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Some individuals within the asexual community may experience romantic feelings or desire romantic relationships, even though they do not feel sexual attraction.

To express their orientation and clarify the type of relationship they seek, many people have adopted the Split Attraction Model. This model separates sexual attraction or desire from romantic attraction or desire.

Similar to sexual orientations, romantic orientations are often defined based on the gender(s) to which a person is romantically attracted:

• Heteroromantic: romantically attracted to or desires romantic relationships with the opposite gender.
• Homoromantic: romantically attracted to or desires romantic relationships with the same gender.
• Biromantic: romantically attracted to or desires romantic relationships with multiple genders.
• Panromantic: romantically attracted to or desires romantic relationships without considering gender.
• Aromantic: not romantically attracted to or desiring of romantic relationships.

The suffix “-romantic” is used to express specific aspects of an individual’s experience of romantic attraction or desire. Similar to how prefixes are used to describe sexual orientations, labels such as grayromantic or demiromantic can be applied to describe someone’s romantic orientation.

It is important to note that the distinction between sexual and romantic orientations is not exclusive to asexual individuals. However, the use of these terms is more prevalent within the asexual community due to the necessity of distinguishing between sexual and romantic attraction.

Nonetheless, sexual individuals may also identify with separate romantic attractions to more accurately convey their desired relationships and feelings toward others. This distinction is particularly valuable for aromantic individuals in explaining their lack of interest in romantic relationships, regardless of their sexual orientation.