“Le spectre aromantique pour les nul·les » (Arospec 101 – French edition!)
In honor of #AggressivelyArospectacular, I spent last month motivating myself to finally translate my zine “Arospec 101” into French.
I wrote “Arospec 101” a few years ago during a 24 Hours Zine Thing. The goal of this zine was to serve as an introduction to the topic of aromanticism, and as a documentation of discussions happening around arospec-ness at the time.
The original, English version can still be downloaded for free here (and should then be printed on A4 paper, cut and folded). You can also reach out to me if you would like to buy or trade a paper copy.
In 2022, it was translated into Spanish by Esther (@waru-chan8). This version can be found here.
Last month, in 2024, I realized that there are still very few sources available in French about aromanticism. The few sources that do exist tend to focus on aro-ace discourses and leave behind the allosexual aromantic experiences (including mine.) Also, I’ve seen discourse emerging in France from people who are asexual and aromantic but who are totally detached (and mostly unaware) of the aromantic culture that has developed in English online.
Therefore, I wanted to share my experience and the things I learned in these same English-speaking online communities, for a French-speaking audience.
This whole project was also a reaction to an arophobic comment from a colleague of mine in an LGBTQIA+ organization, as well as to the general invisibilization of arospec issues even in an organization claiming to include the “A”. Considering I’m quitting that job next month (for unrelated reasons), I hope that leaving behind this zine will help my team remember that this “A” does not only stand for Asexuality…
I also took the opportunity of this translation work to update the contents of the zine a little bit. (For example, I added a section where I recount my experience of dating as an arospec person.) Should I make an updated version of the English version as well? Let me know if you think it’s necessary!
You can download the French version of this zine for free here.
Bisous 😘