Course:CSIS200/2025/Aromanticism and the History of Love (wip)

Author's Bio

Hi! I'm West Solomon and I'm in my first year at The University of British Columbia. I am an international student from The United States, specifically Washington. For a long time, I have Identified as aromantic, and while recently, that has changed, my interest in the history of the identity has not. The things that spurred me to write this are included but not limited to: Split-Attraction-Model for what attraction is, and I wanted to know the context and full history of it, frustration from being mislabelled as someone who identified as aromantic but not asexual, and a desire to create a basis of knowledge for what love is in the context of human history.

Terms to Know

Orientions

Aspec Aromantic-Spectrum	Applies to the "A" of LGBTQIA+ and means your identity lays somewhere on that spectrum. Aspec could be used as a term for someone who is within the spectrum, but it could also be used as a placeholder for someone who is trying to find an identity on that spectrum that suits them.
Aromantic	Someone who experiences little to no romantic attraction.
Asexual	Someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction, falls under the "A" umbrella.
Alloromantic	Someone who experiences romantic attraction, and has not necessarily questioned their romantic orientation, but is put under this term to avoid erasure of non-allo identities.
Lithromantic	Someone who has romantic attraction but does not wish or want for their attraction to be reciprocated by another party.
Greyromantic Grey-Aro	Someone who experiences romantic love in a way that is weak or rare. One of many identities on the Aromantic Spectrum.
Demiromantic	Someone who experiences romantic love/attraction only after creating a bond of a certain threshold with that person. The threshold for love is dictated on a personal level.
Quoiromantic wtfRomantic	Interchangeable terms used; by someone who finds that the concept of romantic attraction is not applicable to them, by someone who does not understand romantic attraction, and/or by someone who finds that romantic attraction is inaccessible to them.

Concepts

Split Attraction Model	Romantic and Sexual attraction have been previously thought to be the same attraction, but thanks to queer voices, romance and sexual attraction can be articulated as: Separate concepts that can be synonymous, and experienced as such, but one can also experience one, or neither.
Allonormativity	The idea that everyone should be in a fully allo relationship, both allosexually, and alloromantically.
Romanticism	The foundation for what love as we see it is today, started in the 18th century as a counter-culture to the industrial boom that was plaguing Britain at the time.

Context of Love

Statue of Plato in Athens

Love as we know it in modern society began in the courting era in the middle ages, and did not resemble the love before it. Love had many definitions, Sappho, the Greek poet documented the concept as a sickness, with ailments of heartache, sleeplessness, appetite loss, and fevers. During Julius Caesar's rule, love was predominantly a sensual, erotic act, that was mostly physical in nature. Thanks to the normalization of publicly and privately committing sexual acts, it became a cultural to start and stop new affairs on a dime. Over time, this became a huge issue for Rome, and by the time Augustus Caesar was in power, marriage rates had declined, which led to family life rates to decline as well. As a result, birth rates were incredibly low, and despite laws passed, it continued to decline.

As Christians spread throughout the continent, they preached against this carnal love that Romans had embraced. They spread the idea that carnal desires (and romance too) should be disciplined, and restricted. This standardized belief was created by Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, who believed, much like Sappho that love is something that is inherently wrong, he talked about how romantic love was something that was inferior to other kinds of love. Later known as platonic love, this love occurred between young boys and older men in a sort of mentorship relationship. Christians adopted this into their beliefs from a very early period. Christians began pairing themselves up in marriage, but not out of a romantic or sexual desire, but to align with their beliefs. Until France and Italy introduced courtly love in the 11th century, love was essentially exempt from life. Only until around this time, did love begin to take on the form of courtly love, where men of warrior status (Knights, and Squires) would dedicate their knightly acts to women they felt romantic desire for. Love at this point was to remain unfulfilled and bittersweet, and while sometimes fulfilled by having sex, marriage was never an option.

Only during the 16th century did courtly love and marriage lines start to meld, until this point, marriage had been a tool for political gain for the wealthy, and a tool for stability in life for the poor. However, love as a romantic concept was still seen as an unrefined, immature activity that reflected the early days of mankind. Love was almost entirely sexual at this point, and while it was cause for relationship, it was not necessarily for marriage.

Ancient Greek figures like Plato hold incredible power over romanticism, like in the 18th century, when love began to form as a concept that could be based in the steps leading up to marriage. Marriage previously had no steps, and was just a tool, but now people were choosing their spouses via both romantic attraction and sexual attraction. This era led to the foundation of what love is today. '

History of the Aromantic Flag

Predecessor to Current Day Aromantic Flag

The first drafting of the flag was by user cameronwhimsy on Tumblr on the 7th of February 2014. The flag has gone through several iterations, the first one having 5 stripes of a bold green, a lighter green, yellow, grey, and black. Each colour had its own representation, from top to bottom: aromantic, The aromantic spectrum, lithromantic, grey-aro and demiromantic, and wtfRomantic.

Final Form of Aromantic Flag

The yellow of the aromantic flag then changed to to white, while keeping the same proportions and layout. However, the meanings did change to suit the wider audience that cameron had been made aware of through online discourse. The flag's meanings changed into three segments from top to bottom: Both colours of green represent the entire aromantic spectrum, the white stripe refers to the importance and validity of platonic relationships, and the gray and black stripes refer to the sexuality spectrum.

Aromanticism and Its' Parallels of Early Romanticism

William Wordsworth

Thomas Chatterton

Romanticism once was a counter culture too, its values disobeyed the standard in the 18th and 19 centuries. These two centuries were the heyday of the industrial revolution, and in turn, romanticism was created. Thanks to poem works by Thomas Chatterton, and William Wordsworth, the definition of what romanticism is changes, due to their popularity, both niche and widely popular. Thomas Chatterton killed himself as a result of no one willing to publish his poetry, which imbued the idea of an artist, or sensitive person being rejected by a cruel, unforgiving world in the early founders of romanticism. William Wordsworth began writing incredibly popular poems about preferring nature to the intense booming industry of Britain at the time. His widely popular success skyrocketed the idea of romanticism as embracing nature into mainstream knowledge.

Aromanticism at a fundamental level challenges the idea of romanticism, and love as we see it today, which mirrors the very same path that early romantics took towards their mainstream society.

The Dilemma of Aromanticism

Aromanticism has several flaws, one being its basis in Romanticism, the 18th century cultural shift. This shift brought about love as we see it today. However, this cultural shift was inherently damaging because this idea of love has been spread through colonial practices. Colonial practices have deliberately overwritten cultural norms and ideas belonging to other countries. Romance and love as we see it today is no different, and has also erased other forms of love throughout the entire world. It has become a standard for what love is, in present day society.

A second issue that the aromantics face is that the aromantic community online has become a centralized space. Centralization leads to a sense of community and belonging, and also allows for people to find aromanticism as an option for their orientation. However, due to their centralization, they have become a community obsessed with putting labels on identities. This issue mirrors and issue faced in chapter 3 of Ending the Pursuit: The Cyberspacial Emerge of Asexual Identity.

At the same time, the importance of using a precise definition of asexuality was evidently important. In their response to “I find people attractive and I get horny but I dislike sex and would never do it, am I asexual?,” their phrasing on what constituted asexuality was clear:If you’re turned on by other people then you don’t fit the definition. "[…] Asexuals do not get horny toward other people, they would feel completely satisfied if they never shared a single sexual experience for the rest of their lives."

I think this gives a good example of what is going on; rebuking and accepting what is and isn't aromanticism. In turn, this discriminates against people who may actually be aromantic.