(((I Will Outlive)))

You can have sex without a relationship and still have it be fun and consensual for all parties involved.

You can have casual sex without one partner using the other. You can still care about and be close to a regular sexual partner without it having to be romantic. Not all sex leads to a romantic relationship, and having sex without the intention of one doesn’t mean you’re leading someone on. Aromantic people aren’t hurting anyone if they want sex without romance. Aromantic people aren’t heartless. Just because aromantic people form different types of relationships than alloromantic people doesn’t make them any less valid.

i hope the beloved mutuals don’t think me unintellectual for this but i love romantic subplots i gobble them up delightedly with very few exceptions. ‘oh fuck yes a little bowl of seeds for me’ etc 

one time a professor asked me if i’d ever wanted to write anything “more important” than romance. and i said no. i was put on this earth to write about sad people kissing. and if another writer ever came up to me and said they wanted to write 400 pages containing nothing but a character baking a single loaf of bread each day, then i would tell them to do that. people don't write something because it's important. they write about something and that is what makes it important

Your relationships don’t have to fit neatly into either friendship, qpr or romantic relationship labels. Some relationships have elements of multiple types of relationships, some fall outside those labels entirely, some shift over time or fluxuate between different labels.

Sexual feelings are neutral feelings. There's no morality attached to them.

Romantic feelings are neutral feelings. There's no morality attached to them.

Feeling or not feeling these feelings, or feeling/not feeling them in any combination, says absolutely nothing about what kind of person you are.

Treating romance as something wholesome and pure while treating sexuality as something sinful and awful helps nobody. Romance and sex are both neutral orientations, neither being more pure or sinful than the other. You can have one or the other, you can have both, you can have neither. Putting one above the other is a tired concept rooted in amatonormativity.

Being asexual doesn’t mean you have to hate sex. Being aromantic doesn’t mean you have to hate romance. You’re allowed to feel however you like about either, whether it’s hate, love, neutrality or anything else.

Sex doesn't need romance. Sex without romance can still be healthy and good.

Here’s a post about romance repulsion because it’s important to understand that it is wildly different for different people and can even change for an individual randomly or because of the context.

So you can be romance-repulsed by:

Most of these come from either being reminded of romance, being overwhelmed by it constantly, having people think you are not aromantic, and being put in romantic situations. What repulses you and how much can vary a whole lot and be completely arbitrary. So you could dislike kissing but love sex, or you could love fictional romance but hate seeing couples in public. You could like holding hands except for one time when it’s really pretty outside or something and suddenly you’re uncomfortable. Whatever. It can change, too. Changes can either be arbitrary, or because of specific things, like if your orientation changes maybe. For me, I have lots of repulsions to things I feel are romantic unless I’m attracted to a person and then I have no issue with them whatsoever. So the context will affect if I’m repulsed or not. You can also be attracted and still romance-repulsed.

Basically, there is no clear-cut definition of “romance-repulsed” that will describe everyone perfectly. It’s so different for each person, even if there are often commonalities.

Too often, people (willfully) misinterpret an asexual and/or aromantic person’s expressed lack of understanding of sex and/or romance as a personal attack on the importance of sex and/or romance in their own lives to the point of making asexual and/or aromantic people out to be a threat to their existence.

It shouldn’t be surprising or weird that asexual and/or aromantic people talk about not being able to comprehend an experience that they are very much fully expected to comprehend to be considered to be “human,” but it’s for that reason that it is surprising or weird to people who aren’t aspec that we don’t Get It.

As asexual and/or aromantic people, it’s like we’re expected to apologize for our inability to understand something we don’t experience, while people can simply claim they don’t “get” our own experiences on a regular basis without much push back for any ignorant comments that might come from that.

That’s not fair. Not every lack of understanding is expressed from a standpoint of willful ignorance, fear, disgust, and/or hatred. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of us not being in the right position to understand something because we don’t experience it, and we shouldn’t be required to understand it on a deep level.

If you can’t grasp how asexual and/or aromantic people experience their feelings and how they live and function on a daily basis, then why demand the same thing of asexual and/or aromantic people in regards to romantic and/or sexual experiences that we cannot relate to.

An asexual person saying “I don’t understand how sexual attraction happens” is not the same as someone saying every person who has sex is dirty and wrong. An aromantic person saying “I’m uncomfortable with romantic gestures” is not the same as someone saying the way you experience love is invalid.

If you think they are the same, your problem is that you view asexual and/or aromantic people as “inherently” harmful or “problematic” or evil or -phobic or what have you, and so you interpret everything that asexual and/or aromantic people say as a personal attack when it likely has nothing to do with you.

Aromantic people can have a complicated relationship with romance. They can not know how they feel about romance or those feelings can change or be inconsistent.

Sex and romance repulsion don’t always follow logical rules. It’s normal if your repulsion is strong sometimes and weak or gone other times. It’s normal if it only shows up in very specific circumstances. It’s normal if it’s not predictable when it shows up.

I think we need to normalize the idea of marrying friends. I don’t mean in a “the best romantic relationships come from the best friendships” type way, though I do believe that’s true. I mean in a “I have zero romantic feelings for you, but I would totally spend the rest of my life committed to a future where you are my primary partner and maybe even raise a family together” type way.

Like, I don’t think it should be an aromantic-exclusive option, or a plan B when you and your best friend are still single at 40 and want to take yourselves out of the dating market.

I’ve heard it mostly as that backup plan, that “if I don’t find anyone, I’ll just marry Trish haha”, and I don’t think that’s even what I’m talking about normalizing. That’s a secondary outcome, seen as “giving up” on finding “real love”, and even if a pair of friends go for it, it’s plagued with this general feeling of “sub par”.

What I mean is that marrying a best friend (or having a committed intimate or emotional platonic relationship) should be seen as just as worth doing as marrying someone you’re in love with. It should be normal for teenagers to try as many committed friendships as they do romantic relationships. It should be normal for someone to say “this is my best friend and if everything works out, maybe we’ll move in together later” or “Trish and I have been roommates for two years now. We’re considering adopting soon, or Trish might carry a child!”

And as an aromantic person, it shouldn’t be strange for me to say “I prefer friendship to romance”. People should hear that and nod their heads like “that’s understandable. John feels the same.”

Hell, I see so many people expressing that they prefer their friends’ company to their romantic partner’s. “My friends understand me better and I think treat me better” and they’re expected to go home to this person, to marry and have kids with this person. It’s bizarre to me. Your platonic feelings for your friend aren’t inferior to your romantic feelings for your boyfriend, and if one of them treats you better than the other, I think you should probably rethink which one is your primary partner.

I also find it strange that it’s not more common in poly spaces for a friend to be considered a legitimate “partner”. In a world where friendships were just as likely to bloom into life partnerships as romantic relationships, I think polyamory would be much more commonplace. “I committed to Josephine about a year ago and now we own a home, but I fell in love with Joe about six months ago and we’re all trying to make it work.” Josephine shouldn’t have to worry about her partner leaving her for Joe just because their bond is romantic and therefore the “sensible” relationship to choose over the other.

I’m just ranting at this point, but I reiterate: committed friendships should not be seen as strange and “sad”, but as a legitimate option for a lifetime commitment. Not just for aromantics like myself, but for everyone. It should just be normal.

And not to be presumptuous, but I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking