Attraction doesn’t always follow a predictable path and for some people, it shifts and changes over time. This puzzling experience is more common than many realize, and it has a name: abrosexuality.

Thought she was a lesbian

Let’s explore the meaning behind abrosexuality – and how one writer’s three-decade journey helped bring visibility to this often-misunderstood label.

In a personal piece published by Metro UK in July 2024, writer Emma Flint shared her moving story of realizing she was abrosexual – after 30 years of wondering why her attractions seemed to shift like the seasons.

Flint, who was 32 at the time of writing the article, describes her years of thinking she was a lesbian, followed by periods where she felt drawn to men, then no one at all, and then back again.

For decades, she said she was “uncertain of who I was.”

I felt lost, as if out at sea. I also felt like a fraud because of how much I changed my identity when chatting with loved ones,” explains the freelancer, based in Staffordshire, England.

“It wasn’t that I couldn’t make my mind up, but rather my identity shifted,” One day I felt like I was a lesbian, yet days or weeks later, I’d feel more aligned with bisexuality. My sexuality was fluid.”

It wasn’t until she stumbled upon the term “abrosexual” in an online forum that everything clicked.

“Finally,” she writes, “I felt seen.”

What is abrosexuality?

Healthline reports that abrosexual – a lesser-known LGBTQ+ identity – is a kind of sexual fluidity.

“Someone who’s abrosexual finds that their sexual attraction shifts often: they might identify with the term ‘gay,’ and later feel attracted to people of all genders, and then feel little to no sexual attraction at all.”