As a general rule, I tend to err on the side of “it’s fine if you want to come up with a new label to describe your sexuality, but that doesn’t make it an identity that’s significantly different enough to be carved out from the Big Four™️* Gendered Sexual Attractions” — or perhaps Big Six™️ if we want to expand beyond gender and talk about nonmonogamy and kink. But when we’re talking about polysexuality and abrosexuality and omnisexuality, it all feels like shades of something that has already been discussed.
So it is interesting to come to you with this news: I have just read a new scientific paper about a sexual label that I actually do think is worth considering as something standalone and different. Something that is not navel gazey, not a joke (though plenty of jokes are being made at the paper’s expense), but a new variation on sexual attraction, an underdiscussed marginalized identity, an experience that is worth giving voice to — especially within the bisexual community.
If you haven’t clicked the link yet (and you should! They made the whole paper free to download!): I am speaking of “symbiosexuality.”
Though it’s not necessarily apparent from the name, symbiosexuality is the experience of being attracted, not to one person, but to a couple. Think Tashi Duncan in Challengers: a woman who loves the bond between two male friends, but finds each of them lacking once she’s dating them one on one. Symbiosexuals are people who find themselves aroused and inspired by the energy — the synergy — that forms when two people become a couple; they’re attracted to a relationship more than they are to individual people on their own.
I strongly encourage you to read the paper yourself to get a sense of how symbiosexuals describe themselves, their experiences, their attractions. It would not surprise me if some of you see yourselves reflected in their words. Symbiosexuality is, not surprisingly, more associated with queer people; while it’s possible to be a straight symbiosexual (Tashi Duncan, hello), there is certainly some inherent queerness to the arrangement, given that you can’t have a three person relationship made up of a couple and a third where everyone is straight.
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Isn’t this just non-monogamy?” And my answer here is… sort of? Certainly, symbiosexuality is a form of non-monogamy; you kind of can’t be in a three person relationship without non-monogamy being on the table.
And yet, as the paper nods to, many non-monogamous and polyamorous people still hold on to the idea of being attracted to individual people rather than a couple as a unit. Yes, you might have multiple partners, but you have separate relationships with all of them.
A symbiosexual, on the other hand, is not interested in the individual at all. One partner without the other falls flat. The connection between the two is the whole point. And that’s simply not how we talk about human sexual relationships, generally. We just don’t talk about being attracted to how people are around others as a quality that is separate from who they are on their own.
I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this in the coming days and weeks. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts as I digest it further. For now, I suppose I will just leave you with this: human sexuality is wild, man. Endlessly fascinating. I hope to remain open-minded about our bottomless capacity to be attracted to other people in weird and wild ways for decades to come.
* Heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality, obviously
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