A conversation topic that I\u2019ve seen come up a lot, both in the context of asexuality\/aromanticism with their stacks of microlabels and autism where there\u2019s the question of \u201cshould I tell this person they probably are,\u201d is the extent to which labels are useful or harmful. Since this blog is likely to attract far fewer angry responses than Twitter, I decided to formally weigh in this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My opinion boils down to this: labels shouldn\u2019t be forced on people, but they are tools that can be highly useful and need to be more freely offered as options. This applies to both aspec labels and the autistic label overall, although of course there are some nuances between the two specific categories and the discussion around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I initially tried to explore some of the arguments people make, but (especially combining the two communities in this case) it\u2019s a complex enough topic with so much said in some cases, I felt like I was touching on everything and talking about nothing, so instead I\u2019m going to focus on the key points I think people should keep in mind when considering arguments they encounter elsewhere like \u201clabeling people will make them feel different\u201d or \u201cthese are too subjective when you try to get specific, distinct definitions\u201d compared to the people like me who seem to love them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Point #1: People are better at knowing we\u2019re different than others seem to think.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We usually KNOW we\u2019re different from an early age, whether it\u2019s being neurodivergent or not getting why everyone\u2019s going on about the whole sex thing. But we don\u2019t know why, or other people apply negative labels to it, so many look around and see that there seems to be no language or role models reflecting their experience, and assume that there\u2019s just something wrong with them as an individual that needs to be fixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Large numbers of people in both communities feel like they\u2019re broken as human beings and do things that harm themselves (e.g. pushing themselves to have unwanted sex, unnecessary masking that wrecks their mental health long-term) before finding out that it\u2019s normal to be the way they are and there\u2019s language to defend their experiences to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s kind of like that story of Pandora\u2019s box I read in a kids\u2019 myth book or something when I was young, where she released the bad stuff but slammed it shut before Hope could enter the world too: the negative stuff is already out there. We may be trying to help, but keeping people from accessing labels that help them see their experience as normal and find others like them often deprives them of a more positive view of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Point #2: \u201cSubjective\u201d doesn\u2019t equal \u201cbad.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re humans – our individual experiences of reality are subjective. Language in general is subjective, not just the language that tries to differentiate platonic and alterous attraction. And our experiences and feelings are very real to us, even if they aren\u2019t meaningful in the broader context of the universe (depending on your religious views of course – I speak from an atheistic perspective).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, it can be confusing and maybe annoying when different people are using the same label to mean different things, or when it makes sense for one person to separate types of attraction in detail but you can\u2019t figure out where the line is between half of them or why it even matters. For example, some people struggle to differentiate platonic and romantic attraction even though it feels obvious to many others, which is known as quoiromantic. And, I also use quoiromantic for myself in the \u201cjust doesn\u2019t understand the concept of romantic attraction\u201d sense of the word. (It\u2019s one of those terms that\u2019s kind of an umbrella term as well as a specific thing.) Things start to fall apart when you try to create specific, distinct definitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But honestly, that seems like an inevitable result of humans being a varied group of creatures having different experiences of how they operate and of reality around them. We\u2019re all just out here trying our best to make sense of the world as we experience it, using language that may have been newly coined as a tool to communicate concepts. If a term is meaningful to people and makes them feel like they\u2019re not broken after all, who are we to try to argue it\u2019s not important? Honestly, the wide variety of ways we experience and comprehend our own existences is pretty beautiful in my opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And furthermore, we have to consider people\u2019s actual experiences as much as their ideal ones.\u00a0 For example, some feel like we shouldn\u2019t bother with labels when we should just accommodate people, which I agree with – you shouldn\u2019t<\/em> need labels to have your needs and (not-harmful-to-others) desires respected and met.\u00a0 That said, the social world doesn\u2019t operate like that right here and now, so while we absolutely should work towards wider acceptance and dismantling needless prejudices, we also need to respect that we aren\u2019t there yet and so having the option to use a label if one chooses for themself is important self-defense in the present moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n