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Aromantic “asexual” FAQ/QnA
3 years ago
General
Obviously no group is a monolith and my answers are only my own personal experiences.
Anyways, a lot of people are cagey or defensive about answering questions about their lack of interest in sex and romance. I’m not. I’m completely secure in how I am and feel absolutely zero shame or sadness about it. Here’s some common ones to start, if you have any burning questions not answered here though, fire away.
-Have you ever had any interest in romance at all?
Nope. I basically see it the way I did as a little kid, maybe even more negatively. Back then I remember at least once thinking that marrying a best best friend might be appealing. But I hate every aspect of romance and have never seen the appeal in it as a teen/adult. I hate living with other people and inevitably hate them. I can’t stand touch beyond hugs and don’t desire even platonic or familial physical touch. I am extremely ticklish and it’s unbearable and overwhelming. And the idea of being chained to someone possibly until I die and especially being financially interdependent with them sounds like an absolute nightmare.
-Are you autistic?
I can neither confirm nor deny that. I have several laughably stereotypical traits including my touch aversion and lack of interest in love/sex but have never been formally diagnosed and in online assessments I only score kind of marginally in the autistic range socially. Maybe I’m a zebra, maybe I’m a horse that stood too close to a picket fence being painted white.
-Do you have any kind of sex/relationship trauma?
Nope. I have no qualms with this question because I have never had anything of the sort happen to me.
I don’t include rape or domestic abuse in my stories for this reason, I just don’t understand that stuff at all and wouldn’t be able to depict it appropriately and frankly a lot of mostly women are really sick of seeing it anyways.
-Do you feel any pride/shame in it at all?
Nope to either. I just feel lucky as hell I don’t have to deal with relationship drama and dating crap, it just makes things so easy. Yeah, I feel kind of inhuman for it, but in a superior way, like a robot above such things. I actually like sexless/loveless robot/alien characters for that reason, unlike a lot of others.
-Have you ever been kissed (lips)?
Twice and it was disgusting. Once was a friend on New Years as a joke. One was at a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice. I do not want to smash my lips against someone else’s warm moist mouth hole. That being said, on exactly one occasion I have looked a celebrity’s lips and gone “yeah that guy might be vaguely tolerable to kiss as part of a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice I guess”
-Have you ever had a crush?
I kind of did once admittedly. There was a girl in high school I did find attractive and liked as a friend and talked to her as a closer acquaintance for a while but we eventually drifted away. I quashed that whole line of thought in my mind though because I hate everything tangible about love regardless of what monkey brain says and statistically speaking, she was probably straight. I also just felt like a creep and felt really bad about it and frankly, wouldn’t have wanted to be more than friends anyways. I don’t know if she ever suspected anything or just thought I was regular awkward.
-Do you enjoy romance or shipping in fiction?
Virtually never. Usually I find it about as boring and hard to follow as people going on about finances or tedious nuclear reactor safety regulations. Maybe if I really like a character dynamic and they seem like a pair who’d do particularly well in a domestic setting but that is very rare, I’ve maybe had one or two established romantic relationships in stories I’ve written. I have also written some horror stories about a fire demon seducing the narrator but those are more about my fear and disgust at the idea of falling in love. I’d rather read/write about unconventional friendships/alliances. One of my favorite movies the Yellow Submarine partly because it has no romance at all, only rainbow crazy crap lol
-Do you own pride merch or are active in the aromantic community?
I own some angel pins in pride colors I just got because I liked the surreal angel designs lol I would never advertise that I hate sex/romance because most people either wouldn’t recognize the colors or would take it as a challenge to woo me, so a net negative.
Hard no to the latter. I can’t stand the aromantic community and especially the “a-spec” one. From what I’ve seen its all bickering about identity politics and people who aren’t hard stop loveless like me, which I have no real commonality with with at all. I don’t want or need emotional support or validation for what I am so I don’t care about community at all.
If there was a spinster/confirmed bachelor club for dedicated solo people focused more on practical things like those damn “no single rider” rides at fairs and pet/house sitting for other solo people then sure, that I’d be down for.
-What would you do if theocrats took over and forced you to get married and have babies?
Be a nun at whatever cost because much as I won’t waste my time on religion, it’s sure as hell better than THAT. Barring that, probably consider sacrificing myself for whatever resistance movement there was.
-ArE AcEs/ArOs LgBt????
I won’t speak for others and I don’t care what they do/identify with but I don’t consider myself that. I don’t consider myself straight either but frankly, most issues that gay/bi/trans people face do not effect me at all and nobody has ever said anything negative about my lack of interest in love.
Bonus: technically, I am the polar opposite of “feels no sexual attraction, regardless of libido and sexual actions” but people seem to lump that in a “asexual” anyways. I’ve seen some sources include lack of the latter two as well which might be why, but I always see individual people listing the attraction bit as the qualifier. I’ll go into less detail here because I am extremely mum about being outwardly sexual at all in furry spaces because I aggressively want to look as unavailable and unfuckable as possible around anyone I might actually meet in real life.
In theory I can find people hot, exclusively unattainable characters. I’d say I fantasize about 90% male and 10% female/other, though partly because my “types” of women are near nonexistent in media. I’d say it’s like how tide pods look like tasty fruit to my monkey brain and probably yours too, but realistically you know it’s completely unappealing and will kill you so you’d never act on it. I mostly only fantasize about being ghost hands touching and cuddling someone else because it helps me go to sleep and beyond that, I refuse to elaborate. I have never felt genuine sexual desire and cannot overstate how much I hope I never will.
Anyways, that covers all the questions I think I see/hear decently often.
Anyways, a lot of people are cagey or defensive about answering questions about their lack of interest in sex and romance. I’m not. I’m completely secure in how I am and feel absolutely zero shame or sadness about it. Here’s some common ones to start, if you have any burning questions not answered here though, fire away.
-Have you ever had any interest in romance at all?
Nope. I basically see it the way I did as a little kid, maybe even more negatively. Back then I remember at least once thinking that marrying a best best friend might be appealing. But I hate every aspect of romance and have never seen the appeal in it as a teen/adult. I hate living with other people and inevitably hate them. I can’t stand touch beyond hugs and don’t desire even platonic or familial physical touch. I am extremely ticklish and it’s unbearable and overwhelming. And the idea of being chained to someone possibly until I die and especially being financially interdependent with them sounds like an absolute nightmare.
-Are you autistic?
I can neither confirm nor deny that. I have several laughably stereotypical traits including my touch aversion and lack of interest in love/sex but have never been formally diagnosed and in online assessments I only score kind of marginally in the autistic range socially. Maybe I’m a zebra, maybe I’m a horse that stood too close to a picket fence being painted white.
-Do you have any kind of sex/relationship trauma?
Nope. I have no qualms with this question because I have never had anything of the sort happen to me.
I don’t include rape or domestic abuse in my stories for this reason, I just don’t understand that stuff at all and wouldn’t be able to depict it appropriately and frankly a lot of mostly women are really sick of seeing it anyways.
-Do you feel any pride/shame in it at all?
Nope to either. I just feel lucky as hell I don’t have to deal with relationship drama and dating crap, it just makes things so easy. Yeah, I feel kind of inhuman for it, but in a superior way, like a robot above such things. I actually like sexless/loveless robot/alien characters for that reason, unlike a lot of others.
-Have you ever been kissed (lips)?
Twice and it was disgusting. Once was a friend on New Years as a joke. One was at a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice. I do not want to smash my lips against someone else’s warm moist mouth hole. That being said, on exactly one occasion I have looked a celebrity’s lips and gone “yeah that guy might be vaguely tolerable to kiss as part of a Rocky Horror Picture Show virgin sacrifice I guess”
-Have you ever had a crush?
I kind of did once admittedly. There was a girl in high school I did find attractive and liked as a friend and talked to her as a closer acquaintance for a while but we eventually drifted away. I quashed that whole line of thought in my mind though because I hate everything tangible about love regardless of what monkey brain says and statistically speaking, she was probably straight. I also just felt like a creep and felt really bad about it and frankly, wouldn’t have wanted to be more than friends anyways. I don’t know if she ever suspected anything or just thought I was regular awkward.
-Do you enjoy romance or shipping in fiction?
Virtually never. Usually I find it about as boring and hard to follow as people going on about finances or tedious nuclear reactor safety regulations. Maybe if I really like a character dynamic and they seem like a pair who’d do particularly well in a domestic setting but that is very rare, I’ve maybe had one or two established romantic relationships in stories I’ve written. I have also written some horror stories about a fire demon seducing the narrator but those are more about my fear and disgust at the idea of falling in love. I’d rather read/write about unconventional friendships/alliances. One of my favorite movies the Yellow Submarine partly because it has no romance at all, only rainbow crazy crap lol
-Do you own pride merch or are active in the aromantic community?
I own some angel pins in pride colors I just got because I liked the surreal angel designs lol I would never advertise that I hate sex/romance because most people either wouldn’t recognize the colors or would take it as a challenge to woo me, so a net negative.
Hard no to the latter. I can’t stand the aromantic community and especially the “a-spec” one. From what I’ve seen its all bickering about identity politics and people who aren’t hard stop loveless like me, which I have no real commonality with with at all. I don’t want or need emotional support or validation for what I am so I don’t care about community at all.
If there was a spinster/confirmed bachelor club for dedicated solo people focused more on practical things like those damn “no single rider” rides at fairs and pet/house sitting for other solo people then sure, that I’d be down for.
-What would you do if theocrats took over and forced you to get married and have babies?
Be a nun at whatever cost because much as I won’t waste my time on religion, it’s sure as hell better than THAT. Barring that, probably consider sacrificing myself for whatever resistance movement there was.
-ArE AcEs/ArOs LgBt????
I won’t speak for others and I don’t care what they do/identify with but I don’t consider myself that. I don’t consider myself straight either but frankly, most issues that gay/bi/trans people face do not effect me at all and nobody has ever said anything negative about my lack of interest in love.
Bonus: technically, I am the polar opposite of “feels no sexual attraction, regardless of libido and sexual actions” but people seem to lump that in a “asexual” anyways. I’ve seen some sources include lack of the latter two as well which might be why, but I always see individual people listing the attraction bit as the qualifier. I’ll go into less detail here because I am extremely mum about being outwardly sexual at all in furry spaces because I aggressively want to look as unavailable and unfuckable as possible around anyone I might actually meet in real life.
In theory I can find people hot, exclusively unattainable characters. I’d say I fantasize about 90% male and 10% female/other, though partly because my “types” of women are near nonexistent in media. I’d say it’s like how tide pods look like tasty fruit to my monkey brain and probably yours too, but realistically you know it’s completely unappealing and will kill you so you’d never act on it. I mostly only fantasize about being ghost hands touching and cuddling someone else because it helps me go to sleep and beyond that, I refuse to elaborate. I have never felt genuine sexual desire and cannot overstate how much I hope I never will.
Anyways, that covers all the questions I think I see/hear decently often.
a roomba?
and I did have like emergency water stashes when I did fish. like a spare gallon. but when I had plants in the tank I noticed they need less changes.