Ever get confused about what your orientation is because it seems to be two different ones, or had a hard time explaining to a friend that just because you think someone is hot doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you want to fuck or date them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m the kind of person who likes labels, and I\u2019ve been thinking about mine more than usual lately. More specifically, I\u2019ve been thinking about what would describe me if I looked at every<\/em> type of attraction and not just romantic and sexual, and then I wrote out an explanation as an introduction to an ace diversity guest post\u2026and then I realized it was already a full-length post on its own. So instead of using the info elsewhere, I decided that it was a good month to discuss the split attraction model on Writing For Life, and use my labels as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The split attraction model, or SAM for short, is basically the idea that there are several different kinds of attraction, and they don\u2019t have to line up. A commonly given list is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For many people, romantic and sexual are the same, but for others, it\u2019s not. This is how some people are aromantic and asexual, while others are aro but not ace, or ace but not aro. Although the aspec community tends to talk about it more out of necessity, anyone can use the SAM if it\u2019s useful to them – you might, for example, be heteroromantic but pansexual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally, people just use romantic and sexual in everyday life, because knowing whether you\u2019re hetero or bisexual has a lot more practical impact on your life than whether you\u2019re hetero- or bi-aesthetic.\u00a0 However, knowing that the other types of attraction (especially alterous, which I\u2019ll get to) are A Thing Of Their Own can be useful sometimes.\u00a0 As an example of what I\u2019ve talked about so far, I\u2019ll give you the breakdown of my labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How I identify down the list:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For the general conversational introduction or factoid, I say I\u2019m queer aro\/ace, which sums up the relevant info accurately. However, the full list in a SAM context is Asexual, Aromantic, Demigreysensual, Panaesthetic, Slightly hetero platonic, Heteroalterous. (Because emotional attraction in general is complicated by so many factors like family ties, I\u2019m not interested in trying to identify a specific orientation for that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n So can we discuss alterous attraction yet??<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is one of those things where if you haven\u2019t experienced it, it can be hard to understand, but is highly useful to know about if you do<\/em> experience it, because society only presents \u201cfriendship\u201d and \u201cromance\u201d as the available options, so it\u2019s easy to mistake it for a crush and get yourself into emotional tangles. (I speak from personal experience.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got confused Pikachu faces last time I tried to explain this in my own words, so I\u2019ll just quote the LGBTA Wiki.\u00a0 \u201cAlterous attraction<\/strong> is a form of emotional attraction<\/a>. It describes a feeling that is not necessarily platonic<\/a>, but also is not romantic<\/a> in nature. For some it may be in between romantic and platonic attraction, and for others it may be completely separate from the romantic\/platonic distinction\u201d (https:\/\/lgbta.miraheze.org\/wiki\/Alterous_Attraction<\/a>). Looking back, this is what I actually felt towards my boyfriend back in my brief dating life before I realized I was aro.\u00a0 (We turned out to be in agreement, incidentally.\u00a0 We remained good friends after ending the romantic relationship, and he said in a discussion months later that he realized he was aro too.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not advocating that you have to use lots of labels or the SAM or anything, just to be clear. Some people like them, some don\u2019t, and some object to the term \u201csplit attraction model\u201d because it has aphobic origins, from what I\u2019ve heard. Like many things, they\u2019re just tools that may or may not be helpful to you, so take what you want from this and feel free to leave the rest. I personally filled out the whole list just for kicks rather than because I needed all that information. And if you come back to my life in a year or two, my list may look a little different as I\u2019m always learning more about myself. But if anything here helps you understand yourself or life better, great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thoughts, opinions, disagreements? Drop a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever get confused about what your orientation is because it seems to be two different ones, or had a hard time explaining to a friend that just because you think someone is hot doesn\u2019t necessarily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,42,50],"tags":[47,22,45],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aromanticism","category-asexuality","category-personal-stories","tag-attraction","tag-questioning","tag-relationships"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writingforlife.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Personally, I\u2019m heteroalterous.\u00a0 I see it as the form of attraction associated with wanting to be in a QPR (queerplatonic relationship – a relationship that goes beyond what is considered normal or appropriate for a platonic one but isn\u2019t romantic) with someone.\u00a0 I experience it as a feeling of wanting\/having a deeper connection than I typically do with friends, and thinking I could live with that person for the next few years.\u00a0 (Although I should clarify that by \u201cdeeper connection\u201d I mean more emotionally intense in a way, NOT that it\u2019s superior or more emotionally fulfilling than my other types of relationships..)<\/p>\n\n\n\n