Aplatonicism 101
Written by the AUREA team
Word count: 1532 words
Estimated reading time: approx. 8 minutes
There’s a general understanding, no matter where you live, of how life is supposed to go. Whatever it is, it’s assumed that everyone will want to embark on that predetermined lifeplan and that they’ll like it too. It’s the norm. When that design doesn’t fit, it forces you to ask yourself a lot of questions. People on the aromatic and asexual spectra, as well as neurodivergent folks, are well versed in this kind of self-analysis. Figuring out our feelings, attachments, and desires, or the absence of them, is a rite of passage. Many interesting discoveries have and will continue to come from our rejection of and rejection by the norm.
So let’s talk about aplatonicism.
Who do you love?
When you remove romance from the picture, many people will talk about friendship. Within the aro community there is constant discussion on the topic of friends. How-tos, why-dos, and where can I find an aro commune? Finding people to connect with is difficult enough when you are “the norm”, let alone when you are looking for something different. Aros do a lot of important work breaking down the idea that treasured relationships have to be romantic. Platonic relationships, like friendships, do not necessarily have to be lesser than romantic relationships.
However, as important as it is to question what counts as a significant relationship, it needs to be done with care. We don’t want to fall into a trap of replicating phobic remarks like “Even if we don’t love in X way, we still still love in other ways”. Judging the worth of others on their capacity to love, in any type of way, is dehumanizing. Platonic relationships can be a vital component of someone’s life, just like how romantic relationships can be a vital component of someone’s life. And just like aromantics reject compulsory romantic love, aplatonic people reject compulsory platonic love. There doesn’t have to be a ‘most important relationship,’ romantic, platonic, or otherwise.
What’s in a name?
Aplatonicism seems to have come about in the a-spec community in response to the prioritisation of friendship in some community spaces. The term was coined on AVEN by a member who said that the way they feel about their friendships doesn’t match up with what everyone else in the community was saying. They posited that some people may not feel platonic love in ways their communities expect them to. Maybe they don’t feel any kind of love. Maybe they feel other types of love but not platonic. The Split Attraction Model is useful here, because it separates platonic attraction from other types of attraction. Just like how someone who experiences sexual but not romantic attraction can be called allosexual and aromantic, someone who experiences romantic but not platonic attraction can be called alloromantic and aplatonic.
There are a few definitions of aplatonic floating around, as is the norm in queer circles, but when people call themselves aplatonic they usually mean either:
I feel little to no platonic attraction, i.e. the desire to form a friendship with a specific person.
Or,
I struggle to form platonic relationships of any kind, often due to neurodivergency and/or
traumatic experiences.
The definition of aplatonic is constantly evolving. Like other evolving terms, its meaning has sometimes been misrepresented, contested, or warped. Diversity of meaning is normal when it comes to talking about feelings, but some of the issues with aplatonicism stem from exclusionist circles as well. For example, it was common once for exclusionists to say that aplatonic people don’t want/don’t have any friends, often as a deliberate misunderstanding they could then use to attack a-spec identities. There are almost certainly plenty of people, a-spec and otherwise, who still believe this is the only meaning of the word. It’s important to remember that even if you don’t identify as aplatonic (or even separate platonic attraction as its own type of orientation), the people who do identify with the concept are still human beings. Just because they may experience things differently from you, or in a way you don’t understand, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect their experiences, terms and identities. They know themselves better than anyone else.
Understanding the nuance
There’s no one way to be aplatonic. Individuality is always a given. Just as being aromantic doesn’t necessarily mean aros don’t want romantic relationships, being aplatonic doesn’t necessarily mean that aplatonic people don’t want friends. And just as being aromantic doesn’t necessarily mean aros never feel romantic attraction, being aplatonic doesn’t necessarily mean that aplatonic people never feel platonic attraction. There is an aplatonic spectrum. People can be demiplatonic, greyplatonic, frayplatonic, et cetera. This doesn’t invalidate or erase aplatonic experiences that do fit one end of the spectrum.
For those of you learning about this spectrum for the first time, it can be a confusing experience.
-platonic orientations, whether aplatonic or alloplatonic or something in between, are consciously opt-in identities. The binary exists if you recognise a binary within yourself.
What’s the use?
There are many parallels between aromantic and aplatonic terms and communities. We’ve written a few pieces on friendship. It’s what many (aromantic) people want. But there’s a good chance that some of our readers are also aplatonic. Aplatonicism’s roots are in the-spec community and attraction can be a fuzzy thing. Sometimes “a”-type experiences overlap, like in the case of the aroace identity. Intersection is important to talk about, and aros especially are well-built to be allies to aplatonic people.
Aplatonic, like most identity labels, is a means of shorthand communication. Using it, like using most identity labels, can tell those who recognise it more about you. In this case, it can be assumed that you recognise and label different types of attraction and/or relationships then the standard “romantic/sexual” split. It can help other people who experience things in similar ways to feel more comfortable around you, or even with their own feelings. Identity communities exist for a reason, and aplatonic is no different.
Although the term was first coined in an asexual space, by an asexual person, the aro community has felt great kinship with the term. We have struggled greatly with the unfortunately common “but we still feel (romantic) love!” matra from asexuals keen to validate their identity. Some aromantics have fallen into a similar trap, proclaiming loudly “but we still have friendships! We have different kinds of love!”. And there’s nothing wrong with trying to combat the ‘loveless/heartless a-spec’ stereotypes. Asexuals CAN feel romantic love, and aromantics CAN still have platonic relationships, including intense and intimate ones. But we have to be careful not to throw others in our community under the bus in the process.
Loveless aros exist. Aros uninterested in friendship exist. Aros who have trouble maintaining friendships exist. It’s WHY the concept of aplantonicism has risen in popularity in the aromantic community. Aplatonic gives these aros a word to identify themselves to other aros who feel like they do. It gives them a sense of belonging, of not feeling broken or wrong. It’s the exact same reasoning why identity communities exist, because they give us a place to be ourselves.
Coming together
As mentioned, aplatonic as a concept resonates with people for multiple reasons. There are several current discussions in a-spec spaces about aplatonic definitions and whether or not aplatonic should be limited to certain identities or situations. Aplatonic does seem to have caught hold mostly in the a-spec communities, although it’s hard to tell if this is because that is where the concept has the most exposure, or whether a-specs are the ones to find it most useful. This language and conversation has been equally useful to some neurodivergent people, whether a-spec or otherwise, as navigating this world is also extremely alienating to them. It may be worth noting that a-specs are also the most likely to separate their attractions, such as via the SAM. Whether this makes it easier to recognise your own aplatonic feelings remains to be seen, but it does make a certain amount of sense.
What also makes sense is the connections between aplatonicisim and aromanticism. The aromantic community is no stranger to feeling broken, indeed, it’s one of the most common narratives for undiscovered aros. Even for those aros who are not aplatonic, surely we can understand why the word might resonate with others? While we’ve made great strides in recent years in visibility and recognition, in many ways we’re the underdogs of the underdogs. Aplatonic people feel a similar struggle, and with so many of them in our own aromantic community, it only makes sense to support them however we can.
Aplatonic is a very useful concept and descriptor for many, and, as an added bonus, adds fuel to the fight against amatonormativity. The very concept of aplatonic disproves the necessity of a single, all important partner in your life. There’s nothing wrong with having one, of course, but there’s also nothing wrong with not having one. It will be very interesting to see where the concept of aplatonicism may lead us in the future, and how its relationship to the aromantic community grows.