arias_hollow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
arias_hollow) wrote2020-10-26 04:18 pm
arias_hollow) wrote2020-10-26 04:18 pm
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Carnival of Aros: Prioritization
The theme for this month's Carnival of Aros is "Prioritization", which I'm pretty excited to talk about since it's a subject I've given thought before now as well. The questions for this prompt were excellent I felt, so for once I'm going to try and answer them directly rather than indirectly like I usually do.
How important is aromanticism to you?
My aromanticism is extremely important to me! It shapes a lot of how I understand and engage with various aspects of society, and has certainly had a huge impact on how I view relationships in general. I am romance-repulsed as well, so relating to others has always been a bit difficult for me (that's not the only reason why of course, but I know it's at least one significant reason), so having the aromantic community to lurk around in has been quite helpful for whenever I get some of that Aro Depression going. Being able to put a word to my experiences has also been helpful, because while I didn't have the extreme feelings of brokenness some other aros suffered before learning they were aro, I did sometimes wonder if something had gone wrong with me neurologically (it wasn't something I dwelled on, and mostly I just found others to be the weird/baffling ones, but still, I knew it was weird I had never had a crush the older I got - most of those thought were probably more related to my general depression/apathy, but still, being aro added to it). I'd say that my aromanticism has actually become increasingly important over time, as I used to be unsure if I was really aro/if knowing my romantic orientation was really important back when I only id'd as asexual, but now it's the identity I think about the most.
Do you have a different orientation you prioritize over your aromanticism? What about gender identity?
I don't, actually. I am also asexual and quite sex repulsed, and that does matter to me a lot, but I've found that when it comes to prioritizing identities, for me at least, the communities I'm in have a large impact on that. I don't really spend time in the ace community anymore, even if I still generally care about ace issues, while I spend a lot of time in the aro community. And while there are certainly societal philosophies about sex that are very acephobic and those frustrate me, day to day I'm personally more afflicted by the societal philosophies about relationships that are very arophobic. (Context does matter - I'm just not in the context where sex philosophies/issues come into play as often. When it does come up though I'm typically just as passionate about them) As for gender...my gender identity has never been a big focus for me. I'm primarily a cis girl, and as a kid I was very self-conscious of that and had some degree of internalized misogyny, but once I'd gotten past that I wasn't really too focused on my own gender feelings, just on how society treated women in general and how I was also affected by that. I have thought that my somewhat neutral gender feelings could be a sign of me being arogender or perhaps a paragirl, as I do feel some affinity to the agender experience but also not entirely, but that isn't something I've put a lot of significance on as of yet.
Do you use the split attraction model? Does your identity feel split between romantic and sexual attraction or not?
I both do and don't use the split attraction model, depending on how you look at it. I id as aroace, which by nature of listing both aro and ace treats them as separate identities. But I am perioriented, so you could argue I'm not using it as well. How I feel about it fluctuates. Because internally, there is absolutely no divide between my lack of sexual attraction and lack of romantic attraction. I don't find people attractive, in general, and that's that. However, because of how different the communities are, externally I try to separate my ace and aro experiences as much as possible. And in some ways, the way people talk about sex vs how they talk about relationships is somewhat separate - but there are also a lot areas where the discussions overlap, so how much separating the experiences is useful also varies for me.
If activism is something you’re interested in, how does your aromanticism play into that? Is aro activism something you focus on or are interested in?
I'm not currently super focused on aro activism, but it's something I'm certainly extremely interested in and would like to partake in more. It's the main form of activism I'm interested in personally pursuing due to how unrecognized the issues are and how much it matters to me personally (if I had the time and energy to be equally involved in all causes, I would, but as is I often don't have the time/energy to get involved in one area as much as I'd like). If nothing else, whenever there's an aro community event I qualify for, I try to participate, but hopefully I'm eventually able to be more directly involved in more projects as well!
Hypothetically, if you could only choose one label to come out as, what would you choose?
Definitely aromantic. I haven't been in the situation of having to come out very often (I'm so open about being aro online that it's only in certain spaces I'd ever feel nervous about it), and practicality usually has me coming out as ace first since it's more well known (by comparison anyways), but I definitely think of myself as being more so 'just aro' than 'just ace', even though internally I'm both equally. Ironically, I used to strongly id as 'just ace' in high school before I was sure I was aro, and was extremely frustrated with how much the ace community emphasized their desire to still date - I wanted to be able to tell people I was ace and have them understand that wasn't what I wanted. Which, is probably why I came to id more as aro over time lol. So yeah, if it weren't for the fact that coming out in person is super stressful and that I was already out online, I'd choose to just come out as aro if I couldn't also come out as ace rather than the other way around.
How important is aromanticism to you?
My aromanticism is extremely important to me! It shapes a lot of how I understand and engage with various aspects of society, and has certainly had a huge impact on how I view relationships in general. I am romance-repulsed as well, so relating to others has always been a bit difficult for me (that's not the only reason why of course, but I know it's at least one significant reason), so having the aromantic community to lurk around in has been quite helpful for whenever I get some of that Aro Depression going. Being able to put a word to my experiences has also been helpful, because while I didn't have the extreme feelings of brokenness some other aros suffered before learning they were aro, I did sometimes wonder if something had gone wrong with me neurologically (it wasn't something I dwelled on, and mostly I just found others to be the weird/baffling ones, but still, I knew it was weird I had never had a crush the older I got - most of those thought were probably more related to my general depression/apathy, but still, being aro added to it). I'd say that my aromanticism has actually become increasingly important over time, as I used to be unsure if I was really aro/if knowing my romantic orientation was really important back when I only id'd as asexual, but now it's the identity I think about the most.
Do you have a different orientation you prioritize over your aromanticism? What about gender identity?
I don't, actually. I am also asexual and quite sex repulsed, and that does matter to me a lot, but I've found that when it comes to prioritizing identities, for me at least, the communities I'm in have a large impact on that. I don't really spend time in the ace community anymore, even if I still generally care about ace issues, while I spend a lot of time in the aro community. And while there are certainly societal philosophies about sex that are very acephobic and those frustrate me, day to day I'm personally more afflicted by the societal philosophies about relationships that are very arophobic. (Context does matter - I'm just not in the context where sex philosophies/issues come into play as often. When it does come up though I'm typically just as passionate about them) As for gender...my gender identity has never been a big focus for me. I'm primarily a cis girl, and as a kid I was very self-conscious of that and had some degree of internalized misogyny, but once I'd gotten past that I wasn't really too focused on my own gender feelings, just on how society treated women in general and how I was also affected by that. I have thought that my somewhat neutral gender feelings could be a sign of me being arogender or perhaps a paragirl, as I do feel some affinity to the agender experience but also not entirely, but that isn't something I've put a lot of significance on as of yet.
Do you use the split attraction model? Does your identity feel split between romantic and sexual attraction or not?
I both do and don't use the split attraction model, depending on how you look at it. I id as aroace, which by nature of listing both aro and ace treats them as separate identities. But I am perioriented, so you could argue I'm not using it as well. How I feel about it fluctuates. Because internally, there is absolutely no divide between my lack of sexual attraction and lack of romantic attraction. I don't find people attractive, in general, and that's that. However, because of how different the communities are, externally I try to separate my ace and aro experiences as much as possible. And in some ways, the way people talk about sex vs how they talk about relationships is somewhat separate - but there are also a lot areas where the discussions overlap, so how much separating the experiences is useful also varies for me.
If activism is something you’re interested in, how does your aromanticism play into that? Is aro activism something you focus on or are interested in?
I'm not currently super focused on aro activism, but it's something I'm certainly extremely interested in and would like to partake in more. It's the main form of activism I'm interested in personally pursuing due to how unrecognized the issues are and how much it matters to me personally (if I had the time and energy to be equally involved in all causes, I would, but as is I often don't have the time/energy to get involved in one area as much as I'd like). If nothing else, whenever there's an aro community event I qualify for, I try to participate, but hopefully I'm eventually able to be more directly involved in more projects as well!
Hypothetically, if you could only choose one label to come out as, what would you choose?
Definitely aromantic. I haven't been in the situation of having to come out very often (I'm so open about being aro online that it's only in certain spaces I'd ever feel nervous about it), and practicality usually has me coming out as ace first since it's more well known (by comparison anyways), but I definitely think of myself as being more so 'just aro' than 'just ace', even though internally I'm both equally. Ironically, I used to strongly id as 'just ace' in high school before I was sure I was aro, and was extremely frustrated with how much the ace community emphasized their desire to still date - I wanted to be able to tell people I was ace and have them understand that wasn't what I wanted. Which, is probably why I came to id more as aro over time lol. So yeah, if it weren't for the fact that coming out in person is super stressful and that I was already out online, I'd choose to just come out as aro if I couldn't also come out as ace rather than the other way around.