alterous attraction vs queerplatonic

[Rising Sun]

NO, dictionaries do, and alot (if not a majority) on AVEN do too; thats why they're commonly used on here.

Come on, only a handful of people on here do. Do you seriously hear people saying that they're platonically attracted to their family or their cat ? That's bullshit, not to say that's sick, and don't tell me that you don't know that.

And if you ask any of these common people you'd get them insisting that it's platonic too. And I'm also fairly sure these forms of attraction aren't from tumblr either. And people don't just use the word love because it's inaccurate. I (and many others) don't love people I'm aesthetically attracted to.

I'm talking about platonic feelings. Aesthetic attraction is merely attraction, absolutely, it isn't love. But it's still attraction. This places it in the same category as crushes, not in the same category as platonic feelings, which are for friends and family.

[Finn.]

This discussion confuses me so much...

Technically my best friend and I could count as qeer-platonic-parters but we aren't. Like, we're soulmates and can't live without each other and everybody think's we're a couple, we've been building our lives around each other for three years now. But it's purely friendship, we both wish for a different relationship (independent from each other). I do wish to be in a qpr, and that sort of "attraction" to someone, wanting to be in a qpr with them, I thought that's what alterous attraction meant? I've seen it used like that, and it kind of appealed to me, because it is a distinct feeling for me, and this would've given me a word for it. Not to say a qpr is "more" than friendship (I value my friendship with my bff so much, idek if a qpp could top that), but it's a bit different.

[Star Bit]

Yes, it got stretched to be the orientation form of QPR and at this point is almost virtually so by popular use (which as i said goes against the creator's intent of the word but to me they just didn't properly understand what QPRs were in the first place and created a separate word for the same thing).

[binary suns]

That's just denial or relationship erasure or a relationship anarchist, but they shouldn't say it's something it clearly isn't e.g. platonic when it factually isn't.

Some ignorant people insist they're still ace when they yearn for and pursue sex but don't feel anyone's sexually alluring, but that doesn't mean they're right when they're just factually a normal sexual person consisting of about half the population. Because an asexual sees that most people in relationships also desire sex with their partner, does it mean it's valid for them to say they're not in a sexual relationship despite sexually compromising? No.

so wait. they don't find people sexually alluring like normal sexual people, and yet they're normal sexual people?

maybe they aren't asexual I can accept that. but please stop calling it "normal" when it clearly is the very reason they think they're asexual, that they are not normal. they feel like they don't belong, and are seeking out similar people.

[binary suns]

Yes, I can definitely agree that the concept of queerplatonic "attraction" doesn't make sense, because attraction being involved in that kind of relationship definitely does make it seem as though it's not what it actually is. I think people might just be confusing all this with having a squish on someone, I don't know. The definition I've seen tossed around in some places of QPRs as "soft-romo" or "romantic without the romance" is not only incredibly inaccurate, but really squicks me out as someone who's both in a QPR and romance-repulsed--I can very much attest that they are not the same thing.

Glad to see that we share the same opinion on this :)

Attraction strictly means "something that evokes interest" so yes, it can actually be used platonically; as all the other attractions but sexual and romantic can be used platonically.

That's your opinion only. Practically no one other than you and a handful of Tumblr users use the word that way, and for a very good reason. Partly because there's already a word for it, "love".

The way you're using and categorizing the word with hypothetical subtypes is extremely confusing and misleading, and even worse when you're trying to impose your definitions as some kind of Truth with a capital T. Not to say that it reflects a lack of understanding of the way emotions and feelings work.

it's my opinion to. in my observation most humans who are romantic and sexual, are adverse to the idea that interest in friends is attraction, because attraction is the word they use to talk about dating, and they hate getting in the awkward scenario where someone wants to date them but they just want to be friends. or vice versa.

but something that is very clear is that asexuals love to talk about squishes, which is platonic attraction, and in my observation, most sexual/romantic people feel squishes too.

also... starbit takes the writing style of speaking as if they are knowledgeable, rather than speaking as if they are making personal assumptions and guesses. this is a valid writing style, and it's actually required in some fields of study. while it is true that there is a trend on this site towards speaking with "I think" and "I feel", that doesn't justify outlawing people who prefer to scrap that uncertain prose.

I admit that some of starbit's definitions I do also disagree with. but I also disagree with some of everyone else's definitions too. I have my own agency in deciding what I believe. if a new person embraces one member's definitions over the other, that is that new person's agency, and is not a bad thing.

[Rising Sun]

it's my opinion to. in my observation most humans who are romantic and sexual, are adverse to the idea that interest in friends is attraction, because attraction is the word they use to talk about dating, and they hate getting in the awkward scenario where someone wants to date them but they just want to be friends. or vice versa.

but something that is very clear is that asexuals love to talk about squishes, which is platonic attraction, and in my observation, most sexual/romantic people feel squishes too.

also... starbit takes the writing style of speaking as if they are knowledgeable, rather than speaking as if they are making personal assumptions and guesses. this is a valid writing style, and it's actually required in some fields of study. while it is true that there is a trend on this site towards speaking with "I think" and "I feel", that doesn't justify outlawing people who prefer to scrap that uncertain prose.

I admit that some of starbit's definitions I do also disagree with. but I also disagree with some of everyone else's definitions too. I have my own agency in deciding what I believe. if a new person embraces one member's definitions over the other, that is that new person's agency, and is not a bad thing.

Uh... No. I have experienced squishes, and I wouldn't call them attraction at all. They aren't the same feeling. Feeling affection for someone and feeling attracted to someone are two completely different things, that can be combined or not. If I ever felt that what I felt was attraction, any kind of it, I wouldn't even call it "platonic".

I know that for some people the limit between both feelings must feel blurred, certainly because they're almost always combined for them, or sometimes because they need experience to develop and identify what they feel at puberty, so I suppose that your feelings may be like this... But for many people the limit is clear, and I can certify that for me, there is no attraction. No more "attraction" than what I feel for my dog or for my nephew. Affection, tenderness, yes. Attraction is another category.

About writing style, even researchers are humble enough to quality their observations as "hypothesis". Not as facts, and they certainly don't spend their time spamming forums every day with the exact same invasive pseudo-encyclopedic content.

[Star Bit]

That's just denial or relationship erasure or a relationship anarchist, but they shouldn't say it's something it clearly isn't e.g. platonic when it factually isn't.

Some ignorant people insist they're still ace when they yearn for and pursue sex but don't feel anyone's sexually alluring, but that doesn't mean they're right when they're just factually a normal sexual person consisting of about half the population. Because an asexual sees that most people in relationships also desire sex with their partner, does it mean it's valid for them to say they're not in a sexual relationship despite sexually compromising? No.

so wait. they don't find people sexually alluring like normal sexual people, and yet they're normal sexual people?

maybe they aren't asexual I can accept that. but please stop calling it "normal" when it clearly is the very reason they think they're asexual, that they are not normal. they feel like they don't belong, and are seeking out similar people.

No, sexual people desire sex for many reasons. As many sexuals have said on here, about half of sexual people experience this "miraculous impulse to have sex with a specific person"; the remainder desire it for sexual or emotional pleasure which IS a normal sexual person. It's a misconception that every sexual person experiences sexual attraction because male sexuality became the assumed default because females weren't allowed to voice their sexuality until recent decades. Thanks to sexologists we now know that males predominantly experience spontaneous sexual desire and females predominantly feel responsive sexual desire, which is where the misconception of females not yearning for sex came from.

The only reason theyre considering asexuality isn't because theyre actually abnormal but because they have a misconception on why sexual people desire sex.

@Rising Sun

Really? I'm spamming AVEN with attraction titles. Tell that to the rest of the users who also use them, NOT DUE TO ME i might add. These terms existed way before i joined AVEN. And AVEN Wiki must be wrong as hell too because they're on there too!