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This month's carnival is hosted by Bring on the Pigeons, and the theme is Words and Conceptualizations. 

• When you say you’re ace, what do you mean? What experiences are you describing?
• How did you decide which the specific words/labels to use? What do they do for you?
• Are there labels that you “count” as by strict definition that you don’t actually identify with? Why don’t you use those words? What don’t they do for you?

I've identified as some version of aroace for nearly 8 years now, and for much of that time I was switching between various microlabels and position on the aro- and ace- spectrums*. Most of my label hopping was not really due to a change in experience. It was due to me simply connecting to a lot of the microlabels that are out there, and finding various uses for a lot of them. Instead of going through the probably dozen aspec labels I have used, I will center this piece over the ones that I use the most today, and have used the most for the past few years. 

As a heads up, I discuss romantic and sexual attraction (or lack thereof) alongside each other, as my experience with these attractions are very similar, and I consider myself to have one romosexual orientation rather than separate romantic and sexual orientations. 

February's Carnival of Aros is being hosted by Allos, and the theme is Relationship Anarchy. 

• If there’s a part of the manifesto (here) that speaks to you or that you want to discuss at-depth, feel free to do so.

"Love and respect instead of entitlement

Deciding to not base a relationship on a foundation of entitlement is about respecting others’ independence and self-determination. Your feelings for a person or your history together does not make you entitled to command and control a partner to comply with what is considered normal to do in a relationship. Explore how you can engage without stepping over boundaries and personal beliefs. Rather than looking for compromises in every situation, let loved ones choose paths that keep their integrity intact, without letting this mean a crisis for the relationship. Staying away from entitlement and demands is the only way to be sure that you are in a relationship that is truly mutual. Love is not more “real” when people compromise for each other because it’s part of what’s expected.”

This part of the manifesto really sticks out to me and is why I’ve felt myself shifting towards relationship anarchy. I first read this manifesto maybe 3 or 4 months ago and the idea of a relationship not being about ownership feels so natural yet so foreign at the same time. As far as I can remember, normative romo/sexual relationships have been about owning another person. Owning their space, owning their time, owning their emotional labor...the expectation that all relationships should include suffering because it is difficult to own the entirety of another person. Many people use phrasing such as sharing, or compromising, but it has always seemed thinly veiled to me. 

December's Carnival of Aros is hosted by aspecofstardust, and the theme is Happily Ever After. 

• For this month’s carnival of aros, I want to think about what is your aro “happily ever after” made of? What kind of life do you want to build for yourself? What sorts of challenges do you foresee in creating that?
  

Originally I was not going to write for this theme, as I did not want to attempt answering any of the questions it poses. However, after reading a different blogger's personal tale of her greyromanticism and her ability to translate feelings similar to mine in a fairly coherent way, I felt like I should at least try with this theme. 

A large part of my greyro identity is that romance is okay, no better and no worse. Regardless of whether I'm currently attracted to someone or not, romantic activities and relationships are not an actual goal of mine. I wouldn't mind one, and have actually pursued them in the past, but overall do not make a point to include them in my life. I neither plan to have nor don't plan to have romantic relationships in my future. It is Schrödinger's Ever After. 

Some Activism Should Not be Invisible

This month's Carnival of Aces is being hosted by Siggy over at the Asexual Agenda blog, and the theme is Invisible Activism. 

• Even if activism is ultimately intended to promote visibility, some of the underlying work is not visible.  What does that invisible labor look like?
• Is there any form of activism that you think has largely been invisible?

Much of the activism work I do is visible - whether it be public speaking, writing about personal experiences, or simply being present and active in the community, I have felt obligated to maintain a public presence and be a visible activist. Part of this is because I want to, and I have the skills to do so, but it would be remiss to not discuss how I feel pressured to do so. The aro and ace communities are heavily white, and as a Black aroace I feel both internal and external pressure to play the role of the one Black aspec. The external pressure maybe isn't as bad as the internal, as I've met a fair amount of ace and aro activists who don't even notice the lack of people of color at the table. 

For the activists who do notice this lack, I think the term "invisible activism" would be accurate in describing what they do to resolve it. Efforts to find more people of color to join their efforts are rarely or barely public. It's instead discussed behind the scenes, or in a space with other established activists, rather than where POC might hear it and feel 1) encouraged by the efforts being put forth by white activists and 2) encouraged to reach out and provide their insight and perspective. As someone who is already involved in ace and aro activism, I am used to people encouraging me specifically to do more things because of my position as a POC, but I am one person with one perspective, and cannot provide all of the diverse insight that this community needs. This is both because my perspective is limited, because POC is an umbrella term that includes a lot of people, and because I am literally one person. The insular nature of current ace and aro activism means has shown me that there are very few POC currently involved, and very few are joining. 

This month's Carnival of Aros is being hosted by jay-aro on Tumblr, and the prompt is Prioritization. 

• how important is aromanticism to you?
• do you have a different orientation you prioritize over your aromanticism? what about gender identity? 
• if you’re on the aromantic spectrum, how does that impact your identity? do you ever use the label “aromantic”, or just your arospec label?

Aromanticism has been important to me since I started to identify with it because it is a large aspect of my life. The way that I connect with and understand people is inherently influenced by my lack of romantic attraction and my romance repulsion. My asexuality is also incredibly important to me, for similar reasons. My aroace identity could be considered non-SAM, in that I do not use the words "aro" and "ace" to describe separate attraction experiences, as they are both entangled in each other. Like other aroaces, I am sometimes made to feel like I should pick a side, and more strongly identify with one community rather than the other. This does happen on occasion, and I experience short periods of time in which I much more strongly identify with one part rather than the other. This is not reflective of my personal experience with my own identity, but rather of my experience in communal spaces, and how communal mindsets treat my identity. Aro, ace, and aspec community spaces have had continual issues with identity policing, gatekeeping, and outright hatefulness, and this results in me wildly undulating between spaces as I try to find one that is at least bearable. Whichever identity I prioritize in any given week is whichever one I feel safest in claiming and participating in at that time. I am using this Carnival as a chance to analyse some of the rhetoric in aro community spaces that inevitably drive me out of that space, even if I eventually feel interested in returning. I think that I will always be interested in returning, as these are communities that include people with similar experiences to my own, but I am tired of constantly being driven away in the first place. 

(Note, posts I link to are to provide examples or deeper explanations of what I'm talking about. I do not wish to argue with any of the people that I link to and I do not condone unproductive online arguing. I provide content warnings when I link to something upsetting.)