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[–]endless_assfluff 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It hasn't been debunked because it's unfalsifiable. To debunk it, the claim we would need to prove is "nobody who has existed, ever, has not been romantically attracted to one group of people and sexually attracted to another." And we can't test that.

I'd say the bigger issue is lumping romantic attraction into the definition of 'orientation,' because it undermines the research done to show that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable.

First off (and this is the slightly weaker argument), by the definition the author gives in the first article you linked, the 'desire to have a committed, romantic relationship with someone' can be influenced by social factors, while sexual orientation cannot. Both sources try to distinguish between romantic and nonsexual attraction, but they don't specify the difference between close, affectionate friendships and nonsexual romantic relationships. I'd argue this is because the idea of a nonsexual romantic relationship is a social construct. If not with sex, where do they draw the line? Because if they don't, two couples showing the exact same nonsexual behavior could be considered friends or partners depending on how they choose to label themselves. And then it's a societal label, not a descriptor of any meaningful difference in behavior. If the definition they have for a 'romantic relationship' is divorced from sexual attraction, the factors that lead them to label a relationship as 'romantic' are societal, and so the decision is a social one. Not one with any relation to biology.

And the second bit (stronger argument) is that 'romantic orientation' can change, as the author of the first article admits. She says, "my orientation is really fluid and changes often." That's quite a vague statement: is she saying her romantic orientation changes often, but her sexual orientation does not? Or that her romantic and sexual orientation both change? Or that only her sexual orientation changes? Because the statement she made could mean any of those things.

That sort of semantic confusion, placing 'the desire for a romantic relationship' or 'tender feelings' at the same level as sexual orientation, does one of two things. It either lends a false gravitas to the idea of romantic-but-nonsexual attraction---suggesting that romantic and sexual orientation are both well-studied and empirically established concepts, when really it's just sexual orientation---or it suggests that sexual orientation is a mutable social choice just like 'romantic orientation' is. Bleh in either direction.

I feel compelled to clarify that the difference between romantic attraction, sexual attraction, and no attraction is indeed ill-defined in these sources, but if you go that route, the opposing party can just continue to assert their definition as if you "didn't get it." Now, "how the heck do you differentiate between 'tender' and 'passionate' feelings when both of these are subjective, where, in contrast, sexual arousal is an observable physiological response?" is a tempting question to ask because it indeed makes no sense. But if you ask that, you're opening yourself for a condescending explanation of the words 'tender' and 'passionate,' and then you're gonna have a nice forehead-sized hole in your wall.

And then there are logistical issues caused by elevating romantic attraction over the other 562438645234 forms of attraction suggested by the author of the first article. "Attraction can be infinitely more complicated than that" calls the author's understanding of infinity into question, and it also suggests that if romantic attraction can be used to describe one's orientation, why not include sensual, aesthetic, platonic, etc., affection as well?

So that's the strongest counterargument to the idea of romantic orientation I can come up with right now. While these labels might help an individual classify themselves the same way a Which Spice Girl Are You? quiz would ("learning about this 'label' gave me the vocabulary to understand and describe my complicated, difficult feelings"), grouping them with sexual orientation is legit harmful.