Romantic Orientation

Romantic orientation, sometimes called affectional orientation, describes the pattern of a person's romantic attraction: the gender or genders they are drawn to form romantic relationships with. It works alongside sexual orientation, which describes sexual attraction. For many people the two line up, but they do not have to. Someone might be asexual and biromantic, feeling romantic attraction to more than one gender without sexual attraction. The concept originated in asexual communities, where it offers a more precise way to describe attraction. Terms like heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, and aromantic parallel the familiar sexual orientation labels.