Aromantic and asexual individuals often use the terms favorable, neutral or indifferent, averse, or repulsed to describe how they feel about romance or sex. They can also be applied to more specific actions, such as “kissing” or “holding hands”. These terms can be used by anyone, whether or not they are ace or aro.
Some aspec microlabels specifically refer to someone’s sex or romance favorability, such as apothisexual or bellusromantic.
Note: None of these terms are connected to sex- or romance-positivity or sex- or romance-negativity in any way. In particular, sex-positivity refers to a political and philosophical movement and ideology around encouraging everyone to have as much or as little consensual sexual activity as they want and not assigning moral values to consensual sexual activity. Sex-negativity refers to a movement and philosophy that views most sex as fundamentally immoral and potentially only excuses certain kinds of sex as acceptable – it often ties into amatonormativity by stating that sex is only appropriate in socially approved romantic relationships. Someone can have any level of favorability around sex and be either sex-positive or sex-negative, as sex-positivity and sex-negativity are overall philosophies around sex as a whole, while favorability refers to one’s feelings around certain activities with regards to oneself. For more on philosophies on sex, see any of the resources on this list.
Romance-positivity is a term generally used only in aromantic communities as a parallel to sex-positivity, and similarly to sex-positivity advocates for everyone to engage in romance as much or as little as they want in healthy ways. Conversely, romance-negativity refers to a set of attitudes and movements that position romantic love as innately unhealthy, pathological, or unnatural.
TAAAP as an organization is both sex-positive and romance-positive.
Favorability Scale
-favorable: This generally means that the person in question enjoys or is interested in the activities and might want to be in relationships that incorporate them, which they may or may not seek out.
● Someone who is romance-favorable may seek out romantic relationships or choose to engage in romantic activities with friends, even if they are not romantically attracted to the other person.
● Someone who is sex-favorable may have sex because they enjoy it, no matter whether they are sexually attracted to the other person or people involved.
-neutral or -indifferent: This generally means that the person in question is neither interested in nor opposed to the activities. They may be alright participating in the activities but not seek them out.
● Someone who is romance-neutral or romance-indifferent may be comfortable with gestures like being given flowers or going on dates without particularly desiring or enjoying them. They may also, for example, neither enjoy nor be bothered by romance subplots in media.
● Someone who is sex-neutral or sex-indifferent may have sex or not without feeling particularly strongly about it. They may choose in some cases to have sex to fulfull other needs or for someone else without wanting to for their own sake. They may also, for example, neither want nor dislike to hear about someone’s sex life.
-averse: This generally means that the person in question does not want or enjoy the activities.
● Someone who is romance-averse may not want to engage in any romantic relationships and may be uncomfortable with people pursuing them romantically in any circumstance.
● Someone who is sex-averse may have a hard line against sex and avoid any relationship where sex might be a necessary factor.
-repulsed: This generally means that the person in question not only does not want or enjoy the activities but also is disgusted by the activities and potentially even the sight or mention of them.
● Someone who is romance-repulsed may be disgusted by gestures even coded as romantic, such as being given flowers or candlelit dinners, and may not like consuming romantic media or hearing about others’ love lives.
● Someone who is sex-repulsed may be disgusted even by public displays of affection or sexual innuendo, even when not directed at them.
Other useful terms:
–flux: Sometimes used in terms like aceflux and aroflux to mean one’s exact orientation within the ace or aro spectrums seems to fluctuate from day to day. There are terms like ARCflux to refer to where someone’s feelings towards being “Averse, Repulsed, or Conflicted” about sex or romance could change from day to day. For people who are aceflux or aroflux, their level of -favorability to -repulsion also commonly may vary from day to day.
The ARC-fllux flag – it is shared by both romance and sex ARC-flux individuals.
-ambivalent: This generally means that the person in question has mixed feelings towards the activities in question. While this can overlap with –flux, and some -ambivalent people’s feelings change, sometimes this represents a constant mix of favorability, neutrality, aversion, and repulsion.
The romance-ambivalent flag
The sex-ambivalent flag
Further Explanation
Generally, these terms are used to refer to someone’s opinions about engaging in activities themselves. However, they might also be used to describe how they feel reading, watching, hearing about, or imagining these activities. The term “-repulsed” in particular is often used to refer to one’s feelings about engaging in activities or being around those activities. One’s feelings can vary depending on the situation or other factors such as identity, societal context, common social understanding or intent of actions, or comfort level with another individual. For example, someone who is aegosexual may enjoy thinking about sexual activities involving others, but if they imagined being personally involved in those activities, sex-repulsion might kick in.
It is important to remember that “romance” and “sex” are nebulous concepts and individuals’ delineations may vary around what exactly falls under each concept and which parts of romance or sex they are favorable to, repulsed by, or averse to. For example, one romance-averse person might be completely comfortable going out to dinner with someone and talking to them about their innermost feelings and thoughts unless the other person indicates that it is a romantic date, at which point they may refuse to go out. Another romance-averse person might feel that the entire scenario is too romantic, even if nobody involved has romantic feelings or intentions, and might avoid that situation altogether.