What does it mean to be androsexual?
The concept of androsexuality may be new to people, but the identity certainly isn’t.
- In a nutshell, an androsexual is someone who is sexually attracted to men, males, or those who identify on the masculine spectrum, regardless of whether they were assigned male at birth. (“Andro” is the Greek prefix meaning male or masculine.)
- Someone who identifies as androsexual is attracted to masculine characteristics, but the object of their attraction doesn’t have to identify as male.
- “Historically, ‘heterosexual’ has been interpreted as being attracted to the other sex,” Fram explains.
- “In this way, it requires that the object of attraction for a cishet woman identifies as male.”
- This is where androsexuality is a little different than other gender and sexual identities.
- Unlike many of the labels for sexual orientation—including the ones people are most familiar with, like straight, gay, and bisexual—it doesn’t reinforce the binary of male and female by defining both the gender of the person experiencing the attraction and the gender of the people they are attracted to.
- “Androsexuality doesn’t assume anything about the sex or gender of either the person who is experiencing the attraction or the people they are attracted to.
- Someone who identifies as androsexual could be cisgender, transgender, non-binary, or intersex.
- The same goes for the people they are attracted to—they could be cisgender, transgender, non-binary or intersex, so long as they exhibit traditionally masculine characteristics.
- The intersexuality pride flag contains three bold stripes, the top stripe is sky blue, the middle strip is a dark maroon shade, and the bottom stripe is violet.
- To put it simply: “Androsexuals” are not singularly attracted to men, they are attracted to masculinity.
- The term is of Greek origin.
- The prefix “andro-” means “man” or “of male origin”.
- It’s unclear exactly when the term was created, but it was much needed for the genderqueer and non-binary community, to be able to describe their preferences in a non-man/woman aspect.
- The first appearance of the word online was in a 1997 Usenet post written by a trans-woman still exploring her sexuality.
- Many use the term interchangeably with “androphilic”, but some consider it to be slight differences between the terms.
- While “androsexual” refers to the attraction towards masculinity, “androphilic” turns towards genital preferences.
- It was first defined online in 2014, but due to its rather small community it is not used significantly.