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Q&A: “I thought that my feelings for a certain someone was platonic, but…”
anonymous asked: May I ask you a question? For a long time, I thought that my feelings for a certain someone was platonic, but after reading up some things you wrote (mainly, “romantic = wanting to be as close as possible physically”), I suddenly feel uncertain. I don’t know if I’m having a crush or a squish. The bottom line is that there is this person I’m fond to be with, and want to help out 24/7. I don’t want to be in a relationship with him but tbh I’ll take anything I can. What do you think? hi, anon. sorry for taking so long to respond to your ask. you’re more than welcome to ask me a question, although i may not have an answer for you. before i respond with my thoughts regarding your situation, i feel the need to express confusion at having ever said what you’ve…
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Q&A: “The term platonic attraction confuses me. Is it somehow different from what people usually think of as friendship?”
anonymous said: The term platonic attraction confuses me. Is it somehow different from what people usually think of as friendship? Does it mean someone you would want to be in a queerplatonic with? you’re far from the only one who’s confused by the term “platonic attraction”, anon. imho, such confusion and misunderstanding is partially to blame for why some people are quick to make light of terms like “panplatonic”, “aplatonic”, etc. such confusion and misunderstanding is also part of the reason why some people prefer to use other terms instead. the word “platonic” is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as referring to “a close relationship in which there is no romance or sex.” that said, historically the word and its usage used to be far more nuanced than it often is in modern society. there are literally an infinite number of ways in which a close relationship without romance (with or without sex) could manifest…
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Q&A not Q&A: “i’m aromantic and i use alterous as an identity and a form of attraction because identifying as panplatonic…”
anonymous said: i’m aromantic and i use alterous as an identity and a form of attraction because identifying as panplatonic e.g. is looked down upon a Lot in the community. it’s the special-snowflake-mogai-tumblr-a-spec-uwu kind of stuff that non a-spec people demonize and it makes me feel icky to identify as such but i still want to express my identity? so i use alterous (re: this post) …ah, yes. the whole “everyone’s panplatonic because everyone makes friends regardless of gender! stop trying so hard to be oppressed you special snowflake lulz” that i’ve seen some ‘discoursers’ spout. usually the same people who also make fun of aplatonic as a term. i totally support you and anyone else who uses alterous for themself regardless of the reason for doing so, anon. at the same time, i can’t help but be annoyed / pissed off that some people’s ignorance has made another identity feel inaccessible…
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Q&A: “Could you help me by defining those types of attraction?”
anonymous said: I get your point about the types of attraction being connected in a web, not a scalar. Could you help me by defining those types of attraction? For example, I know sexual attraction is a desire to have sexual contact, and aesthetic attraction is about appearance. I’m less clear on the others, which are often defined via tautology. (“Romantic attraction is desire to have a romantic relationship.” Ok, then what’s a romantic relationship?) Can you help clear this up? Thanks! (re: this post, however i’m going to update that post to include definitions) it’s true, definitions can sometimes be circular and thus unhelpful/difficult to understand. often because the thing being defined is difficult to define, obviously. i guess i’ll give writing simplistic definitions a shot… i’ve done it before, but never all laid out at once like this. this is quite the task!
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Feedback: “I just wanted to thank you for your post on the alterous vs platonic thing…”
anonymous said: Hi, I just wanted to thank you for your post on the alterous vs platonic thing–I’m aroflux, have a qpp and’ve been miffed about the same things. Like, it’s great the term exists, but I feel invalidated by many promotions of it. Love’s not a binary. yeah… i wish people would think of attractions more like this: instead of isolating certain types of attraction and positioning them on a linear scale or even spectrum, as people often do. that said, the above is the 15min product of my sleep deprived brain functioning after 3am on 4hrs of sleep. it’s not thought out and thus is full of holes and problems, so please don’t take it too seriously zzz… edit: someone asked me to define these types of attraction, so i gave it a shot. disclaimer: please bear in mind that these are my own personal definitions as of now (2.24.2016).…
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usage of “alterous” vs “platonic” in aro discourse
i hesitate to post this at all*, but i’ve been casually mulling it over for a little while now and am getting no where in keeping this to myself, so here goes nothing… there’s a relatively new word going around on Tumblr: alterous.
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Q&A: “I wonder if we can use ‘pan’ for not only sexual attraction than why not the rest of them…”
anonymous said: You know I wonder if I could identify as bi or pan. Because I am certainly asexual and wtfro/aro but my sensual, aesthetic and platonic orientations are pan I think? And if we can use that for not only sexual attraction than why not the rest of them. there are people who use prefixes like bi-, pan-, homo-, hetero- etc to describe the other types of attraction that you mentioned. for example, pan(-)aesthetic, bi(-)sensual, homo(-)platonic etc. these words aren’t common, but i’ve definitely seen them in use, primarily within the ace and aro communities on AVEN and Tumblr.
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Q&A: “…do you think there could be other types of attraction?”
anonymous said: I know a lot of the time in discussions about asexual identities people break down attraction into 4 different categories: sexual, romantic, aesthetic, sensual (well and sometimes platonic). But do you think there could be other types of attraction? Sometimes I see people and I feel /something/ but I wouldn’t really categorize it as one of those – argh its so confusing! Am I just experiencing one of those types of attraction in a strange way?? without a doubt there could be (read: probably is) more to attraction than the categories that the ace and aro communities tend to refer to. attraction, as with feelings in general, is an insanely complex thing that most certainly cannot be neatly boxed into or described by categories. it doesn’t get said enough that not everyone even finds the existing categories helpful or meaningful in describing their attraction(s). you could be experiencing…
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grayro? demiro? whenthestarsalignhyperro?
i’ve been off-handedly questioning whether i may be somewhere along the aromantic spectrum or not for a while now, but since i felt no rush to tack on yet another identity label onto my already crazy-long list of identity labels, such thoughts have mostly gotten swept under the rug before really getting anywhere. well, since i have a bit of free time on my hands now thanks to spring break, i promised myself that i’d explore this topic more. what follows is just me putting thoughts into words… many, many words… for my own sake. may Cat God be with you if you attempt to get through this.
