What's Going On: May 2020
Written by the AUREA Team
Word count: 491
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Are you online?
In light of the global pandemic the hosts of the asexual podcast Sounds Fake But Okay have organised a livestream for the World Health Organization/United Nations COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The livestream will feature creatives and activists from the aromantic and asexual communities, including the famous Yasmin Benoit and our very own Secretary, Kieran, and Copy Editor, Alex. Tune in this weekend to join the fun(draiser)!
If you’re interested in the creative arts then this is the event for you. Positively Positive, artist and educator, will be hosting a spoken word poetry set, workshop, and a Q/A on the 16th of May. This session will be discussing asexual, aromantic, Black-queer narratives. To confirm your attendance visit their website here.
Imagine for a second a beautiful magazine, glossy and vivid with colour, full of aromantic and asexual content. The Aspec Journal is that plus more, and well underway. This zine will be made up of user submitted art and written pieces and all proceeds will go to The Trevor Project. Applications will open on May 1st and close on the 30th - the zine is looking for creatives that are passionate above all else. For more information and updates on the zine follow them on Twitter and/or Tumblr.
# Aggressively Arospec’s Aro Movies Monday has taken off wonderfully and their masterlist of aro friendly movies can be found here. If you’d like to recommend a movie to the community, they’re open for submissions every Monday. And if there’s a song you just can’t stop listening to # Aggressively Arospec also celebrates Aro Tunes Tuesday.
We’ve got words!
Quilccion/quilccion attraction - a term for quoisexuals and quoiromantics, for feelings that might be romantic/sexual attraction, but that can’t be determined as attraction.
Quilccion coined by: Still (original)
If you’re looking for some less, or possibly more, gender specific relationship terms check out these coined words.
Aros in the media
Yasmin Benoit hasn’t let this pandemic keep how out of the limelight! On April 22nd Yasmin took over the PinkNews’s Instagram story and chatted about all things asexual. And on the following day, the 23rd, Yasmin was interviewed by Rob Harkavy by OutNewsGlobal about aromanticism, asexuality, aphobia, and modelling. Watch the full interview here.
Nik Hampshire, yet another Black activist and model, has started a series on being aromantic and not asexual. His videos can be found here and he promises more to come!
Aromantics Address
Where is “the line” for romantic and platonic feelings for you? Is there a line at all? Or is a line too concrete a term for your blurred feelings?
Similarly a thread on how confusing romantic attraction can be and how difficult it is to define and recognise.
Negative and rude responses to telling people they’re aromantic is a common discussion at the moment.