What is Sexuality?
Sexual orientation is the emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction that a person feels toward another person. Sexuality has to do with the way you identify, how you experience sexual and romantic attraction (if you do), and your interest in and preferences around sexual and romantic relationships and behavior.
Sexual attraction typically describes a person’s desire to have sex or form a sexual relationship with other people. It also often describes physical attraction, or lack thereof, toward others. Romantic attraction can describe a person’s expression of love within a relationship. This relationship does not have to be sexual, and a person does not have to experience both romantic and sexual attraction in order to have a sexuality.
Who your sexual or romantic partner is at a given moment in time doesn’t necessarily define this part of who you are. Sexuality can be fluid — changing in different situations for some, and over the years for others. People may identify more with one sexuality than another at different points in their lives.
Why Do We Need to Know This?
During the teen years, the hormonal and physical changes of puberty usually mean people start noticing an increase in sexual feelings. It’s common to wonder and sometimes worry about new sexual feelings. For some, these feelings and thoughts can be intense and seem confusing, which can be exacerbated for people who have romantic or sexual thoughts that are different from what heteronormative society teaches as normal. Regardless, it does not make said feelings any less valid.
It takes time for many people to understand who they are and who they’re becoming. Part of that involves better understanding of their own sexual feelings and who they are attracted to.
Familiarizing yourself with language that describes different types of sexual and romantic feelings and orientations will help you, your partners, and your friends navigate and understand the many ways people experience and identify their sexuality.
Observing patterns in sexual and romantic attraction, behavior, and preferences over time is one way to better understand your sexual identity or romantic orientation.
Do People Choose Their Sexual Orientation?
Most medical experts, including those at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychological Association (APA), believe that sexual orientation involves a complex mix of biology, psychology, and environmental factors. Scientists also believe a person’s genes and hormones play an important role.
Most medical experts believe that people do not exercise volition when it comes to sexual orientation, instead sexual orientation is just a natural part of who a person is.
Types of Sexuality
There are several (overlapping at times) sexual orientations out there! This article defines 10 of them, how many do you know?
1. Heterosexual
This is the most common sexual orientation as well as accepted as the norm in most heteronormative cultures and archaic religions. This is when people are attracted to someone of the opposite sex. Most people in the world are heterosexuals or straight, i.e. men attracted to women and vice versa.
2. Homosexual
A homosexual person is one who is attracted to another person of the same sex as them. When a guy likes another guy, they are homosexuals or gay and when a woman likes a woman, she is a lesbian. However, collectively, they fall under the homosexual category. Homosexuality is normal and there is a significant portion of people in the world who have this sexual orientation.
3. Bisexual
When a person identifies that they are bisexual, it means, they are attracted to both the genders i.e. male as well as female. They can be of either gender and are sexually attracted to both. They can have physical relationship(s) with both men and women. Obviously, they are not attracted to every other person, nor does it mean they always need a male as well as female partner to be fully satisfied. It just means they have both options open.
4. Pansexual
A person with this sexual orientation is someone who is attracted to anyone without any bias for gender or sexual orientation. They are an extension of being bisexual but a little more than that as they are attracted to people with no gender identity in addition. They are often called omnisexual also and consider themselves to be gender-blind when it comes to sexual attraction.
5. Asexual
There is a small percentage of people who are not sexually attracted to any gender and therefore identify themselves as asexual. They may or may not be interested in romantic relationships, but uninterested in establishing sexual relationships. This kind of sexual orientation isn’t very common but there have been some prominent names who were asexual including physicist Isaac Newton.
6. Demisexual
This is the kind of person who views emotional bond as a prerequisite to forming a romantic relationship or being sexually attracted to someone. They are first emotionally attached to someone before being physically attracted to them. Such people are demisexual in nature and typically seek long-lasting relationships.
7. Sapiosexual
A person sexually aroused by someone’s intelligence identify themselves as sapiosexual. They can be of any gender and the person they are attracted to can be of either gender too because they are primarily attracted to their intelligence and not their gender. However, such people will have a broader sexual orientation as well apart from being sapiosexual.
8. Polysexual
These are people who are more than bisexual but less than pansexual. They are somewhere in-between as they can be attracted to a lot of genders but not all. A polysexual person is attracted to many genders that include transgenders, genderqueer people, third gender people, intersex people and more but they aren’t gender-blind like a pansexual person.
9. Graysexual
Now this is for those people who are not always sexually attracted. They have a low sex drive and they seldom get aroused. However, graysexual people are not asexual and they may get sexually attracted to someone at some point. However, the chances are low and they do not go out of their way to find partners.
10. Autosexual
This sexuality is an interesting one where we discuss people who are not sexually satisfied by any particular gender per se, because an autosexual person is sexually attracted to oneself. They find themselves so sexually attractive that no one else can satisfy them completely.
Lastly in addition to this there are more orientations like androgynsexual, aromantic, bicurious, closeted, skoliosexual, pomosexual, etc. At the end of this article it is important you recognize labels are not as important as long as you’re identifying with whatever your body and psyche tells you to. Sexual orientation is a complex spectrum where newer categories are still being introduced, and more importantly sexuality is fluid and yours can keep evolving as you keep going through life. What’s important is that you be yourself without letting labels or archaic definitions hold you back!
