An "AlloAce" Dilemma

The aspec community doesn’t understand alloromantic asexuality.

TW//: Rape, sexual assault, murder, violent homophobia and transphobia. These issues are spoken about throughout the whole essay.

An ‘alloace’ is an alloromantic asexual, ‘alloromantic’ meaning person who experiences romantic attraction towards others. An alloace is an asexual that experiences little to no sexual attraction, but has romantic attraction. I fit this term by definition and yet, I don’t like using it for myself. Culturally and emotionally, I have no connection to this term even though this is by definition the asexual I am. The term ‘alloace representation’ doesn’t really mean anything to me. I don’t have any real ties to ‘alloace culture’. I don’t feel seen by the alloace flag. I don’t have any connection to ‘alloace’ as a term.

It’s seems ironic to write a whole essay on something I’ve just claimed I don’t care about instead of touching grass and moving on, but a wider analysis and discussion of this term and framework could be beneficial, even if it only helps a few people. Even if it only helps me. If it doesn’t mean anything then there’s no harm in talking about it then is there? It’s taken me a while to actually understand why so I hope by writing this essay I can cover my feelings and put this these issues both internal and external to rest. Throughout this essay, I’m gonna cover the main issues that created this ‘alloace dilemma’ and they are the amatonormativity, compulsory sexuality, anti-asexual attitudes and homophobia that I believe have overtaken most 'alloace discourse’ and to push back on the bigotry and misinformation surrounding the alloromantic asexual.

Rape Culture In Allo-Ace Dating

To talk about alloaces we need to talk about romance, love and romantic attraction. As asexuality enters mainstream there’s been a large emphasis on asexuals’ capacity to love specifically the narrative ‘asexuals can still love’. Prominent asexual characters have expressed they still want to fall in love like Todd Chavez from Bojack Horseman or Florence from Sex Education. There’s many many articles, guides and tutorials on how to to date the alloromantic asexual. These guides tend to reassure non-asexuals that asexuals aren’t heartless emotionless monsters because we can still fall in love, almost like a redemption for the little to no sexual attraction. These guides reassure non-ace people asexuals can still have sex for their partners, that we don’t hate sex, that we can still do kink and that we can open the relationship. Some guides are actively targeted towards alloaces, reminding us to be open to compromise, to communicate and to try new forms of romance and sex. From this mainstream representation it’s easy to assume the alloace experience is represented well if not represented at all. And yet, alloaces across all forms of split attractions are running into problems. The dating apps aren’t too great. Their experiences dating are going badly. They’re shunned for speaking out on their experiences. They’re shunned for wanting romantic relationships.

A lot of ace-allo relationship discourse involves non-asexual people, especially cishet non-asexual people, perpetrating anti-asexual conspiracy theories about asexual partners. Late bloomer alloaces are tricksters forcing non-aces into miserable sexless celibate lives. Alloaces that knew and said so from the jump just need to be convinced as they’re actually not asexual, just traumatised, ill or both. Sex repulsed and indifferent alloaces are selfish abusers, witholding sex they’re ‘supposed’ to be giving by virtue of being a romantic partner. Sex favourable alloaces are liars and manipulators because if they’re ‘really ace’ they wouldn’t and shouldn’t gain physical and/or emotional pleasure from sex. Non-asexual cishet men in particular can consistently perpetrate misogyny on top of anti-asexual rhetoric towards alloace women, claiming alloace women are inherently deviant liars that trick men, using them for money and children and failing their duties as girlfriends and wives as they don’t ‘put out’. Additonally, non-asexual cishet women can also perpetrate these anti-asexual attitudes towards ace men, claiming their asexuality is inherently misogynistic and oppressive to them personally and merely an extension of patriarchy’s repression of women’s sexual desires. It’s fully capable for asexual people to also enable stigma towards non-ace people’s desires too, such as claims all non-ace people are selfish for wanting sex or narratives about ‘sex obsessed allos’ that feed into puritanism. To be clear, I know sexual incompatability is real and I don’t think it’s acephobia to not date an ace person or break up with an ace person if you’re non-asexual and want a partner that is sexually attracted to you and want frequent sex in your romantic relationship. From being Black and dark-skinned, I’ve seen too many colourism conversations become debates to ‘prove’ the desirability of darkskin women and frankly I don’t care about proving to colourists Black women are desirable. When it comes to ace-allo dating, I feel the same about asexuality. I don’t care about proving asexuality is romantically desirable to people with blatant anti-asexual attitudes. We deserve better, honestly.

My issue with the discourse and ‘alloace narrative’ is that it is one-sided because the power imbalances between asexuality and heterosexuality are fully one-sided. Heterosexuality isn’t pathologised, medicalised or seen as incompatible with romantic relationships. Heterosexuality is the default of all romantic relationships. Whilst puritanism and sex negative stances within the ace community are harmful and must be stamped out, I can’t help but notice how asexual people are constantly the ones who have to accommodate despite being the marginalised identity. I can’t help but notice the compromising partner is ace-allo relationships is usually the ace. I can’t help but notice a sexless relationship is never seen as an acceptable compromise. Under compulsory sexuality, sex is seen as the fundamental of romantic relationships, the baseline of humanity through biological reproduction, the most important form of love and the thing every human desires or must desire. The constant need to tell alloaces, especially those who are sex repulsed, that ‘sex is important in relationships’ in what is supposed to be our conversation, in our asexual spaces, in an asexual conversation, feels like beating a dead horse and corpse in question is ancient. We are always aware of non-asexual people's sexual needs because those needs are the default and seen as inherent to everyone. We know more about non-asexual people’s needs than our own because ‘asexual needs’ are something that are rarely known, let alone taught.

I have a deep issue with how the violation of sexual boundaries is framed as being caused by individual decisions like the failure to communicate or compromise and not the systemic sexual violence that’s justified through rape culture. There’s no consideration for how communication doesn’t guarantee sexual safety and how it’s possible to communicate your sexual boundaries and still have them violated because the violator has no concern for your bodily autonomy. I also have an issue with the way ‘compromise’ is used with no concern for rape culture. If one party wants to have sex and the other doesn’t and the compromise is the partner who doesn’t want to do it being forced to anyway, that is rape. I’m always disappointed to see aces participate in this rape culture and compulsory sexuality by recommending having sex anyway when a non-ace person asks for help with their ace partner not wanting to, recommending ways for the ace to intoxicate themselves for the sex to happen, for the ace to dissassociate themselves during sex or that as a sex favourable or sex indifferent ace the partner *has* to have some amount of sex with their partner as if sex favourablity and indifference is means always consenting. The recommendations of non-mongamy aren’t as harmful as the former but still feed into anti-non monogamous and anti-polyamourous rhetoric. Non-monogamy should be treated as its own relationship format and not the cure to failed monogamy. It’s fully possible to cheat in non-monogamous relationships and it’s possible that the third or alternative partner(s) might not want to have sex at a point for their own personal reasons. Plus, a third person is still a person. Their personal views and boundaries should be considered as part of the relationship and not just its attachment. The idea of asexuality as abnormal to humanity, some non-asexual people unironically think asexuals have no ability to consent. Even when alloaces do consent to sex with their partners because they want the physical sensations from it, or to experience emotional pleasure without anything physical happening to them or to have children, it’s still pathogised as the ‘wrong’ type of sex because there’s little to no sexual attraction involved. We’re truly damned if we do and damned to hell if we don’t. Anti-victim/survivor rhetoric consistently overlaps with anti-asexual rhetoric and can easily come up in ace-allo dating discourse. Why didn’t the asexual just say they were asexual sooner? Why did the asexual assume they’d stay asexual? Are they sure it’s not just trauma? Are they sure it's not just diet? Are they sure it’s not just hormones? Are they sure it’s not just bad sex? Why didn’t they just date an asexual? Why didn’t they say they were a sex repulsed no sex ‘I don’t want sex’ type of asexual? Why aren’t they having sex every now and then when they’re only sex indifferent or sex favourable? Why didn’t they just find the right person? Why did they even date when dating is for sex? Why did they even marry when marriage is for sex? Why didn’t they say no? They’ve should've just said no.

Non-asexual cishet people even when well-meaning can still fall into these pitfalls when allo-ace dating becomes the topic. From the creation of the r/deadbedrooms subreddit, it’s clear the compulsory sexuality that harms asexual partners harms straight people and other sexualities with low libidos, little to no interest in sex and who have little to no sex because of the idea sex is compulsory for romantic relationships. As long as compulsory sexuality tells us sex is mandatory for romantic relationships, that it’s the compulsory duty of the wife and the girlfriend to have sex to please her man irregardless of her individual wants and needs, that the husband and the boyfriend are biologically and inherently sexual beings regardless of their individuals wants and needs, as long as non-asexual cishet people and certain non-asexual queer people promote anti-asexual caricatures of alloaces as sexual manipulators, emotionless abusers, gold-digging selfish frigid women, erectally defunct basement dwelling men, then the conversations of sexual needs in allo-ace dating will always be unbalanced, with the burden weighing heavier for the asexual part of the scale. We have to advocate for asexual people's sexual and romantic needs ourselves as asexuals because it seems like no one else will.

I made a tumblr post of this faux asexual allyship where people’s acceptance of asexuality hinges on some type of sexual and/or romantic condition to be fully accepted. Asexuals aren’t human because we have potential for romantic love, we’re human just because we are. Fellow ‘alloaces’ didn’t clock why I put romantic based topics in there because ‘they’re aromantic things’. Well some of us *do* experience romantic attraction so what’s the issue? Having romantic attraction isn’t the issue I was addressing because it’s not one but when we feed into the idea of romantic love as a basis for humanity, a basis for normalcy and that asexual acceptance and liberation should *only* be due to our capacity for romantic love, that is amatonormativity in practice. The constant need to humanise asexuals through romantic love is extension of amatonormativity, that our romantic attraction can redeem the lack of sexual and that this romantic attraction is malleable enough to be converted into sexual attraction. Upholding this amatonormativity, not only is it playing into respectability politics and creating a new standard for asexuals to follow in place of compulsory sexuality, it’s throwing aromantics under the bus.

Alloaces in Intracommunity Aspec Discourse

In response to this amatonormativity, many aroaces but also aromantic allosexuals or aroallos, people who experience sexual attraction but little to no romantic attraction, are often alienated in aspec spaces, representation and content and some have opted into making their own individual spaces. There’s less aromantic allosexual characters than alloace and aroace in mainstream media and many characters who are coded as aroallo are usually represented as villiianous, manipulative and cold. As love and sex are often conflated, it’s common that sexual attraction without an element of romance is looked down upon because it doesn’t fit into normative views of sex. This stems from puritanism where cisheterosexual sex is enforced as something to only exist within marriage, so shunning sex which is pre-marital like hookups, sex work or forms and contexts where it takes place without the intention of creating Christian children. There’s been a rightful criticism of alloaces that feed into this, whether intentional or not. As addressed at the start of the essay, the common alloace rebuttal of ‘aces can still love’ can feed into amatonormativity and to ‘other’ asexuality from things like singleness, lovelessness and little to no romantic attraction, feeds into the stigma against aromanticism, for both aroaces and aroallos. The idea sex, specifcally sex that falls outside of the cisheterosexual ideal is gross, disgusting or unnatural and must be repressed or santised is puritanism. And it’s still puritanism if it’s coming from asexuals. To be clear, I welcome these criticisms because aspec liberation or liberation of any group of any characteristic can’t happen without self-accountability. Puritanism can’t be a form of any sexuality, sex or gender based activism, advocacy or liberation. Puritanism has been and will always be anti-asexual and anti-aromantic and the alloaces that enable it aren’t only hurting themselves, but the aspec community as a whole.

Rightul pushback, debunking and removal of anti-aromantic rhetoric in the aspec community including from arophobic alloaces isn’t what I’m against. What I’m against howeve,r is the reactive compulsory sexuality, anti-asexual attitudes and homophobia in the aspec community, especially from the aro community, in response to the puritanism and amatormativity coming from alloaces and aspec exclusionism of non-aspec people. What I’m referring to is aro support and enacting of asexual exclusionism, claims that alloaces are no more than allo thiefs and invaders whether it be claims of stealing the aroallo flag despite the creator being neither fitting into alloace or aroallo neatly and making it as a symbol of solidarity, claims the *personal* sex repulsion of sex repulsed aces is sex negativity, claims from both aroallos and aroaces that romantic attraction isn’t real because it’s ‘glorified friendship with sex’, claims gay alloaces are greedy for wanting space in ace and gay spaces, claims and ‘jokes’ about romantic attraction to the same gender like being gay, bisexual, pansexual or lesbian, is the ‘opposite’ of asexuality, claims alloaces are just repressed gay people whilst black stripe aroaces and non-SAM aces are the ‘real’ asexuals, the claims same gender attraction on an asexual character is ‘removing’ or ‘ruining’ their asexuality, the claims it’s inappropriate to link similarities between alloaces and aroallos or link alloaces to aroace experiences because we will never or could never experience oppression like aroallos surrounding puritanism or isolation like aroaces due to compulsory sexuality, despite rampant anti-asexual attitudes in society even with recent asexual visibility and despite the various factors of race, gender, homoromanticism, biromanticism, panromanticism, transness, disability, neurodivergence and religious factors that could ever shape asexuality, romance, love and sex.

There’s a lot I could debunk and respond from each example on a specific level, but I’ll address An Aromantic Manifesto (2018) because it essentially holds all the compulsory sexuality, homophobia and anti-asexual rhetoric that leads this line of thought present across these examples and present in ‘alloace discourse’ and some of the criticisms. The manifesto asserts that romance and romantic desire, including that of non-aro queer people, is inherently violent and oppressive, further perpetrating the puritan stigma and gay panic of gay people expressing violent predatory desires. It asserts that how gay people not being able to control the presence of desire is the same as racists, transphobes, ableists and fatphobes, as if racism, transphobia, ableism and fatphobia are desires and not structural oppressions. It makes the false and frankly, ignorant claim ‘queer romantic ideals remain incredibly heteronormative’ as if there’s been no criticism, analysis and exploration within non-aspec queer spaces, as if Black feminist lesbian theory, butchfemme lesbianism and the anti-amatonormative explorations of the Gay Liberation Front never happened. An Aromantic Manifesto (2018) falls into the exact same pitfalls as anti-sex radical feminist manifestos; that because of patriarchy affects definitions of sex, that sex itself cannot ‘exist’ and must be abolished as nothing more than a product of patriarchy with no concern for how it could exist outside of it as a normal part of the human experience. In this case, the manifesto is in reverse, claiming romance is inherently an amatonormative, violent and oppressive construct. Women have no autonomous romantic desire in this framework and any they do have is nothing more than a ‘violent fantasy’ according to the authors.

If romantic desire is inherently violent, what does this mean for asexuals with romantic attraction? Asexual people whose primary attraction is romantic? In a follow up, the manifesto creators clarified the manifesto was allegedly ace inclusive, that ‘not having sex doesn’t mean one’s intimacy is inferior.’ but the manifesto argues against alloromantic expression existing, which is for alloaces, a part of our non-sexual intimacies in the first place. In this manifesto, the split attraction of alloaces is removed and ignored. Ironically, it claims ‘sex still has its place in the queer revolution. romance, in contrast, doesn’t.’ This is plain compulsory sexuality. What makes sex intrinsically more important and natural to queerness than romance rather than just as equally important? If like the manifesto claims, its criticisms of romance applies to sex, then what makes the sexual racist, transphobic, fatphobic and ableist preferences opposed to romantic ones immune from analysis? Why is sex and sexual attraction fully naturalised and almost seen as ‘pure’ human connection and liberation but romance is nothing but artificial? If the sex isn’t consensual, safe or pleasurable then what is it, on its own, making it inherently liberational for queer people? Nothing. It asserts the idea of sex as biological destiny, the activity not the gender binary but still similar to that line of thought, so therefore it is natural but romance is not biological (which is a subjective statement in itself) so therefore it is not ‘real’. It’s the exact same essentialism of sex that every anti-asexual conservative advocates for.

To say ‘everyone should be aromantics’ is an active erasure of homoromanticism, biromanticism and panromanticism on top of claiming our romanticisms aren’t even real in the first place. The stomach sensations known as butterflies or more specifically the adrenaline rush, physical warmth and sometimes blushing, increased happiness and excitement, the release of hormones from mouth kissing, hand holding and hugging a partner could absolutely function as a ‘biological’ romantic response (outside of fear, anxiety or embarrassment as those can share similar reactions too) the manifesto is so sure doesn’t exist. It makes the effort to say it’s not encouraging people to leave their romantic partners ‘but to aspire to love them in a different, queerer way.’ But to be romantically attracted to your partner for a lot of alloromantic queer people, including alloaces, *is* the queerness in question. To romantically love the same gender when romance is defined as exclusively towards the opposite gender or sex, to romantically love mutliple genders including those that threaten cisnormative understandings of gender when romance is defined as love exclusively for cishet men and cishet women individually, to romantically love another trans person in a society that defines romance as cis exclusive, to romantically love multiple partners in a society that defines romance as exclusively monogamous, to romantically love with little to no sex or sexual attraction when romance is defined as inherently sexual and sex as inherently romantic, that sexless romance is a frivolous way to say friendship and that friendship itself is frivolous compared to sexual-romantic relationships, that sex is the utlimate and only true form of romantic expression, is queer.

In research for this essay, I was honestly overwhelmed at how for a so-called ‘alloace essay’, most of my sources aren’t actually from alloaces. Or how the actual alloromantic asexual content I did find barely addresses ‘alloace’ as a collective term or experience. This is because aces with romantic attraction, specifically cishet aces, can comfortably express that within ‘ace’ and ‘asexual’ on it’s own and whilst gay, bi, pan and lesbian aces have scattered across the gay, bi, pan and lesbian and asexual communities, there hasn’t been a take up of alloace like ‘aroallo’ or ‘alloaro’, which was taken up in response to discomfort and inability to express sexual attraction without pushback within the aspec community. So when you look to ‘alloace’ specifically as an experience within the apsec community, you’ll find it criticised and defined by arospecs, acespecs with no romantic attraction and the loudest individual alloaces usually straight or attracted to the opposite gender before that of a collective alloace community.

The narratives surrounding alloaces and so, what ‘alloace privilege’ and allyship is, is dripped in contradictions. Alloaces must include aromanticism in all forms of advocacy alongside asexuality but alloaces mentions of aromanticism with asexuality is conflation and erasure of aromanticism. Alloaces must focus on asexuality exclusively and not reference or tag aromanticism to take up space in the aspec community but alloaces’ exclusive mentions of asexuality cause asexual dominance in aspec spaces and so, take up space. Alloaces are responsible for speaking up for aromanticism but speaking up on aromanticism as an alloace is centering alloromantic asexuality because alloaces can never have shared experiences with aromanticism. Alloaces must never assert ‘asexuals aren’t aromantic’ to distinguish the identities but alloaces will never understand aromantic experiences, have any shared experiences or oppressions with aromantics or be affected by the discrimination that affects aromantics because asexuals aren’t aromantic. The conclusion here isn’t that there’s now an aroallo or aroace ‘privilege’ and alloaces are the ‘real’ victims via ‘alloacephobia’ but that concepts of privilege, oppression, discrimination are always affected by various factors and there can be no real liberation or empowerment for any marginalised group if we don’t address material conditions that affect these factors. When privilege is used to simply mean not experiencing a specific type of discrimination and not the systemic benefit of another’s group’s oppression and when oppressor is used to simply mean a person who’s not a part of the group, we flatten what these concepts mean. As I’ll go on to explain, whilst yes alloaces can enable stigma against aroaces and aroallos and can participate in amatonormativity, the sentiment that alloaces are inherently oppressors and immune from oppression by virtue of romantic attraction and asexuality is flawed, false and actively harmful.

I try not to bring up aromanticism or tag it unless it’s fully relevant to the topic I’m writing about to avoid the idea of aromanticism as just as an extension of asexuality and not an orientation in it’s own right. For example, I expanded a post on Black asexuality to include aromanticism because the overwhelming narrative that asexuality is purely white is similar to the overwhelming narrative that aromanticism is also purely white. Black aromantics and Black asexuals have a shared experience of antiblackness and erasure in the aspec community due to the sexualisation of Blackness, so the post is an asexual and aromantic one. My big post on faux ace allyship mentioned aromanticism in passing because the aro community’s liberation, just like the ace community also ,shouldn’t hinge on respectability politics, as loveless aros should never be thrown under the bus for the sake of a ‘palatable’ aromanticism. But I didn't tag it as aromatic as I only mentioned it in passing and not making an aromantic specific post. And yet, the large majority of tags are ‘aro’ ‘aromantic’ ‘this but with aros’ regardless. This happens to large majority of ace posts I make. Any time I specifically write about asexual lesbianism and my reblogs are filled with ‘aroace’ instead alongside microaggressive comments about allo queer people, despite technically being one myself. In fact, the increased compulsory sexuality and acephobia I experienced on tumblr was and is in direct correlation with my lesbianism. There’s even less spaces for asexual lesbians when non-ace lesbians engage in the narrative that sexless lesbianism is exclusively a product of puritanism, or that to be ‘a hand-holding sapphic’, is a lesser form of lesbianism. The narrative of alloromantic asexual womanhood overwhelmingly centers the idea of ace women seeking, taking part in, breaking up with and longing for sexless romantic relationships with men, with the asexuality treated as a barrier from reaching them, with very few pieces of content for alloace women who don’t. Despite this sentiment of ‘all aces are valid’ the concept of an sexless asexual lesbianism was met with hostility from asexuals online. Additionally, I’ve had a fellow ace lesbian accuse me of appropriating lesbian and feminist terms by using the term 'compulsory sexuality’, despite it being a feminist term and being a lesbian myself. I’m wondering why they assumed I was a non-lesbian in the first place. I don’t want to start using ‘don’t tag as aro’ warnings with animated blinkies because I’d be effectively isolating myself from my own aroace and aroallo mutuals and barring my aro followers from contributing from discussions where their input would be meaningful. But if as an alliance, who is not aromantic, can never talk about my own asexuality and romantic attraction without being linked to an aromanticism that I don’t have, I’m not sure what else to do. There’s many contexts where ace experiences overlap with aro and vice versa and there’s no harm in addressing that. And the same time, I can’t help but wonder if there’s alloace acceptance in the ace community, then why is this the reaction to my homoromanticism? Why is it so hostile? Because my specific romanticism isn’t the one that’s normalised.

Sex repulsed & averse isn’t and shouldn't be at odds with sex favourability. Romance repulsion & aversion aren’t and shouldn’t be at odds with romance favourability. For shared tags like #aspec, #aspec community and #aspec representation, ‘aspec’ has always been a diverse and varied label for little to no attractions and gender connections. There will always be aspecs who you have no relatability to in aspec spaces, online and offline and they have every right to express that. Compulsory sexuality is the compulsory expectation of sex as a part of humanity, not an aroallo merely stating that they have sex. Amatonormativity is the compulsory expectation or romance as a part of humanity, not an alloace simply saying they have a date. The aro and ace tags have always shared too. Alloaces and aroaces are both ace. Aroaces and aroallos are both aros. Its’s unfair to alienate aroaces from both tags simultaneously especially when for some aroaces their asexuality and aromanticism are fully interlinked. This why in my personal posts I always aim for a more open framework and model whenever we discuss sex and romance in the aspec community and why I haven’t and will never give into frameworks or ideologies where sex is inherently oppressive akin to sex-negative TERFs and radfems, that romance is inherently oppressive akin the homophobia and compulsory sexuality of the An Aromantic Manifesto (2018), that sex is inherently liberational akin to left-wing compulsory sexuality, white cishet liberal sex positivity frameworks and rape culture or that romance is inherently liberational akin to amatonormavity and heteronormativity. It is *all* circumstantial. And from the Western individualistic mindset that is rife in the aspec community, something I’ve briefly mentioned and something I’m gonna have to keep bringing up in any aspec intracommunity discourse, I think there’s definitely some discomfort in opening up to that. It would mean we have to admit our similarities and shared experiences with The Allos™, that our alienation from allocisheterosexuality is shared, in spite of non-aspec people holding anti-aspec views towards us. It would also mean the crumbling of aspec exclusionism because non-aspec queer people would have to admit these similarities in return.

Aspecs whether they’re aroallo, aroace or alloace, not criticising amatonormativity in the community from alloaces or talking about personal romance repulsion but actively holding, supporting and spouting anti-romance rhetoric including that of gay romance, anti-love rhetoric including that of gay love, anti-romantic attraction including that of gay romantic attraction, that gay romantic attraction is inherently and will always be sexual, that gay romance and love will never be anything more than extended friendship or that gay love and romance are frivolous, useless, irrelevant and meaningless and that gay romantic activism of the past decades and centuries have no real impact as an asexual with romantic attraction to women, as an asexual lesbian, makes me uncomfortable and confused. They either don’t know I’m ‘alloace’ and are assuming I’m not because I can clock and address amatonormativity or do know, but have maybe drawn a distinction that I’m not like the ‘other ones’. Either way from being Black, I know anyone who actively disparages one of my identities in front of me, but will tolerate me because I don’t fit the specific mold they’re talking to, can’t be trusted to support me as a human. I’ll never support a conditional support of any of my identities including my asexuality and lesbianism. And I’m definitely not tolerating it from the aspec community.

If we can understand anti-aromantic views of non-aspec people bars aroallos from entering mainstream sexual society, then surely we can understand alloaces can’t enter mainstream romantic society either if anti-asexual views are actively enforced there? ‘Alloromantic’ is consistently discussed in the aspec community as a concept divorced from material reality of how romance and love aren’t equally accessible for everyone, including alloaces. The aspec community bases its assumptions on alloaces on what it alloace means, what alloaces are and what alloace expression is instead of what it *actually* is. And these material conditions have gone unaddressed for too long.

Romance as Privilege

From the repression of pre-martial sex, sex work, gay sex and interracial sexual relationships plus white supremacist dogwhistles of people of colour, especially Black people, as sexually ravenous savages, it’s easy to paint puritanism as anti-sex. It’s also easy to stray into the belief that puritanism is anti sex and pro romance because of its evangilisation of cishet monogamous marriage and glorification of the white nuclear family. I argue these are both false assumptions as puritanism has contexts where cisheterosexual sex is seen as mandatory for reproduction and is actively anti-asexual so ‘anti sex’ is a false description and that anti-sexual autonomy is more accurate. I also argue it’s false to call puritanism or society at large fully pro-love and pro-romance when sex and love are equated as the same, so sexual stigmas of specific forms of sex and sexuality can affect specific love and romance and so, it’s fully possible for certain forms of love, romance and romantic attraction to be stigmatised and oppressed at large.

In terms of alloace representation, double standards begin to appear with how gay and lesbian aces are treated compared to heteromantic ones. Abbi Singh, Aled, Will, Ca$h Piggott and Greta Moreno are not the first characters named when we say ‘alloace representation’ unlike Todd Chavez. To the minds of many, a character is gay OR they are asexual. They’re never both. They can never be both. We’re not sat here doing Todd Chavez/Florence/Tori Sping is straight vs asexual discourse because to be straight is seen as the default. We can easily accept or at least comprehend a heteromantic asexuality or a straight asexual. But to be gay, lesbian, bi or pan are seen as the other. Because of the sexualisation of these identities and so, with split romantic attractions, there’s a demand for evidence or proof. Are they ‘really’ gay without sexual attraction? Are they ‘really’ asexual with gay romantic attraction? As Michael Paramo once said, ‘to be gay and to be asexual is to exist within conflict’

‘Alloace’ struggles don’t begin or end with fandom discourse or tumblr beef, but they do show symptoms of a wider issue in that to be gay, lesbian, bi or pan whilst asexual is seen as the ultimate oxymoron and it’s because of homophobic sexualisation. Conservative and self-proclaimed fascist Matt Walsh hasn’t only been engaging in anti-asexual rhetoric, claiming ‘people are not supposed to be asexual’, that’s it’s symptom of mental illness or ‘spiritual despair’ but specifically anti-biromantic asexual rhetoric. He claims ‘they’ referring to the asexual left as trying to redefine and essentially ‘corrupt’ definitons of sexuality. He went on to make a whole video about the biromantic asexuality of director and writer, Latoya Raveneu. He argues romantic love *is* erotic love, that they’re synonyms. That romantic attraction IS sexual attraction. He sarcastically announces ‘we’re cancelling biromantic asexuals’ but seriously claims the left’s separation of sexual and romantic attraction is an attack on logic and language itself. Walsh’s stances on alloromantic, specifically biromantic asexuality are clear. It doesn't exist and it shouldn’t. It doesn’t exist *because* it shouldn’t.

Whilst writing this, I also thought about Bianca Devins and the surrounding online discourse about her sexuality. Bianca Devins’ murder in the ace community is referred to mainly as an acephobic hate crime with little mention of her biromanticism or the alarming rates of bi women on the receiving end of domestic and sexual abuse or simply how misogyny causes physical and sexual violence towards women. It’s not an either or that misogyny as well as the queerness of queer women play a role in the violence towards us. It’s fully possible that violence towards bi women, compulsory sexuality and misogyny all together played a role instead of them ‘having’ to be one singular reason in isolation. Patriarchy is multi-faceted. Regardless of whether asexuality played a role in her murder, Bianca Devins’ dead body was posted in asexual tags and 4chan trolls slut-shamed her and memed her death. Her death was used as a way to enable asexual antagonism. Being bi asexual or alloace didn’t shield Bianca Devins from a misogynist and his physical and sexual violence before, during or after her death. In fact Devins’ biromanticism became weaponised against her asexuality after death, with ace exclusionists claiming she was solely bisexual and the asexual part was a rumour created by the asexual community to prove an asexual oppression that didn’t exist. Rolling Stone writer EJ Dickson accused Yasmin Benoit of making up the rumour of Bianca Devin’s asexuality and claimed she couldn’t have been asexual because she attended gay pride. Along with Devins’ family saying they didn’t know she was asexual, Devins’ biromantic asexuality was essentially wiped away after her death, despite her saying she was asexual herself, on Yasmin Benoit’s #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike tag.

Compulsory sexuality in queer spaces presents itself in the idea that sexlessness in gay, lesbian, bi and pan people is inherently puritan and at odds with queer liberation. Some argue the root of queer oppression is sex; if you have no gay sex you’re not oppressed and if you have the gay sex, it ends the oppression. The MacInnis-Hodson study showed that participants still engaged in homophobia towards gay people even if they didn‘t have sex and in fact the participants saw asexual people as inhuman. Despite conservatives and puritans being firmly clear on their anti-asexual stances and their commitment to homophobia regardless of sexual activity and despite claims from some aspecs that gay alloaces can easily access gay spaces, asexual and sexless gay people are still seen as the other. Bambi lesbians, whilst not the exact same as asexual lesbians, share similarities with ace lesbians as the term refers to lebsians who prefer non-sexual intimacy over sex with women and the term originated in the 1980s. There’s a hostility towards the bambi lesbian label solely due to the idea of sexless lesbianism as inherently threatening to sexual, more ‘normal’ lesbian relationships. Sanitisation of same gender attraction is still blamed on gay, bi, pan and lesbian asexuals. We’re nothing more than defanged gays, repressed, internally homophobic towards the sexual attraction we have little to none of and traitors to true gay liberation.

Aside from romanticisms, there’s many factors that effect standards of acceptable romance, love and romantic attraction. Black women are consistently alienated from mainstream representations of romance, with Black women paired with white men especially resulting in their characters and actresses experiencing extreme levels of misogynoir for ‘threatening’ white m/f couples. There’s the erasure of dark-skinned Black women in some forms of Black Love, where most acceptable Black couples are dark-skinned man, light-skinned woman with dark-skinned Black women deemed as unworthy romantic partners. There’s transphobic notions of romance, that trans people trick and trap cis people into relationships pretending to be ‘real’ men and women. There’s ableist views of romance where disabled people are considered unworthy or unloveable. These are not forms of ‘romancephobia’ or ‘romance negativity’ but examples of how various oppressions, white supremacy, transphobia, ableism, misgogyny, colourism and more shape what acceptable romance and love are and that if you hold characteristics deemed as romantically undesirable, you are barred from this romance. You are barred from alloromanticism.

To be coerced into sex and essentially raped in the name of romantic duty, to be used as as romantic rehabilitation unit for white romance to function whilst rendered undesirable, to be labelled as romantically undesirable due to your body threatening cisnormative gender roles, to be rendered unlovable due to disability, to have your asexuality erased and denied to due the sexualisiation of your Blackness or other race, transness, homoromanticism, lesbianism, biromanticism or panromanticism, to have your Blackness or other race, transness, homoromanticism, lesbianism, biromanticism or panromanticism branded as inherent sexual deviancy, to have your romantic attraction deemed manipulative, abusive, possessive especially if Black, of colour, trans, gay, lesbian, bi or pan is not, has not and will never be ‘alloromantic privilege’ or ‘alloace privilege’.

Non-conforming alloaces, LGBT asexuals, alloaces of colour, sex repulsed, averse and indifferent alloaces and alloaces who are the ‘no’ in little to no sexual attraction face a double erasure in the aspec community. We’re seen as undesirable in mainstream romance and so we’re seen as undesirable alloaces. Some of us have no attraction to the opposite gender. Some of us aren’t white. Some do not fit neatly into the category of man or woman. Some will never marry their partner. Some will have more than one partner. Some will never have sex with their partner. Some will never be sexually attracted to their partner. Some will never have children. We do not fit the ‘success stories’ of acceptable alloaces, ones who are partnered with the opposite gender, ones who are white and/or with white partners, ones who are cis, ones who are in straight(passing) marriages, ones who have sex with their partners, ones who are sexually attracted to their partners and ones who have biological children who have integrated into cisheterosexual society and used as proof of successful allo-ace romance. We are used as examples of ‘asexual stereotypes’ for non asexuals to avoid partnering with or for non asexuals to try to correct as well as examples of alloaces who ruin the ‘acceptable’ alloace image, an asexual who doesn’t bother with Pride or flags or any woke nonsense but just wants to be in the nuclear family unit just like every other ’normal’ person. We’re also erased within the aspec community because of our undesirabilities, experiencing homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, racism and compulsory sexuality there too, but also held to blame for conforming alloaces’ actions. We are discriminated against for being LGBT, but homogenised under the ‘alloace’ label, a label for oppressive aspecs and a label to imply and directly call a privileged class and the diversity of our experiences and oppressions are never addressed. We’re marginalised for our non-heteroromantic attraction within the aspec community whilst being told that same romantic attraction gives us privilege over aromantics who enact that marginalisation. We are punished for the privilege of conforming alloaces, privilege we will never have.

Alloace Possibilities & Conclusion

From non-aspec cishet people who engage in queerphobia towards all non-aspec non- cisheterosexual and non-monogamous identities and upholding these systems of sexual puritanism and compulsory sexuality, non-aspec queer people who engage in compulsory sexuality and maintain the quota of consistent and rebranded puritanism against deviant queer sex including not having it all, aroaces and aroallos who are firmly against gay romance and gay romantic attraction who uphold homophobia in their advocacy and alloaces who perpetrate compulsory sexuality, puritanism and homophobia whilst exceptionalising their own experience at other aspecs expense including fellow alloaces, I essentially have no online space to express asexual lesbianism freely and safely. Or at least, all of the time.

So basically… what the fuck do I do?

That’s why I’ve called this essay ‘An “AlloAce” Dilemma’. Not ‘The’ because there’s plenty of alloaces who’ll be unaffected by what I’m talking about or experiencing. And “AlloAce” because so much of my asexuality is affected by my Blackness, lesbianism and ‘womanhood’. Had any of these factors been different, if I could ever reach a state of safe and free romantic attraction without oppression, stigma or fear of those things, this essay might not exist. But they do, so this does.

This essay more about problems than a manifesto but I’d say there’s no harm in just imagining what it could look like. If there was a hypothetical Alloace Manifesto, I’d imagine it looking something like this:

• Rejecting amatonormative views of romance and love - Reject the notion asexuality is ‘redeemable’ only through romantic attraction plus the idea asexuality needs to be ‘redeemed’ in the first place to support aromantic community.

• Abolishing compulsory sexuality in romance and friendship - Reject the notion sexless romances are lesser than sexual ones, affirm the existence of romantic attraction towards that of the same gender and reject the homophobic ideas of gay romance only being a friendship and that friendship is lesser form of human connection to begin with.

• Support and safety network for alloace victims/survivors who’ve experienced rape, sexual assault and/or domestic violence in their romantic relationships.

• Support and celebrate unconventional romances and relationships - Ace4ace couples, childless asexual couples, asexual couples with biological and/or non-biological children, non-monogamous ace couples, aces in QPRs, platonic marriages and unmarried aces. Also affirm alloaces who haven’t dated, aren’t currently dating and who might not want to.

• Coalition and unity with aroallo community - Reject the notion that sex is inherently romantic and must be romantic and rejecting the notion romance is inherently sexual and must be sexual. Reject the notion of ‘incomplete’ human attraction especially notions that we’re ‘incomplete’ lesbians, gays, bisexuals and pansexuals for having a primary romantic or primary sexual attraction instead of a joint one.

• Coalition and unity with the aroace community - Reject amatonormative views of romance and love and make room to affirm all kinds of romantic attractions and little to none of it in asexual advocacy, including affirming asexuals that don’t use the split attraction model and affirm their right to little to no romantic attraction as part of their asexualities whilst also supporting the romantic pleasures and romantic expression of alliances, especially homoromantics, biromantics and panromantics.

This isn’t the definitive ‘Alloace Manifesto’ or 100% what it has to be or what I want it to be, but only a baseline. A scribble that could be a reference for a proper drawing, basically. There is no overall ‘alloace community’ or at least one I can see and access. We’re essentially a group of people with romantic attraction on the asexual spectrum who share a given space, but that isn’t ‘community’ in a social or political sense, only physically. If there was to be a real alloace community, we need to acknowledge the differences in our romantic attractions and support the alloaces who experience the most extreme marginalisations. We need to abandon and abolish homophobic, lesbophobic, biphobic and transphobic views of gay and trans relationships and let gay and trans alloaces stories and experiences with asexuality gain as much visibility as cishet aces do. We also need to look at factors outside of queerness like race, colour and disability. We need to let go of compulsory sexuality and abolish rape culture in allo-ace romance and ensure our emotional and romantic needs are met too.

Maybe then ‘alloace culture’ could actually exist, or exist in a form that’s accessible for all of us and not a select few. Maybe then ‘alloace’ could function as a greater label for collective asexual experiences and a way to subvert romance and love. Maybe then I could claim it. But until then, I’ll stay drifting from area to area in the aspec community and the queer community overall, having a space to camp here and there but not really to call home. I hope alloaces can self-reflect on their own ideals of romance, avoid playing into amatormativity, compulsory sexuality and rape culture and aim to instead of reframing asexuality to fit into conventional romance but to subvert it. I hope the aspec community as a collective can better differentiate between normative views of sex and romance from marginalised views of sex and romance and see the connections we have with non-aspec queer people in spite of the anti-aspec views some of them might carry and in return, non-aspec queer people do the same in reverse.

That is my AlloAce Dilemma. And this is how I’d like it to end.