General Glossary

Aesthetic Attraction - occurs when someone appreciates the appearance or beauty of another person(s), disconnected from sexual or romantic attraction. (Example: looking at someone and thinking, "Wow, they look great!")

Alloromantic - Alloromantic, or alloromo for short, defines people that feel romantically attracted to people.

Allosexual - Allosexual defines people that feel sexually attracted to people.

Alterous - attraction that can only be described as a desire for emotional closeness because neither romantic or platonic attraction is accurate, is intended to be used in place of romantic or platonic.

Alterous Attraction - the desire for a type of emotional relationship and emotional closeness that doesn't feel accurately characterized by the terms “platonic” or “romantic.”

Amatonormativity - The assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types.

AroAce - Stands for aromantic asexual, which describes a person that feels little to no romantic or sexual attraction to others.

AroAllo - Stands for aromantic allosexual, which describes a person that feels little to no romantic attraction for others, but may feel sexually attracted to others.

Aromate - a platonic friend who’s pretty much your soulmate but in a friend way. you’d totally hold their hand and take them out to movies though.

Aro-spec - Stands for aromantic spectrum, an LGBTQIA+ identity that defines people that feel little to no romantic attraction.

Asensual - a person that feels little to no sensual attraction.

A-spec - Any orientation or gender identity that starts with the letter "A". "A" has not, does not, and will not ever stand for ally.

AUREA - The Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy. Their website (aromanticism.org) has almost everything aro-spec.

Lush - A “sensual crush”, describes sensual attraction to a person.

Mid - Catch-all term for those who are on both the aromantic spectrum and the asexual spectrum while not being strictly aromantic and strictly asexual

Nonamory - Not wanting to form a romantic relationship, regardless of romantic attraction.

No romo - Short for "no romance" used by some arospecs. A play on words from "no homo".

Peach Fuzz - When queerplatonic partners (QPPs) pretend to be in a romantic relationship to stave off questions from friends and family asking why they're not dating anyone.

Placioromantic - Means to feel little to no desire to receive sexual/romantic acts performed on them but expresses interest/desire in performing them on someone else.

Platonic Attraction - A form of attraction that is defined as the desire to form a platonic relationship (friendship) with a specific individual, or to form a closer friendship with someone one already knows.

Platoniflux - A form of attraction in which one, at times, is unsure if what they are experiencing is platonic or romantic attraction, while other times being able to distinguish between the two.

Plush - A “queerplatonic crush”, describes a strong queerplatonic attraction toward a person.

Queerplatonic/Quasiplatonic - Describes a relationship, or the partner in such a relationship, that has the same sort of access, closeness, intimacy, etc, that is usually associated with a romantic relationship, but is not romantic.

Queerplatonic Relationship - QPR for short, is a relationship that is not romantic, but not platonic, either.

Romance-ambivalent - A term used by aromantic individuals to refer to the fact that they have mixed feelings towards romance.

Romantic Attraction - Romantic feelings or desires toward someone; often described as wishing to do romantic activities with them, also felt as “butterflies in the stomach” and “warm cozy feelings in the chest”

Romance-favorable - A term mainly used by aromantic and other aro-spec individuals to indicate that they enjoy romance, romantic activities, or the concept of romance in particular with regards to activities that involve them participating in or witnessing romantic situations.

Romance-indifferent/neutral - A term used by aromantic and other aro-spec individuals to indicate that they have no strong feelings about romance.

Romantic Orientation - Describes to what gender(s), if any, a person experiences romantic attraction toward (romantic version of sexual orientation)

Romance-repulsed/averse - A term that is used most commonly by aromantic and other aro-spec individuals to indicate that they find romance or romantic activities to be disgusting, revolting, or otherwise uncomfortable.

Sensual Attraction -

Sensualarian - Refers to someone who “blurs” the lines between the types of relationships (romantic, platonic, sensual, sexual, etc). A sensualarian may have relationships that they, or others, classify with traditional labels; for example they may have "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" but they feel that the relationship provides more than just a romantic partnership.

Sex repulsion - A reaction to sex; someone who is sex repulsed is repulsed, “turned off”, disgusted, or otherwise uncomfortable with sex and/or sexual things.

Sex indifferent - People who have no strong feelings about sex

Sex favorable - People that do or may enjoy having sex.

Sunflower Orientation - For people whose omniaspec orientations are still angled/oriented in a sapphic/achillean/enbian/etc. way.

Smush - A “sexual crush”, describes a sexual attraction toward a person

Soft romo - An adjective to describe something, like a relationship, as something that is low-level romantic. Soft-romo relationship is like a low-level romantic relationship.

Split Attraction Model (SAM) - Which is sometimes shortened to SAM, is a framework that's intended to help people better understand their sexual attractions and how those may be different from their romantic attractions.

Squish - A “friend crush”, describes a strong platonic attraction toward a person.

Swish - An “aesthetic crush”, describes an aesthetic attraction toward a person.

Touch Aversion - Similar to romance and sex repulsion, but describes being averse (repulse, intense dislike, discomfort, disgust) to being touched and/or touching others

Tertiary Attraction - Describe forms of attraction other than romantic and sexual, or other than physical and emotional

Will Jay - An American singer that sang "Never Been in Love", which became an aromantic anthem.