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Identities · Complete index
Every sexual and romantic orientation documented by KINKSpec, in one A-to-Z list: 40 terms, from the ones a census counts to the ones coined in community use, each shown with the alias it is most often known by. An orientation is a pattern of attraction, not an interest and not a gender, and it is ranked here only against other orientations.
This one lists 40 sexual and romantic orientations from A to Z, grouped into 8 families: monosexual, plurisexual, asexual-spectrum, romantic, gender-based, flexible, umbrella and other. Each links to a definition with its history and cited sources.
There is no closed number. Orientation vocabulary is coined, adopted and abandoned in use, so any count is a snapshot of what is documented rather than a limit. KINKSpec currently documents 40 terms, each with a definition and, where a survey exists, a cited prevalence figure.
A sexual orientation describes who a person is sexually attracted to; a romantic orientation describes who they fall in love with. The two often match, and when they do not the pair is named separately, which is why 7 romantic terms and 6 asexual-spectrum terms are listed here alongside the rest.
Heterosexuality, by a wide margin: Gallup's 2024 US survey found 85.7% of adults identify as straight. Bisexuality is the largest LGBT identity in the same data, and identification with every non-heterosexual label rises sharply in younger cohorts.
No. An orientation is a pattern of attraction, a gender is who a person is. They vary independently, which is why the two are catalogued as separate vocabularies here, with their own A–Z list of genders.
Each entry is written from published sources and lists them. Every prevalence percentage names the survey it rests on, most often Gallup, the Williams Institute or Pew, and says where the data stop rather than filling the gap with an estimate.