allosexual

A1L1L1O1S1E1X8U1A1L1
/ˌæloʊˈsɛkʃuəl/

adjective

Experiencing sexual attraction; not asexual.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

adjective
  1. Experiencing sexual attraction; not asexual.

    Gray-asexual [denotes] a person who is somewhere between 100% asexual and allosexual; they might only experience sexual attraction on very rare occasions, […]

    2014, Nicole Wiesenthal, “What it means to be asexual”, in The Mirror, number Fall, page 19
    1 more example

    Sexual assault is alarmingly common, yet most victims still identify as heterosexual, cisgender and allosexual (the opposite of asexual) after the trauma. Being sexual assaulted did not make me asexual, […]

    2014 March 20, a letter to the editor of The Record, volume 116, number 20, page 6

    Synonyms: allo, zedsexual, sexual · Antonyms: asexual, ace

  2. CanadauncommonLGB; queer; non-heterosexual.

    Yet we later learn that Diana Baring already knew the secret — whether being “half—caste" references being lower-caste with “black blood” (more than a racial marker) or being transsexual, homosexual, or allosexual.

    2005, Tom Cohen, Hitchcock's Cryptonymies, volume 2, →ISBN, page 58
    2 more examples

    Diane Bourgeois (Terrebonne—Blainville, BQ): Mr. Speaker, last month in my riding, Gaétan Lord won the jury prize at the Allostars Gala for his contribution as founding president of Canada's first centre for “allosexual” or queer youth, which offers support to gays, lesbians and young people who are unsure about their sexual orientation.

    2006, House of Commons Debates, numbers 27-40, page 1595

    Throughout this time, I have been struck by the absence of racialized, ethnicized, and colonized (REC) voices in historical accounts of the local gay and lesbian community at large, and likewise the lack of allosexual representation in the narratives of the city's various ethnocultural communities.

    2013, Alan Wong, “Listen and Learn”, in Oral History Off the Record: Toward an Ethnography of Practice, →ISBN

    Antonyms: heterosexual

  3. human sciencesDirected toward or involving another person rather than (only) oneself.

    Allosexual behavior peaked during the follicular phase for both heterosexual women and lesbians.

    2002, Mary H Burleson et al., “Sexual behavior in lesbian and heterosexual women: relations with menstrual cycle phase and partner availability”, in Psychoneuroendocrinology, volume 27, number 4, pages 489–503
    2 more examples

    Allosexual behavior was positively related to libido, and negatively related to positive and "premenstrual" emotional factors. Autosexual behavior was predicted by libido and an energetic / creative emotional factor.

    2011 August, Susan G. Brown, Marites J. Calibuso, Amanda L. Roedl, “Women’s Sexuality, Well-Being, and the Menstrual Cycle: Methodological issues and their interrelationships”, in Archives of Sexual Behavior, volume 40, number 4, pages 755–765

    There are intense debates in the psychoanalytic literature as to whether the primary form of infantile desire is allosexual (directed toward the other — in this case, the mother, the source of nourishment, her breast, her milk) or auto-erotic.

    2012, Lauren Berlant, Desire/Love, →ISBN, page 26

    Antonyms: autosexual

  4. biologyInvolving or directed at the other biological sex; heterosexual; not isosexual.

    […] We performed 45 experimental confrontations with heterospecific pairs. Confrontations (C. talarum vs C. australis) included allosexual and isosexual encounters.

    1992 February, Aldo I Vassallo, Christina Busch, “Interspecific agonism between two sympatric species of Ctenomys (Rodentia: Octodontidae) in captivity”, in Behaviour, volume 120, number 1/2, pages 40-50
    1 more example

    Dr. Conigliaro contended that the sharing of the same bedroom by a single parent and child of the opposite sex "could contribute to, or cause, an excessive degree of ‘allosexual identifications’, [where a child identifies with the parent of the opposite sex] […]"

    1980, Federal supplement, series 1, volume 476, page 1330

    Synonyms: other-sexual · Antonyms: isosexual, homosexual

nounallosexual (plural allosexuals)

plural allosexuals

  1. One who experiences sexual attraction; one who is not asexual.

    A chart of the Ace Spectrum: the different possibilities for asexuals, demisexuals, and allosexuals.

    2014 November, Krista Rhoades, “Asexual Awareness Week”, in Collide, number 22, page 5
    1 more example

    […] that is par for the course of being any form of queer-identified. But it also allows allies and allosexuals (persons who experience sexual attraction) to push out asexual and aromantic-identified individuals.

    2014 October 15, Z Colburn, “"A" is for annoyed”, in The Easterner, volume 66, number 4, page 8

    Synonyms: allo, sexual

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveExperiencing sexual attraction; not asexual.

Opposite

adjectiveLGB; queer; non-heterosexual.

Opposite

adjectiveDirected toward or involving another person rather than (only) oneself.

Opposite

adjectiveInvolving or directed at the other biological sex; heterosexual; not isosexual.

nounOne who experiences sexual attraction; one who is not asexual.

Similar
Opposite

Origin

From allo- (“other”) + sexual. "Directed at or involving another rather than one's self" and "involving the other sex; heterosexual" are the most etymologically literal senses (regarding the latter sense, compare the structure of heterosexual), structural and semantic opposites of autosexual and isosexual. The sense "non-heterosexual" was influenced by (and had influence on) Canadian French allosexuel.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Catalan al·losexual, al·losexual
  • al·losexualNot asexual
  • al·losexualPerson who is not asexual
French allosexuel
  • allosexuelPerson who is not asexual
German allosexuell
  • allosexuellPerson who is not asexual
Portuguese alossexual
  • alossexualPerson who is not asexual
Spanish alosexual
  • alosexualPerson who is not asexual
Cite this entry
APA

allosexual. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/allosexual

MLA

“allosexual.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/allosexual. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “allosexual,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/allosexual.

Source: allosexual on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.