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Hello all! This week I wanted to talk about types of attraction! The primary discussion among Aspec people is sexual or romantic. But what about the others? I think other forms of attraction have a huge factor in being an aspec person and can explain some of the mixed feelings we as aspecs get sometimes that may make us doubt our identities. I’m hoping that this post will be informative in the different types of attraction, but also help those who may be struggling with the doubting and gaslighting we aspecs tend to do sometimes. I’ve actually learned a lot about myself when writing this post, so I hope this can happen for you too! If there’s a type I fail to mention here, feel free to reach out to me and I will add them in!
We as Aspecs may lack or feel little sexual or romantic attraction, but occasionally feel some mixed feelings that we may not be sure what they are. The big question is, what are those feelings and how does that correlate with me as an aspec? Hopefully that question will be answered here. The forms of attraction I will be discussing here are; platonic, aesthetic, sensual, physical, alterous, and emotional. As an aspec, some of these forms of attraction may be present more than others and/or we may feel them stronger as a result of the little or lack of sexual/romantic attraction. I will be including some definitions and these will be added to the glossary page.
A feeling that I’m sure most readers have heard before is platonic attraction. Platonic attraction is defined as the desire to form a close friendly relationship (friendship) with someone you may know. This type of attraction is felt towards friends, or people you want to become friends with. This form of attraction is the one that can make aces or aros doubt themselves or may make them confused in the questioning phase. If you feel close to a friend, but don’t want to do anything romantic or sexual with them, then platonic attraction is probably what you are feeling.
Personally, I noticed that since I don’t feel romantic or sexual attraction, my platonic attraction seems “stronger” than someone who feels romantic or sexual attraction. I think this is mostly because I haven’t felt other attractions, so I naturally value platonic attraction higher than other forms of attraction I may feel. An example of the “stronger” feeling in my case is the “honeymoon” phase when it comes to friendships. I experience the “honeymoon phase” in my friendships from what I observe, whether my other friends are aware of this or not is a mystery since I don’t really talk about this. But, I feel that I have these honeymoon phases with friends where I suddenly want to spend all of my time with them, I talk to them endlessly when I don’t see them physically, and I get them gifts, or make sure to get them food or something when I get it. Whether or not this is platonic attraction or the “favorite person” effect is unclear, but I associated this with my platonic attraction to friends. If you have a similar experience, I would love to hear it from you!
A type of attraction you may or may not be aware of is aesthetic attraction. Aesthetic attraction is defined as admiration to someone’s presentation or style. You may feel aesthetic attraction towards someone if you find yourself admiring the style of clothing someone is wearing or the way someone does their makeup. Essentially, from my understanding, it is the liking of how someone wears something or presents themselves. For example, if you like an emo style and see someone dressed in emo style, you may feel drawn to looking at their outfit or objectively “liking them” based solely on their outfit and/or makeup. This goes for any and all styles of attire, whether it’s jewelry, shoes, apparel, etc. I want to make a note here and say that if you notice a trend as far as specific cultures and being drawn to them aesthetically that it could fall into fetishizing a culture and should not be mixed in with aesthetic attraction.
I find myself having aesthetic attraction less to outfits and more to room setups or jewelry sometimes. I also notice that it fluctuates with me, if I like something one day, I might like something different the next. I often don’t feel this type of attraction towards people or their looks, though I still do occasionally. However, I think commonly this happens more with people and the way they present themselves. If you have more information about your personal experience with this, please let me know!
Sensual attraction is the desire to interact with someone in a physical, but not sexual way, such as hugging or cuddling. I believe holding hands would fall under this category, but it’s up to you with what you consider it. This type of attraction always gets lumped in with romantic attraction, which I think is due to how society has set up relationships and what “makes up” a relationship. I talked about this a bit in my “Relationships” post, so if you haven’t read that feel free. My interpretation of the difference of the feeling you get when you hug or cuddle with someone. Sensual attraction can be depicted as the warm feeling or the desire to be close to someone simply to be close to them, nothing romantic or sexual about it, necessarily. Romantic attraction can be interpreted that you would want those things to kiss or have intimacy in some form. And while those behaviors or actions overlap, the meaning or feeling behind it makes it different.
This one is complicated for me, personally. Because I love the idea of hugging people and cuddling, but in real life I hate being touched and hug others very little. Pretty sure this has some reasoning as far as my personal experiences and childhood stuff, but I can’t help that my romantic and sexual identity also has a part in it. If you are willing, please send me any info on your experience with sensual attraction because I would like to hear more about it.
Physical attraction is the appeal to someone’s physical features, such as facial features or their build as a whole. I want to make another point here by saying that if you are using physical attraction as a weapon to deny someone or to make a comment about someone, you are body shaming and are damaging people. This form of attraction is another one that tends to be combined with sexual attraction and maybe romantic attraction due to relationship definitions. I also feel that a lack of knowledge that this attraction can be separated from sexual attraction may cause confusion. But, hey, that’s what I’m here for! To clear up confusion and help people learn new things.
I have very little physical attraction towards people, but I have noticed a bit of a trend for myself and what I’m drawn to. Please don’t be judgemental towards me. I found that I am physically attracted to men who have feminine features. This is especially true for fictional characters, but I’ve noticed the crossover to real men as well. That’s all I’m going to address at this time. Every individual has different things they may find attractive physically about an individual person, but also have things in general they may like, or you can feel attraction rarely, or none at all.
Alterous attraction is a form of attraction that can be described as a grey area that can form between two or more types of attraction. For example, someone who has alterous attraction may feel they identify on a grey area between platonic or romantic attraction, sensual or sexual attraction, physical and sexual attraction, etc. This term primarily exists to reference attraction between platonic and romantic, but I feel this can apply to other forms of attraction as well. The term alterous can also be applied to orientations, i.e. bialterous, heteroalterous, homoalterous, etc. I think the aspec version is a-alterous? Aalterous? Really not sure how it’s supposed to be written because the website where I researched this also didn’t specify, they opted for the a- in a list of things that could be paired with alterous. They knew what they were doing.
If you would like to learn more about alterous attraction, check out this link:
Emotional attraction is when you are drawn to someone’s personality and the desire to be emotionally present with someone. Emotions are extremely important in developing someone’s personality, and how well they handle emotions shapes their personality. Each individual has their approach and ways that they handle their emotions as well as others, and this can be quite defining for compatibility in any type of relationship. Whether you are looking for someone who is emotionally intelligent and endearing towards those that are struggling, those who are a little unaware and have a lot to learn, or the anime protagonist type that has no idea how to deal with their emotions, so they’re usually super angry at little things and learn emotional lessons at the end of the episode, people all are unique in their emotional experience and it is important to be understanding of that. That being said, each person has their cup of tea of what kind of people they can tolerate, and may be emotionally attracted to certain types of personalities. This form of attraction is another type that many aspecs probably experience more, and it may cause some doubts in identity due to it getting lumped with sexual or romantic attraction. But they are all separate things!
I noticed that I find myself emotionally drawn to the quiet types, someone who is more soft spoken, but still able to stand up for themselves and others when necessary. I also enjoy the caretaker personalities who are kind and considerate towards others. This form of attraction was another thing I wasn’t aware of in myself, but helps to understand myself now that I am thinking about it. Have you noticed what type of personality you’re emotionally attracted to?
This was a lot of information and personal opinions, so I am going to put a few more resources below that can provide some extra details about types of attraction in case you want to learn more.
If you have any thoughts to add, agree or disagree, or have any questions to ask, please reach out to me through social media or email.
Thank you for reading and stay true to yourself!