Writing an overview page

The next project I'm working on is an overview page, which is a basic summary of what being antisexual is.

This is an outline of what I've written so far.

Key concepts:

• Explaining that how much someone wants sex, and how much they do or don't desire it physically (i.e: how much they experience sexual attraction or desire) don't match up, and both are their own continuums.
  
• How someone can be antisexual without being asexual
  
• How someone can be both asexual and antisexual
  
• Contrast with: Sexual abstinence (usually until marriage), sex-repulsion (which also should be contrasted with the other things, or listed as its own sub-section), religious celibacy, sexual anorexia, and erotophobia. [we should probably elaborate on what erotophobia is first, because it is an ambiguous term, but something we need to distinguish ourselves from.]
  
• It can tie in with an individuals other ideologies (including political views, or ideologies such as veganism and antinatalism), but isn't intrinsically associated with any particular ideology.
  
  

About romance:

• Some want romantic relationships, mentioned the challenges of finding a compatible partner. [would it be a good idea to mention more of the challenges, along with advice, or would that be better as its own page?]
  
• Some are also antiromantic, listed different reasons including: belief that romance is as much of a burden as sex is, dislike what romance does to others, belief that limerence and romance are the same, preference for non-romantic relationships, or may tie sex and romance together, and rejects romance because they're also antisexual.
  
• Mentioned that "romance" is a subjective concept, and what we're against is limerence specifically. [This sounds like contradictory to the rest of the section, but I think part of antiromanticism is whether one thinks that limerence, and the harm associated with it, inherently part of romance or not. This section was influenced by some of the ongoing discussions here, that helped me rethink what romance is. If others want to write what their take is on what romance or building relationships is, as articles for the main page, go for it!]
  

Challenges:

• Scarcity of information, especially on how to deal with unwanted sexuality for those who aren't asexual; this information is so scarce because it's assumed that everyone is "supposed" to want sex, or something is wrong with them. [Could expand on some of what I explained in the About section, in regards to the peer pressure and how to stand up against it?]
  
• Misconceptions: Already wrote a page on misconceptions, but they make others assume the worst in us, and make it harder to be able to speak up about our experiences and find support.
  
• Being pathologized: Already wrote a page on this, but pathologization is also harmful.
  
• Sexual coercion: An issue anyone can face, but coercion can happen by people who refuse to accept that someone can not want sex, and insist that not wanting sex can be "fixed". Also due to a near lack of affirmation, anyone who doesn't want sex can be very vulnerable to caving into coercion by their partners and/or peer pressure.
  
• Related to the above point, there's also a near lack of information on how to support those who are also sexual violence survivors. I've heard of many survivors in general being told that they need to "get over it", and are pushed into trying to enjoy sex, as if disliking sex is more of a tragedy than being subject to sexual violence is!
  

   

Are there other sections you'd want to add in, expand upon, or think they deserve their own page? What else would you want to see? This is just a rough outline but details a few of the points that so far, are intended to be in the page.

I’m so glad you’re doing this project.
 
Could we define what romance is, for good and all? If you say that limerence and romantic attraction are not the same thing, I need to know what you say the difference is, and what romance is, before there can be an examination of the issue. I’d love to discuss this – we just need a definition!

Thanks! I've been struggling with the romance section, because what romance is, is so tricky to me. It's so subjective based on both cultural expectations, and the individual's own expectations, and that there aren't any behaviors that are inherently exclusive to romantic relationships. With all of those caveats, how can we define romance?

I've been unsure if limerence and romantic attraction are the same thing or not. Some people can clearly identify romantic feelings, and separate it from other feelings, but not everyone can. I've written about being repulsed by romance before, but I may have been referring to conventional ideas of romance, and the expectations and unhealthy mindsets associated with them.

I'm still stumped over how to define romance for the overview article. That's the biggest obstacle to getting it published, so I asked this series of questions on AVEN, because I need more input: 

Pardon me if this is disorganized, but I have several questions about this. I'm trying to write something about romantic attraction, relationships, and limerence. I know what limerence is; it's those intense, obsessive, possessive and over-idealizing feelings over the target of attraction.
 
I've also made a thread months ago about romance repulsion. The responses were varied, but a lot of it looked to be repulsion towards either limerence, or the expectations surrounding conventional romantic relationships.

I assume that romantic attraction is simply the desire to form a romantic relationship with someone, and it can be possible to enter a romantic relationship without limerence factoring into it. Is limerence a particularly strong and obsessive degree of romantic attraction, or can aromantics also experience limerence?

To anyone who is, or has been in a romantic relationship, did you go through the phase of limerence first? If you used to experience limerence, do you still feel romantic attraction to your partner without it, and does it feel more stable?

I have no useful first-hand experience with these questions, because I'm not sure if I experience romantic attraction, and the "romantic relationship" I was in was one-sided, and I couldn't reciprocate.

I know I've defined these terms before, but really it's not that complicated (or so it seems to me):
Limerence is a term for being in love.
Romantic orientation is the category of people a person might fall in love with.
Romantic attraction is the experience of falling or being in love.
Someone who is aromantic does not experience romantic attraction, i.e. cannot fall in love.
A romance is a relationship in which the people are in love with each other.

The in-love state is neurologically distinct from attachment love (what I consider true love). I'd rather save the research stuff for all one post when I've got it organized and nice, but since you're really working this issue over right now, these studies might help define romantic love in a neurological way, which might make it more obvious what the difference is between being in love, and attachment love. It should be easy to find way more information on this subject through these two studies, if you find the medical approach to examining the difference useful:

Acevedo et al. Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277362/

Fisher et al. Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764845/

Good luck with this issue!  Maybe these studies will help make some clarity out of the murkiness. Of course I don't have all the answers; what I say is just the conclusions I've come to from what I've researched/continue to read about. If there's an aspect you come across that it might help to discuss, please feel free to bring it up.

I always thought limerence referred to a sort of romantic obsession with a person?

The term emphasizes that the in-love experience is an addictive state, and is often used by people who are love addicts. However, to the best of my knowledge it's just a term coined by Dorothy Tennov in the 70's for the experience of being in love.

And the first study was interesting, areas of the brain responsible for romantic love were correlated with maternal love as well. Sounds almost Freudian in nature.

Panache wrote:I know I've defined these terms before, but really it's not that complicated (or so it seems to me):
Limerence is a term for being in love.
Romantic orientation is the category of people a person might fall in love with.
Romantic attraction is the experience of falling or being in love.
Someone who is aromantic does not experience romantic attraction, i.e. cannot fall in love.
A romance is a relationship in which the people are in love with each other.

The in-love state is neurologically distinct from attachment love (what I consider true love). I'd rather save the research stuff for all one post when I've got it organized and nice, but since you're really working this issue over right now, these studies might help define romantic love in a neurological way, which might make it more obvious what the difference is between being in love, and attachment love. It should be easy to find way more information on this subject through these two studies, if you find the medical approach to examining the difference useful:

Acevedo et al. Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277362/

Fisher et al. Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764845/

Good luck with this issue!  Maybe these studies will help make some clarity out of the murkiness. Of course I don't have all the answers; what I say is just the conclusions I've come to from what I've researched/continue to read about. If there's an aspect you come across that it might help to discuss, please feel free to bring it up.

Just having all of that on one post helped make it more clear to me. I was overthinking a lot of things! I'm reading through those articles now.

Darkthrone wrote:And the first study was interesting, areas of the brain responsible for romantic love were correlated with maternal love as well. Sounds almost Freudian in nature.

I don't believe so. That study was looking at people who were both still in love and securely attached, a somewhat unusual situation. The people were showing the neurobiology of both romantic love and attachment love.

I read through both articles, and I'm trying to figure out if I'd be able to summarize that long-term attachment and limerence are neurologically separate, or if it may be better to write a separate page about love, limerence, romance and romantic attraction based off the information you gave me.

I hope to go into the neurological difference as part of the post I'm working on about medical research on sexual behaviors, limerence, and addiction. Personally for an introduction, I'd just define romantic attraction as how you feel when you're in love with somebody and leave it at that, since everybody's already familiar with those terms. However, if you decide these terms could use more defining from the get-go, please go for it!

Here's the first version of the overview: https://fortressresistingsexualsociety.wordpress.com/overview/

In order to keep the section from getting too complicated, for now I decided to briefly cite the first research article, mentioning that limerence and and long-term love are separate. I think it'd be best to put more information about it on a separate page.

Darkthrone, I just realized you were referring specifically to maternal love, not to attachment love. Yeah, new mothers are definitely in love with their babies (hopefully), as well as cultivating attachment love. So if you look at maternal love as relates to new mothers, both systems are activated, and probably actually more the romantic/in love systems than the attachment systems, because the relationship is so new and pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding are such neurologically intense experiences.

My bad.   Too caught up in my own thoughts!

I also created a new blog post: https://fortressresistingsexualsociety.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/new-page-created-overview/

What would you want to include in the romance page? So far, I can think of including a section of definitions, the debate over whether romance is addiction to another person or not, before leading up to how limerence and long-term love are neurologically different.

A section on attachment styles would be good too, but what has been discussed about secure vs. insecure attachment in relationships could apply to just about any type of relationship.

A lot of what has been discussed here can support either claim that romantic love is addiction to another person, or that it doesn't have to be an addiction. I'd find it interesting to play it up from that perspective, but what would the conclusion be?

The overview page looks good so far!

Admin wrote:A lot of what has been discussed here can support either claim that romantic love is addiction to another person, or that it doesn't have to be an addiction. I'd find it interesting to play it up from that perspective, but what would the conclusion be?

This is such a complex subject, I’d rather not get into it piecemeal any more than I already have, as I get the feeling I’ve already stirred up more confusion than I’ve resolved. This will require addressing the issues of:
The difference between addiction and obsession
The neurobiology of addictive processes
What makes addictive processes maladaptive in some circumstances?
The neurobiology of romantic attraction and the in-love state
The neurobiology of attachment
The neurobiology of romantic-sexual pair bonds
Engaging in addictive processes when one is not addicted to the substance or behavior
Addiction to a behavior vs. obsession with a person
The underlying patterns of addictive processes
 
Probably more things, too. I’ve been focusing mostly on the issue of sexual behaviors and addiction, since we’re antisexual; however, I’ll also prioritize getting my limerence/romantic attraction and addiction research organized and commentated.

I was not trying to give evidence that being in love is addictive, just show some studies that introduced the neurobiology of it, in the hopes that that would help define it for you as a distinct state.

Panache wrote:

Admin wrote:A lot of what has been discussed here can support either claim that romantic love is addiction to another person, or that it doesn't have to be an addiction. I'd find it interesting to play it up from that perspective, but what would the conclusion be?

This is such a complex subject, I’d rather not get into it piecemeal any more than I already have, as I get the feeling I’ve already stirred up more confusion than I’ve resolved. This will require addressing the issues of:
The difference between addiction and obsession
The neurobiology of addictive processes
What makes addictive processes maladaptive in some circumstances?
The neurobiology of romantic attraction and the in-love state
The neurobiology of attachment
The neurobiology of romantic-sexual pair bonds
Engaging in addictive processes when one is not addicted to the substance or behavior
Addiction to a behavior vs. obsession with a person
The underlying patterns of addictive processes
 
Probably more things, too. I’ve been focusing mostly on the issue of sexual behaviors and addiction, since we’re antisexual; however, I’ll also prioritize getting my limerence/romantic attraction and addiction research organized and commentated.

I was not trying to give evidence that being in love is addictive, just show some studies that introduced the neurobiology of it, in the hopes that that would help define it for you as a distinct state.

I understand how love and limerence can be defined as different states neurologically; that helped me the most. I had been at a loss to define romance, because of how there aren't any behaviors that are inherently romantic.

I know I've raised a lot more questions by proposing the idea of a separate page on love and romance, but you give a good list on sub-topics that would need to be addressed. What had been confusing me is that I've seen many antisexuals argue that sexual behaviors and romance mean addiction to another person, which is understandable because both involve stimulating the reward pathway directly. Other behaviors also stimulate the reward pathway, like eating, but those behaviors clearly serve another purpose related to the individual's survival.

Not everyone who has sex or romantic relationships is addicted, which did make me think how can we justify not wanting sex or romance under that reasoning if not everyone who engages in either is an addict to it? Perhaps it's like how some people can use alcohol or drugs, which are inherently addictive, without becoming addicts.

I know some people who don't drink alcohol, because of the risk of addiction, or the risk of losing control of themselves, which is perfectly valid.