Asexual Phenomenology: The Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality and Compulsory Allosexual Performativity

A phenomenological approach to understanding how social norms shape our perception of sexuality, romance, and human relationships.

Abstract
 
This article proposes the Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality (MMPOOS) as a phenomenologically inspired analytical framework for examining the influence of cultural and normative structures on the subjective experience of sexuality, intimacy, and interpersonal bonds. Drawing upon the phenomenological tradition and the concept of epoché, it argues that sexual experience may not present itself in an immediate or neutral manner, but rather be mediated by internalized interpretive systems that condition how individuals understand what they feel. Within this context, the concept of Allosexual Performativity is introduced, understood as the set of sociocultural mechanisms that tend to presume the universality and centrality of sexual attraction, thereby generating normative pressures that may influence the self-interpretation of experience. The MMPOOS is analytically organized around three principal axes: sexual self-concept, sexual intentionality, and intimacy, each of which is further divided into specific phenomenological dimensions. The theoretical framework is expanded through the incorporation of the Split Attraction Model, which allows distinctions to be drawn among different forms of attraction (sexual, romantic, platonic, alterous, aesthetic, and others). Building upon this distinction, a conceptual separation is proposed between baseline relational attraction, romance as a sociocultural construct, and love as a general affective capacity. The article also explores the performative function of sex and autoeroticism within normative systems, as well as the role of amatonormativity, mononormativity, and allonormativity in shaping relational experience. Finally, relationship anarchy is examined as a critique of categorical systems of bonding, proposing a shift away from rigid affective taxonomies toward the analysis of concrete relational experience. The article concludes by advocating a phenomenological approach to sexual self-knowledge grounded in attentive observation of experience rather than prior adherence to fixed identity categories.

 
Keywords
 
Phenomenology; sexuality; asexuality; aromanticism; affective normativity; allosexual performativity; MMPOOS; intimacy; relationship anarchy; Split Attraction Model; attraction; relational bonds.

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1. Introduction

 
Human sexuality constitutes one of the domains of experience most deeply shaped by cultural discourses, social expectations, and inherited systems of interpretation. Although desire, attraction, and romance are often assumed to be phenomena immediately accessible to individual consciousness, everyday experience suggests that people do not merely live their sexuality; they also constantly interpret it through socially learned categories.
This situation becomes especially visible in experiences that diverge from dominant normative models. Asexual, aromantic, and other individuals situated within non-normative relational spectra frequently describe processes of confusion, invisibilization, or reinterpretation of their own experiences due to the absence of adequate conceptual frameworks through which to understand them. In many cases, the difficulty lies not in the experience itself, but rather in the cultural filters through which that experience is perceived and interpreted.
The present work proposes a phenomenological approach to this problem. Drawing upon the classical phenomenological tradition, as well as various introspective tools associated with both qualitative research and certain contemplative practices, it explores the possibility of analyzing sexuality from the standpoint of direct individual experience while provisionally suspending the normative categories that ordinarily structure its understanding.
To this end, the Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality (MMPOOS) is proposed as an analytical tool designed to describe the mechanisms through which sociocultural discourses influence the perceptions individuals construct about themselves. As part of this model, the concept of Allosexual Performativity is introduced as a central mechanism through which allonormativity and other associated normative structures condition the interpretation of sexual and relational experience.
Rather than offering a definitive classification of sexual or romantic orientations, this work seeks to provide a phenomenological framework that facilitates self-knowledge and the description of lived experience. In this sense, its fundamental objective is not to determine what a person should feel, but rather to create conceptual conditions that allow for a clearer observation of what they actually experience.
 

2. Phenomenological Foundations of Perception, the Ego, and the Construction of Experience

 
Perception is, to a certain extent, mediated by our knowledge of reality and by our expectations. Social impositions and cultural conventions, indiscriminately embedded in our minds from the moment we are born, generate and reinforce prejudices and preconceptions concerning how things are, how they ought to be, or even what things are.
This set of cognitive structures and interpretive dispositions is what some psychological and philosophical traditions refer to as the ego. Broadly speaking, the ego is nothing more than the set of mental structures or factors that reproduce within our individual minds social norms and mandates regarding what is “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad,” morally “acceptable” or “unacceptable,” “true” or “false,” “real” or “unreal,” and so forth.
Much of the intellectual content that gives shape to the ego consists of prevailing conceptions related to ideology, traditions, family and relational models, sex, gender, and identity. All of these conceptions are, to varying degrees, transmitted from parents to children, from generation to generation, and are perpetuated or reinforced through several channels:
 

1. The family itself, which generates a microcosm or semi-closed system around itself, functioning like a bubble that continually reinforces its own assumptions.
2. Society, acting through multiple sources such as education, advertising, the media, the workplace, and academia.
3. The interaction between family and society, each of which nourishes and reinforces the other.
4. The interaction of the individual with people outside the family environment.
5. The individual's own ego, which perpetuates itself through three principal strategies: selfishness, egocentrism, and ignorance.

 
Selfishness may be understood as the desire to possess objects of reality, including both tangible objects—such as people—and intangible objects—such as thoughts and knowledge. This desire creates false expectations that, when unmet, lead to frustration. Egocentrism—the false notion that the self exists as a separate, independent, and sovereign entity—produces guilt and fixation upon the past, upon what might have been and was not, upon what one could have done and failed to do. Ignorance, meanwhile, refers to the very veil of the ego itself: the distorted or mediated perception mentioned previously.
In summary, the ego is a structure sustained, in part, by neurocognitive and learning patterns reinforced over time. Our ideology and our way of being are, to some extent, sculpted through the verbal repetition—both spoken and mental—of certain learned concepts, many of them acquired through coercion, punishment, or against our will. These concepts become consolidated and reinforced when corresponding attitudes, behaviors, or patterns are enacted in practice. Hence the tendency of many individuals to display a certain, sometimes stubborn, resistance to change. Neuroscientific literature, however, suggests that the nervous system possesses considerable plasticity, thereby allowing for a degree of reorganization of learned patterns.
Faced with this perspective, a justified question arises—one that has been, and continues to be, among the central problems of philosophy throughout human history: if our minds are “contaminated” or “veiled,” how can we come to know the world as it truly is?
At the mental level, for the purposes of logical and intellectual understanding, the world is reproduced in the form of representations. These mental representations may be more or less abstract, linguistic (internal discourse), visual (images), and so forth, but they are always mediated by the ego and are therefore inevitably incomplete or partial. Rational thought simply fills in the gaps left by memory or by our senses, which are physically incapable of perceiving the world and all its stimuli in their totality.
Perception, however, is one thing, while rational or intellectual understanding is quite another. A characteristic error in the history of Western science and philosophy has been the assumption that the essence of the world can be known only through reason. Such a postulate is ultimately untenable and deeply rooted in ego-centered modes of thought.
Modern phenomenology proposes an alternative path toward understanding reality—or at least understanding how reality presents itself to consciousness. If the intellect or rational mind, rather than facilitating direct apprehension of what occurs, instead obscures or disturbs the initial process of knowing, then we must dispense with its assistance. In phenomenological terms, this leads us to epoché and phenomenological reduction as the foundations upon which the phenomenological method is built. Phenomenological reduction is the mental process through which all preconceptions and intellectual activity are set aside when observing a fact (an event) or a phenomenon (the mental representation of that event). Epoché, meanwhile, refers to the experiential process through which we apprehend the essence of a phenomenon or event by “bracketing” what we believe we know about reality at the ontological level.
Critics of phenomenology might argue that, even when the ego and intellectual preconceptions are bracketed, the observer’s mind inevitably continues to perceive or generate representations of reality—even at subtle or organic levels, since perception itself is limited by the senses. Therefore, they might claim, what is perceived is never truly “real.”
Such objections have been extensively debated within the philosophy of perception. Consider, for example, a color-blind person and a non-color-blind person observing the same color. Which of the two is experiencing reality more accurately? Extending the example further, some animals perceive fewer colors than humans, while others perceive more, such as the mantis shrimp. Is the mantis shrimp’s experience more real than that of a human being? Is a human’s experience more real than that of a dog or a bull, both of which perceive color differently?
Anti-realism has been criticized for its epistemological implications in various philosophical debates. From a basic realist perspective, whatever is experienced forms part of the subject’s phenomenological reality. If something is experienced, then it exists as an experience and is therefore real and true within that experiential context. The experiences of the color-blind person, the non-color-blind person, the mantis shrimp, the dog, and the bull are all equally real; what differs is their subjective perception. This does not imply the existence of multiple realities. Rather, one may maintain, at least methodologically, the existence of a single shared reality accessed through diverse perceptual structures.
Another characteristic—though not exclusive—error of Western thought is the conceptual separation between subject and object, between observer and observed world. This interpretive error is common to all human beings and is produced by the ego; more specifically, by the notion of the self as a separate individuality. The processes of the ego tend to sustain themselves by continually constructing a false notion of who we are, based on what various external agents have told us we are or ought to be, until we eventually become convinced of it ourselves. This illusory notion of identity is the self, which manifests as both the volitional self and the passive self. The volitional self is the one that, in the present moment, attempts to perceive itself. Since this is impossible, the volitional self fixes its attention upon the passive self—that is, upon the memories we hold about ourselves and about who we supposedly are. In this way, the ego becomes attached to the past through the self as a manifestation of egocentrism. Yet the reality is that the self does not exist independently and separately from the world, from other people, and from other egos. Identity—the notion of the self—is constructed in relation to other selves, other groups, and other intellectual and cultural constructs into which we either wish, or feel compelled, to fit.
This egocentric position toward the world is what leads us to believe that, as observers, we are something distinct and separate from the events we observe and even from our own bodies. Yet this is, quite evidently, false.
We may understand epoché in terms of pure experience, basho, and muga. To begin with, it is useful to clarify the meaning of basho. In certain transcendental philosophical schools, basho refers to a discursive, logical, or even ontological “place.” Basho represents the position occupied by an object of reality—or by the mental representation of that object—in relation to all other objects that constitute reality. In other words, basho postulates a reality composed of interdependent objects whose dimensions simultaneously limit and complement one another. The parts or objects that exist within this world—the world of multiplicity or the objective world—associate and interrelate in order to form a global reality—the world of the Absolute. Within certain philosophical frameworks inspired by non-dual or process-oriented thought, the separation between objects has been understood as relational rather than substantial. From this perspective, multiplicity and causality are appearances—not because they do not exist, but because they are manifestations of a concrete universal that is inherent in everything that exists. The objects that exist “within” the universal delimit it (basho) and could not exist without it; in turn, the universal is nothing in itself and would likewise not exist without the collection of objects that constitute and inhabit it.
Within this paradigm, the self is defined as a basho or, more precisely, as the boundary between the individual basho and the collective basho, between being and nothingness. The self may therefore be described as a constantly changing relational process: something that emerges from the lived interaction between the individual (individual ego) and the world (collective ego), both of which ultimately share the same empty, mutable, or non-substantial essence. For this reason, the observing subject and the observed object are inseparable. In a certain sense, the event or phenomenon depends upon observation—or, more accurately, upon the experience of the event itself, which is nothing other than the world unfolding. Subject and object do not exist because the other exists; rather, both exist because there is an experience of which they are part, and the unfolding of that experience is reality itself.
Pure experience, or pure consciousness, represents epoché carried to its furthest consequences: the direct experience—unmediated by the intellect—of the true nature of the self, of mental contents, or of the world from a radically impartial standpoint. In accordance with the theory of basho, this position entails the recognition or embodiment of one’s own emptiness. The culmination of this method is muga: a mental state in which there is no distinction between the actor, the act, and what is observed.
As is evident, these theories bear certain similarities to various introspective and even spiritual practices, such as meditation. Indeed, meditation, in many of its forms, constitutes an extraordinarily precise and effective phenomenological method.
Meditative methods are generally classified into Shamatha–Shiné and Vipassanā–Lhaktong techniques, within which we find additional practices such as Pratyāhāra, Shikantaza, and Pi-kuan, all of which can be highly useful for phenomenological and introspective investigation.
Meditative practice (dhyāna), whose goal is the direct knowledge (prajñā) of the true nature of human beings and all phenomena, may be summarized as follows:
 

1. First, a state of Shamatha–Shiné or Mental Calm is achieved. Its foundation lies in quieting the mind, thereby allowing greater awareness of one's own being.
2. Once the mind has been quieted, a process of “mental blocking” or Pi-kuan may be undertaken if the objective is to observe or analyze the mind or body in a “clean” manner (Pratyāhāra).
3. Proper mental observation and analysis employ Vipassanā–Lhaktong or Insight (also translated as Clear Vision), consisting of the impartial contemplation or identification of mental contents without judgment or attachment.
4. Finally, at a more advanced level, Shikantaza consists of practicing radical presence without any object of meditation, allowing mind and body to be and manifest themselves without any attempt to control them.

It may therefore be said that meditation is—if the redundancy may be forgiven—a highly reliable method for the phenomenology of the mind. Its essential value lies in the fact that, through the observation of thoughts and mental factors, it enables one to distinguish between their form and their content, a distinction that is fundamental for phenomenological, psychological, and introspective inquiry.
According to formal logic—whose development was significantly influenced by phenomenology—language, and therefore thought, is articulated through combinations of propositions. A proposition is a linguistic structure that possesses no meaning in itself; meaning arises through the correlation between the proposition and the object of reality it represents.
From this emerges one of the most important contributions of modern logic: thoughts—or mental factors—whether voluntary or involuntary, are real as phenomena because they exist as events within the mind. However, the truth or falsity of their contents depends exclusively upon whether those contents correspond to actual events in the world. Thinking about something does not necessarily imply that it is true or that it exists independently of the mind. The effort to distinguish between experience and reality in this sense constitutes one of the central concerns of phenomenology.
Beyond meditation itself, modern phenomenology employs various techniques that may be understood as applications or extensions of its basic methodology.
In general terms, phenomenological techniques include direct observation, questionnaires or structured inventories, and hermeneutics (the detailed interpretation of texts).
Among observational techniques we may include meditation itself, as well as impartial observation of any event, whether internal—arising from the body—or external. We also find questionnaires and inventories, which are widely employed in the health sciences and in any form of research seeking to obtain experiential information from individuals. Finally, hermeneutic analysis consists of the detailed study of texts—whether written by research participants or by oneself—for the purpose of interpreting the meaning of a narrative objectively while preserving its experiential significance and subjective weight. Hermeneutic analysis is widely used in psychiatry, psychology, and sexology, just as questionnaires and inventories are, whether for interpreting life narratives, dreams, personality traits, sexual tendencies, or identity-related experiences.
 
 

3. Asexual Phenomenology: Proposal of the MMPOOS

 

3.1. Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality

 
As discussed previously, perception is partially mediated or distorted by the notion of the self. This self is constructed largely through interactions among individual selves and through their interaction with the surrounding sociocultural framework. Such interactions continually reinforce one another, mutate, and perpetuate themselves across time, generations, and social levels, as previously described.
This structure of symbolic and discursive feedback—which we might call the collective ego—influences and, to varying degrees, determines social behavior. In matters of identity, gender, and sexuality, its capacity to oppress, condition, punish, distort, and even erase or suppress non-normative realities is more than evident. Indeed, as this article proposes, it becomes possible to speak of a Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality (MMPOOS) for analyzing the normative algorithm whose primary mechanism of expression is what I call Allosexual Performativity.
The MMPOOS is conceived as a system for identifying and describing the various substructures of the collective ego which, through education, language, the collective unconscious, propaganda, and other cultural vehicles, shape and condition behavior, cognition, and even perception with regard to one’s own sexuality.
The principal analytical substructures of the MMPOOS are Sexual Self-Concept, Sexual Intentionality, and Intimacy.
 
1. Sexual Self-Concept: refers to the manner in which a person perceives themselves in relation to their own sexuality or sexual needs. More precisely, it concerns whether an individual perceives themselves as a sexual person or not, and to what extent, both in relation to themselves and in relation to others.
2. Sexual Intentionality: refers to the willingness to engage in activities typically categorized as sexual. Taken as a whole, it encompasses sexual arousal, sexual desire, and sexual attraction.
2.1. Sexual Arousal: consists of the set of physiological and neurobiological responses associated with the activation of bodily systems related to sexuality. These responses may include hormonal changes, increased heart rate, genital vasocongestion, lubrication, erection, heightened bodily sensitivity, and various neurochemical modifications associated with pleasure and reward. From a phenomenological perspective, it is essential to distinguish sexual arousal from other dimensions of sexual experience. Arousal is primarily a bodily phenomenon rather than an intentional orientation toward another person or an expression of conscious desire. Contemporary research on asexuality has demonstrated that physiological arousal may occur in the absence of sexual attraction, directed sexual desire, or erotic relational interest. The body may respond sexually without such responses necessarily implying a subjective orientation toward a specific sexual object. Consequently, sexual arousal should be understood as a relatively autonomous physiological process that may—but need not—be integrated with other dimensions of sexual experience.
2.2. Sexual Desire: may be defined as the subjective motivation oriented toward the pursuit, participation in, or anticipation of sexual or autoerotic experiences. Unlike arousal, which primarily describes a bodily state, desire involves a motivational and intentional dimension. The individual experiences an active inclination toward engaging in sexual behaviors or obtaining erotic experiences perceived as satisfying. Contemporary literature commonly distinguishes between spontaneous desire and responsive desire. The former emerges in a relatively autonomous manner, whereas the latter arises in response to specific contexts, relational stimuli, or particular affective dynamics. From the perspective of ace phenomenology, sexual desire should not be confused with sexual attraction. A person may experience sexual desire without necessarily directing it toward specific individuals, just as they may experience sexual attraction without feeling any immediate desire for sexual interaction. This distinction constitutes one of the most significant conceptual contributions of contemporary asexuality studies.
2.3. Sexual Attraction: is a specific form of intentional orientation through which one person perceives another as a potential object of sexual interest. Unlike physiological arousal or generalized sexual desire, sexual attraction involves a concrete direction toward specific individuals. Phenomenologically, sexual attraction is characterized by a particular reorganization of interpersonal perception. The other person appears as sexually relevant within the individual's experiential horizon. The asexual experience has contributed decisively to demonstrating that this form of attraction is not a universal component of human experience. The persistent or predominant absence of sexual attraction does not necessarily imply an absence of affectivity, intimacy, desire for connection, or relational capacity. Indeed, this distinction constitutes one of the conceptual foundations of contemporary asexual identity.
3. Intimacy: refers to the degree of mutual access, shared vulnerability, and relational depth that exists between two or more individuals. From a phenomenological perspective, intimacy is neither a single entity nor an inherently sexual phenomenon. Rather, it consists of a set of dimensions through which individuals construct meaningful closeness. Research by authors such as Elizabeth Frederick, together with various contemporary models of relational therapy, has contributed to distinguishing multiple forms of intimacy.
3.1. Emotional Intimacy: is the capacity to share feelings, insecurities, concerns, joys, and deeply affective experiences. It presupposes trust, emotional openness, and mutual recognition.
3.2. Physical Intimacy: refers to shared bodily proximity. Depending on the relational context, it may include either sexual or non-sexual physical contact. Ace phenomenology has shown that physical intimacy should not automatically be equated with sexuality.
3.3. Intellectual Intimacy: consists of the profound exchange of ideas, reflections, interests, debates, and conceptual frameworks. Many meaningful relationships find one of their primary foundations within this dimension.
3.4. Spiritual Intimacy: involves the sharing of practices, beliefs, ethical values, existential pursuits, or experiences related to the meaning of life. It does not necessarily require religious affiliation.
3.5. Experiential Intimacy: is the construction of closeness through shared or analogous experiences. Travels, common projects, jointly overcome difficulties, or parallel life trajectories may generate particularly profound forms of experiential intimacy.
 

3.2. Allosexual Performativity and Normative Structures of Sexuality

 
These three pillars, in turn, collide with, interact with, and are influenced by various normative discourses that configure or enforce Allosexual Performativity. These include amatonormativity, allonormativity, mononormativity, cisheteronormativity, compulsory sexuality, and compulsive sexuality.
 
1. Amatonormativity: Originally developed by Elizabeth Brake, amatonormativity may be defined as the cultural assumption that every person ought to aspire to an exclusive, enduring, and central romantic relationship in order to achieve a fulfilling life. This norm places romantic relationships above other forms of connection and organizes a substantial portion of social expectations concerning maturity, emotional success, and personal fulfillment. Ace phenomenology has identified amatonormativity as one of the principal factors contributing to the invisibilization of deeply meaningful non-romantic relationships.
2. Allonormativity: refers to the cultural assumption that every person naturally, regularly, and universally experiences sexual attraction. Within this paradigm, sexuality appears as an inevitable component of human experience, while the absence of sexual attraction is often interpreted as an anomaly, immaturity, repression, or pathology. Allonormativity is arguably the normative structure most directly challenged by contemporary asexual experience.
3. Mononormativity: refers to the cultural assumption that monogamy constitutes the natural, desirable, mature, or morally superior form of relational organization. Within this framework, exclusive relationships between two individuals are presented as the universal relational model, while alternative configurations—such as polyamory, relationship anarchy, or certain forms of queerplatonic bonding—are frequently regarded as exceptional, unstable, or less legitimate. From a critical perspective, mononormativity operates in a manner analogous to other contemporary normativities: not necessarily through explicit prohibitions, but through the differential production of recognition, legitimacy, and social visibility.
4. Cisheteronormativity: is the cultural system that simultaneously treats two assumptions as normative: that every person is cisgender and that every person is heterosexual. This framework organizes institutions, discourses, and social expectations in such a way that other experiences of gender and orientation appear as deviations from an implicit norm. Cisheteronormativity does not operate solely through explicit exclusion; it also functions through invisibilization and through the unequal distribution of social legitimacy.
5. Compulsive Sexuality and Compulsory Sexuality: Although often related, compulsive sexuality and compulsory sexuality constitute distinct phenomena. Compulsive sexuality refers to patterns of sexual behavior characterized by a significant loss of control, persistence despite negative consequences, and the recurrent use of sexual activity as a mechanism of emotional regulation. Compulsory sexuality, by contrast, is a sociocultural concept describing the set of norms, expectations, and discourses that present sexuality as a necessary requirement for maturity, normality, psychological health, or human fulfillment. From an ace perspective, compulsory sexuality represents a specific manifestation of allonormativity. Its primary effect consists in transforming a legitimate experiential possibility—sexuality—into a universal normative requirement. Phenomenologically, this creates a situation in which individuals who do not experience sexual attraction are encouraged to perceive their own experience as incomplete, defective, or provisional. The ace critique does not question the legitimacy of sexuality itself; rather, it challenges the assumption that every human life must necessarily be organized around it.
 
Allosexual Performativity may therefore be defined as the set of cognitive, affective, interpretive, and behavioral processes through which individuals reproduce—or attempt to conform to—the cultural assumption that sexual attraction and sexual activity are universal, necessary, and constitutive aspects of human experience. Within the framework of the MMPOOS, Allosexual Performativity constitutes the principal mechanism through which allonormativity and other associated normative structures express themselves, influencing both observable behavior and the perceptions individuals develop regarding their own sexuality.
 

3.3. Phenomenological Differentiation of Forms of Attraction: The Split Attraction Model

 
Given this perspective, it is worthwhile to direct our attention once again to sexual intentionality and, more specifically, to the concept of sexual attraction. Precisely because of the cognitive and behavioral constraints produced by Allosexual Performativity and by the normative substructures that give rise to it, the existence of multiple forms of attraction remains a relatively underexplored and largely unknown topic. This lack of awareness is not so much experiential as intellectual or conceptual. The dominant tendency is to grant primacy to sexual attraction and even to conflate it with romantic attraction, despite the fact that the two are entirely distinct phenomena.
The Split Attraction Model (SAM) emerged primarily within asexual and aromantic communities as a conceptual tool intended precisely to differentiate various forms of attraction that had historically been grouped together under overly broad categories. Its central proposal is that human relational experience cannot be reduced to a single undifferentiated form of attraction. The following is a standardized and expanded version of the Split Attraction Model:
 
1. Sexual Attraction: As previously described, sexual attraction is an orientation toward another person characterized by sexual interest or by perceiving that individual as a potential object of sexual interaction.
2. Romantic Attraction: Romantic attraction is the desire to establish romantic bonds characterized by affective commitment, symbolic exclusivity, romantic gestures, or relational structures culturally identified as romance. Romantic attraction may exist independently of sexual attraction. The object of romantic attraction is commonly referred to as a crush.
3. Platonic Attraction: Platonic attraction is the desire to establish or deepen a meaningful friendship characterized by emotional closeness, trust, companionship, and interpersonal connection, without necessarily implying romantic or sexual interest. Platonic attraction constitutes a fundamental relational dimension of human experience and plays a particularly important role in many asexual and aromantic experiences, where friendships may assume a centrality equal to or greater than that culturally attributed to romantic relationships. The object of platonic attraction is commonly referred to as a squish.
4. Alterous Attraction: Alterous attraction is a form of attraction characterized by the desire to establish an emotionally significant bond that does not fit comfortably within traditional categories of either friendship or romance. Alterous attraction occupies an intermediate or alternative space relative to those categories and is often described as an orientation toward forms of connection that are difficult to classify using conventional relational models. This concept has acquired particular relevance within aro and ace communities because of its ability to describe relational experiences that challenge traditional dichotomies between friendship and romance. The object of alterous attraction is commonly referred to as a mesh. A closely related term is squash, which refers to a person with whom one wishes to establish a non-normative queerplatonic relationship (QPR), sometimes also referred to as a zucchini.
5. Aesthetic Attraction: The appreciation of a person's beauty, appearance, or visual appeal without implying sexual or romantic desire. Phenomenologically, it resembles aesthetic contemplation more closely than erotic desire.
6. Sensual Attraction: The desire for physical contact that is not necessarily sexual. This includes behaviors such as hugging, caressing, holding hands, resting one's head on another person, or maintaining affectionate bodily proximity.
7. Emotional Attraction: A feeling of deep affective connection based on emotional resonance, mutual understanding, or emotional affinity.
8. Intellectual Attraction: A particular interest in another person's way of thinking, ideas, conversations, or cognitive abilities. It may constitute a central element in the formation of meaningful relationships.
9. Spiritual Attraction: A sense of connection based on transcendent values, shared spiritual practices, compatible worldviews, or experiences of profound meaning.
10. Experiential Attraction: The desire to share life experiences, projects, adventures, activities, or existential trajectories with another person. Although still underdeveloped theoretically, this form of attraction is especially relevant for understanding many contemporary queerplatonic relationships.
11. Foundational Bonding Attraction: psychological and affective disposition oriented toward forming, maintaining, or deepening meaningful bonds with other people. It manifests as a tendency toward closeness, mutual trust, intimacy, and interpersonal connection without necessarily implying sexual or romantic attraction. From a phenomenological perspective, it constitutes a general form of relational orientation through which certain individuals appear especially relevant to the construction of a meaningful bond. Its foundations may be found in mechanisms of attachment, social affiliation, and shared emotional regulation that have been extensively studied in psychology and social neurobiology. Foundational bonding attraction must be distinguished from sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and other specific forms of attraction. Whereas these are directed toward particular dimensions of relational experience, foundational bonding attraction represents a broader and more fundamental tendency toward human connection.
 
One of the primary difficulties in analyzing romantic experience is that distinct concepts often become fused under a single label. In everyday language, terms such as love, attachment, romance, falling in love, and romantic attraction are frequently used as though they were interchangeable, when in fact they may refer to different psychological and sociocultural phenomena. This confusion is particularly problematic when attempting to understand experiences situated within the asexual and aromantic spectrums, where many of the traditional associations between love, sexuality, and romance cease to function automatically.
From this perspective, it is useful to distinguish, first and foremost, love as a general affective capacity. Love is not necessarily a specific form of attraction nor an exclusive component of romance. Rather, it encompasses a set of emotional processes related to care, genuine concern for the well-being of others, compassion, affection, and the maintenance of meaningful bonds. Understood in this way, love may be directed toward friends, family members, partners, communities, or any other significant figure without necessarily involving romantic or sexual attraction. Research in attachment theory and social neurobiology suggests that human beings possess deeply rooted mechanisms for forming and preserving affective bonds, mechanisms that are not limited to the romantic domain.
On this basis, I propose the aforementioned concept of Foundational Bonding Attraction, understood as the psychological and affective tendency to seek, value, or develop meaningful connections with particular individuals. This attraction is not intrinsically romantic or sexual. Rather, it represents a general disposition toward emotional proximity, trust, reciprocity, and the construction of intimacy. Its foundations may be found in neurobiological systems related to attachment, social affiliation, and shared emotional regulation, all of which are present to varying degrees in most human beings.
At the same time, it is important to distinguish this bonding dimension from the concept of romance. Within the present framework, romance is not understood as a universal emotion nor as a singular psychological reality, but rather as a sociocultural construct. That is, it consists of a set of narratives, symbols, expectations, and relational models through which particular societies interpret and organize certain affective bonds. Elements such as idealized falling in love, romantic exclusivity, courtship, the search for a special person, or the centrality of romantic relationships in an individual's life all form part of this cultural framework.
Consequently, romantic attraction may be understood as the result of the interaction between foundational bonding attraction and the cultural framework of romance. When an individual experiences a strong bonding impulse toward another person and that impulse is interpreted through the romantic categories available within their social environment, the experience commonly referred to as romantic attraction—or a crush—may emerge.
However, this combination need not occur in the same way for all individuals. This possibility allows for the understanding of a wide variety of relational experiences, both within the romantic spectrum and within the aromantic spectrum, including gray-romantic and alterous experiences. Some individuals may experience strong bonding attraction alongside a clear identification with conventional romantic narratives. Others may experience profound, intense, and meaningful bonds that do not fit comfortably within the category of romance, approaching experiences described as gray-romantic, demiromantic, queer-romantic, queerplatonic, or alterous. Likewise, some aromantic individuals may experience affection, attachment, or intimacy without developing what is culturally recognized as romantic attraction.
This proposal does not seek to deny the existence of romantic attraction nor to reduce it to a mere cultural product. More modestly, it suggests the possibility that what we commonly call romance may not constitute a homogeneous and universal reality, but rather a complex experience involving biological bonding mechanisms, psychological attachment structures, and cultural frameworks of interpretation. From this perspective, understanding human relationships requires moving beyond traditional categories and analyzing with greater precision the various forms of intimacy, affection, and connection that shape contemporary relational experience.
 

3.4. Sex, Autoeroticism, and the Performative Function of Sexuality

 
As a relevant analytical step toward understanding and dismantling the mechanisms of Allosexual Performativity, it is necessary to revisit its fundamental pillar: the normative concept of sex.
Allonormativity promotes compulsory sexual practice as a performative system. This sexual performativity may generate contexts in which the social reiteration of sexual orientation and of one’s “sexual skills” is expected, these being regarded as fundamental requirements of an individual's worth as a respectable and successful human being. This allosexual performativity is imposed at both public and private levels through the constant pursuit of a sexual partner and through the demonstration or display—whether explicit or implicit—of normatively desirable sexual abilities with that partner. Within this paradigm, individuals who do not have a sexual partner, do not seek one, or do not express interest in obtaining one are frequently perceived as anomalous, immature, repressed, or unwell. This is not necessarily the result of conscious imposition by specific individuals, but rather of a set of sedimented cultural expectations that function as criteria of social intelligibility.
Consequently, given its performative and demonstrative function, sex is often socially conceptualized as some form of activity involving two or more people in which the sexual organs—and, depending on the case, other erogenous areas of the human body—are involved for the purpose of obtaining pleasure or satisfaction, fulfilling reproductive biological functions, or serving as a mechanism of egoic confirmation and self-confirmation of one’s orientation and sexual worth. In other words, sex may function as a sociosexual activity, a reproductive activity, an allo-performative activity, or a combination of several of these functions simultaneously. From this perspective, sex appears not merely as a bodily practice but also as an act laden with symbolic, identity-related, and relational significance.
Sex, as defined here, should not be confused with autoeroticism, which is the practice through which an individual provides pleasure to themselves through the stimulation of the sexual organs or other erogenous parts of the body. This distinction is not intended to establish moral or psychological hierarchies between the two practices, but rather to indicate that they may fulfill phenomenologically and socially different functions. Autoeroticism may acquire an allo-performative function insofar as it feeds the individual's ego by serving as a source of sexual or identity-related self-confirmation. If this dimension disappears or is deconstructed, then autoeroticism need not possess an allo-performative character. Instead, it may acquire new meanings or even lack any particularly relevant symbolic significance for the person who engages in it.
Both sex and autoeroticism involve intentionality and the pursuit of pleasure, provided that the act is consensual. The absence of consent constitutes a sufficient condition for placing a practice outside the realm of legitimate sexual interaction. It should also be emphasized that consent is an indispensable ethical condition, whereas the pursuit of pleasure may take diverse forms and is not always explicitly or consciously present in every context. Therefore, within this conceptual framework, sexual or autoerotic activities carried out without consent, or without an intentionality connected to pleasure, subjective well-being, or identity confirmation, do not fully fall within the concept as it is being used here.
For example, an asexual person who masturbates remains asexual because masturbation is autoeroticism, not sex. Furthermore, if such masturbation is not motivated by pleasure or self-confirmation but rather by simple “biological maintenance,” physiological regulation, or the relief of certain bodily tensions, then its inclusion within strict definitions of autoeroticism may itself be questioned, as it would constitute a bodily practice whose primary purpose is not erotic but merely functional.
 

3.5. Beyond Categories: The Relationship Anarchist Critique

 
As a final critique of relational frameworks in general, it is worth devoting a few paragraphs to Relationship Anarchy, also known as Relational Anarchy.
Relationship anarchy is a philosophy of human relationships that emerged within queer, feminist, and non-monogamous environments, whose most widely known formulation can be found in Andie Nordgren’s Relationship Anarchy Manifesto. Its fundamental proposal consists of questioning the idea that human relationships should be organized according to predetermined hierarchies, categories, or affective trajectories. From this perspective, every relationship should be freely constructed through explicit agreements between the people involved, without assuming in advance what form it ought to take or what place it ought to occupy within an individual's life.
The critique advanced by relationship anarchy is directed primarily against amatonormativity and mononormativity—that is, against the assumption that the exclusive romantic partnership constitutes the most important, desirable, or legitimate form of connection. However, some relationship-anarchist approaches extend this critique beyond traditional affective models and apply it also to alternative frameworks that, while useful for describing non-normative experiences, continue to organize relational reality through relatively stable categories.
From this perspective, models such as the Split Attraction Model may be valuable descriptive tools for understanding the diversity of human experiences, particularly within asexual and aromantic communities. Nevertheless, certain relationship anarchist authors and practitioners warn that every classification carries the risk of reifying complex and fluid phenomena. The distinction between romantic, sexual, platonic, alterous, or sensual attraction may facilitate understanding of subjective experience, but it may also become a new taxonomic system that artificially delimits affective realities which, in practice, often appear mixed, overlapping, or in constant transformation.
From a relationship-anarchist perspective, the fundamental question is not what type of attraction or relationship exists between two people, but rather how those people experience, negotiate, and construct that relationship. In this sense, attention shifts away from categories and toward the concrete relationship itself. The value of a relationship does not depend on whether it is romantic, sexual, platonic, queerplatonic, or of any other nature, but rather on the quality of the connection, consent, mutual care, and the autonomy of those who participate in it.
Relationship anarchy itself is not a unified doctrine. There are currents more closely linked to political anarchism and queer feminism, others focused on relational ethics and personal autonomy, and still others closely associated with ethical non-monogamy. Nevertheless, all share a common critical intuition: human relationships are too diverse to be fully contained within normative models, predetermined hierarchies, or universal categories.
From this perspective, both traditional relational models and many of their alternatives may be understood as useful maps, but never as the territory itself. The human experience of connection constantly exceeds the classifications that attempt to describe it. Ultimately, relationship anarchy reminds us that no affective category possesses ontological priority over any other and that the legitimacy of a relationship depends not on its conformity to a predetermined structure but on the freedom, consent, and meaning attributed to it by the people involved.
 

3.6. Practical Application of the MMPOOS to Sexual Self-Knowledge

 
At this point, it becomes more than evident that, beyond concepts themselves, the most relevant aspect in the process of recognizing one’s own sexuality is sexual will or sexual intentionality in the broadest sense. That is, what the individual wants or needs for their own well-being.
The Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality (MMPOOS), as a phenomenological method, proposes a direct and experiential approach to sexuality by placing all preconceptions about sexuality “in brackets,” thereby making it possible to observe bodily and mental reality as it presents itself to the individual’s consciousness.
The objective is not to doubt oneself but rather to question everything one believed about oneself; in other words, to identify and deconstruct the ego in order to perceive clearly one’s true nature and, more specifically, one’s genuine sexuality.
The method begins with nonjudgmental self-observation. The individual should observe both body and mind as a whole, identifying sensations, physical reactions, and emotions in response to different stimuli or experiences of a potentially sexual or erotic nature. Examples might include sexual fantasies, observing people one finds attractive, autoerotic practices, viewing erotic or sexual audiovisual materials, engaging in sexual activities, and so forth. Naturally, each person may engage in whichever practices they deem appropriate or in other activities that ultimately allow them to test their assumptions about their own sexuality.
Knowing one’s personal boundaries—what one wants or would be willing to do—is equally fundamental.
These practices should be carried out impartially, avoiding judgments and identifications. First, it is important to emphasize that experimentation undertaken in pursuit of self-knowledge is neither “good” nor “bad.” Second, we must be clear that we are not our minds, our thoughts, or our emotions. Involuntary mental contents are, to a significant extent, manifestations of the ego and of mental conditioning, and the same can be said, at least partially, of emotions. Accordingly, the first step toward self-discovery must be disidentification and the voluntary relinquishment of everything we believed defined us as individuals.
During this initial phase, it is essential not to label or define anything yet. It is sufficient simply to identify the reactions and basic needs that the body reveals.
Subsequently, techniques such as standardized questionnaires or textual analysis may be employed. A useful starting point may be writing a list of statements or reflections concerning one’s sexual needs, desires, or interests, as well as one’s sexual self-concept and any other aspects of the MMPOOS that have been identified. This list should remain revisable. It is not a dogma; rather, it should be expected to change over time, at least throughout the process of self-discovery. When composing such a list, excessive labeling should be avoided. The exercise should remain purely descriptive of personal experiences and sensations.
 

3.7. Exploratory Instrument for the Phenomenological Analysis of Sexuality and Romance

 
With regard to the questionnaire, it should likewise remain impartial concerning labels. Labels should not be imposed before the process of self-discovery—that is precisely what the normative model does. Rather, any identity-related terms that a person ultimately chooses to use should emerge or be discovered naturally during, or at the conclusion of, the process.
One possible example of a standardized aroace questionnaire is the following:
 

1. Do I see myself as a sexual person?
2. Do I want to have sex with other people?
   
3. Do I enjoy sex or the way it makes me feel?
   
4. Am I interested in sex on an intellectual level but not on a personal level?
   
5. Do I experience sexual arousal?
   
6. Do I experience sexual desire?
   
7. Do I experience sexual attraction?
   
8. Do I experience forms of attraction other than sexual attraction?
   
9. Do I experience any form of romantic, platonic, or alterous attraction?
   
10. Do I want to have a meaningful bond with other people, whether in romantic terms or otherwise?
    
11. Does sex generally fail to interest me in any way, or do I find it boring?
    
12. Am I disgusted by sex?
    
13. Do I feel fine without sex?
    
14. Do sexual situations or highly sexualized people make me feel uncomfortable, anxious, or even repulsed?
    
15. Have I ever experienced sexual attraction toward a specific person? If so, does it happen frequently or only under very exceptional circumstances?
    
16. Does sexual attraction emerge only after developing a deep emotional connection?
    
17. Have I ever mistaken admiration, affection, or curiosity for sexual attraction?
    
18. Can I recognize that a person is attractive without wanting any kind of sexual interaction with them?
    
19. Do I fantasize about sexual situations that I would not wish to enact in reality?
    
20. Would I feel indifferent about whether or not I have sex for the rest of my life?
    
21. Does the idea of having sex appeal to me more in theory than in practice?
    
22. Have I engaged in sexual relationships primarily to meet social expectations or the expectations of others?
    
23. Do I feel pressure to appear sexually interested even when I am not?
    
24. Do I see myself as a romantic person?
    
25. Have I ever experienced something that I would clearly identify as being in love or having a crush?
    
26. How frequently do such crushes occur?
    
27. Do crushes arise only after developing a strong emotional connection?
    
28. Have I ever mistaken deep friendship, admiration, or attachment for romantic attraction?
    
29. Do I desire a romantic relationship?
    
30. Do I desire a romantic relationship even when I do not feel romantic attraction toward anyone in particular?
    
31. Do romantic narratives appeal to me more in fiction than in my own life?
    
32. Do I find the idea of a romantic relationship pleasant, indifferent, or unpleasant?
    
33. Would I feel fulfilled if I never had a romantic partner?
    
34. Have I sought romantic relationships because I genuinely desired them, or because they were expected of me?
    
35. Do I need deep and meaningful bonds in order to feel fulfilled?
    
36. Do I prefer clearly defined relationships or more flexible connections that are difficult to classify?
    
37. Have I developed relationships that seem more intense than a conventional friendship but that I would not describe as romantic?
    
38. Do I identify with the idea of a queerplatonic relationship?
    
39. Do I wish to share my everyday life with someone without necessarily involving romance or sexuality?
    
40. Am I more interested in emotional intimacy than in sexual or romantic intimacy?
    
41. Which forms of intimacy are most important to me: emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, or experiential?
    
42. Have I experienced a form of attraction that is difficult to describe as either friendship or romance?
    
43. Have I desired intense closeness with someone without wanting a romantic or sexual relationship?
    
44. Have I experienced a need for emotional exclusivity without experiencing romantic attraction?
    
45. Are there people toward whom I feel something significant that does not fit within the usual categories?
    
46. Do I feel different from most people regarding matters related to sex or romance?
    
47. Are there aspects of my affective or sexual experience that I find difficult to explain using conventional categories?
    
48. Have I ever thought that I should be feeling something that I was not actually feeling?
    
49. Have I ever acted as though I experienced sexual or romantic attraction in order to fit in socially?
    
50. Which aspect of my experience do I consider most important: desire, attraction, intimacy, or connection?
    
51. Does my way of relating to others align with what society expects of me, or does it tend to diverge from those expectations?
    
52. What I believe I feel—does it come from my direct experience, or from what I have learned that I am supposed to feel?
    

 
Questionnaires such as this one, or others of a similar nature, may help individuals clarify their thoughts and develop a more precise understanding of their own sexuality.
In particular, for members of the aroace community—who often face greater difficulties in identifying their own sexual or romantic orientation due to lack of information, invisibilization, or pathologization—it is essential to have access to informational resources and to some form of standardized framework that facilitates this process. This is precisely what the MMPOOS seeks to provide.
 

4. Discussion

 
The analyses developed throughout this work allow us to raise a fundamental question: to what extent does the sexuality we believe we experience correspond to our direct experience, and to what extent does it correspond to the interpretations we have learned about it?
The MMPOOS is grounded in the premise that the perception of one’s own sexuality is mediated by cultural and interpretive frameworks. Bodily, affective, and relational experience is constantly mediated by normative structures that provide pre-established categories of interpretation. From this perspective, phenomena such as amatonormativity, allonormativity, and compulsory sexuality not only shape behavior but also configure the way individuals perceive, describe, and understand their own experiences.
The model’s primary contribution lies in partially shifting the focus away from identity labels and toward the underlying phenomenological experience. Concepts such as arousal, desire, attraction, intimacy, and connection can be analyzed relatively independently before being integrated into broader identity categories. This change in perspective makes it possible to better understand many experiences situated within the asexual and aromantic spectrums, as well as certain experiences that do not fit easily within traditional models of sexual or romantic orientation.
At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the limitations inherent in this proposal.
The MMPOOS constitutes a theoretical and interpretive model rather than a diagnostic instrument or a closed explanatory theory. Many of the concepts presented here require further empirical validation and could benefit from future phenomenological, psychological, and sociological research. Likewise, the categories employed should be understood as provisional descriptive tools rather than rigid ontological entities.
Ultimately, the usefulness of the model will depend on its capacity to facilitate a more precise understanding of human experience without replacing one set of normative assumptions with another. From a phenomenological standpoint, particular emphasis is placed on maintaining a critical attitude toward any category that claims to exhaust the richness of lived experience.
 

5. Conclusion

 
Phenomenology applied to sexuality makes it possible to reconsider a question that frequently remains hidden beneath normative discourses: the distinction between what a person experiences and what they believe they ought to experience.
Throughout this work, it has been argued that the perception of one’s own sexuality is mediated by complex cultural structures that influence the construction of sexual self-concept, the interpretation of sexual intentionality, and the understanding of intimacy. To describe this phenomenon, the Model of the Mediated Perception of One’s Own Sexuality (MMPOOS) has been proposed, together with the concept of Allosexual Performativity as the principal mechanism through which certain sexual normativities are reproduced and perpetuated.
Asexual and aromantic experiences provide a particularly fertile field for this analysis because they bring to light aspects of sexuality that tend to remain invisible when regarded as universal. By challenging the presumed inevitability of sexual or romantic attraction, these experiences make it possible to distinguish more precisely between desire, attraction, attachment, intimacy, connection, and romance, thereby revealing the true complexity of human affective life.
The ultimate purpose of this proposal is not to replace one set of categories with another, nor to establish new identity orthodoxies. Its objective is more modest: to provide phenomenological tools that enable each individual to observe, describe, and interpret their experience with greater clarity and with less interference from normative imperatives.
Perhaps phenomenology’s most important contribution to this field is the reminder that self-knowledge does not begin with a label, but with the honest observation of experience. Only after that observation can categories fulfill their legitimate function: to describe what has been lived, rather than to determine in advance what ought to be lived.
 

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