Tertiary attraction is an umbrella term, that originated in aro-spec communities, to describe forms of attraction other than romantic and sexual. Typically, for allosexual/romantics relationships contain a mix of many or all of these forms of attraction, but when one or more forms of attraction is missing, such as with aromantics and asexuals, it becomes easier for a-spec people to identify alternate forms of attraction.
While often dismissed by society tertiary attractions can be felt just as strongly as the attraction experienced by alloromantics/sexuals. Those who are aroace and feel like their tertiary attraction is important enough to warrant a place along side their aroace identity may identity as oriented aroace or angled aroace.
Tertiary attractions can be given modifiers using the usual prefixes. For example one can be bialterous, meaning they experience alterous attraction towards people of two or more genders.
Tertiary attraction is named such because romantic and sexual attraction are typically split into the 'main' two attractions using the split attraction model.
Forms of Tertiary Attraction
- Aesthetic Attraction
- Alterous Attration
- Amical Attraction
- Cedural Attraction
- Emotional Attraction
- Familial Attraction
- Mental Attraction
- Platonic Attraction
- Presential Attraction
- Queerplatonic Attraction
- Sensual Attraction
- Social Attraction
- Tutelary Attraction
History
There is some controversy surrounding the term tertiary attraction, as some people feel that this phrase implies that these kinds of attraction are less important than romantic or sexual attraction.[1]