All of these terms are subjective and case by case, and which terms are the preferred terms and which are offensive varies from area to area
Queer: 1. An umbrella term for alternative sexualities and gender expressions of any kind. Not necessarily any groups preferred term. 2. A non heteronormative identity
Sexual Orientation: The sexual desires that someone does or does not feel. Straight, bisexual, asexual are all sexual orientations.
Sexual Behavior: The actual sexual acts one does. (Celibate is a sexual behavior)
Romantic Orientation: The people who one is romantically attracted to.
Lesbian: A person who identifies as a woman who is attracted to other people who identify as women.
Butch: A person who identifies as masculine. Associated with but not limited to lesbianism.
Lipstick Lesbian: A person who identifies as a lesbian who enjoys feminine things.
Twink: A young gay person, usually one who identifies as a man.
Bear: A very masculine gay man
Gay: 1. A queer. 2. A person who identifies as male who is attracted to other people who identify as men.
Pansexual. Abreviated as Pans, 1. A person who is attracted to all gender expressions. 2. A person who is attracted to people regardless of gender expression.
Asexual: Someone who does not feel a desire for sex. Like all sexualities comes in varying intensities. May or may not continue to have sex anyway, which they may or may not enjoy. May or may not still lust after peoples ascetically. May enjoy sexual activity up until the point of genital contact which they do not desire.
Aromantic: A person who does not experience romantic attraction.
Monogamy : The practice of keeping only one partner at a time. Polyamory: An over arcing term for any of a set of relationship styles wherein one keeps multiple partners who are all aware of each other. Or a relationship im which multiple romantic relationships are possible. Additional rules vary from poly to poly.
Open Relationships: An open relationship is one in which new people are free to enter. Or a poly that does not have a set number of participants. Their still may be any sort of desired process or lack thereof to enter the relationship/s.
Closed Relationship: A relationship with a set number of participants.
It is possible to have a sexually open relationship but a romantically closed one, or vise versa, or whatever one desires.
Polyfidelity: The practice of keeping a specific set of more than one partner but not straying out of that group. (Perhaps you can date two people, but no one outside of those two.Or whatever sized group.) Sometimes used as a safer sex strategy.
Primary/Primaries: The relationship/s that is the one/s a poly person makes the rules with. Or their main partner. Not every poly has primaries.
Secondary/Secondaries: Other partners in the poly, generally people who one still sees regularly or is dating in some capacity without being as close to/spending as much time with/sharing the responsibilities of a primary. Not every poly has secondaries
Tertiary: Partners one is not as close to as one’s secondary/ies. Not every poly has tertiaries.
Triad: A practice wherein three people are all dating each other. Generally all on equal standing and power in the relationship/s.
Infidelity: Breaking the rules of ones relationship. The rules broken can be explicit or implicit. If your partner doesn’t want you to hold hands with someone (ever or without talking to them first). Then holding hangs without their knowledge is cheating. Brushing fingers flirtily–without quite holding hands is still cheating.
Fidelity: Keeping the rules of ones relationship
Woman: A person who identifies as female
Man: A person who identifies as male
Female-bodied: A person who society identifies as female upon seeing their body. Generally based upon the persons genitals. Some people identify as female bodied.
Male-bodied: A person who society identifies as male upon seeing their body. Generally based upon the persons genitals. Some people identify as male-bodied
Cisgendered: A person who identifies the same as how society would at seeing their genitals.
GenderQueer: Someone who identifies outside of the gender binary.
Gender Binary: The belief in only two genders, males with almost all masculine traits and females with almost all feminine traits. Generally the belief that ones physical sex and gender are the same thing, and that people can be judged by how femme they are if they are female, how butch they are if they are male.
Trans*: An umbrella term for all outside of the binary gender expressions. The astrix stands dor all the possible suffixes. transgender, transexual, transvestite.
Trans* Man: A person who identifies as a man despite societies false teachings that they are female. OR someone whose gender identity is more complex than just male.
Trans* Woman: A person who identifies as a woman despite societies false teachings that they are male. OR someone whose gender identity is more complex than just female
Androgynous: Having both feminine and masculine traits. Sometimes its own identity. Sometimes people who identify as only androgynous call themselves Androgyne
Genderless: Someone who does not identify with a gender
Transexual, Transgendered: A person whose actual gender is different than their culturaly assigned one. May or may not take steps to physically change themselves to more match their actual gender.
Pronouns: Connecting words used to refer to someone by their gender without using their name. It is very rude to refer to someone in what pronouns you think they should use rather then their Prefered Gender Pronouns or (PGPs) Example of pronouns: he/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/theirs, ze/zem/zes, ze/zer/zes/ xe/xem/xes etc etc. More Pronouns
More Orientations from the Marevelous Scarleteen Listed Bellow
(Sidenote, you’re probably better served just reading Scarleteens whole article. Also all their other articles, but it seemed like their should be something up here).
Homosexual (or gay, lesbian, same-gender loving, MSM or WSW): Someone who is solely or primarily (mostly) attracted to people of the same or similar sex or gender as them, such as men who are attracted to men.
Bisexual: Someone who finds they can feel attraction to people of more than one gender, be that to both men and women, to people of all gender identities, or who doesn’t experience gender as a major factor in their attractions, period.
Pansexual or Omnisexual: Someone who can feel attraction to people of all gender identities, or who doesn’t experience gender as a major factor in their attractions, period.
Asexual (or nonsexual): Someone who has not experienced or does not experience sexual attraction to others or does not have a desire to be sexual with partners. In other words, someone who is not sexually attracted to anyone of any gender.
Apasexual: Someone who feels a lack of significant interest in sex, or feels apathetic about sex in general.
Androsexual, gynesexual, ambisexual or skoliosexual: These terms are a different framework for orientation than the framework of heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality, one that can be more inclusive and expansive than hetero/homo/bi and doesn’t require the gender of the person who is feeling the attraction to be defined in a given way, or at all. Androsexuality refers to someone who is attracted to masculinity, gynesexuality to femininity; am ambisexual is someone who can be attracted to both or either, or experiences gender as a non-issue, and a skolisexual, someone who is attracted to non-cisgender or non-binary people in general. Asexuality is also included in this framework. This framework doesn’t make rigid assumptions about the other person’s gender, either: a person can be attracted to masculinity in women or femininity in men, for example.
Pomosexual: Someone who rejects or does not identify as or with any categorization of sexual orientation as a form of identity. Pomosexual is basically a term for someone who is of the “labels are for soup cans” camp regarding orientation.
Questioning (or -curious or -flexible, like bicurious or heteroflexible): Someone who isn’t sure right now, or has never been, of what their sexual orientation is; who is in the process of figuring that out. Terms like bicurious or whatever-flexible usually are used by someone who feels an interest or curiosity about a given gender of people sexually, but is still in the process of questioning. A term like that is sometimes also used to describe an interest in people of a given gender that’s there, but not felt as so central to be part of someone’s overall orientation.
heteroflexible: Someone who primarily identifies as heterosexual but recognizes in themselves that they have the tendency or ability to occasionally experience attractions outside of that. Sometimes a transitory identification (as any orientation could be)
homoflexible: Someone who primarily identifies as homosexual but recognizes in themselves that they have the tendency or ability to occasionally experience attractions outside of that. Sometimes a transitory identification (as any orientation could be)
Intersex: A person of any varying conditions that causes their genitals to be atypical. Relatively common.
The Quiet Night Rains Goes On and On 