The label of bisexual speaks solely to sexual attraction, not romantic attraction. (Getty)
Have you ever had sexual feelings for a wide variety of people, and genders, but can only imagine yourself in a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex?
There are a lot of labels that people can use to describe themselves in terms of sexual and romantic attraction, but if the above applies to you, it could be that you are a heteroromantic bisexual.
It may sound confusing at first, but the term speaks to how sexuality, love, and romantic attraction can be fluid and if this label suits someone, then they have every right to use it – everyone is unique, after all.
Basically, someone who is heteroromantic is only ever romantically attracted to a gender that is different to one’s own.
The term can be used by a person identifying as any gender but is it commonly used by women who are romantically attracted to men and men who are romantically attracted to women.
However, romantic attraction is different to sexual attraction. After all, who you fall in love with and who you want to have sex with are often two very distinct categories.
The counterpart to heteroromantic is heterosexual – someone who is both romantically and sexually attracted to a person of the opposite gender is colloquially considered to be ‘straight’.
People who are heteroromantic can have a different sexual attraction and can therefore be asexual, bisexual, homosexual, or pansexual.
A person who identifies as heteroromantic bisexual will likely be romantically attracted only to a person of the opposite gender but sexually attracted to two or more genders.
A bisexual, heteroromantic cisgender woman, for example, might herself sexually attracted to and having sexual relations with people of all genders – but romantic feelings wouldn’t arise in all of those cases: as much as she enjoys sex with other women, she finds she only ever falls in love with cisgender men.
This can also apply the other way: if that theoretical cisgender woman was a homoromantic bisexual, she would enjoy sexual encounters with all genders, but would only ever fall in love with other women.
Identifying as a heteroromantic or homoromantic bisexual can be validating to people who feel that their sexual and romantic desires are contradictory. It’s a valid identity, and one that just adds even more diversity to the already broad spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community.