This week a friend asked what ‘skoliosexual’ meant, and this got me thinking.
There are a plethora of romantic and sexual identities out there. It really isn’t as simple as straight, gay and bi. But for anyone who may not have had exposure to people who identify with these terms, they may not know what they mean.
Here are just a few that you may have seen floating around.
Skoliosexual
Someone who is sexually attracted to non-binary individuals or people who don’t identify as cisgender.
Pansexual
A person who can feel sexual and romantic attraction to anyone, regardless of their biological sex, gender, or gender identity.
Asexual
Someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction. This doesn’t mean they can’t feel romantic attraction, the desire for affection or find someone aesthetically attractive.
Aromantic
Similar to asexuality, this is someone who doesn’t feel romantic attraction. They can still form emotional and personal connections, but they will generally be platonic.
Grayasexual
These are people who are on the spectrum between sexuality and asexuality, but tend to be slightly more towards the latter. Hyposexual, demisexual, semisexual and low sexual intensity can all fall under this inclusive umbrella.
Demisexual
Not feeling sexual attraction to someone unless you have forged a strong emotional bond with them
Demiromantic
Similar to above, but the person can’t feel romantic attraction without a strong emotional connection.
Autosexual
Someone who is sexually attracted to themselves. They can sometimes have difficulty being attracted to other people.
Androsexuality
Someone who is attracted masculinity and people who present themselves as male, regardless of their sex or gender. The female version of this is Gynesexuality.
Lithromantic
Someone who doesn’t want their feelings to be reciprocated when experiencing romantic love.
Pomosexual
Someone who rejects and doesn’t subscribe to sexual orientation or labels.
Lovehacker is a weekly relationship and sex column where our resident Agony Aunt answers your questions. Need help? Drop a comment below or email [email protected].
Comments
17 responses to “Lovehacker: A Guide To Different Sexual Identities”
Don’t like labels? Too bad, there’s a label for that!
you’re wrong! 🙂
Pomosexual is a homosexual Pom
@thomas
I must admit that the irony did not escape me there, haha 🙂
Yeah, I have bad news for pomosexual individuals. If you’ve got a tin of baked beans in front of you and you take the label off it, it’s still a tin of baked beans.
Only until it is opened and one can observe the baked beans.
Do the baked beans exist before being observed?
Only if they are put in a box with a cat
So are the baked beans dead or alive? I forgot what was being discussed now :'(
Schrödinger’s cans?
This article could be shortened quite significantly if you deleted all the sexualities that were made up by Tumblr users. You’d basically have a blank page.
society sure loves labels.
why cant we just be…
I’m starting to think all these names aren’t to identify people. They’re just to shit people off. As soon as you don’t know the name for someone’s particular niche you’re a bigot.
DID YOU JUST ASSUME ITS USE?
Before I read this I was just confused.
Now I have no fucking idea!
So feelings = gender? Intadesting
This is just getting crazy.
There are only 2 things we need to know: (1) we are ALL different to everyone else; (2) the mechanical bits come in only 2 varieties and were designed to work in a specific way.
This begs the question, a guy walks into a womens toilet/change room to use the facilities, when questioned why he is in there he responds with “I identify as a woman”. Who is anyone to tell that man otherwise?