Aromanticism in times of asexuality
Asexuality has got some visibility in the last few years. Not much and it definitely deserves more, but still, we are often left with the feeling that aromanticism is almost completely obscured by its shadow. There are few characters in pop culture who are openly ace. However, they usually are interested in romance, such as Todd Chavez from BoJack Horseman or this one character from Sex Education. Their character arcs may even revolve around their need for romantic relationship while they are ace. Sometimes there is mention of people who aren’t interested in romance as well, but it’s not a given and usually ends on that mention anyway.
We feel in those narrations simultaneously seen and unseen. And this is weird, because sex is... just a thing to do or not to do. And in Western society it’s a taboo. So, paradoxically, those pop-cultural narrations focus on yet another “taboo” topic. You could say that other LGBTQIAP+ orientations are often seen as a taboo as well – as things that should stay inside your house or in your bed. And so this makes them interesting for artists and producers. Romance without sex doesn’t seem that interesting in the context of pop culture, even if we, personally, disagree that’s it’s boring.
We guess it’s also easier to show lack of sex than lack of romance without showing aromantic characters as sad and lonely, even if asexuality doesn’t have to equal “no sex at all.” And, let’s be honest, if you think about queerness in pop culture, you probably mostly think about queer romantic subplots, as if that is all that there is to being queer. But there is so much more. Being queer is about found family, and rights to be who you are, sure, to marry who you love as well, but also about transitioning, and figuring out gender stuff. It’s about non-nuclear families being seen as valid and about getting accepted by the society you live in without the need to hide who you are. And so much more.
But still, sex (apart from all of those oversexualised ads for stuff that’s mostly not even remotely related to sex) is not that visible in everyday life. In our country, there’s barely even any sex-ed, let alone good sex-ed. Romance on the other hand is very visible in everyday life. People will constantly ask you if you are in relationship, if you’d like to meet with someone or – if you tell them you’re not interested – they will scorn you and tell you it’s important to share household with somebody. As if sharing a household was mostly about romance and not about friendship and sharing chores and bills. They will talk about their partners and crushes. Even if they’re unhappy in their romantic relationships, they’re still seen as luckier than you – an aromantic person with no need for such a relationship. A weirdo. A virgin. An emotionless machine.
And yet, most aroace people we get to know or heard about or read about – they mostly and firstly identify as ace. We ponder why this is the case? Why aromanticism feels less important to them in this amatonormative world? We can’t get our head around this concept. We are aroace too, but thinking about it – we feel more aro than ace. Aromanticism is about relationships. It’s about friendships we have that won’t turn into another kind of relationship – a romantic one. We feel fine about them being ‘just’ friendships, but also we ponder if this doesn’t make our friends feel like ‘they don’t have a chance’ in a romantic sense, with us. And we ponder if they won’t put as much heart and work into those friendships as we do – because even if they’re not romantically interested in us, they would be in someone else. And then maybe they see those romantic relationships as needing more from them than any friendship would. Maybe not. But we ponder that nonetheless.
Aromanticism is also about potential queerplatonic relationships. Do we want to have one or not? We definitely wouldn’t mind to live with a friend who’d share our chores and bills and friendship – who would be there for us as much as they could and who’d get the same from us. But then we do like our independence in daily life. We like to decide what to do in what order, what food buy and what to cook and all those tiny everyday life things that no one tells us to do or not to do about them. So maybe we don’t want queerplatonic relationships that much. It’s a struggle to figure this out properly, especially when we think about those sneering allos who think they’ve got all the smarts and would assume that we actually want romance.
But, as we look into pop culture, into its comforting narrations, we can’t see any narratives about openly aromantic characters. There are some characters that can be interpreted this way. We can think of Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. We know a lot of aromantic people see Katniss Everdeen as such, and probably there would be some more. But as much as we appreciate that we can interpret some characters as aromantic, it’s not enough. We need more aromantic narrations that’ll show people what being aromantic means while naming is as such. We need narrations showing that aromanticism exists and isn’t just a subset of asexuality. And we need aromantic-centered organisations and more media open to talking about aromanticism without need to connect it to asexuality.
