Plenty of people fall in love with the other gender but like to have sex with people of their own gender, for example. So these things explain two elements of sexuality that can be teased apart or are always experienced together-depending on the person. 'You can have sex without being in a relationship you can be in a relationship without sex. Your sexual orientation is linked to who you want to have sex (or some sort of erotic experience) with, while your romantic orientation refers to who you want to love or be in a relationship with. 'It can often challenge the binary for both orientation, expression, and identity.'Ī person's sexual orientation can sometimes be confused with their romantic orientation, but the two things aren't quite the same. 'Spectrums describe sexuality as fluid related to gender, orientation, attraction, and expression,' Bass explains. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum.Īsexuality is considered another spectrum, where people can experience varying degrees of asexuality or fall somewhere on a spectrum from asexual to allosexual. X - No socio-sexual contacts or reactionsīass points out that there are other spectrums of identity as well, such as the gender spectrum, which views gender identity as existing on a spectrum from maleness to femaleness. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum.ġ - Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexualĢ - Predominantly heterosexual but more than incidentally homosexualĤ - Predominantly homosexual but more than incidentally heterosexualĥ - Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual The spectrum most often referenced is the Kinsey scale, which describes sexuality as existing on a spectrum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. The sexuality spectrum is the idea that all sexuality exists on a spectrum with binary 'absolutes' on each end, explains sexologist Tanya M. You might've heard the saying 'Sexuality is a spectrum' before.

X word in sex