Carnival of Aros: Aro Community Wish List
Nov. 25th, 2019 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arias_hollowI think the most obvious thing I would love to see for the aro community is an increase of in-person community spaces and meet up groups, as well as a diversification of internet spaces. Aro cafes, aro support groups, aro activism centers, those are all things I would really like to see come into existence. As for online spaces, I feel like we kind of lack any proper centralized communication space. I think (?) most of us congregate around tumblr, but that site is poorly designed for organized discussion of any kind, and sites like arocalypse don't get as much traction. I'm not sure what a good answer to this would be, since there aren't a lot of other sites that I know of that would serve this purpose better, but I believe it's something worth thinking about.
One kind of space that I can't imagine there being a ton of desire or prioritization for, but would really make me happy, would some kind of Aro Dance Hall. It could have dance lessons, including low-contact and no-contact versions of classic dances for touch-averse aros, and there wouldn't be that cultural emphasize on showing up with a partner, you can either dance alone, with various people, with friends, or just chill by the tables and enjoy the music, and there wouldn't be any of that pressure to socialize in a certain way or to be looking for a partner. It could also have rooms for different kinds of music, some not associated with partnered dancing in the first place, and some more classical.
As for specific types of resources, as I mentioned, I think more activism and support groups would be extremely useful a lot of members of the community. And of course, as a writer, I would love to see more aromantic characters in literature and film/television. Many of my own original characters are arospec, so once I get published that will slowly add more rep into the world, but to see some recognition from more well-known or highly regarded media sources would do wonders for visibility and feelings of validation for many aro readers/viewers.
There's a lot of different merch I think that could be a lot of fun. There's already some great aro jewelry and some fun t-shirts (though, more t-shirts would be awesome too), but I've always thought it would be great to have hats, scarves, dresses, and long coats that use the aro colors in more of a mesh or other alternate pattern rather than just sticking to the formal stripes. I'm a fan of mugs and thermal travel mugs as well, so seeing more of those would be great. Also, it would be neat to see the flags of more specific aro-spec identities on things, as well as the newer alloaro and aroace flags.
Finally, I think a general push for awareness in the public eye and a push for laws to be more supportive of single people living alone is what the community should be focusing on as far as outwards activism goes. I've seen a lot more aro events online, which I think is a wonderful movement in the right direction, so more events like that and possibly some in-person events as well would be a good thing to work towards.
One kind of space that I can't imagine there being a ton of desire or prioritization for, but would really make me happy, would some kind of Aro Dance Hall. It could have dance lessons, including low-contact and no-contact versions of classic dances for touch-averse aros, and there wouldn't be that cultural emphasize on showing up with a partner, you can either dance alone, with various people, with friends, or just chill by the tables and enjoy the music, and there wouldn't be any of that pressure to socialize in a certain way or to be looking for a partner. It could also have rooms for different kinds of music, some not associated with partnered dancing in the first place, and some more classical.
As for specific types of resources, as I mentioned, I think more activism and support groups would be extremely useful a lot of members of the community. And of course, as a writer, I would love to see more aromantic characters in literature and film/television. Many of my own original characters are arospec, so once I get published that will slowly add more rep into the world, but to see some recognition from more well-known or highly regarded media sources would do wonders for visibility and feelings of validation for many aro readers/viewers.
There's a lot of different merch I think that could be a lot of fun. There's already some great aro jewelry and some fun t-shirts (though, more t-shirts would be awesome too), but I've always thought it would be great to have hats, scarves, dresses, and long coats that use the aro colors in more of a mesh or other alternate pattern rather than just sticking to the formal stripes. I'm a fan of mugs and thermal travel mugs as well, so seeing more of those would be great. Also, it would be neat to see the flags of more specific aro-spec identities on things, as well as the newer alloaro and aroace flags.
Finally, I think a general push for awareness in the public eye and a push for laws to be more supportive of single people living alone is what the community should be focusing on as far as outwards activism goes. I've seen a lot more aro events online, which I think is a wonderful movement in the right direction, so more events like that and possibly some in-person events as well would be a good thing to work towards.
