We’ve Been Measuring Attraction Wrong
"Asexual people are often assumed to “lack” attraction. But in reality, many report rich and varied forms of attraction that don’t map neatly onto sexual desire.
So instead of asking “how does attraction work?,” we asked:
What do people actually mean when they say they feel attracted to someone?" "Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, we identified and validates seven different forms of attraction:
intellectual
aesthetic
emotional
platonic
sensual
romantic
sexual
These aren’t just theoretical distinctions. Statistically, they show up as separate but related dimensions—meaning people really do experience attraction in multiple, distinguishable ways." "Our findings demonstrate that both asexual and non-asexual experience multifaceted forms of attraction.
Put differently, the seven forms of attraction our study identifies are not “ace-specific” categories—they’re general features of human attraction. But starting from an asexual lens helped us see those features more clearly."
"If you only measure sexual attraction, you miss a huge part of how people relate to each other. And that’s true whether you’re working with asexual people or not."
