Thank you for this video! FWB is exactly what I would like to have. I just don't really know how to even bring it up with any of my friends.

Dragons...???? I'm from Wales and our national flag is a Dragon - every third car you see has a Dragon sticker on it. We have more Dragons here than we have sheep - and we've got far more sheep than people... I'll have to thnk of something else, won't I...? By the way - did you know that the Ace of Spades has a VERY differnt meaning in Swinger's cicles? - or at least it does around here... Damn, I'm never going to find any friends to talk to....

as an aroace spec person, i dated and had a sexual relationship with a straight person that i had grown a strong friendship with prior. i didn't understand why we were supposed to cut contact when we had to break up (he didn't want to do long distance but had to move home so we mutually agreed to break up, no ill feelings at all). I think I've always struggled with the concept that people who end their rom/sx relationship need to no longer be connected (unless there is trauma or deeper incompatibility involved of course). I had another friend (this time someone queer) that I was sexually intimate with and we are still friends and I genuinely feel there is no pressure to make it anything more or less. I think its super interesting to see the different ways that people understand and navigate these relationships - what they feel is allowed/not allowed and the "end goal" they envision seems so different. It definitely helps that queer people tend to see more nuance and flexibility within their relationships that amatanormativity tries to cover and box up tightly.

:')), this video came at such, such a perfect time. it helps me feel so seen... so loved (validated). so happy to now appreciate myself exactly as i am currently. amatonormativity is something I've ALWAYS questioned and more lately struggled with, as i have always been more naturally open relationship leaning, FWB leaning, and have found that this truly is the structure that works best for me at the moment. UGH, watching this is so freeing. thank you for making this <33. i have always felt the beauty of how diverse our expressions of intimacy, love, and relationships can be. it has always been such a wonderful and cool thing about being human, that our many relationship styles all bring different kinds of experiences that are their own kind of beautiful, fun, fulfilling, and capable of letting you learn who you are more fully. valid in their own right. such a cool thing to me!! also i loved your/this channels vibes :). very safe, very cozy, thank u for welcoming me as a fellow human/alien. one of the two, if not both hahaha

Platonic love is one of the strongest types of love, while romantic love is one of the weakest types of love. When a guy and a girl are best friends, they won't date or be in a romantic relationship with each other since they know it wouldn't work since they are too close. That proves that romantic love is inferior to platonic love. The best feeling for many girls is being able to have platonic guy friends that are like brothers to them. Most girls prefer having platonic guy friends over a boyfriend/husband. Many girls would choose their platonic male best friend over their boyfriend/husband and give more importance to them. Most girls seem to be more comfortable being around their platonic male best friends than they are being around their boyfriends/husbands. People are closer to their platonic best friends than they are to their romantic partner. People usually love their platonic best friend more than their romantic partner. Platonic love is actually real, while romantic love is fake. Romantic relationships are actually a downgrade compared to platonic relationships.

I'm really excited for this one!! New subscriber, who's aromantic as well (aroallo)

Whenever a friend shatter the glass between us and entice me, it ruins the friendship for me, as soon as this happens it will create a need inside of me, not only because of my deep need to be loved and accepted (which is rarely fulfilled), as well as intimacy and closeness need, which will create a tension between me and the one having done it. I really try to not cause it myself, but I'm not strong enough sometimes. Between crushes, unfulfilled needs, and my autistic self, I really can't have a friendship with this tension, it will ruin it. I already can't behave socially, intimacy or such is one of the only thing I can do without masking or acting, I really wish I could but no, if a friend / crush of mine is too much my type and play with me I can't resist that. I've seen a meme / art thing where a woman turned on her GF but because she's ace or such she mocks her need carelessly. It triggered me so much. I almost had tears seeing this. My online flirties seen how I reacted to it at the time. It broke me. I have no one here close to me in countryside. I have zero chances. Dating scene and dating pool are a hell for me. When I have to move 80km to get to the closest one that would accept me in their arms, costing 50 bucks the travel, well, excuse me but I won't have enough time, money, and social energy to go somewhere that won't even satisfy me. And I didn't had a chance in years. Recently I've been so lonely. I don't need friendships. I want true relationships. It's been a really long time I wished I had a wife, that would love me, that would care for me, I really wish I had someone that would be here for me, but all of my GFs betrayed me in the past. I never was truly loved anyways. Only queer people I meet are online, hundreds of kms away, if not countries across. I hate this life and I'm growing a depression linked with loneliness, need, craving attention and intimacy. There is no friends here, people would end me if they would know anything about me. I can't be as privileged as having queer friends close to me physically without a really good reason. Or having good friends at all. Or having anyone close to me at all. I really wish I could be ace. Feel nothing, don't have need, or anything that would just delete the pain from having no one ever want me for anything. I really can't bear this and having no money there is no solution to my problems. I don't think I will be able to live like this up to 2025 or such. I'm really close to giving up. I just can't. I ruin everything. I'm just a jinx.

I love this video, I'm an Allo-ish Aro who'd probably prefer life in a visitor husband society to any other option but FWB has always confused me in the popular perception - surely having sex with people you actually like is preferable to one night stands with randoms? Even if that's not what people seem to do? More people need to talk about this and with any luck society will adapt to make legal things more hospitable to the "single and no intent to pair" population.

Really liked the way you articulated your research, looking forward to watching more vids!

It's really impressive you did a lot of research for making this video! Here aroace person in QPR 😉

The sci-fi book Pluralities by Avi Silver has friends who have s*x and stay friends. It made me happy to see that in a book.

As an alloaro person I really appreciate this video, my most fulfilling sexual relationships and experiences with intimacy in general have definitely been in the context of friendship. Because I'm aromantic there is no romantic end goal or risk of "catching feelings." in a FWB arrangement which is really nice because I feel free to explore without being bound to a monogamous relationship. I also really like how you brought up that queer people are better at navigating these dynamics because we haven't been the target audience of amatonormative programming. This was an excellent video. Thank you for helping me feel more seen.

Omg yay an aspec talking friends with benefits Im aromantic allosexual and really want a friends with benefits

i havent watched this video yet, but it seems targeted to me. i've always found the concept of fwb relationships fascinating as someone who already struggles to quite understand the concept of platonic vs. romantic. I'm excited to hear someone's elses thoughts.

i think this will be the first comment i ever write in my life. thank you for this video. i don't know if i *can* abandon amatonormanity; i guess i still don't truly believe i will be able to survive without someone else to be there for me when it gets bad. what i really appreciate about this video, though, is it brings in historical context and historical basis for types of people i didn't even know could exist. and that historical context, more than anything else i have ever heard in my life, helps me start to unravel what i started to internalize at an age far younger than i can remember: that the acceptability of one's romantic relationship define their intrinsic value. and maybe that's not true. maybe all i really need 10 years from now is love; maybe i don't necessarily need one person who loves me in the one specific "good" way

Society's relationship structure makes no sense to me. So, I have to marry one person, show romantic love only to that person, and make them my everything?

sending love from south korea🫶🏻 as an aroace, ur videos helped me a lot(def not frequently discussed in here)

Wow you’re back :o also really nice video :>👍🏻

As an aspec teen who is not sure what I would want from a relationship this was really interesting to me. I feel like a lot of your points about FWB relationships sound similar to queerplatonic relationships- would you say FWB could be considered a type of QPR in terms of relationship anarchy and picking and choosing desired components of a relationship? Also since the dating scene seems to be geared toward straight, amatonormative couples, how do QPRs tend to start?

nice video. always irritates me when people assume a fwb relationship Has To end in romantic feelings... like god i hope not as an aro person would that be fucked up or what. fwb relationships can be amazing and fun, but also nice and comfortable and indicative of a deeper friendship and level of trust. i truly don't understand why everything has to be marriage and roses and kissing on the mouth before some fancy dinner. our different types of love and intimacy are no less valuable or real than those of the straight culture.

I started watching this video though can’t quite finish it yet. I’m excited to get back to it as this is a really interesting topic that I haven’t heard discussion about before.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this early to a video. Great video! :)

I've recently been trying to look like (as cool as) Steven Tyler, so I guess that's my first sign.

not all love is the same but all love is valid!

I feel romantic attraction alot and i want to hug and kiss and hold hands with someone, be their partner, but when it actually comess to doing it (aka actually holding hands) i freak out and dont want t anymore, like im scared to commit or i just dont know how to me romantic?

AMAB I knew I was different when I was about 3 1/2 to 4 years old. I was dressed in a suit and tie and a hat like my father wore. I felt very happy because I wanted to be like him. But even at that young age something didn't feel right. I describe it now as feeling inauthentic. When I got about 3 years older I saw the outfits my sisters were wearing and wished I could have had one of my own. My body was so thin and no body hair all the way into my late 20s due to delayed puberty that it probably helped fight off body dysphoria. I suspect that helped me feel gender neutral also. Along the way I was doing things that girls did. But I never felt I was a girl or said I was a girl. It took a long time to understand what was happening. That long delay I think was compounded by the fact I don't have most of the attractions that CIS people do. When I finally made sense of it I realized I had a strong innate femininity which I sense all the time. At times I feel my body is someone else's, or that I am gender-neutral. Other times I have the sense my brain sees my body as female, on those types of days I feel a sense of confusion as to why my female breasts are missing. I've been struggling with how to label myself because my sexuality is confused and undetermined and my gender is confused. I have a sense of unease everyday. It seems to have calmed down a bit the last day and a half. Possibly from watching transgender videos. I'm not exactly sure where that unease comes from. It could come from feeling lonely, from gender dysphoria, or from knowing I can never feel 100% comfortable being my true self due to the negative way people can respond to us when we're different. I think I finally decided what labels best describe me. That is an asexual transfeminine person that is non-binary. I haven't picked a sexuality yet because often my sexual feelings and desires align with that of a CIS straight woman but I don't have the desires gay men do I wouldn't doubt if some of my confusion comes from when I was younger and I didn't identify as gay. Because men that were seemingly straight but were probably gynesexual were attracted to my body due to its feminine appearance. So that was a little bit confusing when men are suddenly seeing me as the hot chick they want to take to bed. The good thing despite all the confusion is I generally feel at peace. Wow, too many restrictions when commenting because I don't know what most of those restricted phobias are because they weren't even invented yet when I came out.

I'm hypersexual, but also asexual. How do I tell what type of asexual I am? It's confusing. I don't feel sexual attraction to anyone but I do have fantasies (which I hate) of sexual things. I don't know how to tell what I am, I just know that I'm some form of asexual.

I should have realized I was aro-grayace sooner when someone would admit they liked me like that and my first thought would be “Why? How do you know I’m not a serial killer?” Also, I didn’t realize allos don’t just pick the most aesthetically appealing person and force themselves to develop an obsession disguised as a crush, crushes just come naturally

I enjoy romance in theory (I'm an aegosexual aro), but in reality it just feels alien and smothering to me. I also _hated_ truth and dare. I "picked" someone to have a crush on to fit in but avoided them like the plague lol. I didn't date until college and my handful of relationships were all trainwrecks. I married my husband (an allo male) before I knew I was ace, but sex wasn't ever a dealbreaker and we've never had a love-y dove-y relationship. We were engaged for 8 years & we talked about eloping but never "got around to it" (I literally just didn't ever think about it unless my mother was lamenting the fact I still hadnt married lol). We were finally thinking about trying to have kids (eventually decided against for several reasons) so we decided to go the courthouse. I started planning a few weeks before and bought a $60 a-line dress, got my hair done & and hired a photographer (mainly to be able to send my mom photos). Unfortunately the justice called out sick the morning of. Instead of rescheduling, we just walked over to the jail across the street and were married by the magistrate there. It seemed inconvenient but logical to me at the time. My mom was aghast when I explained later. Looking back on my life, it seems all rather obvious I'm aroace. 😅

Very informative, thank you ! Loved the arospike bit. 10/10

Im Greyromatic like im not that romantic but i do have a life partner that im completely loyal too

Gosh i was wanting tis relationship without knowing its name, thank you so much the video helps a lot!

i think i have a sensual attraction with queerplatonic and maybe also a bit romantic With my gf

at this point, i'll just use the term arospec. i aligned with a few of the terms in the video and it's just so confusing 😭

This video was nice I already knew some micro labels lol

I just discovered I am ace this week, and this video is so informative. It's so good to know that I'm not broken by not feeling sexual attraction. 🤍💜💙

Oh... well... heh... thanks for the news I guess (:3)

I fully respect if someone feels like a label doesn’t fit, but I feel like more people than people think are in committed platonic relationships (ie many cis, straight peeps), but society doesn’t recognize/place value on theses kinds of relationships due to a number of reasons (comphet, capitalism’s over valuing the nuclear family, etc)

Im in a qpr with my childhood best friend. We've known each other since 2010. As soon as we met, we instantly clicked. We "dated" in high school until i realised i was aroace at 20. But i didnt come out to him for like a year so i could figure out what we were. I eventually found the term QPR, come out to him and explained what a qpr meant. We been in one eversince. We knew we werent "just friends", but not quite lovers either.

Being a person on asexual spectrum, I like the space and energy I have to pursue other different meaningful activities in human life, instead of feeling urgency for sexual activity.Human life is pretty short and there are diverse things to explore & pursue. I also like the unique lens with which I view human relationships & creativity in ways of connecting with others 💜

I have a mini keyboard thing i like to click. Also i love glass animals!!!

seems like 97% of people in my life have been #3 Fraysexual ... 😢

Your aura reminds me of my sister. As well as your aesthetic. I love your authenticity in this vid ! ❤️😁

I was a very sexual child, 13 year old me was worried that I'd be a sex maniac because I got my oeriod at 9, the youngest among my peers. I also realized my sexuality (I was very well endowed as a child) was what got me attention from.older men I used to admire. I never had any sexual, physical contact with anyone until I met my partner at 22. I really didn't care for it. It was underwhelming. I didn't have sex for the next 2 years and it truly didn't make any difference to the quality of my life. I masterbate before I get my period but the urge is so minimal, it never really extends to involving another person. My fantasies too never involve real like people, I don't fantasize about sex. I don't like being touched much either. I'm 24 and I'm just as confused about my sexuality now as I was when I was 13.