Identity and orientation terms are self-description words. People apply them to themselves to say who they are drawn to, in what way, and under what conditions. That makes them different in kind from the behaviour words two sections over. Nobody is called asexual by an observer the way somebody is called a breadcrumber.
Most of these words exist because ordinary English fuses splits that some people need to pull apart. The terms are fine-grained on purpose.
What do orientation words actually describe?
Attraction, and which kind of it. Asexual refers to little or no sexual attraction. Aromantic means little or no romantic attraction. Everyday speech treats those as one thing. That is exactly why two separate words were needed.
For instance, someone may be aromantic and not asexual, or asexual and not aromantic. Both pairings are ordinary here. A reader who has only met the fused sense will find that surprising, and that surprise is the most common source of confusion in this section.
Why is community use the definition here?
Because these are labels people claim, not categories handed to them. A word exists to let somebody describe their own experience. It is defined by how that community uses it, not by an outside authority, and entries here follow that use.
It also means some terms are contested inside their own communities. The honest entry says so rather than picking a winner. Demisexual, for example, refers to attraction that arises only after a close bond has formed. Where its edge falls is worked over by the people who use it, more closely than by anyone outside.
The paper trail for these words usually sits in community writing rather than in dictionaries. The earliest use of aromantic that the aromantic community’s own history has found is a post on the mailing list that preceded AVEN. That post dates from the first decade of this century. The record was kept by the community, because nobody else was keeping one.
What are these words most often confused with?
Their neighbours, almost always. Pansexual and bisexual, asexual and celibate, aromantic and “not interested right now”: in each pair one word names an orientation. The other names a behaviour, a choice or a phase.
Consider pansexual and bisexual. The Bisexual Resource Center defines bisexual as sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender; pansexual is usually phrased as attraction regardless of gender. Reported as each community’s own wording, the two describe shared ground rather than rival claims, and this section does not rank them.
Consider asexual and celibate. Celibacy is something a person does. Asexuality is a description of attraction. Two people can look the same from outside and mean quite different things about themselves. The entry’s job is to hold that line.
What does this section deliberately not do?
It does not assess anyone. No entry offers a checklist, a quiz or a way of deciding whether a label fits a reader.
It also does not rank the words, or treat some as more valid than others. Where a term is newer, narrower or argued about, the entry says so plainly. It leaves the judgement where it belongs.