60 Sex-Relevant Terms You May Not Know — and Why You Should

As sex-relevant words proliferate, so do our ways of living and loving.

THE BASICS

Matters of sex, relationships, sexual orientation, and gender identity all used to seem much simpler than they are now — even if they really weren’t. Now, the list of letters that used to be limited to LGBT never stops growing.

The additions to all the sexual orientations include some non-sexual, or not very sexual, orientations. We’ve also learned to appreciate orientations other than sexual ones, such as orientations toward relationships. A binary that once seemed utterly self-evident, male vs. female, is now routinely questioned.

Reading a terrific thesis, “Party of One,” by Kristen Bernhardt, woke me up to the proliferation of new concepts relevant to relationships, sexual orientations, gender identities, and more. (Thank you, Kristen.) So I set out to spend an evening gathering some relevant definitions.

Many days later, I was still at it. I admit to shaking my head in exasperation a few times along the way. Ultimately, though, I ended up feeling enormously optimistic. No longer is there just one way to approach sex, love, or relationships that is valued and appreciated.

People who, not so very long ago, may have wondered what was wrong with them now have a new answer: Nothing. People who secretly wondered why romantic relationships were valued above all others can now find validation for their perspective. Maybe they aren’t oddballs, but forward-looking, open-minded, democratic thinkers.

I’ll share definitions for 60 terms — just a sampling of the universe of possibilities that are out there. One of the most comprehensive sources I found was a glossary provided by the University of California at Davis. Unless I specifically mention one of the other sources I drew from, my definitions are from that glossary.

To try to make sense of the 60 terms, I’ve organized them into five sections. Other categorizations would have been possible.

  1. Sex vs. gender: What’s the difference? And what about sexual orientation vs. gender identity?
  2. What is your sexual orientation?
  3. What kind of attraction do you feel toward other people?
  4. What is your orientation toward relationships?
  5. How do you value different relationships?

I. Sex vs. gender: what’s the difference? And what about sexual orientation vs. gender identity?

“Sex” and “gender” aren’t the same.

Remember when we thought there were just two sexes, male and female, and everyone just assumed that anyone born male or female was, in fact, a male or a female? Now it is much more complicated. Here are some of the concepts that challenge those notions:

THE BASICS

Sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t the same.

II. What is your sexual orientation?

If you are old enough, you may remember a time when “straight” and “gay” (or heterosexual and homosexual) covered all the sexual orientations that got any attention. Gay people were often described as queer (and worse) when the word was still solely a pejorative.

The terms then expanded to include LGBT: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. A lesbian (19) is “a woman whose primary sexual and affectional orientation is toward people of the same gender.” Although “gay” (20) has often been used to refer to men who are attracted to other men, it is also used more broadly to refer to anyone attracted to someone of the same sex. Bisexuals (21) are attracted to both men and women, though not always to the same degree. Transgender (22) people are also called “trans” (23) or “trans*” (24) (the asterisk “indicates the option to fill in the appropriate label, i.e., Trans man”). The term “describes a wide range of identities and experiences of people whose gender identity and/or expression differs from conventional expectations based on their assigned sex at birth.”

Gender Essential Reads

Trans Man and Trans Woman are further explained by the Resource Center at the University of California at San Diego:

If you are not transgender, you may think that you don’t need a special term. But you have one. You are cisgender (28): “a gender identity, or performance in a gender role, that society deems to match the person’s assigned sex at birth. The prefix cis- means ‘on this side of’ or ‘not across’.”

The list of letters has continued to expand. The letters added most often are QIA, giving us LGBTQIA.

There’s more. Among the other letters sometimes added to the list are P and K, giving us LGBTQIAPK.

Not everyone identifies as either sexual or asexual. Some consider asexuality as a spectrum that includes, for example, demisexuals and greysexuals. These definitions are from AVEN:

There is also more than one variety of polyamory. An important example is solo polyamory. At Solopoly, Amy Gahran describes it this way:

(For a definition of “relationship elevator,” see the section below, “What is your orientation toward relationships?”)

III. What kind of attraction do you feel toward other people?

Interpersonal attraction is not just sexual. AVEN lists these different kinds of attraction (47) (“emotional force that draws people together”):

Asexual is the term used for people who do not feel sexual attraction. Another term, aromantic, describes something different. According to the AVEN wiki:

People who experience romantic attraction have crushes. Aromantics have squishes. Again, from the AVEN wiki:

IV. What is your orientation toward relationships? (For example, do you prefer monogamy? Do you think your relationships should progress in a certain way?)

Many of the alternatives to monogamy fit under the umbrella term of “ethical non-monogamy.”

According to the conventional wisdom, romantic relationships are expected to progress in a certain way. That’s called the “relationship escalator.” Amy Gahran describes it this way:

V. How do you value different relationships?

Do you think that everyone should be in a romantic relationship, that everyone wants to be in a romantic relationship, and that such a relationship is more important than any other? Thanks to the philosopher Elizabeth Brake , there’s a name for that assumption, amatonormativity. Importantly, amatonormativity is an assumption, not a fact. A related concept is mononormativity. (The definition below is Robin Bauer’s, as described in Kristen Bernhardt’s thesis.) In the same family of concepts is heteronormativity. (Definition below is from Miriam-Webster.) An entirely different way of thinking about relationships has been described by Andie Nordgren in her concept of “relationship anarchy.”