Cupiosexual Pride Flag (documented 2015; attribution unresolved)
Identity Pride Flag · Reported 2014
Four horizontal bands of grey, lavender, white and pink for cupiosexuality, desiring a sexual relationship without experiencing sexual attraction. No designer has been identified: the flag’s 2016 publisher records "Designed by: Unknown" and "Color meanings: Unknown", and a competing attribution to the deactivated Tumblr user Primadolly survives only in a wiki, through a source that no longer resolves. [1][2] The earliest publication that can be opened and inspected is a Tumblr post of 6 November 2015; the palette here is measured from it and from the 2016 documentation image, which agree exactly. [3][1]
Key facts
- Designer
- Unknown
- First documented public use
- In use
- Reported 2014
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Stripes
- 4
- Represented Identity
- cupiosexual
Also known as
- Cupio Flag
Archive categories Sexual & Romantic Orientation Pride Flags
Overview
To provide a visual symbol for an a-spec experience that the broader asexual flag was felt not to encode. [4]
Cupiosexuality describes desiring a sexual relationship without experiencing sexual attraction. The label was coined inside the 2014 Tumblr a-spec community and circulated first as kalossexual before being renamed. [4][2] The flag’s own origin is unresolved, and the surviving evidence sits at four different levels of certainty. Secondary sources report the kalossexual terminology to June 2014 and credit it to acelyssie. [4][5] The MOGAI Wiki reports a June or July 2014 flag by Primadolly and a later colour adjustment by Aro-Ace-Wonderwoman, citing a source that no longer resolves. [2] The LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives an unknown designer and a bound of on or before 4 July 2015, without a surviving post. [4] The earliest publication that can actually be opened and inspected is a Tumblr post of 6 November 2015. [3] Pride Color Schemes then documented the flag on 1 July 2016 with authorship and meanings both recorded as unknown. [1]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- cupiosexual
- Subcommunity
- asexual spectrum
Creators
The Creator
Unknown
Designer
The designer of this flag is not named in any source that could be inspected. Pride Color Schemes published it in 2016 with "Designed by: Unknown" and "Color meanings: Unknown", and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki also gives an unknown designer. [1][4] A competing attribution to Primadolly survives only in the MOGAI Wiki, through a source that no longer resolves. [2] If you can identify the designer, the archive would like to hear from you.
Primadolly
Disputed designer attribution
A Tumblr handle, the account since deactivated, credited by the MOGAI Wiki with an original cupiosexual flag in June or July 2014. [2] The wiki is the only source carrying this attribution, the post it points to is gone, and no other source read for this entry names Primadolly at all. The attribution is preserved here as a reported claim and is not treated as authorship.
Aro-Ace-Wonderwoman
Attributed colour adjustment; separately credited with coining the cupio- prefix
A Tumblr handle, the account since deactivated, credited by the MOGAI Wiki with adjusting the colours of the earlier design. [2] AUREA records the same person under the name Louaxel as the coiner of the cupio- prefix. [5] Coining a prefix and adjusting a palette are different contributions from designing the flag, and neither is evidence of the other. Whether the two names belong to one person is asserted by the secondary sources rather than demonstrated.
acelyssie
Coiner of the predecessor term kalossexual
Credited with coining kalossexual, the earlier term that cupiosexual replaced, reported in secondary sources to June 2014. [4][5] Coining the predecessor term is not evidence of any role in this flag, and no source connects acelyssie to its design.
Attribution notes
No designer has been identified. Pride Color Schemes, which published the flag in 2016, records "Designed by: Unknown" and "Color meanings: Unknown". [1] The MOGAI Wiki attributes an original June or July 2014 design to the deactivated Tumblr user Primadolly and a later colour adjustment to Aro-Ace-Wonderwoman, but the post it cites is gone and no primary evidence for either attribution has been recovered. [2] The LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives an unknown designer and dates the design to on or before 4 July 2015, again without a surviving post. [4] The three handles below are recorded separately and at their documented distance from the flag: none of them is established as its designer.
Origin
- Digital Origin
- Yes
No verified physical origin location. Without a confirmed location, Indigenous land context cannot be attributed.
Originated on Tumblr in the 2014 a-spec micro-label community, in the same vocabulary cluster that produced aegosexual, lithromantic, frayromantic, and several other a-spec labels. [4][2]
Dates & Chronology
- First public use
- Period in Use
- Reported 2014; directly documented from 6 November 2015
The design has remained the dominant cupiosexual flag in secondary databases despite the deactivation of the accounts named for it. [4][2] An alternate flag was made in September 2021 by a Fandom user posting as Mothfree. [4]
The reported 2014 date and the reported 4 July 2015 bound both rest on wiki text whose underlying posts are gone. Neither is corroborated by anything that can be opened. The date used throughout this entry is therefore a bound rather than a creation date: reported 2014, directly documented from 6 November 2015. [2][4][3]
Lineage
- Indirect influences
- Asexual Pride Flag
No design relationship to another flag has been documented. Cupiosexual sits inside the asexual spectrum as an identity, and earlier versions of this entry carried the asexual flag as an influence on that basis, but categorical membership is not design genealogy and no source describes the designer borrowing from it. The predecessor term kalossexual had a flag of its own in a darker palette, which is a separate design rather than an earlier state of this one. [4][1]
Colors & Symbolism
The flag represents cupiosexual identity, the experience of desiring a sexual relationship without experiencing sexual attraction. No per-band explanation has been published for it: the LGBTQIA+ Wiki states that "The color meaning is unknown," and Pride Color Schemes gives "Color meanings: Unknown." [4][1]
| Colour | Hex |
|---|---|
| Grey | #A0A0A0 |
| Lavender | #C7BFE6 |
| White | #FFFFFF |
| Pink | #FFB3D9 |
Measured from the two surviving period files, which agree exactly: the 640 by 343 image published 6 November 2015 and the 1153 by 692 Pride Color Schemes documentation image of 1 July 2016. [3][1]
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
Per-band meanings are not asserted because none has been recovered. Both sources that publish the flag with a note on its palette record the meanings as unknown rather than supplying them. [4][1] The 2021 alternate flag by Mothfree does carry published meanings, which belong to that design and not to this one. [4]
The two period files agree on all four values to the byte. [3][1] The 2021 re-render that this entry previously used as its artwork drifts on two of the four bands, to #C9BEE6 and #FEB3DA, and is kept as a separate later record rather than as the palette of the design. [6] No creator-issued values have been located, because no creator has been identified.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- 3:5 · standard
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 4
- Layout
- horizontal_stripes
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Grey, Lavender, White, Pink
Four horizontal bands of equal depth, each within a fifth of a percentage point of a quarter of the height when measured from the published artwork.
Four equal horizontal bands: grey, lavender, white, pink.
Four horizontal bands of equal depth: grey, lavender, white, pink. The published files agree on that configuration from 2015 onward. No creator-published specification has been located, and the LGBTQIA+ Wiki records that "The color meaning is unknown." [4][3][1]
Usage & Adoption
- Online Usage
- Reproduced in a-spec pride flag guides on the LGBTQIA+ Wiki, MOGAI Wiki, and other community resources. [4][2][7]
- Current Status
- community-circulated · attribution unresolved
Stable circulation in a-spec spaces despite the deactivation of both originating accounts. [4]
Image Archive
Archive
Discourse & Debates
- Who designed the flag and when. The MOGAI Wiki credits Primadolly in mid-2014 with a recolour by Aro-Ace-Wonderwoman; the LGBTQIA+ Wiki credits an unknown designer on or before 4 July 2015; the flag's 2016 publisher gives the designer as unknown. [2][4][1]
- Whether the kalossexual to cupiosexual rename was widely adopted or whether some community members continued to use the older label.
- Whether cupiosexual is best understood as part of the asexual umbrella or as a distinct experience that overlaps with asexuality but is not strictly a subset of it.
Common misidentifications
- The terms cupiosexual and cupioromantic are sometimes confused. They are distinct labels with separate flags; a 2020 cupioromantic flag was proposed by an anonymous Fandom user specifically to disambiguate the two.
Cupiosexual replaced kalossexual, which the MOGAI Wiki also spells kalosexual. The prefix comes from the Latin cupio, "to desire" or "to long for." [2] Both wikis credit the earlier term to the Tumblr user acelyssie in June 2014 and give different days for it, one on or before 11 June and the other on or before 16 June. [2][4] Why it changed is recorded only in outline: the MOGAI Wiki says cupiosexual "was created when the problem with the word Kalos arised." [2] When it changed is not recorded at all; the LGBTQIA+ Wiki states plainly that "It is unknown when the term was changed to cupiosexual." [4] A frequently repeated account attributes the change to jokes about the Kalos region in Pokémon X and Y. It appears on neither wiki page and no source has been located for it.
The romantic equivalent is cupioromantic and the roseic equivalent is cupiorose. [4] Cupiosexual people are "commonly sex-favorable but they do not have to be," and the label is also used by people who do sometimes feel sexual attraction: the LGBTQIA+ Wiki gives the example of a demisexual person dating someone on the assumption that attraction will develop later, and of a fraysexual person dating someone after attraction has faded. [4]
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 7 sources
- 1. Designer page Cupio- / Kalos-. Pride Color Schemes. Tumblr (2016-07-01). Accessed 2026-08-16
Publishes the flag with "Designed by: Unknown" and "Color meanings: Unknown", and documents a second cupio design credited to an anonymous maker.
- 2. Cupiosexual. MOGAI Wiki (Miraheze). Accessed 2026-08-16
The only located source for the Primadolly attribution and the cupio- etymology. The wiki marks this article as not meeting its own standards, and the primary source it cites is on a domain that no longer resolves.
- 3. Social media Cupiosexual Pride Flag. Roy (equality-universe-roy). equality-universe-roy (Tumblr) (2015-11-06). Accessed 2026-08-14
- 4. Cupiosexual. LGBTQIA+ Wiki. Accessed 2026-08-16
Gives the designer as unknown, on or before 4 July 2015, and the colour meanings as unknown. Carries a standing notice that many of its pages predate its sourcing requirements.
- 5. Organizations Aromantic Identity Terms. AUREA. Accessed 2026-08-14
A terminology resource maintained by the Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education and Advocacy. It records the coinages directly, naming Aro-ace-wonderwoman, also known as Louaxel, for cupio- and giving the kalos- coinage separately. Cited for the terms, not for the flag.
- 6. Social media The Cupiosexual Flag. qualityprideflags. qualityprideflags (Tumblr) (2021-10-11). Accessed 2026-08-14
- 7. Everything You Need to Know About Cupiosexuality. Live Love LGBTQ+ (2017-10-25). Accessed 2026-04-07
Image Sources
- Rendering
- Attribution disputed; earliest located artefact 2015
- The earliest directly inspectable publication of the flag located for this entry, posted by equality-universe-roy on 6 November 2015. 640 by 343 pixels, with soft blended transitions between the bands. [3] · Credit: Uploader equality-universe-roy (Tumblr). Designer of the underlying flag unknown. · TumblrRights No licence stated on the post. Rights in the underlying design are unresolved and separate from rights in this file.
- Period documentation published by Pride Color Schemes on 1 July 2016, in a post covering both cupio- and kalos- terminology. 1153 by 692 pixels. The post records "Designed by: Unknown" and "Color meanings: Unknown", and its four values match the 2015 file exactly. [1] · Credit: Rendering by Pride Color Schemes, which publishes documentation images of other people’s flags. Designer of the underlying flag unknown. · TumblrRights No licence stated. Publisher rendering; rights in the underlying design are unresolved and separate from rights in this file.
- A 2021 re-render circulated by the qualityprideflags Tumblr blog, 1280 by 853 pixels. Two of its four bands drift from the period files, to #C9BEE6 and #FEB3DA. This entry used it as its artwork until August 2026 and now keeps it as a later record. [6] · Credit: Re-render by qualityprideflags (Tumblr). Not the original artwork, and not the earliest surviving publication. · TumblrRights No licence stated. Reuse permission not obtained. Separate from rights in the underlying design.
- Encycloflaggia reconstruction at the house 3:5 production ratio, drawn in four equal bands from the palette the 2015 and 2016 files share. The 2015 original is 640 by 343 and carries blended transitions; this squares them. Not the original artwork. · Credit: Encycloflaggia reconstruction. · EncycloflaggiaRights Archive reconstruction. The underlying design’s rights are unresolved.