#2 Orientations and Choices Primer: Gender, Sexuality, Romantic, and Relationship Structures

This article also inspired me to post a series discussing the basic differences between gender, sexual orientation, romantic orientation, and relationship structures. As followers may have noticed, I try to post things related to all non-cishetmono communities, and through keeping abreast of all these facets I’m noticing that belonging to one non-mainstream group doesn’t guarantee any understanding of other non-mainstream groups. So, I’m going to take a crack at defining the different facets of human existence in western society.

What are the flavors of…Sexual Orientation?

Since 1948, The Kinsey Scale has been the accepted measure of sexual orientation, guiding most of the research in the Western world. I’ve attached the institute’s overview of the original scale. There are more current offshoots which do a reasonable job of covering the more mainstream iterations, but in reality, fall short of defining all the brands of sexual attraction and orientation (especially the non-binary ones).

Personally, I draw a solid distinction between sexual and romantic attractions and orientations. For purposes of my discussion, sexual attraction defines what genitals (“parts”) someone is attracted to, and at what point they become attracted to those parts.

Asexual - Not sexually attracted to any configuration of parts (though may have sex for various reasons)

Bisexual - attracted to two or more configurations of parts

Pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual - attracted to any configuration of parts

Monosexual - attracted to only one configuration of parts

Homosexual - only attracted to the same parts that you have (this is NOT a perfect definition given that there are trans* individuals who never plan to have a surgery and are still homosexual)

Heterosexual - only attracted to the opposite parts as you have (this is NOT a perfect definition given that there are trans* individuals who never plan to have a surgery and are still heterosexual)

Demi-sexual - not interested in any configuration of parts until a deep emotional bond is formed

Sapiosexual - not interested in any configuration of parts until a deep intellectual bond is formed There are other forms of qualified sexuality like this, and they can be attached to any of the above sexuality identifiers (and are sometimes also deemed fetishes).

Androphilia and gynephilia refer to attraction to masculine or feminine presentation respectively, and have been proposed in some queer and nonbinary spaces as terms less focused on parts and more focused on sexual attraction to gender expression and presentation.

Heteroflexibility and homoflexibility - some people identify as monosexual, yet will stray from it under the right circumstances or for the right person. There have been arguments to call them demi-bisexuals or demi-pansexuals, but demi-sexual implies a strong emotional bond, which is not the only reason a straight or gay person may sleep with someone of the same or opposite parts, respectively.

Clear as mud, right? In this case, health class could do much better at being inclusive when talking about who could have which potential sex partners, but obviously we’re a long ways off from creating a solid core curriculum for the unit on sexual orientation. That’s why we all have a responsibility to educate ourselves and those around us on the non-monosexual-normative orientations out there. Does anyone have any more they can think of? Define them in the comments below! All are welcome :)