THE ACE AND ARO RELATIONSHIP GUIDE

Decentralizing romance and sex, this guide explores skills and pathways for building healthy, fulfilling, identity-affirming relationships.

Daigle-Orians explains that Western society prioritizes one type of relationship—an exclusive partnership between two cisgender, heterosexual people that’s based in romantic and sexual attraction and leads to marriage and procreation. They challenge the myth of this “perfect relationship,” exposing its pervasive and harmful impact on asexual and aromantic people. The first half of the work presents 10 tools for building a “New Kind of Perfect” relationship—autonomy, consent, boundaries, communication, commitment, compromise, trust, respect, recognition, and care. After discussing each tool, the second half examines them in action in “relationship beginnings, platonic connections, sex, romance, nontraditional forms of relationships, and relationship endings.” Within each chapter, the author encourages readers to engage with and practice the tools; breakout sections include prompts for self-reflection and action. The prose flows in an engaging, conversational style that helps to break down the complex concepts. When read from cover to cover, the text at times verges on repetitive, but for those using the guide as a reference tool, the repetition supports the treatment of chapters as self-contained essays. Although Daigle-Orians aims to speak to and support a targeted audience, the tools they share have universal value. This is a worthwhile text that centers readers who are often left out of relationship guides.

An empowering and important tool.