Affection Is Not Romance
A lot of this comes back to being aromantic and asexual. I have a difficult time categorizing intimacy because I am aromantic and asexual. I know what parts of intimacy make me feel uncomfortable, and thus I don’t like them and speak up before, during, but most likely afterwards. However, I am completely oblivious to flirtation, and that goes both ways. I am not the best with figuring out what topics are off the table until after I say them and get a legible reaction.
@katsumi_maki
A Virtual Girl.
Pronouns and words are separated between In-person, Online, or In-person/Online. In-person only infers that the term is not really for online (and vice-versa). Terms that are Okay are for terms you shouldn't go out of your way to refer to me with, but it's fine if you do by habit.
Avoid and Never are for words or conversation topics to either avoid (or approach with caution) or never talk about, respectively.
Age: 26
My local time is loading…
Links
The flags may not make that clear to everyone. The website saw that I put the flags and suggested a link for me to add to the URL, which I thought was really cool. It suggested another website called Attraction Layer Cake. Attraction Layer Cake is an online framework that lets people describe different layers of attraction and relationship preference. Its labels are more like shorthand categories than official diagnoses or universal identities. It’s somewhat of an inside joke that asexuals like cake. However, the layers are just a fun way to describe the dimensionality of being asexual and having attraction. In “cake.avris.it” I am bA3.
Using the Attraction Layer Cake legend, my bA3 result means Black – Aromantic asexuality, or “No sexual or romantic attraction, only platonic or aesthetic attraction”; A – Strictly monogamous, or “Only mate with one person at a time with the goal of developing singular life-long partnership”; and 3 – Bisexual / Pansexual, where “Attraction is not influenced by gender, or is attracted to different genders more or less equally.” Together, that means my experience of attraction is not romantic or sexual, but rather platonic and aesthetic, and gender does not determine who I feel socially compatible with or whose aesthetics I appreciate.
It interestingly uses “Orientation type” as a sliding scale of attraction to one’s own gender, in my case “agender”, rather than other metrics, some being androphile or gynephile, others being masculine or feminine. I’m sure there’s more options, but those have been “orientation types” for other people’s definitions. Luckily for me, bi/pan is still the same definition of it not influencing attraction. In my case, as a reminder, since my first answer was Aromantic Asexuality, that means that my platonic and aesthetic attraction does not make gender a factor when considering the social compatibility or aesthetics that I like about a person. So the bi/pan-ness of myself is really just the general welcoming of people being themselves.
Asexuality and aromanticism do not mean the same thing for everyone. That is actually a big misunderstanding that a lot of people have about asexuality and aromanticism. Asexuals can have sex, talk about sex, engage in kinks, fetishes, pretty much anything under the sun. They can be revolted by it, fear it, love it, not care much for it, or not much mind to have it or not. Same thing with romance.
@katsumi_maki
Words
Content boundaries
- Kissing
However, this is about me, so just in my case, only speaking for myself and my own flavor of aroace: I don’t want to visualize myself participating in sex. I am sex avoidant. Yet I can consume media with sex or sexualization, since it isn’t me participating. I love learning about sex, kinks, all of that so I am better equipped to navigate spaces responsibly. I wrote about it in one of my longest research papers, even a two part series between “Never Have I Ever - Kinks” and “Healing from Trauma” paper. That being said, I really don’t like romance. Same thing: I don’t visualize myself performing romantic gestures, at least not traditional ones, but queerplatonic or alternative romance is fine. I also actively avoid looking at others kissing.
I get misinterpreted a lot because my wording, my recognition of what is sexual and not sexual, is all filtered through this black box of being aroace. What comes out the other end is often a misunderstanding of others because I simply do not feel those attractions, so how would I know? How would I know? It’s pattern recognition. I have to literally learn these things as I go. I have to learn what fetishes are common enough for me to avoid using those words or referring to the concept, even if it interests me. I have to learn what fetishes are rare enough for me to not bother with censoring myself, because most people actually don’t see it as sexual and wouldn’t misinterpret my words when I discuss the subject. I don’t know or feel what others describe as attraction, so I’m navigating without any prior knowledge.
Most of the time, it intrigues me. I want people to describe how it makes them feel, what their reasoning is for being interested in certain subjects. I don’t mean for it to be creepy, or to come off as some freaky chronically online individual who has lost their sense of boundaries. I’m actively crafting these boundaries that I’ve learned the hard way, because I stumble onto them because I can’t see the obvious signs like everyone else can. I’m without a script, and I’m interviewing others about the script that they operate on, but they might not be introspective enough to detail it to me.