According to an article in the Huffington Post, there are a whole host of sexual orientations that socially uneducated people like you probably don’t know about — including “skoliosexual,” “demisexual,” “demiromantic” and “graysexual.”
Now — not to cis-plain or anything! — but when I read the definitions for some of these words, I couldn’t help but think that they sounded more like common personality traits than entire separate orientations.
For example: “Graysexual,” according to a man named Jared who identifies this way, is a “magical place between asexual and someone who is sexual.” So, basically, someone who likes sex but not that much. In fact, I would think that “someone who likes sex but not that much” would be an okay way to describe it without needing a separate word, but what do I know? (I’m just straight and white; I don’t know anything!)
Now – perhaps because I am such an insensitive bigot – I really did feel the same way about a lot of the other words on the list. Take “demisexual,” which refers to a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they “have already formed a strong emotional bond.” See, I might call that “a person who does not have sex with strangers he or she meets at bars.” “Demiromantic” refers to a person who does not feel sexual attraction “unless they have already formed a strong emotional bond with that person.” I might call that “a person who approaches relationships in a normal, healthy, non-codependent way.”
#share#Some of the terms are not quite as specific. “Skoliosexual” refers to “sexual attraction to non-binary identified individuals,” according to a definition cited from Genderqueerid.com. Unlike other very oppressive words, this orientation “does not generally describe an attraction to specific genitalia or birth assignments but rather is an inclusive term.” Um. Okay? Got it?
#related#Of all of the terms, the one that surprised me the most was “zucchini.” Yep — that’s right, kids! “Zucchini” isn’t just a vegetable anymore. It’’s also “the name for a partner who is involved in a queerplatonic relationship, as in ‘he’s my zucchini.’” What’s a queerplatonic relationship, you ask? Don’t fret, the Huffington Post has your back here: “Relationships that ‘are not romantic in nature but they involve very close emotional connections that are often deeper or more intense than what is traditionally considered a friendship.’”
Yikes. And here I thought you could just call your close friends “close friends.” I had no idea we needed separate, complicated words for every single possible way we might interact with other human beings! Wow . . . I guess I must just be really close-minded.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.