Hello everyone!\u00a0 Today\u2019s topic is \u201cHow to Talk to Aspecs as an Allo Person\u201d (or anyone who\u2019s tempted to question them, since some skeptics may themselves be aspec in some way without knowing it).\u00a0 (Allo being the opposite of the \u201ca-\u201d prefix, for those just joining me – meaning not ace and\/or not aro.)\u00a0 If you don\u2019t know much about aspec people, you\u2019re probably tempted to ask questions.\u00a0 Which, depending on the person, can be okay, but also, a lot of us get asked a lot of the same annoying questions over and over.\u00a0 So, here\u2019s a guide to help you determine if questions about someone being aro\/ace are okay to ask, or whether you should stick to googling it later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#1: Does the person seem open to questions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I love talking about this stuff, so you can ask me just about anything. However, a lot of people don\u2019t want to have to discuss it, and feeling like they have to have a TED talk ready whenever they talk about their orientation or identity is a big reason a lot of aspecs don\u2019t talk about it freely. So before you ask anything<\/em>, are you reasonably certain they\u2019re okay answering questions? (E.g. they asked if you had them, or you know them well already and know they wouldn\u2019t mind.) If you\u2019re not sure, you can always just ask if it\u2019s okay to ask them more about it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n #2: Are the assumptions behind your question logical?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some remarks we get don\u2019t really make a lot of sense when you stop and think. For example, most comments that center around asexuality or aromanticism as a medical issue to be fixed. Why is not experiencing attraction an \u201cissue?\u201d What harm is it causing? Generally when people feel bad about being aro and\/or ace, it\u2019s due to how society treats them for it, not an inherent factor in being that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, \u201cAren\u2019t you afraid of dying alone?\u201d Now, some people are afraid of that, but, think about it. People get divorced. People rarely die at the same time, meaning you could have a great 5-decades-long relationship and still die alone if you outlive your partner. Friends and family are potential options for connection and support too. Having a partner is simply not the solution people think it is to concerns about dying alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or then there are just some weird comments. For example, \u201cYou\u2019re too pretty to be ace\/aro!\u201d If anyone here figures out the logic behind that one, please enlighten me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a note #2.5 following that, also consider whether it\u2019s a question any typical person would be comfortable receiving even if they don\u2019t mind taking questions. Lookin\u2019 at you, folks who ask aces how often they masturbate. That\u2019s just\u2026weird to ask anyone <\/em>if you\u2019re not already having a mutual conversation about that kind of thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n #3: Would the answer actually matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was once drafting a compilation of all the annoying questions and stereotypes aspec people hear, and I realized that a surprisingly high number of them could be answered with \u201cSo what?\u201d For example, the assumption\/question that a person must be ace because of trauma, or the claim that \u201cYou\u2019ll grow out of it someday\u201d or \u201cYour hormones are abnormal.\u201d Regardless of the factual accuracy or lack thereof, those things just aren\u2019t relevant really. People can be ace due to trauma. Hormones probably play a role for at least some people, given how much they do in our bodies. For myself, I can\u2019t separate being aroace and being autistic. Some people\u2019s orientation may shift in a few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of that matters. One \u201ccause\u201d or experience of being aro or ace is not superior to another. The fact that I\u2019m autistic does not make my lived experience of being aroace any more or less real than a non-autistic\u2019s aroace experience. (And if you\u2019re going off of how easy some things are to change, then refer to question 1 on whether aspec identities should be changed at all.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n #4: Would I say\/ask this to a \u201cnormal\u201d person? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By \u201cnormal,\u201d I mean what society doesn\u2019t make us label because it\u2019s the norm: cisgender, heterosexual, allosexual and -romantic. Would you ask your allosexual friend \u201chow they really know they actually experience sexual attraction?\u201d Would you be concerned that your cisgender child was making an irreversible mistake by wanting to go through puberty instead of taking hormone blockers? Would you tell your cousin who\u2019s talking about their latest crush that \u201cthey might grow out of having romantic attraction someday?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you find out someone is aspec (or any other LGBTQIA+ identity probably), and your reaction is something like \u201ccan they be certain of that?,\u201d ask yourself if you\u2019d question their orientation\/identity the same way if it was a more socially accepted one. If the answer is no, then you likely need to question your own societally-ingrained assumptions about what\u2019s \u201cnormal,\u201d before you get too eager to question anyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You may be thinking that this rules out a whole lot of common questions. That\u2019s because\u2026it does. You might be surprised how many of the questions or comments aspecs get are invasive, pointless, prejudiced, or simply annoying. You don\u2019t need to know about people\u2019s past. You don\u2019t need to know what sexual acts they do and don\u2019t engage in. You don\u2019t need to worry about whether they feel bad about it, because if they do, I assure you that you<\/em> can do far more to help with that issue by simply not implying there\u2019s something wrong with them than by trying to get them to see a doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve committed a horrible sin if you ask anything ever. Some of us like talking about ourselves and our experiences :P. If you know the person as more than a stranger, and want to know more details without being all \u201cso tell me about your sex life,\u201d you can always use more neutral \u201cI want to understand more\u201d questions such as asking what being aro and\/or ace means to the person, how it\u2019s influenced their life in ways they might want you to understand\u2026that kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any thoughts, comments, guidelines, disagreements to add? Drop a comment :).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello everyone!\u00a0 Today\u2019s topic is \u201cHow to Talk to Aspecs as an Allo Person\u201d (or anyone who\u2019s tempted to question them, since some skeptics may themselves be aspec in some way without knowing it).\u00a0 (Allo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aromanticism","category-asexuality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}