Have terms which distinguish between romantic and sexual orientation/attraction helped you to identify yourself as falling under the LGBTQ umbrella? or have you related to/do you relate to them? terms such as: homoromantic heteroromantic biromantic ...appended to various terms for sexual orientation (such as homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, 'demisexual toward...,' etc.) If coming across some of these terms helped you to recognize yourself or identify as something other than heteronormative, or helped you to stop doubting & questioning, please share your experience! <3
I still identify as a lesbian, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty I'm more like bi-something-or-other homoromantic.
I also identify as lesbian but I would probably be bi romantic homosexual but it just gets too confusing and it's a slim chance with a guy
Do you wish to explain your situation? (Or if you've been over it several times here or something (as I suspect/think you have), link to the explanation thread/post?)
Helpful? Not particularly. It's an interesting exercise to try to tease apart the distinction between romantic and sexual attraction to males vs. females. The fact is that nobody is sexually attracted to males...they are sexually attracted to males they find sexually attractive. Ditto females. Ditto romantically. So these are actually negative statements...it's not that gay men or straight women are attracted to men...it's that they *aren't* attracted to *any* women. But then you hear reports that they are...sometimes...under certain circumstances. It's enough to make a bisexual's head spin! But to me, it's all the same...I'm sexually attracted to who I'm sexually attracted to, and I fall in love with who I fall in love with. I could never rule out an entire sex! They're both too compelling! And if I'm sexually attracted, emotions will probably follow...and if I fall in love with someone, I'm going to eventually at least *want* to move it to a sexual level. So for me these things are *really* intertwined. So for me, having separate words for them is little more than an interesting word puzzle to sift through.
My personal story, as short as I can make it, is this: Ever since I was a very little girl, I've dreamed of having a girlfriend. I've had deep, romantic crushes on girls & women. I've daydreamed about them. Boys were mostly friends. However, there were one or two, now and then, that I took notice of in a 'lesser'-crush sort of way. (Not nearly to the intensity and depth as my feelings toward girls.) Come puberty, my attractions to 'cute' boys somewhat increased; the number of crushes went up a bit. I took notice of more guys. I began to notice their physiques, especially. My crushes on & romantic feelings toward girls stayed the same, though I deeply buried it & re-framed it mentally into "friendship attraction." During high school, I had my first MAJOR falling-in-love with a girl. It had a huge impact on my H.S. life & experience. I also became very homophobic starting during this time. I tried my best to focus on my guy-liking part. There were a few more romantic inklings toward some guys, and thinking some were 'hot,' and I attempted to date them. Sorta. (It didn't go much of anyplace. Single dates, or askings-out, and no physical anything. Nearly as awkward & platonic as it could be. Though I wished it could have gone better, and I still felt interested in them after the 'fail.') After H.S., the sexual attraction component of my liking of guys increased. I noticed their bodies much more. During college I had a few crushes again on males and 1 *major* crush on a particular guy that lasted for 5 years. If he had ever reciprocated I can easily imagine having married him, to this day. He was my most serious "romantic" feeling toward a man that I've ever had. I totally made 'moves' on him. lol During my early adulthood, my sexual feelings/attraction over the male form increased, while I simultaneously had unwitting "emotional affairs" (in all practical senses) with various women in my life. I did not comprehend these as romantic, as I was still deeply in the closet to myself. But in retrospect they are clearer than day. As I've aged a bit, my sexual attraction and appreciation of men's looks has remained steady, unwavering, and strong. However, my desire to be with a man in a relationship has been tepid, at best. If I were the sort of person to do it, I would have sex only, with men, and probably pretty much ignore them for anything else. At 33-34 I began to open up to the idea that I might just in fact like women, primarily. My romantic & emotional attractions to them were of a quality and intensity that my feelings for men just did not match. So I began to read stuff online. I entered a "questioning" phase. That questioning stuck-ness remained, and flip-flopped back and forth in the "Am I? Amn't I?" thing, until I read THIS page: Romantic orientation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia As soon as I read that, I knew myself. And I've been comfortable, understood myself, and felt whole (and 'identified!' (!) ) ever since. If it were not for one of these terms distinguishing romantic vs. sexual attraction, I would not be here on EC today. And I would probably still be lost, & feel alone. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * I forgot a major detail: I had a great difficulty recognizing what my attraction to women WAS because I did not find their bodies compelling, drawing of my eye, and that attractive. I could take or leave the female form. Faces were often another matter...I found many female faces very attractive and pretty, and could feel butterflies-like feelings around a very (facially) attractive girl. But it was the lack of what seemed like any sexual component to the feelings at all, that confused me for so long. Finally, after having my first girlfriend, I found myself able to be sexually aroused by the intense emotional/romantic connection, within the context of relationship. Which is why I identify as demi, so far, toward women. It still seems to fit the most accurately.
I don't know how I feel about these terms. I'm sexually attracted to men but romantically attracted to women (I believe). Even though I feel more comfortable being in a relationship with a woman, I can never see it being passionate (at least sexually), like I think it would be with a guy. I think it's my social conditioning, upbringing, and religion that makes me feel more emotionally attracted to women. I'm still sorting my sexuality out however, so I'm not 100% on any of this. Heck, I've never actually been in a relationship. I haven't even been to 1st base with anyone.
I've played around with those labels. For a while I thought I was a homoromantic bisexual. After that I realized that I just have a very hard time defining sexual attraction. I've sometimes gotten weird feelings around hot guys, but I think I got those feeling because I thought I was supposed to and later because of OCD. When I actually think about it I don't think I actually want to do anything with a guy. I think the definition of sexual attraction is wanting to do something, not experiencing weird unwanted feelings.
Wat wat? Ok, I'm trying to decode your orientation, but I think I see that you're "attracted to men." Really? "Men?" That's a lot of people, and I dare say you don't find them all attractive (although do correct me if I'm wrong...I don't want to put words into your mouth). I do believe that what you mean is "the set of people you are attracted to contains mostly men". Similarly, with a straight woman, her statement that she's straight isn't really saying that she's attracted to men (again, that's an enormous group of people, and certainly she isn't attracted to *all* of them)...what she's really saying is that she isn't attracted to women. It's more a statement of who she *isn't* attracted to, but masquerading as a statement of who she *is* attracted to. (i.e., a statement of a negative, rather than of a positive) Does that clear it up somewhat?
I never really understood how separating romantic attraction from sexual attraction works. When I'm attracted to someone I experience both. So no I never saw the need to use those terms.
I would say yes in so much as, although these terms are often generslisations and over simplifications of people and their feelings, they can be useful for identifying commonalities between us giving us a sense of belonging. In short, they helped me feel like I'm not the only one who was like this and therefore not an outcast or dare I say "freak". Happy days
Ultimately I want to date one person, so I just have to find someone that I have both attractions to. Separating them out only makes me less accepting of myself. So no, it doesn't help me.
I envy you. It just would be...so much easier. lol Sometimes I think when God made me this way, he was operating out of that wonderful sense of humor of his. xD
The distinction has been helpful to me to some extent. I've also stumbled on this forum upon the theory that there are 3 essential parts of a relationship: sexual attraction, love, and connectedness. This resonates with me more than the 'romantic' and sexual distinction, because I am both capable of bonds with men, and of sex (although I don't get turned on by male bodies as such), but there is something fundamental and essential missing: I don't seem to be able to connect to men emotionally/sexually in a way that one would expect from a romantic relationship. Those distinctions are helpful, but only if they can be used to determine the wider category, so we can openly come out one way or another, and that ultimately depends on the person, right? Eg. a homoromantic bisexual, might choose to come out as bisexual: because they will still want to have sex with the opposite sex, and another as gay, because they are not interested in sex without emotions, so in that way it might make it confusing for people who want to find a category that fits them AND is widely socially accepted. So I think those orientation names are helpful in establishing how an individual works, just by exposing a split between the romantic and sexual orientation, it should become obvious which one is the preferred sex for relationship = which label will be more accurate, but the individual still has to do the leg work to find their own category that fits them and which is recognised socially and which is not a mouthful to say. Also those labels are just another categories through which other people might fall through again: sometimes a bi-romantic lesbian seems accurate, but also bisexual lesbian could be: the difference in my case was the lack of capacity for deep sexual connection with men, and this does not seem to fit either into the aspect of romanticism or sexuality and really was the reason for me to adopt the gay label.
I guess I fall into the demi-homo-romantic homosexual catagory since I can't fall in love unless there's a strong, platonic bond first. I don't like using it, though. I just say homosexual since it gets to the point. I'm surprised people feel the need to call themselves demiromantic. I think it's just a synonym for human. =/
Somewhat the same for me, I can feel attraction to someone once I get to know her/him (very) well. The point is, feeling attracted to someone doesn't occur that much (because of that). So I use demisexual, it sums it up for me really. :icon_bigg