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Orientation Modeling


Coyote

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Note: made some changes again.

 

  • Switched out "coupled" for "rosol," in reference to the Romantic Orientation/Sexual Orientation Dyad. 
  • Switched out "planar" for "orthodox," in reference to the Only Two Types norm, courtesy of Elizabeth @Prismatangle

 

Patrick Elliot also suggested including some examples as a separate section at the end, so here's the draft for that:

 

2) Ven feels his grayro/gray-a identity is very convergent with this norm (one composite orientation), whereas Alex, who is aro, ace, and demisensual, would describe themselves as more divergent from it, since they think of themselves as having three completely separate orientations.
 

3) Flint, who only uses sexual orientation and not romantic orientation, feels like their identity is very non-rosol. Alex feels only kinda sorta rosol, feeling like it works fine for them except that they also have a third orientation that tends to go overlooked by others. Jamie, an aromantic heterosexual person, feels like her identity couples with this dyad pretty well, so we call that being the most rosol.
 

4) The gray-a identities of Ven and Flint refer to axes that are very orthodox, but Alex's identity as demisensual and Luna's as bi-affectionate are more unorthodox. 

 

5) Flint, Ven, Alex, and Luna's orientation labels are all bound to specific axes (sexuality, sensuality, etc.), so those are axial. In contrast, Mal identifies as both asexual and bisexual; their asexuality is the more axial identity while being bi is (for them) very non-axial -- i.e. "bisexual" is not really a description of their sexuality per se, but more about how they relate to and partner with others and about feeling a connection to that community. 

 

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I'm glad that your descriptions have moved from describing types to describing the concepts in a spectrum/scale/gradient/slider bar. I understood the types you had before but with all the discussion I guess I was one of the few to happily sit in a category. 

 

On 3/24/2019 at 4:20 AM, Coyote said:

4. ONLY ONE OR TWO TYPES OF ORIENTATION: This is the norm of thinking and speaking of “orientation” language as something that only, strictly pertains to either sex, romance, or both. One’s relationship to this norm is strong when you think of all your orientations as making reference to romance and/or sex in some fashion. One’s relationship to this norm is more alienated or distant the less you think of your orientation (or one of your orientational identities) as being “about” the canon categories (of sex or romance). With reference to this norm, we might think of romantic and sexual orientations as the more “orthodox” types, and we might think of other kinds of orientation (like sensual, aesthetic, affectionate, etc.) as more “unorthodox.”

This point though. I had some trouble trying to understand it. Is it meant to be so centred on romance/sexual? 

From my understanding this is tied with the axis ideas for point 5 but brings up the ideas that was started in the other thread about the term tertiary. I do understand that romance/sexual are generally given priority (in a total population) but what about all those people who drop them to focus on others? for example a person who is aroace homosensual, but decides to focus on what they feel rather than what they don't, so the sensual attraction is the most important thing to their orientation identity.

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13 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

This point though. I had some trouble trying to understand it. Is it meant to be so centred on romance/sexual? 

 

It's... meant to describe a type of intracommunity norm of centering those things, so, in that sense, yes. These scales are about describing identification with or alienation from certain kinds of norms.

 

13 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

but what about all those people who drop them to focus on others?

 

What about them?

 

The point of describing these norms isn't to say that they're right. Quite the contrary. The whole thing I'm trying to devise language for is how to describe certain norms, expectations, and ideas as inapplicable for yourself.

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11 hours ago, Coyote said:

What about them?

soo for the point about non-romance/sexual centric people who focus on other attraction types they would come towards the unorthodox side?

I just wanted clarification of this section because my brain is error-ing a bit on it. 

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16 hours ago, Coyote said:

The point of describing these norms isn't to say that they're right. Quite the contrary. The whole thing I'm trying to devise language for is how to describe certain norms, expectations, and ideas as inapplicable for yourself.

There's the apparent paradox something being the norm can mean it is undefined.
e.g. heterosexual being coined after homosexual. Amantonormativity describing a social meme which existed for up to a century before it was coined.

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15 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

soo for the point about non-romance/sexual centric people who focus on other attraction types they would come towards the unorthodox side?

I just wanted clarification of this section because my brain is error-ing a bit on it. 

 

Oh! Okay. Yes. Sorry for misunderstanding you. Currently, not-specifically-romantic-&-not-specifically-sexual attraction types are unorthodox, yes. Sensual attraction would be an example of this.

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