quick and dirty guide to orientation-related words
[PT: quick and dirty guide to orientation-related words. end PT]
we see a lot of misconceptions about what stuff like tertiary attraction is so here's a quick guide to clear stuff up!! this isn't meant to be fully comprehensive, just a cheat sheet
Orientation: orientation describes *what* the attraction is to. this can mean genders that someone is attracted to, object types that someone is attracted to, or even specific characteristics that someone is attracted to. generally orientations are matched with types of attraction to describe what someone experiences that type of attraction to. for example, asexual means not experiencing sexual attraction
sometimes, an orientation also describes the *when* of an attraction. for example, demiromantic means only experiencing romantic attraction when you are close to someone
Attraction type: attraction types describes the *how* of attraction and orientation. they don't describe what someone is attracted to and they are not a way to describe attraction based on things that aren't gender. an attraction type is generally a suffix to an orientation. for example, platonic attraction is a type of attraction that describes wanting to be friends with someone, and can be put in an orientation like panplatonic
with this understood, alteraffectis attractions can be understood to not mean attraction from a type of nonhuman to something, but instead that the attraction itself is something only able to be experienced by that type of nonhuman. an alteraffectis attraction described as the way a cat feels towards a dog is one that can only be experienced by cats and does *not* have to be towards a dog. it's just attraction that is the same as or comparable to what that feeling is
Allion: allions are like xenic orientations. they can be understood as not the what of an attraction, nor the how, but the feeling of the attraction. the coining post, which can be found here (https://radiomogai.tumblr.com/post/716182991919071232/allion-beyorientations-an-umbrella-term-for-all), says that allion is 'an umbrella term for all orientations that do not feel like they fit under the 'normal' standards or expectations of what orientations can be', end quote. this does tend to get pretty broad, so this is far from the only understanding of allions. another common one is that they describe what one's orientation is influenced by
as an example, plushieallion (https://radiomogai.tumblr.com/post/746833451353866240) may describe someone's orientation feeling like hugging a plushie, or it may mean that the way someone sees their orientation is filtered through being a plushie
i hope this made sense and helped clear up confusion!! our asks are always open to try and explain stuff like this
