Aromanticism, the hidden ‘A’ in LGTBIQA+

The ‘A’ in LGTBIQA+ stands for asexuality or people on the asexual spectrum (ACE). Although there is still a great deal of ignorance about asexuality, even within the LGTBIQA+ community, it is even less well known that the ‘A’ also stands for aromanticism or people on the aromantic spectrum (aro). Perhaps it would be better to use LGBTIQAA+ to make aromanticism visible, as it remains hidden behind asexuality. And if there is confusion about what asexuality is, there is even more confusion about what aromanticism is. What does it mean to be an aro (aromantic) person?

I am writing this article as an aroace person, that is, as an aromantic and asexual person. I am also a non-binary person, and I do not believe this is a coincidence. Many non-binary people are also asexual and/or aromantic. And vice versa: many asexual and/or aromantic people do not identify within the gender binary.

In this article, I want to focus specifically on aromanticism from my subjective perspective. I do not claim to speak on behalf of all aromantic people.

What is aromanticism?

Asexuality is defined as the absence of sexual attraction. Similarly, aromanticism can be defined as the absence of romantic attraction, where I want to note that I use the term ‘absence’ and not ‘lack’, which is commonly used. That is, an aromantic person does not feel romantic attraction.

Celia Gutiérrez says in La revolución (a)sexual: ‘A key concept when talking about sexuality and sexual-emotional relationships, and one that takes on special importance in asexual activism’ [and aromantic, I would add] "due to the need for distinction and definition, is attraction. This is defined as a mental or emotional force that links two or more individuals. Although several can be felt towards the same person, each one is independent of the others."

As we will see later, there are many types of attraction. Celia Gutiérrez defines romantic attraction as ‘falling in love with a person, having feelings of infatuation and a desire to establish a romantic relationship’. This sentence contains many words with considerable cultural (or ideological) baggage: What does “falling in love” or “being in love” mean? What does “romantic relationship” mean? And if “falling in love” is part of romantic attraction, can an aromantic person not fall in love?

For me, the central part of the definition is the ‘desire to establish a romantic relationship,’ which I understand as a couple relationship, and I don't care if it's a monogamous couple or a polyamorous couple. According to a text in Asexualpedia, "for an aromantic person, there is no need to pair up with another person for romantic reasons. Aromantics are capable of feeling love—emotional love, such as that between a mother and her child or between best friends, is still love. Aromantics have emotions; they are not cold or heartless people".

So, we are talking about attraction to other people, or rather attractions, as there are a variety of types of attraction, including sexual and romantic attraction — and as we have seen, those two do not have to go together, nor do they have to go together with other types of attraction, such as emotional attraction—attraction to another person that can be emotionally strong but is not linked to forming a romantic relationship or to sexuality, and which can also be called platonic. To this we could add sensual attraction—the desire for physical but not sexual contact—aesthetic attraction, or intellectual attraction.

As an aroace person, that is, aromantic and asexual, I do not experience romantic attraction or sexual attraction, but I do experience other types of attraction that can also lead to a deep emotional bond. I have bonds that are based mainly on emotional attraction, others perhaps mainly on intellectual attraction, and I can also feel (and have felt) sensual attraction. Personally, I do not feel aesthetic attraction (nor am I able to say whether a person is beautiful, attractive, etc.), but this has nothing to do with being ARO-ACE. It is simply who I am.

Although I am aroace, many aromantic people are not asexual (i.e., they are allosexual), and many asexual people are not aromantic. Since the different types of attraction are independent, being asexual and being aromantic are completely separate.

We also often reduce intimacy to sex or romantic relationships, which would mean that as an aromantic person, I cannot have intimacy with other people. Again, this is a very narrow view of what intimacy is. In her book Radical Intimacy, Sophie K. Rosa says: ‘Intimacy is primal and inscrutable, vital and elusive. Like love, it is difficult to explain for good reason: something so intricately personal—spiritual—could be degraded by attempts to define it objectively.’ For Sophie K. Rosa, then, "intimacy is much more (and much less) than sex. Although intimacy in general does not have to include any hint of sex, as an experience it can reflect some of the reasons why people may find sex meaningful. Like sex, intimacy can allow us to access desire, pleasure, comfort, care, tenderness, connection, and the feeling of “being seen”. “Intimacy” encompasses many types of relationships. It is a way of being together that can include fleeting or lasting experiences of affinity, vulnerability, closeness, and love."

And Mel Cassidy says in Radical Relating: "Intimacy is defined as having a close emotional relationship, a deep understanding, a feeling of comfort and familiarity with other people. In intimacy, all parties feel seen and welcomed. We may feel a surge of joy, perhaps even greater curiosity. We come together in a synergistic dance that can include emotions, desires, thoughts, the ability to navigate conflicts and differences, and how we explore and express affection." None of this requires a romantic, couple relationship. Intimacy is possible in many types of relationships.

Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker, in their book How To Understand Your Relationships, invite us to reflect on 17 different types of intimacy, understanding sexual intimacy as just one of them. Other intimacies include intimacy at work, sharing tasks, intimacy in play, fun, intellectual intimacy, sharing the world of ideas, intimacy in commitment, shared values and ideas, for example activism, intimacy in communication, emotional intimacy, creative intimacy, intimacy of access, that is, being able to be with someone's trauma or knowing their accessibility needs, crisis intimacy, being able to accompany someone in times of crisis, conflict intimacy, spiritual intimacy, physical intimacy, ecological intimacy, kink intimacy, and self-pleasure intimacy, that is, with oneself.

As an aromantic person, I can have many of these forms of intimacy with other people, in the plural, as none of them are intrinsically linked to a romantic/couple relationship.

Deconstructing love

Not only feminism has deeply criticised the concept of ‘romantic love’, the myth of the ‘soul mate’, of the one person who will satisfy all your needs (for intimacy and beyond) in a relationship where two individuals merge into a couple, in which the individuals disappear and only the couple remains. I will not go into this in depth here.

However, despite the criticism of romantic love, this criticism does not extend to the concept of the couple itself. Even the most radical feminists continue to form couples. The couple remains the model, almost the only model, for relationships. So perhaps we need to go further and deconstruct not only romantic love, but the concept of love itself.

Mana Muscarsel Isla says in her book La fiesta de las amigas (The Friends' Party): "I am going to transcend criticism of romantic love, that is, stop differentiating romantic love from true and good love in order to talk about the discourse of love in all its complexity. I want to go beyond thinking of it as a feeling; I propose understanding it as discourse and mechanism. I am going to think of it as a hegemonic Western emotional model that has become consolidated in modernity and continues to transform and reinforce itself to this day; a cultural construction and expression of emotions that tend to emphasise love above all else, placing it not only above other affections, but also above all other spheres of life." And she asks: ‘Why (...) for much of feminism, as for the rest of the world, does love remain unquestionable? Why is it still part of our slogans? Why does the world seem to falter when someone questions love?’

Following Alain Badiou, Mana Muscarsel Isla sees a difference between the foundation of romantic relationships and friendships. According to her, relationships built on friendship have a political future, while relationships built on love focus on the couple, ‘which is only open to people “in love”, which is also separated from the world and does not allow for the possibility of political transformation.’ In this sense, the difference between love and friendship is not the intensity or depth of the bond, but the project. While friendship projects are open to the community, love projects are limited to duality, remain individualistic and make community impossible.

So, I think it is important to “decentre love”, as Roma de las Heras says in the book Anarquía relacional. Una novela gráfica (Relationship Anarchy: A Graphic Novel). Javier Sáez says in El amor es heterosexual (Love is Heterosexual): “We learn to feel and develop affections under the reference point of ‘love’. As if they were the only glasses we have to see the world, to feel, to establish bonds, to live in society. All monolingual, speaking the universal language of love. But there are other languages; politics is written from the untranslatable, from the incommunicable, from secret codes that we have to invent. Babel against love. Love makes us codifiable, understandable, integrable, normal. Subversion happens elsewhere: in not knowing what language we speak."

In this sense, as an aromantic person, I prefer to define my bonds in those other languages, leaving aside the language of love. Not only is this language useless to me, I find it normative, individualistic and capitalist.

Other ways of relating

Sophie K. Rosa says in her book Radical Intimacy, "the hierarchy established for relationships—in favour of the romantic dyad and the nuclear family form—contracts and degrades more diverse and camaraderous intimacies. This relational order can be insular and alienating not only for “single” people—those unable or unwilling to form a romantic partnership—but also for those who have done so and still yearn for intimacy."

Being aromantic means, at least for me, other ways of relating that do not focus on love or romantic attraction. Some call it friendship, but I prefer to talk about ‘bonds,’ as the label ‘friendship’ has its limitations in our cis-heterosexual-heteropatriarchal culture. Perhaps we lack other words. In the asexual and aromantic community, the term ‘queerplatonic relationship’ is sometimes used to describe a deep bond between two people that may resemble a couple, even though there is no romantic attraction.

And, as Michón Neal says in Aro, Eros, Arrows, friendship is inherently non-monogamous. It makes no sense to have an exclusive friendship that does not allow for other friendships alongside it. And every friendship—or every bond—is unique, with its own commitments, agreements, emotions, and visions.

Personally, I can differentiate between attachment bonds and non-attachment bonds. Attachment bonds are those in which there is sufficient intimacy, capacity for vulnerability, and commitment to have the confidence that I can count on them in times of crisis (emotional or otherwise). This does not mean that non-attachment bonds are less important to me. Also, there is always a certain fluidity between the two. Bonds change, just as our needs and our lives change.

In an interview with El Salto, Mana Muscarsel Isla says: "It talks about support networks between friends, but also about care networks between fellow activists. It talks about all the care networks that exist outside of couples and families. I think of friendship in a powerful way in terms of it being plural, speaking less the language of love, expecting less from it, and being more on the margins. That allows for much more play because there are fewer rules weighing on friendship. I understand partying in the book as a very blurred concept. It's not necessarily going out dancing or consuming substances — although it could be — but rather a space that is not productive, does not provide us with capitalist gain, and where we don't know what's going to happen; it's not so scripted. You can waste time, eroticism can circulate more promiscuously, and so can care."

But it's not that simple. Myriam Rodríguez del Real and Javier Correa Román say in an article in El Salto: "The central issue is to understand that friendship has been emptied of material content in order to centralise the couple. Societies construct systems of kinship and affinity that determine which bonds are recognised and which remain on the margins. The monogamous heterosexual couple is at the centre of these systems, and all other relationships (including friendship) are reconfigured around it.‘ And: ’Therefore, it is not simply a matter of “giving more importance to friends”, but of rejecting the current configurations of both the couple and friendship in order to create new forms of relationships. We need to “disorient” (...) normative notions of affection in order to imagine other forms of relational habitability. Only to the extent that we think of other forms of friendship does the couple cease to make sense as the organising centre of our lives."