a-polite-melody:

Apparently exclusionists are under the assumption that the term amatonormativity is a word that aro people invented in the discourse to make themselves “seem oppressed”?

Yeah, no. Ace discourse started… what, in 2015? Maybe 2014 if you want to be generous?

Well, yeah, the term amatonormativity was coined by Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Elizabeth Brake [x] for a book she wrote titled Minimizing Marriage [x] in 2012.

Yeah, that’s right. The year 2012. Not 2014, or 2015, or 2016, or -17 or -18. At least two years before ace discourse started, and certainly long before aros became a more prominent target of the “discourse” mid- to late-2017.

To quote Elizabeth Brake in her definition of amatonormativity [x]:

The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships. I call this disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal, ‘amatonormativity’: This consists in the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists [x], quirkyalones [x], polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted. Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility.

Elizabeth Brake, Minimizing Marriage (OUP, 2012), Chapter 4.iii

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(Definitions of terms linked with [x] are my addition. It is also worth noting that at this point asexuality and aromanticism were not as separate of concepts as they are now.)

So no, amatonormativity wasn’t made up by aros to try to appear oppressed. Amatonormativity was coined by a philosopher who specializes her research on marriage, relationships, sexuality, and the like, as an academic term to discuss the assumption that everyone desires an exclusive and romantic relationship and how that affects society – particularly polyamorous people, asexual (and aromantic) people, and those desiring non-romantic and/or multiple “primary-level” relationships.

Believe it or not, people study this stuff. Thoroughly. And these concepts are discussed in not just Tumblr “““discourse””” but real, constructive academic discourse.

Feel free to disagree that it’s a useful term, but I’m inclined to believe that there is some merit to this normative assumption within – at least Western – society if philosophers have been actively writing on the topic.