These days, it can be kind of difficult to tell the difference between sexual and romantic attraction. The hormones released during sex can be intensely bonding on a primal level. When you have a romantic attraction to someone, you also (usually) find them physically attractive. Sometimes, a sexual attraction can legitimately become a romantic attraction. Other times, a purely emotional relationship becomes more sexual the closer you come to someone. With sexual attraction and romantic attraction often so closely intertwined, how do you know the difference between them? Is there even a difference in the first place? Well, according to UNC's LGBT Center, sextual attraction involves the desire for a sextual relationship or sexual contact with someone, while romantic attraction focuses more on an emotionally intimate connection with someone, not purely related to sex.

However, a more subtle difference between a sexual attraction and a romantic one is time. Typically, a sexual attraction is felt right away and dissipates just as quickly as it came. Depending upon your own boundaries, you probably don't even have to know a person that well in order to know that you want to have sex with them. Dating apps like Tinder, in which you basically decide who to match with based off of their appearance, are built around sexual attraction. You don't even have to meet up with someone to be interested in having sex with them.