Love the pfp and… if you can, (sorry 🙏🏻 I’m just really desperate to know how I feel towards this person online…)
queerplatonic vs alterous vs alteraffectis
Thank you!
And that's totally fine, I'll explain my interpretation of the difference between these labels. Hopefully this helps.
Alterous and queerplatonic are very similar and due to this are sometimes used interchangeably. The way that I understand the difference is this:
Alterous attraction is a desire for emotional closeness that is not necessarily platonic nor romantic in nature. It could be as simple as a desire for more exclusivity or responsibility/recognition than what is expected in a casual platonic relationship (such as being BFFs, becoming someone's confidant/support system or being found family (but not feeling familial attraction towards them)), or as complex as wanting an emotionally intimate relationship with someone but excluding certain behaviors/titles that feel traditionally romantic.
It's very broad this way, but if you experience alterous attraction with someone, sometimes being in a queerplatonic relationship is the best solution for you to have your needs met, sometimes its not. Because of this, I actually see queerplatonic as a subset of alterous.
Queerplatonic attraction, on the other hand, is the specific desire for that emotionally-intimate (and sometimes other kinds of intimate) relationship with someone. Not as a compromise or anything, that's just exactly what you want with someone in particular.
One example: wanting to be in a labeled, "official" relationship with someone, such as their spouse/partner/soulmate etc, or have some priority/exclusivity in their attention/time/decision-making but not actually having a desire to do anything different or "extra" compared to how you've interacted with them platonically.
Another example (which is equally as common in my experience): Desiring to do traditionally romantic or intimate things with someone, but not wanting to be/not feeling comfortable being labeled as their spouse/partner/soulmate etc, despite feeling like you wouldn't want to do those same things with those you only have platonic attraction towards.
These examples are, technically, exact opposites but both apply equally to queerplatonic attraction. The common denominator that I've seen is the desire for certain levels of exclusivity and priority in someone's life, and reciprocating that intensity, but having no desire to be in a "traditional" partnership with that person. Please note: exclusivity does not equal being monogamous; plenty of people experience this in terms of polyfidelity or wanting to be in an open or polyaffectionate QPR.
Some people experience this in place of romantic attraction, most commonly a-spec folks, but anyone can feel it and/or be in a QPR (queerplatonic relationship).
Alteraffectis attraction is the outlier here; this attraction doesn't feel platonic or romantic in nature because those are human concepts, and wouldn't apply to any other species. While you don't have to be otherkin, therian, a pet regressor or anything similar to feel alteraffectis attraction, it's actually a lot easier to understand if you think of it as they would.
Alternatively, I find it easier to describe this attraction as the "xenogender of attractions", it's not actually this relationship between you and the person you're attracted to but it is most emotionally similar to your relation/attraction to this person.
Example: As humans, we have no way of knowing how a dog experiences attraction towards their owner, but we know how they express attraction towards their owner! It's clear from how they act when their owner comes home that they're excited, they enjoy their company, they want to spend time together, they feel grateful for their owners presence because they give them joy, toys, food, enrichment, and care for their health, they want to protect their owner, they feel like their owner would protect them, etc etc etc etc etc.
We do not have a name for this attraction, scientifically, but it's assumed that it wouldn't be a one-to-one comparison with platonic attraction because "friends", as humans understand the concept, doesn't really translate in the animal kingdom. The same with romantic attraction, animals don't date or marry in the same context that humans do, but they do experience intense social bonds that could be similar to it; ie. animals pair-bonding or keeping one mate throughout their life (even in cases where actual mating is not a possibility or ever initiated).
The examples go on, since technically alteraffectis doesn't have to be positive at all, given the definition. As much as everyone focuses on the good, alteraffectis attraction could also include "the way that a predator feels towards prey that they are hunting" or something equally troubling when put into a human context.
Regardless, because these aren't platonic or romantic feelings but are clearly distinct, important, and recognizable, they must be something else entirely. And from that point, we interpret those emotions to the best of our understanding and label them as Alteraffectis.
The easiest examples are with house-pets, since people are generally aware of them or can very easily search them and their behavior up online for context, but it can apply to ANY being that is not human. Just as we can't make an exact human-to-animal comparison of emotions, we wouldn't be able to equate the direct emotions of aliens, biblical entities, celestial bodies, thematic archetypes, etc etc etc.
It can feel spiritual, natural, mechanical, artificial, or anything in between really. Possibly even a combination of them.
Alteraffectis attraction is very hard to make concise while including any amount of nuance, so sorry about that.
Buuut yeah, I hope that helped even a little bit. Thanks for the opportunity to talk at length about queer attractions ^-^
