Split Attraction Model (SAM)

A visual representation of the SAM using a modified Kinsey scale. Someone can fall anywhere on the two scales. For some, their placement on the two scales is the same, for others they have two different placements.

The split attraction model or SAM is a model of attraction used by many ace-spec and aro-spec people to describe their identity. The SAM states that for some people sexual attraction and romantic attraction are two different things. For example, an asexual person may feel romantic attraction, and an aromantic person may feel sexual attraction. In those cases the a-spec person may describe their identity using the SAM in order to express both aspects of their identity.

If someone's sexual and romantic orientation are the same they can simply use one word. For example, one would not have to say "pansexual and panromantic" as they could just say they're pansexual. The exception to this is aroace, which is often said together because only saying one could imply that one is alloromantic asexual or allosexual aromantic or lead to other confusion.

Not all a-spec people use the SAM. Most notably are non-SAM aros.

History

The first recorded instance of a model of orientation taking into account split attraction was in 1879, by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German writer, who published 12 books on non-heterosexual attraction. In those books Ulrichs came up with various classifications of orientations which are fairly similar to modern LGB+ identities. Amount his works he described people who are ' konjunktiver and disjunktiver' or 'conjunctive and disjunctive bisexuality'. The first is described as one who has both 'tender' and 'passionate' feelings for both men and women. The second is one who has 'tender' feelings for men, but 'passionate' feelings for women (if the person was a man- the reverse if they were a woman). However, Ulrichs' model never caught on due to the complexity.

The next instance of separating sexual and romantic attraction was in 1979 by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov. With the publication of her book 'Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love'. In the book Tennov described 'limerence' a form of attraction which could be described as a crush, or an infatuation with someone. Although Tennov viewed sex as being a part of limerence she acknowledged that it was not the main focus of it.

The first hints of what would become the modern SAM began with 'affectional attraction/orientation' which was coined at some point in the 1980's. It's unclear when the term was first used. Coining for the terms as often attributed to Curt Pavola, a gay rights activist from Washington, and to Lisa Diamond, a psychologist. However, there are instances of the phrase that predate both of these individuals.

Around 2001 there was a push for a way to classify asexuals. One of the earliest instances to still is the ABCD classification system on AVEN, which recognizes that some asexuals may feel romantic attraction. Around the same time there was a Yahoo e-mail group known as 'Haven For The Human Amoeba', where in 2001 there was discussions of term 'hetero-asexual'. It wasn't until 2005 that the modern form of the SAM was created on AVEN. By 2007 the terminology was widely used in asexual circles.

Other asexuals also began using additional attraction terms, such as emotional attraction, sensual attraction, and aesthetic attractions, starting in the early 2000s. These attraction types could also be paired with parallel orientation identity terms (ex. pansensual, panaesthetic), but that application of them wasn't necessarily as common.

Beginning in 2011, ace bloggers on Tumblr began to experience waves of mass-scale harassment for identifying with the asexual umbrella, typically involving criticism of ace community language. In 2015, a new criticism emerged among anti-ace bloggers: conflating the concepts of multiple orientation labeling, attraction subtyping, and universalizing language by sloppily grouping all three together as "the split attraction model." Many of the earliest Tumblr posts on this subject have been lost, but early uses of the term involve accusing the split attraction model of being homophobic, as well as defining it with an inherently universalizing element. The use of the word "split," in particular, seems to have possibly originated from Tumblr user pure (also known as Tumblr user medicine), who wrote "i got a prollem w ppl splitting a complex sociocultural influenced ting like attraction into only two distinct experiences that ppl present as inherently unrelated all the time." The term "split attraction" necessarily centers a more monolithic experience of attraction as the default, and the term "split attraction model" was typically used to describe inappropriate sweeping statements about how a romantic/sexual attraction distinction is universal for everyone.

More precise and less derogatory terms include "romantic orientation" (or "romantic orientation labeling," for the personal use of terms like aromantic) and "attraction types," "attraction subtyping," or "differentiating types of attraction." Not everyone who experiences different types of attraction necessarily has a distinct romantic orientation, and not everyone who has a romantic orientation necessarily experiences multiple types of attraction.