News on Youtube Dec 23 2018

Hello, and welcome to Slice of Ace! This is the final video in my video series on

asexual relationships. While I'm talking at the moment, I'm going to link the

videos at the top of the screen... I really need to remember which side of the

screen it's on, but at the top. And also in the description below, you can find the

links to all the videos in this series. I first talked about ace-ace relationships

and then did two videos on ace-allo relationships, and to round this off I'm

going to be talking about non-"traditional" relationships. What is

"traditional", you may ask. Well, the definition I'm using today for

"traditional" is a monogamous, romantic relationship, so anything that doesn't

fall under that bracket is going to be considered in this video. Of course, this

isn't going to be a comprehensive documentary. I'm just going to cover what

I think are the three main types of non-"traditional" relationship that are

often mentioned within the asexual community. These are open relationships,

polyamory, and queer platonic relationships (QPR). If you're

interested in solely a single part of video, I will leave links in the

description below for every part. So, with all that out of the way, let's get

started. I'm going to begin this discussion talking about open

relationships because out of the three that I have chosen it is by far the

simplest. An open relationship is a committed relationship

where the people are allowed to pursue sexual interests outside of their

relationship. But in the case of ace-allo relationships, the asexual could allow

the allosexual to fulfill their sexual need outside of their relationship. This

is particularly useful in ace-allo relationships as it removes the pressure

from the ace to compromise sexually solely for the benefit of the allo. How an

open relationship works completely depends on the people involved. For

example, some people may be happy letting their partner have one-night stands with

whomever they wish. However, some open relationships may be strictly regimented

on who the people have sex with and how often. Of course, this isn't an

exclusively asexual thing, but it can be very useful for some asexuals who are

sex averse or don't want the sex to be a part of their life at all,

but they still want a romantic involvement with someone who is allosexual.

However, in this situation communication is even more necessary

than in an exclusive relationship. If the partners don't trust each other to stay

loyal in their committed relationship then this might not be ideal. Moving on

to something which is very different, but people often get confused. Polyamory is

when a person is open to multiple committed relationships. These can either

be in the form of dating two or more people in separate relationships, or

alternatively having a relationship between three or more people. It is worth

noting that someone can consider themselves polyamorous even if they are

single. It is simply an openness and a desire to

be dating more than one person simultaneously. As you can imagine,

polyamory takes many different forms. I'm just going to go through some common

examples. Now, from the research that I've done, these are often described using

letters or shapes. Some common examples include a V. A V is where one person is

in a committed relationship with two people but those two people aren't in

the committed relationship with each other. You might also have a pentagon,

where everyone in the polyamorous relationship is in a relationship with

two other people. Or a W, which looks like a W, and I could go on. So, there really

are many different ways that polyamorous relationships can form, and even within

this, the types of relationships that the people within a polyamorous

relationship group will share could differ. Going back to the V structure, let's

take this relationship between Bill, Elsebeth, and Kaylee. Bill is romantically

involved with Elsebeth, but Elsebeth is both romantically and sexually involved

with Kaylee. Kaylee and Bill may be friends, but they're not romantically or

sexually involved at all. Similarly to open relationships, this can be a good

way to alleviate the pressure of having to

compromise for sex in an ace-allo relationship. Really, in polyamorous

relationships, the possibilities are endless. As this topic is so complex, I

don't have time to go into it at this point in time, and if I did I really

would need someone in a polyamorous relationship to best explain it.

However, I'm going to leave some links in the description to resources that I have

found useful in learning about polyamory. I'd like to thank people on the

polyamory subreddit for smoothing out some of the miscommunication that I was

brewing in my first take of this video. And finally we come to queer platonic

relationships, or QPR. If you don't like the word queer, I've also heard this

referred to as a quasi platonic relationship, or QPR. A QPR is a non

romantic relationship that still has a strong emotional and platonic bond which

transcends what is normally thought of as a friendship. So you may be wondering

how you distinguish between a friendship and a QPR. Well, the level of commitment

that you'd see in a QPR is often much greater than a friendship to the point

that rivals that of a romantic relationship. So the people in a QPR

might live together, they might raise children together, but they're just not

romantically involved. In a romantic relationship, you have a boyfriend or a

girlfriend. So, what do you have in a QPR? Well, somewhat strangely, your partner in

a QPR is known as a zucchini. which is American

for courgette, I believe. From what I understand, this started as a joke but

then caught on, and now everyone refers to each other as vegetables. Which is

hilarious and adorable. Once again, the benefits of this type of

relationship for an asexual person are obvious - no sex. It's also particularly

useful for people on the aromantic spectrum. Someone may want to have a

committed relationship, but if they don't feel romantic attraction, that leaves

them in a bit of a bind, the same way as asexuality. So having a QPR is a

really good way for an aromantic person to have a committed relationship

without having to deal with the romantic side of it.

Okay, that is all I had to say today on my Whistlestop tour of some

alternatives to monogamous romantic relationships! These can be useful for

people in the asexual community as it allows them to bypass that prerequisite

that is sex. I will leave a bunch of links in the description which will go

into much more depth, so if you want to know more about any of these things then

please check the links in the description below. I am not polyamorous,

I've never been in a QPR, or an open relationship,

so if I have misrepresented anything in this video, please do tell me and I will

do my best one amends it, either in a future video or, if it is irreparable, I

will take this video down and do it again. And that wraps up my series on

asexual relationships. This was really just the surface level of all these

topics, so if there is something you want me to go into in more detail, whether that

be sharing my thoughts, getting the thoughts of the ace community, or just exploring

in more factual detail, then please do tell me - comment below. If you enjoyed

this video, then please leave a like. I post videos every Saturday - except next

Saturday. Next Saturday is going to be my week off because of Christmas and

visiting family and such. But do not worry, the schedule will be back on as

normal after next week, so if you want to see more, then feel free to subscribe.

That is all I had to say today, have a wonderful day and I shall see you next

time!

A QPR is defined...

by something I need to look up because I don't want to get it wrong.