Meet a veteran of the a-spec community
Written by Isaac (guest writer)
Word count: 1115
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
“I have observed a growing separate aromantic community and I am glad of this individualization.”
It is said, again and again, that we are a young community. The assertion usually being that we are growing and there is a bright future ahead of us. The implication, though, is often there will be more to us one day. While there is little history to the aromantic community in comparison to many of the LGBT+ communities, that doesn’t make our history any less important. Or any less valuable.
Isaac has been around since the early, blooming, growth of the community. This is a subject spoken of often on Isaac’s blog, among other interesting pieces relating to identity. In the writing to follow you’ll find a story that isn’t so dissimilar from the current aromantic narrative. No matter when or where, knowing you aren’t quite like the people around you will always be enough to send you searching for something familiar. For Isaac that familiarity is well worn.
I am Isaac and I have been in the asexual community for more than ten years, a time when there was no separate aromantic community. That time, despite in my mid-twenties, I realized that I didn’t fit the societal expectations around sex or romance.
I am Spanish and there is no separate aromantic community yet in Spain. As I am asexual, I can manage to know other aromantic people in the asexual circles, but I would like to know other aromantics not asexual. Here, the dominant religion is Roman Catholicism, and I have observed this makes things less hard for aros than in Protestant countries, since Roman Catholicism acknowledge celibacy as a lifestyle, both religious and secular, and this is a model for single people, even being agnostic.
Aromanticsm and other terms coined like squish have helped me a lot. Despite I could identify easier as aromantic than as asexual, I acknowledge that it is trickier to define aromanticism since defining romance involves the quicksand of culture. I know I have never fallen in love and only had squishes and, not being too young, this makes me aromantic.
I found the terminology of asexuality (including the separate romantic orientations) trying to help a friend in understanding their own orientation. These definitions made a lot of sense to me but they slept in my mind for several months, until I realized they made sense for myself and I registered in AVEN both international and Spanish-speaking, later also in Apositive, where I found a better atmosphere and learnt about Storms model.
It took me three months since I initially read the definitions of asexuality and aromanticism, and found the split attraction model very sound, to realize I could fit some of them. For me, sexual and romantic attractions were separate even in the case they were aligned to no attraction. I felt sex so disconnected from romance that in my mind romance only makes sense as a social justification for sex. So, no having had any crush in my life, I started to identify as aromantic while I was not sure about sexuality. I did finally learn identified as asexual, but it took me time to learn what sexual attraction is.
I am internally very proud of aromanticism as it allows me to avoid the romantic trap, but externally I do not proclaim it. I do not hide, either, that I am single and have always being so. People tend to assume I have casual sex and I don’t correct them as it’s not their business, but for aromanticism I am more open. My ideal life would be single with a small but good network of friends. A queerplatonic partner would be fine, but not a requirement.
I have never tried to force myself into romance when unaware, it was very unappealing. I am glad that, when I got squished it was with a member of the asexual community who was completely aware of what aromantic and squish meant. Moreover, she identified as aromantic back then, until she realized she was demiromantic. She was a very important person in my life and, a posteriori, I could label our relationship as queerplatonic. Despite I have gotten squished later, I have had nothing queerplatonic again, and I am not eager for it. Anyway, I avoid romance like the plague. I think it is potentially toxic and its good features are better provided by other means. The bad thing is the greed of romance, that prefer to spoil a good friendship before negotiating terms.
In the last years I have observed a growing separate aromantic community and I am glad of this individualization, since I remember my first year in AVEN and the protest for a specific subforum for aromanticism the same way the romantic people had theirs. The separate aromantic community came late for me, but I’m glad of initiatives like Carnival of Aros. Maybe, if I were ten years younger and arriving now to the community, finding the aromantic one would have made things different for me.
When it comes to the integration of asexuals and aromantics in LGTB+, I think the latter should be deeply restructured, rather than the juxtaposition of four letters. And it also requires some split-model for allowing romantic asexuals and allo aros, as well as cis-genderless people. Slogans about “love” are very dangerous for aros, apart of excluding aro homosexuals.
There was a legislative bill by the congressional group Podemos (the most leftish group in the parliament) which was very ill-written in describing the sexual diversity. The project expired when the Spanish parliament was dissolved for new elections, and now Podemos is in coalition with the Socialists and has several ministers in the cabinet, so it's expected to resume their goal of a Spanish LGBT law. I hope it's well written, acknowledge the A-orientations, the possibility of mismatched sexual and romantic orientations, and non-binary genders. Although we don't have specific articles in the proposition, such a law would extend to us the generic protections for the LGBT. Some regions do have their laws, but it would mark a minimum nation-wide and would protect queer people in the regions that lack one. I hope the law will be inclusive rather than juxtapositive.
Finally, I’m glad I was not pressured into couplehood and, if I could warn myself in the past, it would be hard for me to do anything about aromanticism because the terms were not coined yet. Concrete labels are useful for finding information. I think that I would have struggled with recognizing what my platonic attraction is if I had continued unaware of the terms, apart of never knowing some good friends and even a former QPP.