Aromantic Narratives and Creativity
For @aggressivelyarospec‘s Aggressively Arospectacular 2022 week-long event, I have again undertaken a quest of daily creative offerings.
I’m kicking off proceedings with patches from kits that are so close to being pride-themed I didn’t make them over: Beutron’s watermelon and pineapple cross-stitch mini kits.
I may have squealed upon sighting these. Can a pre-existing kit be any more allo-aro?
Continue reading “Pride Cross Stitch: Beutron Fruit Kits”
As I post weekly pride patch patterns on Patreon, here’s a monthly round-up for non-subscribers!
Folks who need help with materials, stitching, finishing or attaching patches should check out my tutorial master page.
Previous patterns are available at my pattern gallery.
Last June, I broadened my tutorial series with heart patches that suit a range of LGBTQIA+ and queer identities. This year, I thought I’d continue this (short) tradition by going literal: three, four, five, six, seven and ten-stripe text pride patches that say … well, pride!
You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses and fractional stitches) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with a buttonhole/closed blanket stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch.
For additional information on the stitching process for text patches, please see part one of this miniseries. Beginners should also read last year’s tutorial for an overview of materials, finishes, treatments and fabric/edging modifications.
Over the last few years, the aromantic community has seen a comparative outpouring of recognition. It’s less common to see multi-identity art posts that remember asexuals but forget aromantics; it’s more common to see LGBTQIA+ blogs, spaces and communities referencing aromanticism. On Tumblr, I can find a wealth of positivity posts affirming many aromantic-spectrum experiences and even resources that reference aromanticism. Our existence, individually and collectively, is no longer solely the province of obscure art and essays … or presumed to be encompassed by asexuality.
We have a long way to go in acknowledging, including, supporting and protecting non-asexual aros, grey-umbrella aros, loveless aros, fluid and flux aros, aros of colour, non-English-speaking aros and disabled aros. Many of our gains have not yet reached or served all aromantics. The online aromantic world of 2021, however, bears little resemblance to that of 2011.
Past Aro Week content centres on demonstrating our existence: what we are, experience, feel, need, deserve. Now, though, such explanation feels repetitive; in 2021, I yearn to look inward, to face the questions underpinning my essays and storytelling. What does my aromanticism look like? What understandings, beliefs and obligations do I consider an inherent part of my aromantic identity? What do I owe other aromantics? What do other aromantics owe me?
This manifesto–my manifesto–details my belief in the creation of aromantic identity and community that refuses repackaged amatonormativity, rejects sex negativity and celebrates our radical, queer divergence from normal. Built from the bones of my intersection of identities and experiences, this list is limited at best and blinkered by my privileges at worst. Nor have I lived up to all its goals, because I am as flawed and hypocritical as any other human.
It is the start of an attempt to answer one question: what do I believe, as an aromantic seeking to understand and conceptualise aromanticism?
Continue reading “Aro Week: My (Personal) Aromantic Manifesto”
Aro Week feels like a good time to debut part four in my text patch miniseries: patterns for an A-Z alphabet of five-stripe lower-case letters for use in creating custom cross-stitched text patches and other needlecraft projects. Are you craving a patch reading “aromantic” in pride colours? What about “lithromantic”, “quoiflux” or “requiesromantic”? Or “no romo” or “fuck amatonormativity”?
These patterns will let you stitch the word or letters of your choosing in the colours of any horizontal five or ten striped flag design. Every letter also fits inside my A is for Aro frame patch pattern, allowing even more identities to display a pride-themed initial!
You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with a buttonhole/closed blanket stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch.
For a complete guide to the stitching process for text patches, please see part one of this miniseries, where I’ve posted step-by-step instructions for stitching text. All patterns in this series can be similarly modified in terms of letter spacing, adding/subtracting quarter stitches and layout.
I began my Allo-Aro 101 page by defining the words “allosexual” and “aromantic”. If “allosexual” is uncommon terminology outside a-spec spaces, “allo-aro” (in all its grammatical and stylistic permutations) is even less accepted. “Aromantic” itself voyages into arcane language, often understood by outsiders as only a relationship to or a form of asexuality. Visitors to this website may not know what “allo-aro” means, so–limited by current terminology and conceptualisations of the split attraction model–I follow the well-trodden educator’s path of first mimicking a dictionary.
I consider my following explanation more important, as an allo-aro whose relationship to this identity cannot exist untouched by fluidity:
Any allosexual aromantic who isn’t also, solely and permanently, asexual; or any aromantic who wishes to centre their experience of sexual attraction alongside their aromanticism. Heterosexual aros, bisexual aros, pansexual aros, gay aros, lesbian aros and aros with fluid or shifting attractions inclusive of allosexuality can identify as allo-aro.
Some allo-aros identify as both asexual and allosexual or shift between them. Abrosexual aros may be entirely allosexual or experience both asexual and allosexual identities. Aceflux aros may experience allosexual identities along with their asexual ones. Being solely and permanently allosexual should never be a requirement for allo-aro identity and community participation.
I can count on one hand (with spare fingers!) how often I’ve seen fellow a-specs acknowledge attraction’s potential fluidity in their defining of “allo-aro”. In stressing adverbs like “permanently”, I am an outlier in the genre of explaining allo-aro identity and community membership.
Most allo-aros explain our identity by the words comprising this term: allosexual and aromantic. What more need one say on this subject after coming to agreed-upon meanings for the words “allosexual” and “aromantic”? What more need one say than to explain that allo-aros are aromantic and not-asexual?
Such an explanation erases a non-zero number of fluid allo-aros (not to mention forcing aromantics who are neither asexual nor allosexual, or reject identifying with this binary construct, under the allo-aro umbrella).
It erases me.
Continue reading “Discussing Allo-Aro Identity (And Why Fluid Folks Need Better Definitions)”
I’m finishing my quest to post something new each day of @aggressivelyarospec‘s Aggressively Arospectacular 2020 event by … squeaking in an extra Sunday post, because it’s still Saturday elsewhere in the world! I wanted to post an allo-aro set of my letter “a” pixel art icons and digital stickers, so why not take advantage of some time zone trickery?
These stickers are available for personal or non-commercial use with credit to one of my accounts.
The selection of allo-aro combo flags is still limited, but on Aro Arrows I have stickers and icons for trans, non-binary, bi lesbian, pansexual and bisexual allo-aro flags, as well as multiple flag variants for some of the stickers shown above. This set of twenty-eight images is also available in both simplified icon and bordered sticker styles!
For flag creator posts, please see my Allo-Aro Flag Guide and the #alloaro tag on @aroflagarchive.
Continuing in my quest to post something new each day of @aggressivelyarospec‘s Aggressively Arospectacular 2020 event, today’s offering is for folks who can’t cross stitch their own pride patches: a set of pixel art icons and digital stickers based on my letter “a” cross stitch design.
These stickers are available for personal or non-commercial use with credit to one of my accounts.
If you’re after identities not shown above, or simplified (no border or drop shadow) versions better for Tumblr icons, please head on over to Aro Arrows! I have a set of forty-eight images in both icon and sticker styles for every aromantic-spectrum identity I can think of that begins with the letter “a” and has a five-stripe flag or flag base!
Our next aro-spec creator is Neir, introducing eir work to the world as R. Tally, better known here on Tumblr as @tallyrunning.
Neir is an asexual, aroflux and genderqueer person demonstrating the diversity of talent amongst aro-specs in poetry, fiction and musical composition. You can find eir classical and ambient music on Soundcloud and eir writing on Wattpad and Booksie, encompassing an eclectic mix of literary fiction, autobiography, LGBTQ+ fiction and short stories. If you have a dollar or two you’re wanting to invest in worthy aro-spec talent, please investigate eir Ko-fi!
With us Neir talks about identity and connection to other people, composing non-romantic musical pieces, the fear of misinterpretation by alloromantics and the challenge of finding an audience for non-romantic works. Eir words encapsulate a passion for challenging alloromantic norms and celebrating unique creativity, so please let’s give em all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aroflux and creative.
My aro realization was fairly quiet, and it came much later than I think I logically would have expected it to, had I known it would. It was easy to figure out that I was asexual; sex has always made me very uncomfortable, and as I grew older I realized that it wasn’t immaturity that was causing my repulsion, but just lack of attraction. It didn’t make sense to engage in something I didn’t want to do with someone I didn’t want to do it with. I also had an ace friend at the time, so the vocabulary came easily to me.
My aro realization came much later, around halfway through university (not more than two years ago). A friend of mine whose feelings with regards romance I strongly shared got a boyfriend, and I became confused because if even she could feel romantic attraction, and we were so similar, why couldn’t I?
I am a touchy-feely person who loves hand-holding and hugs, so for the longest time I thought my strong love for my friends (and potential friends – notorious feelings called ‘squishes’ I couldn’t name at the time) had to be romantic. I honestly just did a lot of internet research and stirring in my own head until I woke up one day and just went, “romance is a sham, I don’t understand it and I don’t want it.” The -flux part of my identity is something I recently started using to label my vastly differing moods and feelings day-to-day regarding platonic attraction. Some days I love people and being close to others; other days I want nothing to do with anyone and am cold as ice.
Aro Worlds 