What is asexuality? It is when a person does NOT experience sexual attraction.
Discussing asexuality brings up many different types of attraction from romantic to sexual to emotional to aesthetic to sensual. They are all different and they do not all have to line up. For instance, a person can be romantically attracted to the opposite gender and sexually attracted to the same gender and that's okay. Hank Green made an amazing video discussing sexuality, posted below.
You can experience all of these attractions at once, making it difficult to discern at times. For a more comprehensive list of definitions check out anagnori's tumblr.
Romantic Attraction is when someone has a crush on someone else and wants to be in a relationship with that person.
Sexual Attraction is when someone wants to have sex with someone else.
Sensual Attraction can be platonic and it's about nonsexual physical intimacy so hand holding and cuddling.
Emotional Attraction is when someone makes and emotional connection with someone else.
Aesthetic Attraction is when you find someone else pleasing to look at, like a painting.
All of this exists on a spectrum and is fluid. You can change whatever label you identify with at anytime or choose not to identify with a label at all. The most important thing is that YOU decide how you label yourself, no one else. Ashley Mardell made a great video discussing sexuality as a spectrum, listed below.
It can be really complicated and confusing but there are plenty of resources out there to help. Tumblr is a great place to learn more by searching the ace, asexual, and asexuality tags. Many people have made great videos also discussing this topic. A new collab channel just started called AceSpace.
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