Graysexual
Definiton
Disclaimer: People can experience identities in different ways. As such, people can identify with a label without exactly matching the definition because identities are fluid.
Graysexual (also spelled greysexual, grayasexual, or greyasexual, often shortened to "gray-a" or "gray-ace") is a term used by people who experience sexual attraction, but at a lesser frequency or intensity than the average allosexual person. As such, graysexual falls on the asexual spectrum, so graysexual people may also identify as asexual. Graysexual people may experience other forms of attraction and can be any gender; the term only refers to a person's sexual orientation.
Graysexual people's experiences can include feeling sexual attraction without wanting a sexual relationship, being unsure about whether they experience sexual attraction, only experiencing ambiguously sexual attraction, feeling alienated from sexual attraction, and/or only feeling sexual attraction in specific circumstances. These experiences, particularly the last one, can overlap with ones that demisexual people have.
Graysexual people may identify with another sexual orientation to describe the gender(s) of the people they feel attraction to. They may even add "gray-" or "grey-" to the beginning of another sexual orientation label they identify with. Graysexual people may also identify with another label on the asexual spectrum, such as demisexual.
Flag History and Meaning
The graysexual pride flag was created by Milith Rusignuolo and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons on June 21, 2013.
Each color of the graysexual flag has its own meaning:
- Purple: asexuality
- Gray: the transitional stage between asexuality and alloasexuality
- White: allosexuality
The flag is symbolic of someone starting out with no sexual attraction, entering a single episode of sexual attraction, and then going back to having no sexual attraction.
Related Identities
Graysexual is an umbrella term and can include labels such as:
Graysexual is related to labels such as:
Additional Resources
- The Asexual Visibility & Education Network's "The Gray Area" explains graysexuality and answers a few questions about it.
- In "I'm Greysexual | Grey-ace guy explains his asexual identity" on YouTube, notdefining explains the term and provides his experience.
- Since graysexual falls under the asexual umbrella, you can also check out the Additional Resources section from the Asexual page.
