Is it necessary to identify as straight/bi/gay if you are an aroace?
I'll start by saying that I don't like feeling like an oriented aroace. I have a strong emotional attachment(It's like a romantic attraction) to characters, I can experience aesthetic attraction to both men and women (I have a much stronger attraction to women of a certain type), plus I have fetishes mostly for the female body, rarely for the male one. I'm not sure that I can experience standard attraction to real men and women, but maybe someday I will make an exception for someone if the desire arises (This relationship will develop into a queerplatonic intimacy in any case, since I am not a fan of romantic relationships), but nevertheless, I feel a lot of strong emotions. And with all this, the label bi/lesbian seems alien to me, and I don’t feel like one, even when I try to force myself to identify this way because “it’s like the right thing to do, I’m experiencing something. And if I experience something, then I MUST give it a name.”. I also don’t feel comfortable in the bi/lesbian community, I feel like I'm out of place. But the label "aroace" brings me complete comfort, peace and happiness.
What do you think about this? Is it necessary to identify as straight/bi/gay if you're an aroace with strong emotions that may be directed toward a specific gender? Even if you are demisexual/demiromantic and graysexual/grayromantic? I will also add that I feel like an aegoromantic/aegosexual, and maybe to some extent a grayromantic/graysexual
Posted Mar 14, 2026, 6:34 AM UTC