I've heard people say there is no differentiation between romantic and sexual attraction - or that there's no -way- to differentiate between the two. Currently, I think the closest thing to describe me would be biromantic (maybe not even that) asexual- because to me, being romantic is entirely separate to sexual experience. So, could someone be homoromantic heterosexual or any other combinations? I've certainly heard people call themselves things like that. It's all very confusing ^-^; Thank you~
I think it's best to just listen to what you feel yourself, instead of what other people tell you. It's up to you to decide whether what you feel is real or not. I'm gay and biromantic and I don't care what others say about it, no matter what "facts" they shut in my face.
I can completely understand it for asexuals or even aromantics. The terms were originally created for the asexual community alone, until they were co-opted. I have to admit though, that I am skeptical of biromantic homosexuality and similar labels because I know a lot of actual gay people are influenced by a heteronormative society that makes them want to believe they have opposite sex attraction. It's easy to think a man is heteromantic homosexual because he has shame over his same sex attractions, and cannot feel romantic attraction to men just yet until he accepts it. Sex is easy to feel since it can be more discreet, and gay men used to have discreet casual sex to avoid being found out. Now, I also don't want to say that there's no such thing as a legit example of split sexuality, It's just that in my experience, it comes from denial of accepting true sexuality at the time. However, I don't believe romance and sex are the same. When people say that a deep connection without sex is just friendship....I find that strange, because NOBODY says that a friends with benefits situation is automatically a romantic relationship. Even though it does combine sex with emotional intimacy. The "but I don't want to commit to just this person!!" doesn't make it anymore logical, as you can be in a romantic relationship and choose to be with other people. It's called open relationships or poly. So either romance can exist without sex or friends with benefits don't truly exist as they're all romantic relationships in disguise. You've gotta pick one, can't have it both ways.
Unless I'm missing something, your argument is actually that sexual attraction can exist without romantic attraction. That doesn't imply the reverse, that romantic attraction can exist without sexual attraction. Maybe it can, but the first doesn't imply the second. It seems fairly common to distinguish between 'lust' and 'love'. I don't think many people would dispute that you can feel lust towards someone you're not in love with. Lust is often what gets the ball rolling to falling in love with someone, so, by definition, lust without love has to exist. The idea that you can be in love with someone you don't feel lust for, though, is less obviously true. Sure, you can love people you're not sexually attracted to (e.g. family, friends), but you're not 'in love' with them, and your feelings are not in any sense 'romantic'. There are biological reasons to expect lust without love to exist, but I'm not aware of any biological reasons to expect the reverse to also exist. It's been argued that women who cheat or are tempted to cheat do so because the hormonal cycle alters their preferences, to maximise the survival and success of their offspring in the environment where humans evolved. The idea is that men who are best at caring for children don't necessarily provide the most advantageous genes. The biological optimum, therefore, was for women to be attracted to the 'caring' types most of the time, but at the most fertile period (and only during the fertile years) to develop an attraction to the men who provide the 'best' genes for their kids (related to physical strength, aggression, etc., which were important in the evolutionary environment). So, the optimum was to love someone of one type, but, during peak fertility, to feel lust for someone of the other type. For men, it's less clear that fluctiation is useful in an evolutionary sense, and it's more of a classical trade-off between quantity and quality. With some species, males try to have sex with as many females as possible, and don't invest much or anything in caring for the offspring (i.e. go for quantity of offspring). In other species, males are monogamous, so after selecting a mate, they spend the rest of their lives caring for the mate and offspring (i.e. go for quality of offspring). Most mammals seem to fall ito the first group, whilst a lot of birds fall into the second. With humans, both types seem to exist, with the 'caring' types being more likely to be monogamous and the 'macho' types being more likely to cheat. I actually remember hearing about and reading some studies showing that prenatal testosterone (fT) exposure may largely determine male 'types'. People who were exposed to high fT (on average, males are exposed to higher levels than females, but it varies a lot) are less able to empathise (understand what someone else is feeling) than those who were exposed to low fT. Circulating testosterone (T) also plays a role, so if you administer testosterone to people, they become less able to empathise. However, if I remember correctly, this effect seems to be driven by high-fT people (mostly men). Such people are much more sensitive to T later on, and with a large enough dose can effectively become unable to empathise at all. The combination of high fT and high T is therefore likely to result in the 'quantity' approach (including cheating), whilst low-fT guys are likely to go for 'quality'. With the 'quantity' approach, you'd expect a lot of lust without love, but love without lust wouldn't be successful in either case (without sex, there are no offspring).
What I'm arguing is that I don't believe that friends with benefits really exists from a logical standpoint in a way that romance without sex can't exist. I'm not saying sex without love can't exist logically, one night stands are a "logical" example. Because those are strangers with no emotional connection. But if you're friends with someone, you automatically have an emotional connection. You automatically have emotional intimacy in the same way that "romance" is defined. By definition, it is romance in the way you're defining it. This is especially true in friendships between women that get extremely intimate, like a deep friendship. It is seen as "romantic" in a way. If I love my friend to death because we are BFF's, but I don't want to have sex with her, is this romance or friendship? One would argue It's only friendship. Ok. But now, what if I want to have sex with her? Is this romance or is it FWB? I would argue it would automatically have to be romance if I already loved her platonically..... The only difference in saying that "FWB's" somehow exist is to say you don't want to commit to that person. But you don't have to commit to a person to be romantically involved. That's why open relationships and polyamory are a thing. Maybe the reason we only think it exists is because we "assume" romance and relationships means monogamy or only getting to sleep with one person. Likewise, what if I can't feel lust without love? What if I have to love a person first, what if I can't lust for strangers? It sometimes takes me years to feel sexual attraction to someone, so I already "loved them romantically first". Not everyone is the same, and especially not women, who tend to take longer than men to be aroused. Science shows that women prefer personality and emotional connection more so for a lot of them the love came first. All I'm saying is to be consistent. Everyone knows that one night stands exist. But if romance can't exist without sex because "It's a deep friendship otherwise", then friends with benefits cannot logically exist because It's friendship + sex, which is how we culturally define romance and romantic relationships. (And I'm not saying that FWB's somehow don't exist at all. All I'm saying is that it's logically inconsistent to say they exist if you believe romance without sex does not exist. Since after all, it's other people defining romantic relationships as friendship and sex combined).
People can label themselves anything they want. I can label myself unicornsexual and elephantromantic. And no one has any right to tell someone that they can't use this or that label if the label is useful to the individual. That said... if the underlying question is "is there a separation between romantic and sexual orientation", from everything we know now, based on decades of research looking at how people connect to other people in a physical, sexual, romantic, interpersonal, and friendship-based way, there's no indication of any evidence that supports this idea. And if we want words to have any meaning, they need to be grounded in something tangible. Something we can repeatedly observe in different cultures; something that consistently shows up in research; something that hundreds of clinicians, sex therapists and others report from their work with clients. And in each of these areas, there does not appear to be any credible indication that these separations exist. People argue that this is simply because it hasn't been studied, and that homosexuality was once unrecognized. But the flaw with that argument is that we have been looking at just about every aspect of human interaction, in studies that reflect the lived experiences of hundreds of thousands of people, over the last 5 decades. So, in fact, this has been studied, and no evidence has been found. But since it's difficult to prove a negative, the people that cling to this unsupported idea keep arguing that it simply hasn't been studied (which is not true.) What does seem to be the case is that 5 or 6 years ago, people who were in the stages of coming out, during the bargaining phase, described themseives as "bisexual." (and, of course, there are absolutely people who are genuinely bisexual.) This label was often a "transition" label as people accepted same-sex attraction, but were not yet psychologically ready to let go of their heterosexual identity. It appears that the "homosexual/heteroromantic" is an updated way of addressing that bridge that occurs during the bargaining phase of the coming out process. So... again... if people want to use that label, or any other label, because it feels like it fits, then have at it. Just please don't represent it as a label that has any actual grounding in anything measurable or reproducible, because, at least as far as we know now, it does not
Maybe I can't understand unless you define what you mean by 'romantic'. Friends don't normally want to, say, touch each other in an intimate way, kiss each other, have sex, etc. My understanding of FWB is perhaps different from yours. I'd say that if friends have sex because, say, they're both single and horny, then that's FWB. If you have a deep emotional connection with a friend and want to have intimate contact with them, including sex, then why is that FWB and not sexual/romantic attraction? On the point of love before lust, yes, you can 'love' people without being 'in love' with them. Can you fall in love with someone, meaning a romantic love that is different from the Platonic love for family and friends, without lust? If the answer is yes, then how do you define 'romantic love'? How is it different from Platonic love?
I consider kissing to be a romantic action, not a sexual one. To me sexual relations involve genitals. It can be intercourse/anal, oral sex, or handjobs/fingering that implies attraction to someone sexually. Some people with friends with benefits relationships won't even kiss their "partner" at all since they view that as too much of an emotional thing that implies some more exclusivity. Not everyone feels this way, but It's certainly not unheard of. It's a pretty common reaction between sex workers and their clients too. Most people who define romantic attraction without sexual attraction include kissing and intimate touch that does not include genitals. It includes considering the person your boyfriend/girlfriend, getting married, and possibly having children (maybe through adoption, sperm donation, or surrogacy)? I have fallen in love with my best friend before I was sexually attracted to her. That included wanting to kiss her, wanting to ask her out, and wanting her to be my girlfriend. I was extremely jealous when she said she thought about dating someone else and I cried myself to sleep (However, she decided against dating the other person for reasons unrelated to me). However, genital contact with her was something I found kind of weird/unattractive at the time, so I lacked sexual attraction to her, technically. But I eventually gained some sexual attraction after about a month of being romantically attracted. I'm not the type of person who is willing to sleep with someone soon without some sort of commitment. We never got together, and my attraction to her faded. I now only love her platonically. But I can say that my love for her now is completely different from the feelings I had during the infatuation stage.
At this point in time I would like to ask a basic question? What does romance mean? If it means being in love with someone then doesn't that have to include wanting to get intimate with someone? Going by which wouldn't the person actually be displaying bisexuality too?
Okay, it sounds like a definitional difference. Under the definition I'm familiar with (an example of usage is here: Sexual Attraction Among Humans | Serendip Studio), sexual attraction is much broader than the desire to have sex with someone. If you want to kiss someone in a sexual way, for example, or even if you're just aroused by their face or smell, that would be sexual attraction. Having sex is a more advanced step than enjoying looking at someone, touching them or kissing them. For a lot of people, myself included, it takes some time to get from the initial stages of what I'd call sexual (and you'd call romantic) attraction to the stage where you're comfortable kissing, much less having sex. For me, it can't even start to happen unless I'm certain the attraction is shared (I can get aroused, but wouldn't want to have sex with someone who wasn't similarly aroused towards me), but that's obviously not the case for a lot of guys (maybe related to high and low fT -- I could be more feminine in that sense). Something like alcohol can speed up the process, but only in terms of increasing willingness to kiss or have sex earlier. The biological sex of a person can also matter, which may be why people want to split it up into romantic/sexual. I mean, I've had sexual attraction to both sexes since I first became sexually aware, but I've only kissed or had sex with the opposite. The closest I've come with the same is long, intimate eye contact with close body contact. I know I'd have enjoyed kissing that person and I'm pretty sure I'd have eventually enjoyed having sex, but sex is a lot more straightforward with the opposite. I could say, 'I'm a biromantic heterosexual', but I view the attractions I've had as sexual. I also think that if things ever progressed far enough with someone of the same sex, then I'd want to have sex, as has been the case with the opposite. I guess you could say that, based on the literature I've read, my view is that romantic attraction is part of the biological process of sexual attraction, which may eventually lead to sex, and not a separate process. If you define it as a separate process, then you can split it up, but I'm not sure how easy it is to draw a meaningful line between the two.
Thanks for the discussion! It's interesting to see what others think about it. I see what you mean now. I viewed myself as unusual before because I didn't really want to have sex with people that I wasn't romantically involved with. I'm not morally against casual sex, but It's not for me. I thought this meant there was something strange about me, but maybe I was feeling attraction in a normal way. Similarly, kissing people I haven't gotten to know is a bit strange too (we don't have to be exclusive, but we have to at least know each other) so I couldn't do it on first dates. Likewise though, I couldn't even really hug strangers without being a little bit uncomfortable. Something about my personal space being "invaded" and not really a moral thing. Also, as someone on the autism spectrum, being touched brings off a variety of sensory issues, so sexual feelings usually only come for people I love and trust. I still believe though, that I feel love before lust, at least in a platonic way. I've been sexually attracted to my friends, but never to strangers or acquaintances. I just can't be turned on by them, not even in a normal arousal sort of way.
Thanks too for the discussion! It is interesting to hear different perspectives. I can be sexually attracted to strangers pretty easily, but I don't want to get physical, kiss them or have sex unless I get to know them first. I get much more easily aroused by people I know (sometimes to the point of being annoying, if I don't want them to know I find them attractive), and even more strongly if the attraction is mutual. I don't know if that's normal, but it's at least how some people are. I think casual sex is completely normal and fine if people like it, but I'm not into it either. I've done it, but only because the girl in question was really pushing for it and I felt bad about letting her down. Other times I've wanted to wait, and some people get really offended by that. I just don't really see the point of having sex if you don't care about the person in a deep way, so I prefer to let the second part develop first.
If there is no separation between romantic orientation and sexual orientation, then how could an asexual (rom no sex) or aromantic (sex no rom) exist? If someone can experience romantic relationships without ever feeling the desire for sex, then couldn't someone experience homosexual romantic relations with only certain sexual desires for those of the opposite sex? I haven't personally looked into the research, or the lack thereof, but if you can separate it for ace and aro, surely you can do the same for homo and hetero (and all shades in between). On others' points, all very interesting. I think the concept of what is romance versus what is friendship is difficult to define- like where to draw the line between platonic, queerplatonic and romantic relations. I would say that two people who love each other and hold hands could be in a romantic relationship, however qp or platonic relationships could do that without becoming romantic: so when does a relationship become romantic, and without arousal, what is the difference between that and a close friendship?
