I Am Not Straight

I see a disturbing tendency for people who hate asexuals and aromantics to equate aroace with straight.

While I support het aces and het aros, to lump me in with them is frankly inaccurate and disrespectful of my identity. I'm not straight. Nothing about me is straight. I actually feel closer to being bisexual, because I feel equal attraction to males and females. (On questionnaires with only three options for sexual orientation, I select bisexual.) But I'm not bisexual either. Het aces, bi/pan aces and LG aces have more in common with each other than they do with me; and the same with aro hets, aro bi/pans and aro LGs.

Het aces, bi/pan aces and LG aces share with each other the following differences from aroaces:

• a desire for a romantic relationship, and tendency to seek out romantic partners, often leading to involvement in the dating scene
• greater societal recognition of their most important desired personal bond (although allo allos, and especially het hets, get even more recognition)
• a tendency to buy into and perpetuate stereotypes that equate romantic attraction with love and humanity, and not being personally hurt by those stereotypes
• an increased tendency to be pressured into having sex they don't want or having sex more frequently than they want to
• increased risk of corrective rape (since many corrective rapes of aces are perpetrated by dates or romantic partners)
• an increased tendency to be accused of withholding sex, tricking their allosexual partners into a sexless relationship, or shaming or abusing their partners by refusing sex
• an increased likelihood of having their identity be medicalized and targeted by therapy
• an increased tendency to be treated or feel like they're just "bad at being" an orientation other than asexual, or that their ace identity reflects incompetence at sex

Aro hets, aro bi/pans and aro LGs share with each other the following differences from aroaces:

• a desire for a sexual relationship, and tendency to seek out sexual partners, often leading to involvement in the dating scene
• a tendency to be stereotyped as predatory and manipulative for wanting sex without romance, and sometimes to struggle with internalized shame for this
• a tendency to be slut-shamed, even if they are not sexually active, because people equate aro allosexual with having lots of casual sex
• a tendency to get drawn into unwanted romances or one-sided romantic pursuit by people they desire sexually
• a desire for a sexual queerplatonic relationship, in other words, a relationship characterized by strong emotional bonds and sexual activity but not romantic attachment; and ongoing difficulty finding people willing and able to be friends and sexual partners without falling in love with the aromantic person
• less tendency to have their identity medicalized, because asexuality is more often seen as a medical issue than aromanticism is
• an increased tendency to be treated or feel like they're just "bad at being" an orientation other than aromantic, or that their aro identity reflects incompetence at romance

Aroace is a separate identity, with unique issues. We're not straight. We're not a subset of any other orientation. And the combination of aromanticism and asexuality creates a unique experience, that is not shared by allo aces or aro allos. We experience intersecting acephobia and arophobia, as well as unique prejudice against aroaces specifically. Conversely, among people who don't accept the split attraction model, we're the only a-specs whose orientation might be respected.