Social media can often be a place to bring interesting topics to light. One post can spark a global discussion. A recent post sparked such a discussion and has brought to light a new term — abrosexuality. The discourse began when Emma Flint, a journalist from the UK, identified herself as an abrosexual. She wrote an op-ed for Metro, explaining how she came out as abrosexual in 2020, and the reactions she received from close friends and family. Flint wrote that she first came across the term as a 30-year-old in 2020 and immediately identified with it, but also mentioned how there still wasn’t much awareness about it — a factor that perhaps contributed to reactions of ‘it’s not real’ that she received from a friend.
What is abrosexuality?
In simple terms, abrosexuality refers to sexuality that is fluid and can keep changing. An abrosexual individual may feel attracted to a certain gender or no gender, or identify with a certain sexuality for a period of time, but then experience attraction towards a different gender or identify differently at a later time.
An individual can also be abroromantic but not abrosexual, which refers to romantic feelings that change, without any sexual attraction.
The abrosexuality flag Shutterstock
Abrosexuality is not widely discussed yet, limiting the understanding about the term and what it entails. To know more, My Kolkata spoke to gender right activists Niladri R. Chatterjee and Navonil Das, and sexuality educator Karishma Swarup.
Fluid sexuality
“Abrosexuality is a form of fluid sexuality where the same person might experience different types of sexuality or sexual orientation, or even romantic orientation or romantic attraction towards different people at different points in their lives,” says sexuality educator and Harvard student Karishma Swarup.
Karishma Swarup at Mumbai Pride 2024
She further highlights that abrosexuality is different from bisexuality as “someone who identifies as bisexual might experience attraction to more than one gender, but it does not account for other types of fluidity and their identity is not hinged upon the fluidity.” Further, she says, abrosexuality is not the same as pansexuality. Someone who identifies as pansexual is attracted to regardless of their gender, whereas absrosexuality “is not based on any specific gender or the sex of the person you are attracted to.” According to Karishma, “abrosexual people don’t want others to assume their sexuality, which is also true for people of any sexuality.”
Sexual attraction vs romance
For academic, author and gender rights activist Niladri R. Chatterjee, abrosexuality is a necessary term “because society forces us to think that we should feel romantically about those that we are sexual with and vice versa.”
Niladri R. Chatterjee My Kolkata
The professor believes that the time has come to “acknowledge that romance and sex need not always be fused into one when we engage intimately with anyone. Being abrosexual also means realising that we can fall in love with and/or be sexually attracted to absolutely anyone. As the writer James Baldwin said, ‘It's silly to go through life knowing who you’re going to fall in love with’.”
Nuances of identity
Fashion guru Navonil Das aka Nil, who is also one of the founding members of Kolkata Pride, understands that people’s sexuality and identity are very nuanced topics. He also advocates for discussions around these.
Navonil Das
“There are different variations of sexuality, and various kinds of people have so many nuances that are healthy to discuss, because until you do, you will not discover who they are or who you are.” There is more to the queer community than “our own ideas about the world, and the concepts of the LGBTQIA+ community,” he adds. “I think identifying this specific sexuality helps an individual to be comfortable to be themselves. Isn’t it?”
