I'm contrary and I want to speak

[sciatrix]

So the latest shitstorm on tumblr is all about how words like queerplatonic are totally overanalyzing and useless and just making up unnecessary words, which is somehow... bad? I don't even know what they're arguing there, or why these words are supposed to hurt anyone else. That bit's never been clearly explained in favor of focusing on all the shaming going on.

Because I'm contrary and my reaction to someone trying to tear down my communities is to immediately try to build it up, I wanted to have a discussion here about relationships that blur the lines of the friendship/romantic relationship binary.

For me, personally, these words are absolutely important. And not just because they're the signs of the first time I've ever had a community, even a little one, where I actually feel like other people are getting me and the relationships I tend to make, either. These words give me a vocabulary to talk about what I've been going through in a way that almost nothing else does.

Some of the people being assholes were arguing that "friend" is a broad enough term for these kinds of relationships. And the thing is, "friend" is so broad and so devalued that I think it's really not; either it's been broadened so much that it's meaningless or, if you do narrow it down and try to describe what a "friend" is, it's woven through with devalued connotations to the point where I think it's better for me to jettison it as a word for my closer relationships.

And then there's the wonderful person who felt the need to tell Kaz that zer relationships (one of which is with me) are totally romantic. And the thing is--no, as far as I can tell, it's not. Some of the cultural markers that are specific to romantic relationships are there, yeah, like the attempts to commit to one another and the general feeling of importance, but a ton of others--like the hierarchical "most important" feelings and the elements of jealousy over sharing (both of us have another zucchini)--aren't there at all.

So--if you find these words important to you at all, let's talk about why. If you use words like "queerplatonic" and "zucchini" for yourself, let's discuss why those words are necessary. If you don't, let's talk about why other fine-tuned distinctions asexuals make are important. Above all, though, let's talk about our realities.

After all, these people would rather we be silent. Speaking up is the best revenge.

Comments

[aceofhearts61]

First of all, without even getting into specific words, it has to be said that language is of UTMOST importance because it contributes to the realness of our identities and our relationships. Language is power. Language is used to control society on every level and always has been. That's why language policing is so dangerous. Without the right words, we have no way of communicating with each other, with ourselves, or with people outside our community. We are extremely vulnerable without the right language. Even the word "asexual" is a prime example: that word was not in use anywhere several decades ago, to describe a person's sexual orientation. People could not understand themselves or their own feelings because they had no words, never mind having the world understand them. Outsiders trying to take our words away from us is a form of oppression. I don't even like using that word but there's really no other way to describe it.

When it comes to alternative/nonsexual/nonromantic relationships, language is even more important. As has been demonstrated by several ignorant haters, there's a strong tendency to totally misconstrue or dismiss the relationships WE want because they are very unconventional, rare, and have no major presence anywhere in our culture, our media, etc. (I cannot BELIEVE what was said to Kaz. That is blatant erasure of aromantics.) You are right on about the word "friend" and the word "friendship." It's totally devalued in American society, it's thrown around carelessly, it's TOO broad and comes along with a lot of relationship hierarchy/romance supremacist connotations. I feel like these people trying to take away our words for relationships are basically invalidating any relationship that doesn't neatly fit into the "sexual," "romantic," and "friend" boxes because those are the only boxes that exist FOR THEM. The notion that we're trying to be "special snowflakes" by creating a vocabulary that works for us is so outrageously ridiculous and offensive, I can't even.

Anyway. Most of my life, I identified as romantic. Now, I have no idea what I am because I'm radically relationship anarchist and my conceptualization of "romance" is not like the standard and I question whether I even need to make a distinction--with words--between different kinds of love. But even if, let's say, I still assume a "romantic" identity, I personally feel that words like "queerplatonic" are very, very valuable. When I first heard about "romantic friendship," in my childhood, I cannot describe the joy I felt to know that the kind of relationship I had dreamed up actually had a name and that other people used to do it. It made the concept something REAL. That's what language does: it creates a certain degree of reality about a thing that wouldn't otherwise exist.

Without words that describe the specific feelings and relationships we experience or want, it is unbelievably easy for us to be misunderstood. I need a word that describes the kind of relationship I used to want with my female best friend--a platonic but committed, cohabiting, somewhat exclusive relationship. I need a word that describes the very intense feelings I've felt in the past for my cousins: not totally platonic, completely nonsexual, somewhat romantic but not like 99% of mankind thinks of "romantic." I need words to describe my sexuality, my emotional needs, the way they interact, etc. Because without those words, I HAVE and will continue to be totally misunderstood. Without the right words, the people in my personal life and the entire world will always think that I would be okay with a committed best friend leaving me for a sexual partner because we were "just friends," they'll always think that I had some kind of "(sexual) crush" on my cousins, they'll always think that I'm just a "straight" female who "likes being alone" or whose standards are too high so THAT'S why I don't date or who just doesn't want to have sex because of some totally fucked up reason. Without the right words, people will always think that I was born cool with spending the rest of my life alone just because I don't want to have sex and because I don't believe in marriage. Without the right words, people will always think I'm just some emotionless, sexless, robot who they can overlook because hey, I'm not even interested in human connection anyway.

And even for the male person who I want to meet and with whom you could say I want a "romantic" relationship, I've had to grapple with words. I've settled on "partner" because that seems to be the best fit of all my options. I hate "boyfriend" and "girlfriend," I can't use "spouse" or "husband" because I'll never marry, I don't "date" but obviously he and I wouldn't be "just friends" the way sexual people think of that. Hell, even
"partner" probably implies relationship hierarchy to some level and monogamy as well, neither of which I want to participate in. Exclusivity, yes. Living with someone, some of the time, yes. But not the way all the sexual people out there do it. And I don't want them thinking that I'm doing it their way, anymore than I want them thinking I'm straight instead of asexual.

[kaz]

*standing ovation*

[aceeccentric]

That's what language does: it creates a certain degree of reality about a thing that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It really, really does, and this is an excellent point. I came up with the word asexual on my own but I didn't think that it was a real thing until I saw that it was a word that other people used, as well.

This is a great response. I second kaz's applause.

[kaz]

It occurs to me how incredibly, ridiculously ironic it is that we are getting this from the LGB community (T's a different story). Because. You know. What has been one of the main concerns of the LGB movement (especially the L and G parts) in various Western countries over the past few decades?

Same-sex marriage.

And, as far as I know, a lot of the main arguments go along the lines of: it is unfair that people's important relationships get treated differently just because they're both of the same gender, it is unfair that they are excluded from numerous benefits such as visa rights, tax benefits, adoption rights, visitation rights, and so on and so forth, it is unfair that their relationships get treated as though they were "just friends" and the love, importance and commitment is erased.

And these people are now telling us that we should have no problems whatsoever fitting our deep, loving, committed long-term partnerships into "friendship". As if none of those things in the above paragraph could possibly ever apply to us.

(Or, you know, telling us that our relationships have to be romantic, and I am still staring at the comment going "..........what." Especially given, you know, that in that same comment thread I'd talked about agonising for years over whether the relationship I had and the ones I wanted were "romantic or friendship" and not getting anywhere because neither of the two fit.)

[virescence]

I have a feeling this is going to be highly unfocussed, because relationships - of all kinds - are generally complex things, and because the sum total of my experience to draw on is one very new relationship. (Hello sciatrix <33)

Discovering the concept, discovering that this was an option, that it was something I could have - it changed everything, in the same kind of way a lot of aces talk about in their experiences of first finding the ace community. It is the relationship I'd always wanted but never allowed myself to consider as a serious possibility. My plan for my life consisting of living with my parents until they passed on, and then - I didn't dare consider what came next. I never thought beyond that: how could I? I had and have plenty of friends, good friends, close friends, friendships that have been growing since I was six years old, friends who I loved, and who loved me, and I knew I'd always have them in my life.

But that didn't mean I'd have them in my life to the degree that I wanted or needed. Let me take the friendship I mentioned above, the one that's lasted 17 years now, as an example. We're very close. She's one of the few people I can talk to about almost anything. We see each other regularly, even if we don't have time - we make time. If she's upset and rings me to talk, I always put aside whatever I'm doing to talk to her. We consider each other like sisters. When she wants children, if she can't use her biological sister's eggs, she has a standing invitation to use mine.

She's my best friend and will always, I hope, be part of my life. But we were still only friends. Friends don't live together, not permanently. Friends who live together are roomates, not partners, and it's only ever temporary. You don't move to another city or another country to be with a friend. There's a level of importance and intimacy and love that you don't get with friendships - that you're supposed to get from your romantic relationships.

I didn't feel romantic feelings, only platonic ones. I considered faking romantic love - but that would be cruel to whoever it was I faked it for, and as damaging to me as faking sexual attraction. Friendship was insufficient and romance unavailable, and I really, really couldn't let myself think about what would happen when family stopped being an option.

And then I found other people talking about the relationships I wanted and couldn't let myself begin to consider, and suddenly the chasm in my future, that I knew I was moving constantly towards but couldn't let myself look at, had a bridge.

I can't put into words the experience of your future suddenly existing. A vague, tremulous future, uncertain and fragile, but a future, a future in which there might be something like what I wanted. It was an experience filled with incredible hope and also terrible fear and despair. Hope, because it existed, because I had options and possibilities and the chance for happiness: despair, because I was very aware of how weak and flickering that hope was, because to look at the bridge I had to look at the chasm and acknowledge that the bridge might not be there for me or might disintegrate the moment I stepped onto it.

Mostly these days I'm hopeful, but that doesn't mean the fear isn't still there.

And these words - they're part of the foundation of that bridge, part of the strength that holds it up. I need these words. And I really, really don't appreciate people telling me that the bridge doesn't exist, or the chasm doesn't exist, or that I'm using the wrong bridge.

[theletterfour]

I'm currently working on a post about my personal experiences with friendships of many sorts and my own confusion about how to use the word "friend," which should be up in the next couple days.

I do have one note I can coherently say now, though. And that is that the "the word friend has a broad enough definition to include your relationship, why do you need a new label?" argument is linguistically... kind of ridiculous. To say that a word at the top of a hyponymy (a word for a category of things) is broad enough to include all its sub-types, so you don't need separate words for the sub-types is showing a complete misunderstanding of how language works and develops.

That argument is like saying "Well, quadriped is a broad enough term for all those kinds of animals, why do you need a separate word for dogs and cats?" Or, more specifically "Dog is a broad enough term for all domestic canines, why do we need separate terms for Chihuahuas and Great Danes?"

Which is patently ridiculous, and not at all how language works.

[theletterfour]

Azaelia talks about how she does friendship.

So, I made the post. It's pretty long and personal, I don't know if it does much arguing.

[samphire]

I find that when people complain about new words, it's because they themselves don't experience the concept that the word is describing, so they think it's unnecessary. Their own world is neatly described by words that already exist, and if something doesn't exist in their world, then they think it doesn't exist, or is not significant enough to have its own terminology. People's worlds tend to revolve around their own experience, and they often have difficulty imagining that other people have completely different inner worlds from theirs.

I use 'asexual' for myself. I've not even heard of 'queerplatonic' or 'zucchini'. But even with asexual, a lot of people who are sexual (particularly heterosexual - as they are the 'default' group which regular language encompasses) simply don't understand it. They are convinced that if they experience sexual feelings, then everyone does.

[nami_roland]

I went off and ranted about this on my own DW because I have ~feelings~ about this, but, just, I hate that they think they can take our words away. Words are really important to me, and I love them and I love finding just the right word to describe something and I finally have wrt future relationship types. And I am really not okay with someone coming in and telling me that I can't use that word because they don't like it. (Actually, somewhat tangentially, the argument about asexuals being queer or not has made me more inclined to identify myself as queer than I was before, as a kind of fuck you to people who think they can police my identity like that. ~grins~) And I feel like it probably comes from a place where everything's been nicely laid out for you all your life. It comes from a place where you have never felt the, "Oh my God what's going on am I in love with x what do I want will I die alone this is terrifying what is going on?!" that so many of us have. So obviously they don't see the need for new words. They don't need them so why would anyone else?

I don't really know how to react to that other than by getting pissed off and going, "shut up and go away you have no business being here you're an asshat and your argument is bullshit." Which is satisfying but does nothing to deter them. Granted, logical reasoning doesn't seem to either, so.

But yeah. Queerplatonic is my word. It's one of the most important words I have. And I really really hate that people are trying to take that away from me.

[aceeccentric]

The argument that a word is unnecessary and therefore offensive baffles me. No one's going out recategorizing other people's relationships and saying that someone's romance is actually queerplatonic, which would be offensive (but oh, wait, apparently doing the opposite somehow isn't?). No one's relationships are being affected by there being a word out there to describe things that aren't applicable to those particular relationships. Reactions like this make me want to scream.

[samphire]

Are people actually finding it offensive because of the fact they find it unnecessary? My understanding of the OP was simply that people found it unnecessary and therefore didn't take it seriously. Not that they were actually offended. If people are finding it offensive, surely they'd have different reasons?

I may be totally misunderstanding here - I'm a newbie and just trying to get my head around this thread, as I've not even come across the terminology before, let alone the controversies. But in my experience, when people find words offensive, it's because of the word's history and their own associations with the word. So I can see someone who hates zucchinis finding it offensive if their type of relationship is defined as a zucchini! Or potentially they could find it belittling to have a serious deep relationship defined as a vegetable.

But I don't understand why anyone would get offended simply because that word is unnecessary in their own world - unless they felt the word encroached on a word that they felt was specific to something else that meant a lot to them. I can't really imagine people getting precious about zucchinis. But maybe some people use 'queer' purely to relate to sexual matters, so they might feel like their word is losing its meaning if it's made too broad? Is that the issue, maybe?

[morethanx]

I've seen people flailing because it has the word 'queer' in it, and omg appropriation, stealing the identity you have no right to etc. etc., even though that's not what the 'queer' bit means, and that was explained in the OP (which I now can't find, dammit).

[samphire]

Ah, I can see that, if queer is seen as a word specific to sex or sexuality. Although my understanding of the word 'queer' is that it's used a bit more broadly, as in genderqueer. What does it actually mean in 'queerplatonic' - does the 'queer' bit mean that it differs from the norm of platonic? Although, thinking about it, the original meaning of 'platonic', taken from Plato, might be more descriptive of what is here being called 'queerplatonic'. If I remember rightly, Plato's ideal was a really intense relationship, between two men, that simply focused on discussing ideas and art and intellectual things rather than being sexual. I'm sure I remember that from reading The Republic - and the introductory notes also talked about how today's use of the word 'platonic' is quite different from how Plato used it!

I guess maybe the main controversy is because people define words differently? So people don't like queer being used in a way that seems to undermine their understanding of it and therefore their identity based on it? For instance, I've seen 'asexual' used to mean when a transgender person goes through a stage of not being sure of their sexuality, and to me that seems like a wrong usage of the word, and undermining asexuality as an actual positive identity.

[morethanx]

I don't even have a solid definition of queer as it relates to the community, to be honest. Ask 5 different people you'll probably get 5 different answers. I used to think it was a gender related thing (including but limited to transgender and genderqueer etc), but I have no idea anymore.

The queer bit in queerplatonic refers to queering established rules of relationships (like neat friend/family/romantic/sexual relationships). I'm not sure redefining platonic would be very successful though :P

That's what happened the whole 'aces are/aren't queer' brouhaha - whether or not aces count as queer simply for being ace depends on your definition of queer. That seems like a weird use of asexual. Surely something like 'unsure' would make more sense? Certainly it indicates a transient state, which isn't going to help the asexual community.

[samphire]

Ah, okay - I guess that is the difficulty, that people have such different definitions of queer. Maybe because what queer is supposed to define is so fluid, and keeps changing as people's theories of gender/sexuality change and expand. Like feminism, perhaps, where there are so many different and contradictory theories that you have to talk of 'feminisms' in the plural.

And yep, redefining platonic would be a bit of an impossible endeavour - I just think it's interesting how the meaning has changed over the years.

And yes, exactly, associating asexuality with a transient state of uncertainty undermines the whole idea of asexuality as a positive identity, and encourages the whole 'Ah, but you just haven't met the right person yet' or 'You just haven't matured enough to know what you want yet' mentality! So I can see the case for ensuring a term has a very specific meaning, and why some people might want to do that with queer - if they are worried that certain definitions might have a negative effect on their attempts to form a positive identity. Except queer seems to have so many different meanings anyway that it might be quite difficult for clear boundaries to be made.

[worldsthatneverwere]

Queerplatonic (or its sibling, zucchini) is definitely an important word to have. In English, we currently have no word that implies a romantic/platonic/etc. spectrum, rather than a black-and-white definition.
We need it, I think. As the line between 'friend' and 'romantic partner' is often drawn by sex or other forms of physical intimacy, it's not exactly a relevant dichotomy for those of us who don't participate in sex, do not feel drawn to it, and/or want to talk about a 'friend' in more serious terms than the current (general) understanding provides.

I have three queerplatonic relationships. Calling them a friend, while in some part accurate, is also in some part wildly inaccurate. I feel drawn to intimacy with them in a way that I'm not with most of my other friends. The very nature of the way I see them is different. There's no way that doesn't need a word, a sense of legitimacy, because it exists.

[demacrux]

Ah well I'm vaguely familiar with the terms though I haven't been in enough situations where they would particularly relevant to myself personally, although I'm certain that it'll come up sooner than later.However, the point is I think these words are important because people who don't desire the typical relationships or are in situations that don't strictly fit into being described by the limited words that we already there is a necessity for other words to be used to describe these kinds of things. I don't really much to say on the subject but I think i ought to at least say that.

[sky]

This may be a bit 101, but can I ask what "zucchini" means in this context? I've seen it on Tumblr too but never have been able to find a definition. Thank you :)

[samphire]

I wasn't sure either, and found this: https://writingfromfactorx.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/my-thoughts-on-the-word-zucchini/

[samphire]

I am also curious whether British asexuals use 'courgette' instead of 'zucchini', like we do with the vegetable.

[morethanx]

I use zucchini, because it's a more fun word, and because it's not really a part of my vegetable vocabulary.