon it’s fact “ he’s Aro ace coded , they got so offended they kicked me instead of discussing author bias against Aro aces , it’s not Scrooge’s fault dickens made him such a jerk to justify his villianization . I just ... I hate myself for not being socially acceptable around sensitive people
Anon, I am so sorry that you had to experience this awfulness. I assure you, this is not a case of people being sensitive. I’m also glad, selfishly, that you’ve sent this in, because it’s a wonderful excuse to talk about how current attitudes towards representation are running the risk of enabling bigotry more than preventing it.
This is a case of people engaging in clear, bold, specific aro-ace erasure and using the language of social justice to justify said erasure. It’s out-and-out aro-ace antagonism in the vein of denying an aro-ace person ability to express identity within the context of a well-known character and it is not okay. In fact, it’s downright reprehensible, to the extent that I could joyfully employ the thesaurus in finding alternate ways to discuss how despicable I find this–both the initial response in denying you identity/connection with a famous literary character and the resulting response in kicking you out of the ace community because you won’t fall in line with their ignorant ideas about representation.
You aren’t the problem here, anon. You never were the problem here. You do not deserve to hate yourself because you have been a victim of other people’s erasure, prejudice and dismissal. You do not deserve to hate yourself because you have been denied access to the asexual community for the crime of relating to a fictional character. You deserve to be angry, furious, outraged.
It’s hard not to feel this way when people are telling you that you don’t get to exist, when you have been kicked out of a community for daring to be yourself and express an connection for a character. It is absolutely not a failing in you that you feel the way you do–I want to be clear on that. We tend to direct the hate given by others towards ourselves, and that’s a normal human response. But it is not deserved.
It is not okay to tell a marginalised person that they cannot relate to a character coded like us. It is not okay to deny a marginalised person, often with few mainstream characters that depict anything close to our lived experiences, connection with a literary canon just because it isn’t good or idealised representation.
Scrooge–very aro-ace-coded to me, I must say–isn’t good representation. How can he be, given the context of his creation? That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t relate to him, create headcanons, write fanfiction or draw fanart, make meta posts, discuss how we connect to his life. On the contrary, transformative media is about taking a character like Scrooge and making him meaningful, supportive, positive representation despite the canon. Fandom has always been for taking the failings in the source material and transforming it into something that celebrates us–that moves beyond simply being relatable.
We can connect to, celebrate and discuss a character in their canon without it being cast as good representation. We can understand the difference between good representation and connection with a character--that connection does not have to mean endorsement of the canon approach. In a world where there’s little mainstream representation to speak of, we have to fall back on the latter. Where do we exist without it? Nowhere.
To tell us that we cannot do that, that we have to wait instead on characters who fit the narrow box of idealised, intentional, pure, perfect representation, is erasure. It’s silencing. Because it’s so tangled up in social justice understandings (and performances) of representation in a culture where representation is valued and consequently stripped apart, it is also disingenuous and dangerous. In how we’ve come to consider and understand representation, we have handed people a weapon to dismiss people while sounding as though they’re not engaging in explicit erasure–usually targeting people of intersecting marginalised identities, like aro-aces, disabled a-specs and a-specs of colour (as a very incomplete list).
I’m sure folks who’ve followed me for a little while have realised that I’m not a fan of how it has become fashionable to discuss and conceptualise representation, and anon’s story is a very clear cut example of why. People understand that it is damaging to marginalise-code a villain/antihero/antagonist character (or make them specifically/intentionally of a marginalised identity). People understand the need for marginalised people to see themselves in positive/protagonist characters. We no longer, though, have any sense of grey space where a character is not good representation but is still relatable and allowed to be discussed for that alone.
I’m going to use Garth Nix’s Clariel as an example. Clariel is dreadful aro-ace representation, in my opinion: in her own story (Clariel) she’s a fairly-sympathetic anti-hero protagonist who makes some awful decisions in the name of trying to solve a difficult situation, but she becomes a series antagonist who carries out murderous actions (seen clearly in Goldenhand but alluded-to throughout the series). The aro-ace character steals young women’s bodies to house her own spirit. She is terrible, terrible aro-ace rep. But that doesn’t mean a-spec folks can’t or shouldn’t relate to her experiences as an aro-ace character. I can dislike her as representation because of her position as series antagonist while at the same time connecting to her disconnection from social interaction and preference to live alone (the autism-coding is significant!) and there is worth in discussing that connection.
I don’t see how characters like Scrooge are any different. You’ve made it clear that you’re discussing him in terms of coding. You’re not painting a picture of Scrooge as good, idealised representation. You’re just saying you see him as aro-ace, that Scrooge is a character in a long-line of aro-ace-coded antagonist-ish characters, and you just want to talk about that with other aces. (Since when has it become a problem to talk about the antagonism directed at aro-aces via aro-ace coding, anyway?) It isn’t a crime to even want to reclaim Scrooge, to build something positive out of a faulty canon, to talk about what he means to you as an aro-ace character. That’s what fandom is for.
We can, should and must discuss characters and properties that are damaging representation or are not representation at all (just coding) in ways that acknowledge the problems of their being rep (or that they’re not rep at all) without dismissing the fact that people will still connect to and wish to enjoy and share these characters. We can discuss problems in coding and representation for a certain property or character while still giving people space to discuss said connection.
The idea that I should only express connection for characters who are perfect, pure representation of my marginalised identities is bigotry. It’s erasure in social justice clothing. It silences the people who do not yet have the privilege of mainstream/readily-accessible representation while privileging those who do have increased access to representation, and we cannot allow or accept it. Your ask exemplifies this: we have a culture where many parts of the broader asexual community have a habit of seeing aro-ace as the wrong way to write asexual, and now there’s one less aro-ace character acceptable to talk about in an ace community space. That isn’t a coincidence; the people who have least representation will always be most harmed by this. Always.
Again, anon, I’m so sorry that you had to endure this. If you want to fill my inbox with your thoughts on Scrooge, go for it.
First off, I loved your ask post about erasure, Scrooge, and representation. Anon, if you’re reading this, you’re a legend. Second, I haven’t read A Christmas Carol in a while, and I was curious how Scrooge is coded. In what ways do you see him as aro-ace? Thanks bunches!
First, I’m going to @ mention @thatmrgold, because I think they’re also a fan of Scrooge, additional to the original asking anon (or at least I’ve seen a reblog on one of my posts that suggests this–many apologies if I’m mistaken). I have read A Christmas Carol several times, but it’s many years ago now–my most recent engagement with the story is The Muppet Christmas Carol adaptation, seen last year! For this reason, I encourage anyone more familiar with the source material to expand upon my answer. I don’t have the detailed familiarity with the canon to answer save in broader strokes.
The main points where I think thatEbenezer Scrooge can be coded or seen as coded involve a previous failed romance (it’s depicted that he comes to love money more than hisfiancée, for which she leaves him), his long-running single-man-in-the-world status (he lives on his own, no partner, which is meant to indicate his hatefulness) and his isolation/disconnection from the world around him (demonstrated in a lack of compassion for his tenants, a refusal to allow his workers their Christmas, etc).
I’m going to explain why these points are effective coding, because written in a paragraph like that, they don’t seem like much. Thing is, they don’t have to be!
I’ll stress that much of this ties into long-running antagonistic aro-ace (and often autistic*) coding shared with other characters. A lot of a-spec coding is less about certain qualities suggesting a character’s being a-spec and more about those qualities being part of a broader literary canon of similarly-viewed characters. In other words, characters where people read those qualities together as having associations with a-spec identities, not because those character qualities are always inherently associated with being aro-ace or a-spec. In this sense, Scrooge is a-spec coded because Sherlock Holmes is a-spec coded and Clariel is specifically aro-ace and early The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper is aro-ace coded, and all these characters have commonalities in how they see the world, how they connect to the world and, most particularly, how the rest of the world views them. Viewed in isolation, Scrooge isn’t necessarily aro-ace-coded. Viewed in a social and historical context of other characters interpreted as aro-ace, on the other hand, he is.
I’m going to use The Big Bang Theory to explain my point, because I think Sheldon Cooper is the most recognizable character, and despite not liking the source material, I’m quite familiar with it. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t properly describe early-seasons Sheldon as aro-ace; it compares him to aliens, to plants and the scientific understanding of asexual reproduction. I think it does once or twice use “asexual” but it’s never in the current understanding of “lacking sexual attraction” and more like “a being without sex”. He’s constantly dehumanised for the aro-ace qualities the show won’t name. He talks, though, in ways that clearly demonstrate a lack of sexual and romantic attraction, and because of amatonormativity, they later give him a slow-growing romantic relationship as part of character “progression”. (Which is handled so disrespectfully and antagonistically, but that’s another post.) When people first hear the words aro-ace, they’ll commonly think of early-seasons Sheldon, because that’s the undercurrent of his character compared to characters like Scrooge or Sherlock. Even people who’ve never heard words like asexual or aromantic have an idea of what they think it is on first listen, because they’ve been exposed to so much unlabelled coding: in a world lacking intentional and meaningful representation to properly educate audiences on lived experiences, coding instead forms the basis of understanding.
(And it’s unexplored amatonormativity and aro/ace antagonism, of course, for why negative character traits are so often a-spec coding.)
This is why we end up with a character being aro-ace coded for things like not having a relationship and not connecting with people. These things do not inherently mean anything about the aro-ace experience, but they’re part of a social context where qualities indicate identities. Only the people who have a true need to understand–either as allies working with us or because they’re a-spec–go to a-spec communities to learn the diversity of experiences associated with our words, to look beyond the clumsy outline of coding.
(In fact, they have no concept of coding as distinct from representation.)
Additionally, especially because we a-specs are raised in a world where we are not seen or understood, we ourselves often come to relate to those qualities, however negative the coding and context, too. Not having a relationship says nothing about one’s lack of attraction, but many a-specs struggle to have a successful relationship, are pressured into ones we don’t want or are non-amorous. In a world where so few characters are depicted as long-term single in late adulthood, we’ll take that character for our own. Not connecting with society–well, I suspect the majority of aro-specs respect the need for Christians to celebrate their cultural and religious holidays, but when being a-spec is always a wall between us and the rest of the world, we feel and relate to that distance, that disconnect. When Christmas means people pestering us about our relationship status or lack of attraction, don’t we feel a bit like saying “Bah, humbug”? A romance failed by not loving someone else enough–not loving enough has been or will be levelled at many aro-specs, and I know that I’ve felt that because of my lack of romantic attraction, I must have loved something else over the “proper” romantic love for another person. It fits close enough to the amatonormativity we experience.
(There’s a reason why LGBTQIA+ and queer people so commonly relate to antagonistic characters, as their experiences of disconnection and alienation are as close as many of us get to our lived experiences. Only recently has there been, for some identities, anything close to representation, including representation that positively explores our alienation, enough that we might first see ourselves in anything other than antagonist characters.)
Lack of mainstream/broadly recognised representation, too, drives us to forge more intense connections with flimsier points of similarity than would be reasonable for a white, abled heterosexual cis woman connecting with white, abled, female cishet characters. She can be choosy about personality and character type in the characters she deems to be like her; we have the unconscious-but-constant knowledge that there’s few others like us and connect, in relief, just to have someone vaguely like us in the story, even if they’re clearly an antagonist.
On their own, these things are flimsy pieces of connection, but in a social context of coding and lack of representation, they become so much larger.
Does this make sense? A lot of what I see as aro-ace in Scrooge is less about descriptions of lack of attraction as it is broader brush-stroke images that correspond to lived experience or negative coding. Folks more familiar with the source material may be able to offer you more detailed examples, but for me it’s about the type of character Scrooge is in the social context of similar characters seen a particular way by a-specs and allosexual-and-alloromantic folks alike.
* Explanation of why I mention autistic coding under the cut for those who’d rather ignore the tangential murmuring:
A lot of aro-ace coding is also autistic coding because allo allistic writers cannot conceive of autistics being anything but aro-ace and aro-aces being anything but autistic. Both identities are seen as lacking empathy and connection to others, and both are subject to the dehumanising assumptions behind this kind of antagonistic coding, where aro-ace coding is used to show an autistic character as inhuman and autism coding is used to show an aro-ace character as inhuman.
Please note that the tendency for combining the coding does not mean that autistic aro-aces have full representation, as I see too many people argue: most of these characters are antagonists who don’t offer full, celebratory, supportive, intentional and beneficial depictions of aro-ace and autistic experiences. Aro-ace autistics are not positively depicted in the broader literary canon; surface aspects of their experiences are used to tell the audience a character is antagonistic. Given that I’m starting to see a few romance novels with autistic characters, by autistics and allistics alike, the idea that autistic aro-aces (and I don’t know of any autistic allo-aro character outside my own work!) are somehow more represented in fiction is raging amatonormativity. Again, coding is not representation and it’s disingenuous to conflate them.
I’ve spent a few days scouring Tumblr for aro-themed media to queue for this blog. As much as possible, I have chosen to queue media that solely deals with media that is by aros, for aros or will appeal to aros (low/no romance content, for example) in an amatonormative world.
(Low/no romance is not a requirement for media to be submitted or reblogged here; creative media that deals with the romantic attractions and romantic experiences of aro-spec people is absolutely welcome. We need stories about the romantic experiences of demiromantic and aroflux people, for example! There is, though, a correlation between being aro-spec and wanting media that doesn’t centre on romance, and given that there isn’t a lot of creative media that specifically includes and celebrates aromantic identities and experiences, many of us take low/no romance as a second best. I know I do.)
I keep running into a problem, though--the correlation of aromanticism and asexuality. By this I don’t mean people confusing the two. I mean people including aro pride and asexual pride images on the same posts, or databases of fiction that list aromantic-themed and asexual-themed stories together. Based on what I am seeing, I’d say that there’s the same amount of ace-and-aro pride posts as there are aro-specific pride posts, and that’s quite disheartening!
It is really frustrating to see this, over and over. Awesome pride art or pride swag posts that have asexual and aro works in the same posts. Fiction lists that talk about both at the same time. Aro-aces deserve to have their whole identities featured here, just like pan aros and lesbian aros and every other type of aro, but this blog isn’t for alloromantic asexual or asexual-specific content. I made it because, as an aro-ace myself, I don’t feel that the a-spec umbrella serves me as an aro when it comes to aro-specific pride and creative media.
There are so few fiction lists and databases that I cannot exclude them just because they list asexual-specific works alongside aromantic-specific works. There’s more in the way of original artwork and pride-themed pieces that is solely aro-spec-specific, but I fear that there won’t be enough, long-term, to keep this blog running if I exclude the posts that pair aro-spec pride with ace-spec pride images.
Because of this, any post that talks asexual identities/experiences/media/pride, alongside that of aromantic identities/experiences/media/pride, will be tagged #aromantic and asexual. (This is not the same thing as aro-ace specific media, which will be tagged as #aroace.) I will vary posts so we’re not inundated with post after post of asexual-specific content, and I will not reblog posts that treat aromantic identities and experiences as an afterthought.
It’s pride month, and I’m seeing a lot of brand new pride art across my dash, which is just how it should be. LGBTQIA+ folks are so creative! I am incredibly grateful to those artists who include aromantic pride, as we’re still often left out of many multi-identity posts. Thank you, so very much, for remembering us!
But please, if you are not aro-spec yourself, use the correct aromantic/aro-spec pride flag colours in your pride art: the darker green/lighter green/white/grey/black flag.
If you are aro-spec yourself and prefer the orange or yellow flags in demonstrating your pride, feel free to do so. I’m never going to police how aro-spec people display their pride. If you’re not aro-spec, though, you need to know that those flags are not commonly used by the aromantic/aro-spec community as a whole, that the community chose to adopt the twice-green flag for reasons of accessibility and avoiding appropriation, and that many of us consider it a microaggression to see the yellow or orange flags used to represent us.
Many if not most aro community blogs, like myself, have icons proudly displaying the darker green/lighter green/white/grey/black flag. It’s so common it’s become an in joke in aro-spec spaces, but it should be taken as a measure of the strength of our pride in our identities and our connection to this flag. These are the colours that represent us and this is the flag we are flying, and it matters to us that those who seek to provide the representation and inclusion we need--and we do need it--use them.
Please, represent us in your art with the colours we use to represent ourselves.
I know many older pride works will use the yellow and orange flags, and I’m not asking creators of older pieces to go back and change their works. If you’re making new works and you’re not aro-spec yourself, I just ask you to please use the right flag. Even if you think the yellow or orange ones are prettier.
They’re not the colours the community is gathering behind.
