#anti grayro

[askanaroace]

[screenshots of a tumblr post: @multishipper-baby asked: Hey, I have a question! Can I identify as a bi aroace if I'm gray-romantic? I know it's still in the aro spectrum, but I don't want to make other aroaces uncomfortable and use a label that's not mine

/end ask

@biaroace answered:I’ll start off by saying that I cannot control what you or anyone else calls themselves. However, I will say that I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with someone aro/ace-spec [a-spec for short] using “bi aroace” for the sake of brevity alone (and this goes for any other flavor of oriented aroace). 

“Why? Ace-spec people call themselves ace all the time. How is this any different?” That’s because the dynamics of the ace community are very different: asexuals are prioritized within their own orientation. They don’t have to fight to be recognized within their own label. They don’t have to question whether a post employing the term “asexual” includes them or not. They aren’t hesitantly listed off fifth in a list of possible definitions at best and outright excluded at worst whenever someone asks “what’s an asexual?”. Rather, those were the plights of a-spec people. 

I believe that’s the very reason a-specs made their own terms, and adopted the terms of the dominant majority (aro/ace) as shorthand. It’s perfectly justifiable! It’s admirable, even! But to transfer this practice onto oriented aroace labels would be a grave mistake, because as of now, we hold nowhere near the influential power aces and aros hold within their own communities. If anything, it is a-specs who are prioritized over us. A-specs who are taken as being the more “acceptable” meaning of bi aroace (as opposed to us weird oriented aroace heathens with our ~non-romantic/sexual unspecified attraction~). A-specs who are the face of our very orientation despite employing it as a mere shorthand. You’re not sticking it to the big man by claiming “bi aroace” as an a-spec person. You’re repeating exactly what was done to you. In order to help us be rid of this dynamic, I encourage you to leave “bi aroace” to oriented aroaces and instead use the equally cool alternate shorthands provided by your very own aro/ace-spec communities. For instance, bi-grayro ace could act as a neat shorthand for you (plus it’s got the same amount of syllables!) :>

Finally, I’d like to thank you for having taken the time to send this message. Your mindfulness as an ally is greatly appreciated, and I hope my response cleared things up!!

/end answer

@babyferrettails reblogs with: Yes! I’m sick of people saying that someone who uses an “orientation+aroace” term to describe themselves are probably grayace or grayro. It completely undermines oriented aroaces which is unfortunately the norm in the community already. @biaroace I’m glad you took the time to type this up it explains it really well!

/end reblog

@aceexplorations reblogs with: So I️ understand where you peeps are coming from. I️ really do. But as someone who would like to identify as a lesbian aroace but can only get up the courage to identify as an aroace who desires a long term relationship but only with other women, I️ really don’t mind people who are aro/asespec identifying as a label-aroace.My reason is this: At the moment you never hear of ANYONE identifying as label-aroace and as a result anytime anyone does people, all people, question how that is possible. The more people use the label the faster others will get used to hearing it. And as long as people remember to include an explanation for how someone who is aroace and not aroacespec can be label-aroace I️ think getting people more familiar with the label can only help.Plus, I️ don’t believe in telling somebody how they should or should not identify. They should do whatever makes them feel the most comfortable.

/end caption]

Yeah... I'm actually incredibly uncomfortable with this push to limit who can identify how, especially in this context. I’m tagging @multishipper-baby to make sure he can see multiple perspectives on this, and thank you @aceexplorations for speaking up as well.

For one, the orientation+aroace format was something people were using before "oriented aroace" came about, and there are still people who identify this way who do not specifically identify as an oriented aroace. It'd be one thing if it was a natural progression of the term changing to mean something more specifically, but forcefully trying to push people out of a term that has been open to them before "oriented aroace" became a named, defined thing does not at all sit well with me.

For two, there are many reasons - all extremely valid - why some choose to verbally identify, identify only as, or in many cases shorten to aro/ace when they are aspec. For example, can be easier than getting into an even more detailed explanation and so plain exhaust them less. It could even mean that they feel more comfortable setting boundaries in not having to discuss personal matters that may make them uncomfortable. We've long been pushing that aromantic and asexual can absolutely be umbrella terms and that you don't have to identify as aspec or some certain aspec term if you don't want, aren't comfortable with, don't prefer, or are unsure where you otherwise stand. To limit that now after we've worked really hard to make these terms open and welcoming to folk who are constantly wondering if they belong... I can't tell you how many times I've seen demia folk asking if they're welcome in the community, and graya in particular was hit extremely violently by exclusionism (at one point, basically dying out as a known label and only recently being talked about again).

For three, it’s long been the tagline of the queer community (perhaps particularly for nonbinary and aspec people, but I am currently most involved in those communities) that labels are, first and foremost, for ourselves. Do we feel a connection to labeling a certain way, even if it’s merging or stringing together multiple terms? Does it help us communicate how we feel? Does it bring us a sense of relief to use the term? Then we should use it (excluding instances of cultural appropriation or other harmful actions)! I am not seeing a reason here why it harms either oriented aroaces or non-oriented aroace orientation+aroaces to both be using the format orientation+aroace.

Finally... I'm sorry, I'm just not at all understanding the point of limiting who can identify as an orientation+aroace. When we're creating strict and limiting turns, we have to ask ourselves: why? What purpose is this serving? Does it help more people than it hurts? Is it unnecessarily leaving people out/making people feel unwelcome and/or invalid?

Honestly, I understand the argument so little, I can’t even make a point against it, nor figure out what the heck question I should be asking. The aspec spectrums simply do not exist in some sort of hierarchy as you are implying. Some folk may have more visibility than others (due to the size of the community, how long they’ve been pushing for education - not due to a particular in community effort to maliciously destabilize ourselves), and it’s true that right now there’s a lot of valid discussions going on about how people need to be careful with their words (stop saying aromantic when you mean asexual), but nobody was gatekeeping orientation+aroace until these ideas on your blog started coming up.

I saw someone trying to argue that they wanted oriented aroace to have full ownership over orientation+aroace because they wanted it to be immediately clear to people that they were specifically aroace and not graya, to which, I’m sorry, but I have to call bullshit. Orientation labels honestly say very little about us and the true complexities of our feelings, and they work well that way!

For example, someone who identifies as bi may be someone: with a strong preference for one gender over another, someone who’s only attracted to a specific amount of genders, someone who’s attracted to multiple genders but may not even include one of the expected binary genders, someone with no discernable preference for one gender over another, someone who’s attracted to all genders but considers gender an important component of their attraction, etc. Someone saying they’re bi doesn’t tell you anything beyond the fact that they’re attracted to two or more genders!

Aro and ace have long been this way as well. Even aroace is as well! There are so many details and intricacies to our feelings, desires, repulsions, aversions, preferences, wants, etc. that no label could possibly encompass all important aspects of our identity! At some point, there’s gotta be a breakdown where we realize that labels are a quick summary of how we feel, not the end all, be all of who we are or how we’re allowed to feel.

Aspec people calling themselves aromantic, asexual, or aroace all know there is a tradeoff to not outright specifying the spectrum part of their identity, and they are making the choice for themselves that they are okay and comfortable with what that entails. It should not be up to us to try and shame them out of that. As aspec people, we are not taking anything from each other by using our own community’s terms!!! It’s a difficult amatonormative, sexnormative, heteronormative world we must navigate. Our terms and our community should make it easier for us to navigate these minefields, not create more minefields to trip each other up in.

I’d be completely fine if “oriented aroace” itself was a term to specifically be defined in a strict manner. I am not okay with the bold claims that oriented aroaces somehow own the pattern of merging together identity terms in non-standard ways to describe themselves, specifically owning oriented+aroace, of which I have an incredibly hard time believing they invented.

So far, I’m not seeing how it harms us to keep orientation+aroace something open. However, I am hearing from people who are hurt by trying to make it more exclusive.

#gatekeeping #identity policing #exclusion #excluding #community discussions #aroace #oriented aroace #anti graya #anti grayro #anti grace #anti acespec #anti arospec #anti aspec #identity #yikes i didn't want to believe it when shades of grayro mentioned it #but this leaves me feeling very gross

[bitegore]

A thought, which I’d be actually really happy to have input on from any side

(I’m going to tag @shades-of-grayro because I know you’ve got a differing perspective on some of these things than i do, and I don’t know of anyone else with it at the moment. i’m also going to tag @biaroace​ because you’ve also been helpful to discuss with) 

anyway, onto the thing: 

When i was introduced to the oriented aroace discourse, it was my understanding that the argument is pretty much whether or not the label is going to be like “allowed” to exist, I suppose? At least my understanding was that the label was being argued over from the perspectives of “the label should exist” vs “the label should not exist, there are other labels” which had smaller subcategories, sure, but that was the main core of the argument. 

I haven’t actually seen that argument, though, outside of very vague references towards it. 

So for the most part, this post is just meant as a call for discussion, specifically about this facet of the argument. I can’t actually search for posts on my computer because after I scroll down about three page lengths, all posts get whited out; this makes it very difficult to go through the tag and look for information. I’m also aware that some people might not use the same tag as I would think to search. It’s also much harder to find one small subset of an argument than it is to find posts discussing in general. I don’t like to put the burden of proof on the people who I talk to in an argument, but as it stands I am beginning to realize I’m woefully underinformed on the actual problems that people have with the label and its definitions. 

If sent links, I will read them. I believe my DMs are open to anyone, and if you would rather reach out there, I just ask that you come into it with an open mind if you’re down for discussion, or a little disclaimer that you don’t want to talk about it, because i’m very used to sort of chatting in DMs and will probably assume off the top of my head that you also want to chat about the links or commentary you send. I don’t think you can send links in asks, though, unfortunately, but you can definitely also tell me that you’d rather remain anonymous in DMs and i will keep anything regarding you anonymous*.  I’ll also happily read arguments made by individuals, though I’d prefer to do that over discord** or google documents because tumblr DMs have absolutely abominable search functions and I don’t want to misrepresent anything. You are also welcome to reply or reblog this post with stuff, but being that it’s a post, the addition might get buried in my notifications box, and that’s not ideal. 

I believe that’s all. Last point: My dms are always open about everything, as a general rule. If you wind up on my blog and don’t actually want to talk about the discourse, but you can see that I like transformers and you like transformers, or we have some other shared interest, or you want to get something off your chest to a stranger, anything, you’re welcome to walk into my dms and talk about that! I like talking to people.

clarification on certain things are under the cut to try and cut some of the length off this post. 

*Not that I would be doing anything to try and point people towards you unless you run a blog about issues like this one anyway, such as biaroace or shades-of-grayro. I do believe that people should be held accountable for arguments in certain cases, but this isn’t a case like that in any way. Additionally, if you do wish to remain anonymous, I’ll assume that holds true for the  entirety of the discourse unless stated otherwise. I have standards, and one of those is that I treat people with the respect they ask for. Anonymity is a very small thing to be asked to give to someone. I’m also open to other requests (changes to phrasing, tag etiquette, punctuation, etc) for the same reason.

**My discord handle is ooze and goo and bone shards#2800 and i know for a fact that I can get DMs from anyone; however, Discord is where I go for most of my writing and friend things, so I have a much higher tolerance for bullshit there as I’m so far from used to dealing with bullshit coming from my Discord pals. Please don’t come into my discord DMs with hostility. If you feel that I am being hostile to you, and know that you will be hostile as well, that is absolutely fine! However, I ask that we then do not interact on Discord and instead work in google docs. (A note on that: if you feel that I am being hostile to you, I am all in favor of retaliation in kind. Self defense is important, even mental self defense. But i would like a note of ‘hey why are you being hostile/mean/aggressive’ first, because I’m not always great at conversation, and I know for a fact I’ve unintentionally started fights with my friends by missing hints and tone before.)

(End note: all bolding is just meant to make it easier for ND folks with adhd/similar issues to read long paragraphs without losing their place; its not actually meant for emphasis on anything other than “this is the central point of this paragraph.” My adhd makes it difficult for me to look at long paragraphs without my eyes slipping around and missing lines, so this is meant to combat that kind of thing. I do worry that it might come over as condescending; it is not meant to be. )

EDIT: i feel the need to put this on here. i can be extremely persistent sometimes if im worried that i’m confused, and will ask many questions. if this makes you uncomfortable, feel free to tell me to stop, and I will. I just don’t like to be wrong, so I will upon finding out i’m wrong immediately come for clarification, sometimes on too many things at once. However, I absolutely respect that that’s not cool and therefore if you want it to end, tell me, and it will 

#long post #oriented aroace #oriented aroace discourse #i know that shades-of-grayro is using the tag 'anti-gray sentiment' to tag my earlier post but i don't believe it applies to this post #however i do think if someone's on my blog but they want it blocked under anti-gray sentiment the tag is now gonna get caught at least #i really do worry about the bolding coming over as condescending or talking down but its meant for ease of accessibility #i know it makes it easier for me to read long paragraphs and i know ive read posts by other adhd folks that say its easier for them #if theres anything else i can do to make this more accessible just let me know and i'll incorporate it as best as i can #i already avoid certain formatting things and emojis for screen-reader ease of access but being that i've never used one before i know ill #probably miss things

[cat-sapphics]

i feel like its kinda weird to be an exclus who is also demisex grayro or whatever you said like. isnt a big part of your whole deal thinking that those labels are just normal fluctuations of attraction and not your whole orientation? how are you gonna be anti mogai and simultaneously mogai yourself

because i'm not fully exclus ? i share mostly exclus beliefs but not entirely. i don't like people who are Completely one or the other ykyk

also i'm not completely anti-mogai either. i just don't think it should be heavily prioritized and as popular as it is

#ask #anon #lgbt discourse #exclus #i kinda knew this ask was coming tbh #meh oh well

[radiosandrecordings]

Reminder that

A) This blog is no place for any kind of aphobe

B) I am literally repulsed-ace and grayro

C) TMA literally has an ace protagonist what are you doing in this show anyway

And lemme just throw in the usual no terfs, transmeds, ‘anti anti’s’ whatever the hell that means these days etc etc

#My Post #Been seeing more aphobes bein active again and just a reminder! Get Out

[godlessace]

Oriented aroace criticism summary

As some readers might have seen, there’s a lot of criticism brewing around the term “oriented aroace”.  And if you haven’t seen it, I’ll bring you up to speed.

“Oriented aroace” refers to aroaces who feel some kind of non-sexual/non-romantic attraction, and identify with a directional orientation (lesbian/gay/bi/hetero) because of it.  It’s been around, I don’t know, for over a year, and it’s advocated by tumblr user biaroace.

Last month, biaroace asked me to plug their infographic, and I put it in TAA’s linkspam and all.  Then shades-of-grayro informed me of some criticism they had, which I agreed with.

Shortly after that, I found, a 2017 post by biaroace where, um, well it was espousing bizarre ideas about how gray-aces and greyromantics were using “aro” and “ace” to “stick it to the man”--among other things.  I privately passed this around because it was seriously WTF.  I didn’t say anything publicly because I lost all confidence in constructively engaging with biaroace; anyways, by all accounts they do not engage with anyone at all.

People are now realizing that the anti-gray ideas underlying the “oriented aroace” label were worse than they thought, and are becoming more vocal in their criticism.  See coyote, and shades-of-grayro.  If you want the TL;DR of it, here are a few issues:

biaroace has declared, without good reason, gray people can’t be oriented aroaces.

In the process of this declaration, it is assumed that all gray people experience sexual/romantic attraction, which you would learn was not the case if you actually talked to us.

biaroace has said that gray people shouldn’t call themselves gay/bi/pan aroaces (even though we’ve already been doing that for a while), because that term should be reserved for oriented aroaces.

“oriented” is not ideal terminology since it seems to imply that the rest of us don’t have orientations.

They use “arospec”/”acespec”/”aspec” in a nonstandard way that excludes aromantic/asexual people--and seem completely unaware that this is nonstandard.

In my humble opinion, “oriented aroace” is a useful and salvageable concept.  However, the anti-gray stuff should be dropped immediately.  It’s painfully obvious that people are excluding grayness without even a basic understanding of what they’re excluding.  If the concept of oriented aroaces matters to you, then I believe you are capable of talking about your own experience without making assumptions about my experience.

And please don’t bother biaroace about this.  They don’t wish to engage, I respect that.  (They also don’t want people arguing behind their back, but that can’t be helped.)  If you would like to discuss this matter in an orderly fashion, I suggest coyote’s comment section.

#oriented aroace #gray-a #greyromantic

[sapphic-aroace]

idk if it’s okay for me to identify as lesbian oriented aroace: i dont really want to be in a qpr but if i did it’d be with a women, and i aesthetically like women - does that count as attraction, would that make me oriented? also can lesbian oriented aroace and sapphic aroace be used interchangeably? thank you for your blog! ♥︎

Hello you!

First, thank you for the appreciation!! 💕💓

So, to be oriented aroace is to be aroace and to have at least one other type of attraction besides sexual and romantic that you feel strongly enough that you want to label it.

And aesthetic attraction definitely counts!

It all depends of how strong your aesthetic attraction is, if you want to use a label to describe it and if labeling as oriented aroace helps you feeling good in any way.

Also, there is no scale of how strong your attractions need to be for you to be able to id as oriented aroace, so it's all really just about how you feel and if the label can help you navigating your life and your feelings.

As for the lesbian snd sapphic labels, the first one is for women or women aligned people who love other women only while the second one can be used by any women or woman aligned people who love other women like lesbians, bi, pan, ply, etc. ;)

(Note: it has recently come to my attention that the label oriented aroace was controversial as it excludes in its very definition aroaces who are not "fully" aro and "fully" ace: i.e. those who are on the ace and/or aro spectrum. idk a lot about the issue yet so I have some reading to do, but as someone who identified as oriented, it breaks my heart to know the label hurts some of my fellow aroaces.

If you're interested in learning more about the issue, I found a really good blog which talks about it: @shades-of-grayro (look for the #anti-gray sentiment tag.)

I personally think it could be a good thing for our community as a whole if we could open a discussion about it, especially between the aroaces the label hurts and the ones who use it.)

#answered ask #oriented aroace #oriented controversy

[shades-of-grayro]

So, I’ve read some of your posts about the term “oriented aroace” and the anti-gray sentiment the orig def implies, and I wanted to ask: for terms like these, where they are liable to grow and change with the community and perhaps eventually develop different meanings, do you think it’s ok to use the term as a grayro/grayace even if the original coiner is against it? Death of the author, I suppose. (I will say I am aroace and prefer oriented to angled, but I don’t like the limiting of the term)

I think that’s totally okay, and you might be interested in chatting with @unheardquestions, who messaged in asking about the same thing!

[corelliaxdreaming]

I’ve just seen some weird anti-grayro as a term discourse, and fuck those people. Gray aroace is the term I am comfortable using to describe my identity, and no one is taking to tell me I can’t.

#identity stuff

[nextstepcake]

@shades-of-grayro regarding your question about anti-grey/favorable sentiment in earlier (pre-2015) aromantic spaces, one of the first important things to know is that for a period of ~2012-2016, “aromantic” blogging was largely dominated by a blogger called “The Thinking Aro” (Formerly “The Thinking Asexual”).

Content Warning: Before I continue this post, I want to make it clear that The Thinking Aro had a lot of toxic opinions and you shouldn’t read this post / click on any of these links if you want to have a nice, stress-free day. I should also note that this is a quick post that doesn’t delve fully into all the relevant problematic content and criticism so some may be missing - that’s another project for another day.

The Thinking Aro/Asexual was notoriously problematic for multiple reasons and frequently criticized on other blogs, but because they disallowed comments on their own blog, new visitors would have no knowledge of any of this controversy, and would continue to perpetuate a lot of their problematic content (in addition to others who did know and didn’t care, either because they had the same opinions or considered those harmed by these posts to be acceptable collateral damage).

Unfortunately, in addition to having a few really awful opinions, they were also a prolific and very eloquent blogger, and they also had a lot of really good observations mixed in with their terrible ones. (And IMO I think they got a bit more extreme over time). There were also for some time one of the only blogs with “Aro” or “Aromantic” featured prominently in the name, as well as one of at the time an also small number of active asexual blogs outside of tumblr (which is often quite inaccessible to people who aren’t already frequent users) - meaning that lots of people read their posts and they had a major impact on the community). This meant they were a major presence who dominated early aro discussions, even if you tried to avoid them.. (While there were also attempts at times to create aro forums and aro resource pages by people without that kind of toxic history, most of them had trouble catching on and many folded within a a year or two, which made the impact of a handful of blogs even larger).

When it comes to attitudes towards gray-romanticism and romance specifically, the Thinking Aro had a pretty clear stance: 

Note: I’d like to repeat my very strong content warnings for invalidation and all sorts of toxic opinions.

They didn’t believe in umbrellas terms or communities at all. They also believed that people who identified as grey or demi weren’t really asexual or aromantic and should not be allowed to identify as such, and on a few occasions referred to people who didn’t fit their narrow personal definition as “pretending” to be ace or aro.

They also believed that romantic people - or anyone who experinced romantic attraction or engaged in romantic relationships - were tainted by their romantic attraction and incapable of having real friendships, unlike superior aromantics like them.

And that’s just the beginning of the whole rat’s nest. It’s also important to note that while The Thinking Aro was one of the most prominent of these voices, they weren’t the only one - you could see similar things on tumblr and on other blogs too.  I’m thinking now that this history deserved some more dedicated explanation, especially for people who don’t realize how much toxicity there is in the history of aro blogging, so hopefully I’ll be able to start posting out some more links and recollections in a more formal way eventually, though it’ll probably take a few days.

#aromantic #asexual

[askanaroace]

Would an aroflux asexual biromantic be considered oriented aroace?

To be honest, I’m not sure I can give a super clear answer on this at the moment because I think there’s still a lot going on with the definition of oriented aroace (and the fact that the coiner meant for it to be exclusionary and specifically anti-graya regardless of the fact that a lot of aspec folk found the term helpful and connected with it), and I don’t know how much agreement there has been on what oriented aroace is really meant as.

From my understanding, “oriented aroace” is meant to signify that the other attraction term you’re using (gay, bi, lesbian, etc.) is meant in a nonromantic and nonsexual way (such as platonic, alterous, sensual, etc.). However, anytime someone asks me if they can be aroace and still identify with gay/bi/lesbian/pan/ply/hetero/etc. because they want to be in that sort of relationship somehow (including in a romantic/sexual manner), I get commentors mentioning “that’s oriented aroace!” on my post. 

I’m honestly not sure if this is just a misunderstanding or if oriented aroace has evolved to denote any aroace person marking any form of attraction/relationship desire. Because I’ve also seen people saying that if aspec people are identifying as oriented aroace, then they may be using the term to denote their nonzero romantic/sexual attraction.

Anybody who identifies as oriented aroace want to pitch in on how they define oriented aroace and/or what it means to them personally? Please note exclusionary anti-graya and anti-aspec rhetoric will not be tolerated nor accepted. I’m also gonna go ahead and tag @shades-of-grayro here since they’ve been fairly active in the ongoing debate and evolution of this term and might be able to help with some input?

Finally, I am going to provide an answer in that I’m going to turn the question back on you. Do you find the term oriented aroace useful to you? Do you want to use the label? (And maybe think a little about why.) Then maybe you do fall under the term oriented aroace if it’s something you find helpful.

x

#identity #labels #oriented aroace #aro #ace #aromantic #asexual #aro spectrum #ask #op #Anonymous