In the 20th Century:
Desire is black and white.
In the 21st Century:
Desire is incredibly nuanced.
“Figuring out your sexuality” used to involve deciding how far you wanted to go and who you wanted to go there with.
Some girls were into bad boys; others were into jocks.
Some liked to dream over posters of their favorite band; others preferred sneaking a real-life boy into their bedroom.
Those who didn’t feel the same feelings as everyone else often ended up confused and ashamed.
Today, we know that desire is as individual as you are.
There’s a rainbow of terms that describe the nuances of desire: demisexual, sapiosexual, cupiosexual, aromantic, aro-ace, and hundreds more.
Even if you think you know everything you need to know about how your desire works, it can be worth reading up on those terms.
Having a word to express how desire works for you can help you communicate better.
For example…
There’s a term for people who feel that their desire has been impacted by chronic pain or disability (wolandsexual).
There’s a term for people who feel they lost their desire as a result of trauma or PTSD (caedsexual).
There’s a term for people who find it easiest to feel desire for fictional characters – hello, Mr. Darcy! (fictosexual).
Let us know what you think!