I had a lovely meeting today with a woman who had been my roommate when we were in college. We had a lot to talk about! As women will, we talked about men and relationships.

Now, a question came up, and I think there may be no answer. Someone can be homosexual or heterosexual, but what if someone does not have a sexual orientation at all? Is he "asexual?" Or is there another word for it?

BTW, I have invited her to join this forum.

"Asexual" is the word I'd use.

Asexual, for me, has stronger connotations of having no sexual organs or not using sex to reproduce, though it can also mean not having sexual relations. I would use nonsexual. Although celibate might be appropriate. (Originally, it just meant unmarried, < cælebs 'unmarried'. Searching the A-H online, revealed an interesting quirk: the editors have used the word nonsexual in one of their definitions, for fetish, but it does not have an entry itself.

I suppose "celibate" might do it. However, I always think of Catholic priests being celibate, and many of them are not "nonsexual!" I suppose "nonsexual" is better than "asexual." It just seems that there should be a word for people who really are not sexual beings, even though they are personable and develop relationships easily. I know of several; nursing seems to attract them.

Now, my friend talked about a new concept, which she said is common on the west coast (though I couldn't find it in Google), and that is "wandering queer." That is someone who doesn't know if he/she is homosexual or heterosexual. I know, I hate the phrase, too! I can't stand that word "queer," and it really is politically incorrect!