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Valentine's Day: Your guide to love in the 21st century

Who says love is easy? We need a new dictionary for love...

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Even celebrated Urdu-Persian poet Mirza Ghalib who wrote, 'Yeh Ishq Nahi Aasan Bas Itna Samajh Lijiye / Ek Aag Ka Dariya Hai Aur Doob Kar Jaana Hai' (Know this that love ain’t easy/ Getting across this sea of fire needs plunging headlong) might’ve been foxed to find how love has come to mean a panoply of complex definitions in the times we live in. On the occasion of Valentine’s Day Yogesh Pawar put together a glossary of love, sex and political correctness. 

Androgyny: Gender expression with elements of both masculinity and femininity
 
Androsexual/Androphilic: Attraction for men, males, and/or masculinity
 
Aromantic: Experience of little or no romantic attraction to others. Not to be confused with the next entry.
 
Asexual: Also called nonsexual, it means lack of sexual attraction and/or interest in not only others but even oneself.
 
Bisexual: Physically and/or sexually and often psychosocially attracted to males/men and females/women. Sometimes suggests attraction for those who identify outside the gender binary or interest in more than one gender/sex.
 
Cisgender: A person whose gender identity and biological sex assigned at birth are congruent. In other words, anyone who is not transsexual (See below).
 
Cisnormativity: An assumption, in individuals/institutions, that everyone is cisgender. They assign a superiority to cisgender identities compared to trans identities. Pushes invisibility of non-cisgender identities. Also called Heteronormativity.
 
Closeted: People not open to themselves/others about their gender identity. Driven by choice and/or fear for safety, peer or family rejection or disapproval and/or loss of housing, job, etc.  Also called ‘being in the closet.’
 
Coming out: Acceptance and/or coming to identify one’s own sexuality or gender identity.
 
Constellation: Arrangement/structure of a polyamorous (See below) relationships. 
 
Cross-dresser: A person who wears clothes of another gender/sex by choice.
 
Demisexual: People who don’t experience sexual attraction for another without a strong emotional connection. Needless to say, they are hugely into Valentine’s.
 
Drag King: Person who takes on a masculine identity on stage/screen.
 
Drag Queen: Person who takes on a feminine identity on stage/screen.
 
Dyke: Reference to a lesbian who likes to appear masculine. Though often used in derogatory way, it has been adopted affirmatively by many lesbians (not only masculine ones) as a positive self-identity term.
 
Emotraction: The need to engage in emotional intimacy only (support, share, tell secrets, trust, interdependence), in varying degrees. Conflated often with romantic/ sexual attraction.
 
Faggot: Derogatory for a gay person, seen as queer. Like Dyke (See above) is also used for self-identity by some gay men and even shortened to fag.
 
Gay: Emotional, physical, and/or sexual attraction to members of the same sex and/or gender. Often also used as an umbrella term for all those who are non-heterosexual (See below).
 
Gender Binary: The idea that there are only two genders – male/female and everyone HAS TO be strictly gendered between the two.
 
Gender Fluid: Dynamic mix of boy and girl. Gender fluid people feel a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more man some days, and more woman on others.
 
Heterosexual: Men being attracted to women and vice-versa.
 
Homosexuality: Men being attracted to men and women to women.
 
Intersex: A person with both female and male anatomy. Experts like Anne Fausto-Sterling (Professor of Biology & Gender Studies, Brown University) feel the incidence is 1.7%. Formerly called hermaphrodites, this term is now seen as derogatory.
 
LGBTQI: Acronym used as an umbrella word to describe all those who have a non-normative (or queer) gender or sexuality, there are many different initialisms people prefer.
 
Lipstick Lesbian: Can be used both positively/negatively to refer to a lesbian with a feminine gender expression. Largely used for lesbians assumed to be (or passing for) straight.

Metrosexual: A man who spends more time, energy, or money on improving his aesthetics with appearance and grooming. This could often be seen as more than what gender normative society considers acceptable.

Omnisexual: Also called Pansexual, this means sexual attraction regardless of gender. For them gender is insignificant in choosing who they will be sexually attracted to.

Outing: The involuntary and sudden and often undesired revealing of another person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or intersex status without consulting them.

Polysexual: Along with being sexually attracted to more than one gender, they insist they are not bisexual as it implies that there are only two binary sexes. They underline they are not omnisexual (omni meaning all) but polysexual (poly meaning many).

Polyamorous: Relationships with multiple partners. Partners consensually decide to practice non-monogamous relationships.

Skoliosexual: Those who are attracted to people who don’t identify as cisgender. 

Stud: Often used to indicate a Black/African-American and/or Latina masculine lesbian/queer woman. Used as alternative to butch/aggressive. Though it began as a slur, it is used by some as a matter of pride and self-identity.

Transexual: Someone who identifies with a physical sex different from their biological one.
 
Transvestite: Often also called cross-dressers, they like to dress as the opposite of their biological gender. This may/ may not be for seeking sexual gratification. It could just be a way of fun or relaxation too.
 
Two-Spirit: Umbrella term traditionally used by Indigenous American term for those who have qualities of both genders
 
Ze / Hir: Optional gender-neutral pronouns preferred by some transpeople who use these to replace ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘his,’ or ‘hers.’

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