#DrewsViews: 5 Sexual Orientations You Might Not Have Heard of
by Andrew Adams
When I was first coming out as queer, way back in 2013, I was blown away by the diversity and acceptance of others that the LGBTQ community has been built around. Now, 7 years later, that same diversity exists, with even more words and labels that people have created to describe their own experiences. As wonderful as it is that people can create new terms if none of the existing ones fit their feelings, this advancement means that there will be a lot of terms that a lot of people don’t know about. Here are 5 sexual orientation identities that you might not have heard of!
Demisexual
This identity is a part of the asexual spectrum. Demisexual people are people who don’t experience sexual attraction until a close emotional bond is formed. Demisexual people can be of any romantic attraction, and be attracted to any gender, but will not be sexually attracted to that person until they are really close with them. Demisexual people can also be of any gender, like all of the sexualities on this list.
Omnisexual
You might have heard of pansexual, which means that a person can be attracted to anyone of any gender, but most people don’t know about omnisexual. This sexuality is very similar to pansexual, in the dating pool sense, but their interaction with gender is different. Usually, although I’ve seen many differently worded and nuanced version of the distinction, pansexual people can experience vastly different kinds of attraction to anyone of any gender, have preferences for genders, or have some other quality of their attraction that differs between the genders they are attracted to. Omnisexual people, however, do not have different experiences for different genders. Instead, they are attracted to all people, regardless of and not impacted by gender. This may sound like a silly and small distinction to make, but for a lot of the people who hold these identities, they make a big difference to their sense of community and self.
Heteroflexible/homoflexible
This one is pretty simple. Heteroflexible means that someone is almost entirely, or mostly heterosexual. Homosexual means the opposite, that someone is almost entirely gay.
Abrosexual
Abrosexual is the genderfluid of sexualities. This means that the sexual orientation of a person, or the people they are attracted to, moves between labels fairly regularly, or too fast to stick to another label for any meaningful length of time. For example, if you consider yourself gay, but then start being attracted to the opposite gender within a few weeks, but then stop being attracted to them a few weeks later. It’s also used for people who feel that their sexuality is just very fluid, kind of like using the word queer to mean “anything but straight.”
Grey-asexual
This is another asexual spectrum sexuality. Gray-asexual, or greysexual, is very similar to asexual. Instead of no sexual attraction at all, however, grey-asexual people only experience sexual attraction very rarely. They might identify as asexual, but then one person makes them rethink that, or very rarely feel some attraction towards someone, something like that.
As the LGBTQ+ community has become more accepted in society, and as more and more people come out, accept themselves, and accept others, more and more labels for sexualites have arisen. As allies to our LGBTQ+ friends, we need to do our bests to educate ourselves about such identities, so that we may respect everyone to the best of our abilities, and include everyone in the conversations. I hope everyone is staying safe during this trying time, and have a great day!
About the Author:
Andrew Adams is a transgender college freshman at the University of Central Florida who is committed to LGBTQ advocacy at the local and national levels. Nationally, Andrew serves as a youth ambassador and advocacy volunteer for The Trevor Project, a youth social media ambassador for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and a Volunteer and Intern Coordinator for Point of Pride. On the legislative side, Andrew lobbies for the Equality Act by visiting with his Congressional representatives and their staff.
Additionally, Andrew has spent years fighting to change his school district’s bathroom policy to be trans-inclusive, and the fight is still ongoing. Andrew is an International Baccalaureate student and a volunteer at the Mayo Clinic, and he hopes to go to medical school and become an adolescent psychiatrist specializing in transgender health. For fun, he practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, creates sculpture art and plays the piano.
