A woman has revealed she was hit with some cruel comments from friends when she came out as abrosexual – a term she only discovered when she was 30-years-old. Thankfully, now she feels ‘seen’
Emma Flint realised she was abrosexual after discovering the term at 30.
A woman has opened up about the backlash she received from friends when coming out as abrosexual – as many cruelly questioned if it was even real.
Emma Flint recalled the moment she told friends about her sexuality, and was sadly met with some unpleasant remarks. She said these people are no longer friends, and opening up about her true self has meant she’s no longer nervous about her feelings.
Abrosexuality is defined as a sexual identity that fluctuates and changes – it may mean that you’re attracted to men for a while, and other times you’re attracted to women. While Emma now resonates fully with the label, she had no idea such a term existed until she hit 30. Thankfully, she finally feels “seen” after discovering it.
It’s a sexuality that Gen Z is speaking about widely on TikTok, but there’s still a lot of misunderstanding around the term, with many people having no idea what it means. Emma told the Metro that her peers made cutting remarks when she came out, including “When did you decide this? Is this even a label – I’ve never heard of it. I support you, obviously, but this doesn’t sound real.”
There are so many sexual identities, but 32-year-old Emma said growing up she’d never heard of abrosexual, you were either straight, gay or a lesbian as far as nineties society was concerned – anything else was “made up”.
“Of course, we know that’s far from the truth – but societal blindspots mean we learn terms much slower than if they’re readily accessible,” she said, and revealed she had “struggled” to identify what her sexuality was because it fluctuated “so rapidly”.
Emma admitted she also “scoffed” and “chastised herself for being uncertain as her identity “shifted”. Some days she’d feel like a lesbian, while other days she’d feel more aligned with bisexuality and realised her sexuality was “fluid”.
Emma also recalled how she would get comments from friends questioning her change in sexual preferences and said they didn’t understand, and at the time, she couldn’t explain why she was no longer a lesbian or why she was now bisexual. It was only when she came across the term abrosexual, being used by Zoe Stoller, a US-based creator and LGBTQ+ campaigner, that she saw the term abrosexuality used for the first time.
She recalled the moment as a “lightbulb” moment, as Zoe told her 74,000 followers that abrosexuality is ‘fluid’ and said it is different to being pansexual – where you are attracted to a personality rather than a specific gender.
Emma detailed that it doesn’t “alter” any romantic relationships, and said she loves the person rather than the gender. But she said: “However, even after explaining this, there are always some people who enjoy demanding that I ‘pick a lane’ so that my identity doesn’t offend them.:
Emma hopes that the term abrosexual will soon be seen as normal and “just another identity” and not seen as something ‘on trend’ – something she has been told before.
