Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride Flag (2014, pridearchive)
Identity Pride Flag ·
The Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride Flag was created by Tumblr user pridearchive and published on 28 July 2014 as a shared symbol for both identities. It has four horizontal bands in blue, cyan, white, and grey. Pridearchive described blue and cyan as representing relationships with strangers or acquaintances, white as a lack of attraction, and grey as the uncertainty or grey area associated with fraysexual and frayromantic feelings. [1][2] The term itself had been credited to Tumblr user edensmachine ten days earlier. [3] Later Frayromantic-specific designs include a heart-overlay variant documented by 2016 and a five-stripe variant introduced through the LGBTQIA+ Wiki in 2020. [2][4]
Key facts
- Designer
- pridearchive
- Created
- First located publication
- Online circulation
- 2014 to the present
- Aspect Ratio
- 500:319 source artifact
- Ratio Notes
- The historical artifact is 500 by 319, approximately 1.57:1, and the archive reconstruction preserves that outer proportion. The later Commons mirror is 5000 by 3000, which is 5:3; that ratio belongs to the mirror and should not be read back onto the creator's publication. No proportion was prescribed for the design.
- Stripes
- 4
- Represented Identity
- Fraysexual and frayromantic people, and people who use the shared fray identity
Also known as
- Frayromantic Pride Flag
- Fraysexual Pride Flag
- Fraysexual/Frayromantic Pride Flag
Status Historical
Archive categories Sexual & Romantic Orientation Pride Flags
Overview
MOGAI-Archive published a definition of fraysexual and frayromantic on 18 July 2014, crediting the coinage to edensmachine. [3] Ten days later, on 28 July 2014, the Tumblr account pridearchive published a post titled "Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride" containing a flag for both identities together with a button, scarf and banner, crediting the term to edensmachine and the graphics to itself. [1]
The flag has four horizontal bands, blue over cyan over white over grey, with no emblem. [2][5]
Identity & Context
- Represented Identity
- Fraysexual and frayromantic people, and people who use the shared fray identity
- Subcommunity
- asexual-spectrum and aromantic-spectrum communities
Frayromantic describes romantic attraction toward strangers or less familiar people that fades as familiarity or emotional closeness develops. Fraysexual describes the corresponding pattern of sexual attraction. The 2014 coining definition puts it as attraction to "someone thet they are less familiar with", with interest lost "when they get to know the person". [3]
The flag was published for both identities at once, which is why the archive records it under a shared title and keeps the single-identity forms as aliases. [1]
Both are commonly compared to demiromantic and demisexual as a reverse pattern. The comparison is a common shorthand rather than the definition, and neither term describes ordinary short-lived infatuation.
Creators
The Creator
pridearchive
Flag designer
A Tumblr blog that published pride flags and related graphics in the mid-2010s. Its 28 July 2014 post titled "Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride" presented one flag for both identities, together with a button, scarf and banner, and credited each of those graphics to itself while crediting the term to edensmachine. [1] The blog has since been deleted; the post survives through archived copies and through the catalog and transcription posts that reproduce it. [2][6]
edensmachine
Coiner of the term
Credited by MOGAI-Archive on 18 July 2014 with coining fraysexual and frayromantic, ten days before the flag appeared. The MOGAI-Archive post defines the term as "Someone who is only sexually/romantically attracted to someone thet they are less familiar with, and lose interest when they get to know the person." [3]
Attribution notes
Pridearchive designed the flag; edensmachine coined the term. The original post credits them separately, giving the term to edensmachine and the flag, button, scarf and banner to pridearchive itself. [1] Pride Color Schemes independently records the design as "Designed by: Pridearchive" in 2016. [2]
The MOGAI-Archive definition of 18 July 2014 states "coined by: edensmachine". [3] Pride Color Schemes later recorded the term as "coined by: Anonymous", which is a lapse in that catalog rather than a competing attribution. [2]
A later snapshot identifies the pridearchive blog moderator as Lyric, but the connection between that name and the account's 2014 authorship has not been independently confirmed, so the 2014 creator is recorded as pridearchive. The blog is now deleted.
Nobody who later transcribed, cataloged, mirrored or varied the design is its author: fraysupport and aroworlds transcribed it, Pride Color Schemes cataloged it, YT0 uploaded the Wikimedia copy, and an anonymous wiki editor made the 2020 five-stripe variant. [6][2][5][4]
Origin
- Digital Origin
- Tumblr
- Origin Type
- first_publication
- Physical Origin Status
- Unknown. No source documents where the flag was made, and nothing is inferred from Tumblr, later wiki editors, Wikimedia uploaders, or forum participants.
Digital origin; no verified physical location.
Published on Tumblr by the account pridearchive. [1] The origin is a publication venue, not a place.
Dates & Chronology
- Year Created
- Exact date
- First located publication
- Online circulation
- 2014 to the present
- Creation Bounds
- The term is documented no later than 18 July 2014, when MOGAI-Archive posted a definition crediting edensmachine at 22:17 UTC. [3] Pridearchive published the flag ten days later, on 28 July 2014. [1] The Wikimedia Commons mirror of the image carries the same 28 July 2014 date and cites the pridearchive post as its source. [5] No physical use has been documented in the sources reviewed.
The flag has circulated online since its 2014 Tumblr publication. An AVEN discussion reproduced it in August 2015, Pride Color Schemes cataloged it in 2016, and later aromantic and orientation resources continued to reproduce or reference it. No physical use or formal organizational adoption has been located. [7][2][6][8]
Two Frayromantic-specific derivatives followed the shared design.
By 2 July 2016 Pride Color Schemes cataloged both a plain four-stripe flag under the heading "Fraysexual/Frayromantic" and, separately, a heart-overlay variant under the heading "Frayromantic": the same four bands with a large blue-outlined heart laid over them and slightly lighter colours outside the heart. The catalog attributes the design to Pridearchive, but whether that credit covers the heart overlay itself or only the underlying stripe flag is not clear from the page, and the linked full-size copy sits on a Pride-Flags DeviantArt account whose role is not established. [2]
A five-stripe Frayromantic-specific variant is dated by later wiki documentation to 18 October 2020. [4]
A separate synonym was coined on 14 December 2014, when aroacesafespace proposed "ignotaromantic" and "ignotasexual", explaining "'Ignotas' is Latin for 'unfamiliar'". The post that carries it notes that others had already coined protosexual and fraysexual for the same experience. [9] AUREA lists protoromantic as a further synonym. [8]
Lineage
- Direct children
- Frayromantic Five-Stripe Pride Flag
No formal predecessor is documented. No source says pridearchive derived the design from any earlier flag, and the aromantic flag most often named as an ancestor was published in November 2014, months after this July 2014 artifact, so it cannot be its parent.
The documented derivatives run the other way. A heart-overlay Frayromantic variant was cataloged by 2 July 2016, and a five-stripe Frayromantic variant is dated by later wiki documentation to 18 October 2020. [2][4] The five-stripe design is structurally derived from these four bands; its green tint may reference aromantic symbolism, but a later reference does not make the aromantic flag an ancestor of the 2014 artifact.
The conceptual context is the asexual and aromantic spectrum communities, and the conceptual counterpart is the demiromantic and demisexual pattern the term is usually contrasted with. Belonging to a spectrum is not a parent relation, and none is asserted here.
Lineage tree
Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.
- This record
- Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride Flag (2014, pridearchive)
Colors & Symbolism
Pridearchive assigned the meanings, and they survive in the catalog and transcription posts that reproduce the original explanation. [2][6][7]
| Colour | Measured from surviving source imagery | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | #216CB4 | Less familiar relationships, including strangers and acquaintances. | Measured from the Wikimedia Commons copy of the flag, where it is one of four flat values. [5] |
| Cyan | #94E7DC | Less familiar relationships, including strangers and acquaintances. | Measured from the Wikimedia Commons copy of the flag. [5] |
| White | #FFFFFF | Lack of attraction. | Measured from the Wikimedia Commons copy of the flag. [5] |
| Grey | #636363 | The grey area or confusion associated with fraysexual and frayromantic feelings. | Measured from the Wikimedia Commons copy of the flag. [5] |
This flag has no official digital palette. Color values shown are approximate.
Pridearchive described blue and cyan as complementary to red and yellow, colors associated in the post with romantic and platonic love. The creator distinguished these from green and purple, which they called the "opposites," because those colors would have made the flag resemble other designs. This is the creator's terminology rather than a standardized color-theory distinction, and it is internally confusing, since complementary colours are ordinarily the ones described as opposites on a colour wheel.
The explanation reads in full: "Blue & Cyan: Represents a less familiar relationship with other people (strangers/ acquaintanceship) Complementary colours to red and yellow (colours symbolising romantic and platonic love). Complements were chosen instead of opposites because the opposites (green and purple) would have this flag looking too similar to other flags. White: Lack of attraction. Grey: Grey-area/confusion when confronted with fraysexual/romantic feelings." [2]
The symbolism of the later five-stripe variant belongs to that design and is not carried back to this one.
These are exact flat-fill values of the surviving rendering and closely reproduce the historical source imagery: the same four values appear in the 2016 Pride Color Schemes catalog copy, a JPEG, which reads within one RGB unit of them. Pridearchive named the colours but published no hexadecimal specification, so they are artifact measurements rather than an official creator palette.
Design
- Aspect Ratio
- 500:319 source artifact
- Ratio Notes
- The historical artifact is 500 by 319, approximately 1.57:1, and the archive reconstruction preserves that outer proportion. The later Commons mirror is 5000 by 3000, which is 5:3; that ratio belongs to the mirror and should not be read back onto the creator's publication. No proportion was prescribed for the design.
- Orientation
- horizontal
- Stripe Count
- 4
- Layout
- horizontal stripes
- Stripes (Top → Bottom)
- Blue, Cyan, White, Grey
Four horizontal colour regions, blue over cyan over white over grey, with no emblem or charge. The surviving creator-post image measures 500 by 319 pixels, about 1.57:1, and its four regions are roughly rather than exactly equal: the boundary rows carry resampling colours and the visible bands differ slightly in height. Those small differences are artifacts of the served file and are not a construction specification or an intentional symbolism. [1]
The later Wikimedia Commons copy is 5000 by 3000, a clean 5:3 file with four flat colours and essentially equal bands. Its geometry belongs to that copy, not to the creator's publication. [5]
Pridearchive published no construction sheet and did not specify mathematically equal bands. The archive reconstruction equalises the four bands as a normalisation and keeps the 500:319 outer proportion of the source artifact.
Four horizontal bands in medium blue, pale cyan, white, and dark grey, with no emblem. [2]
Usage & Adoption
- Online Usage
- Tumblr, from the 2014 publication onward [1], An AVEN discussion thread, August 2015 [7], The Pride Color Schemes catalog, July 2016 [2], Later Tumblr reblogs and transcriptions, including fraysupport and aroworlds [6], AUREA terminology resources [8], Orientation and LGBTQIA+ wikis [4], Wikimedia mirrors [5]
- Current Status
- Online circulation documented; physical use not documented
The flag has circulated online since its 2014 Tumblr publication. An AVEN discussion reproduced it in August 2015, Pride Color Schemes cataloged it in 2016, and later aromantic and orientation resources continued to reproduce or reference it. No physical use or formal organizational adoption has been located. [7][2][6][8]
Image Archive
Historical Evidence
Later Variants
Later Renderings
Discourse & Debates
- An August 2015 AVEN discussion shows mixed early reception. Some participants recognized the description as useful, while others questioned whether it named a distinct orientation or a common experience of attraction fading. These comments document one forum discussion, not a consensus within asexual, aromantic, fraysexual, or frayromantic communities. [7]
Common misidentifications
- Treated as a Frayromantic-only flag. The 2014 post created one flag for fraysexual and frayromantic people together, which is why this record carries a shared title with the single-identity forms as aliases. [1][2]
- Confused with the later Frayromantic-specific designs: the heart-overlay variant cataloged by 2016 and the five-stripe variant dated to 2020. [2][4]
The 2014 coining sources explained "fray" as deriving from an Old English word for "stranger". [3] Standard English dictionaries do not support that etymology: Merriam-Webster traces the English forms through Middle English and Anglo-French or Old French, from Latin fricare, with senses involving rubbing, and separately through affray, with senses involving fear or conflict. [10] The Old English derivation is best understood as the coiner's stated word origin rather than an independently verified linguistic derivation. The same coining post also offers an Old French gloss involving an ash tree, which is recorded here without endorsement.
Ignotaromantic and ignotasexual are separately coined synonyms for the identity, proposed by aroacesafespace on 14 December 2014 and explained there from Latin "ignotas", meaning unfamiliar. [9] They are synonyms for the identity rather than original names for this flag, and by 2016 the ignota wording was also attached to the distinct heart-overlay variant, so the archive keeps them as identity and search terms rather than as titles of the plain four-band artifact. [2] AUREA additionally lists protoromantic as a synonym. [8]
Footnotes & Citations
Sources and footnotes 10 sources
- 1. Social media Fraysexual and Frayromantic Pride. pridearchive. Tumblr (2014-07-28). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
The creator post. It titles the design for both identities, credits the term to edensmachine and the flag, button, scarf and banner to pridearchive, and carries the colour explanation. The blog has since been deleted and the live URL no longer resolves; the archived capture is the surviving copy, and the same post is cited as the source of the Wikimedia Commons file.
- 2. Social media Fray- Ignota-. Pride Color Schemes. Tumblr (2016-07-02). Accessed 2026-08-14
A catalog entry of 2 July 2016 carrying two flags: the plain four-band design under "Fraysexual/Frayromantic", and a heart-overlay variant under "Frayromantic". It states "Designed by: Pridearchive", reproduces the colour meanings in full, and describes both images. It records the term as coined by "Anonymous", where the 2014 definition credits edensmachine.
- 3. Social media Fraysexual/romantic (definition post). MOGAI-Archive, reblogged by epochryphal. Tumblr (2014-07-18). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
The coining record, timestamped 18 July 2014 at 22:17 UTC and preserved in a reblog trail. It defines the term, credits it to edensmachine, and carries the bracketed gloss "[Old French: An Ash tree. Old English: Stranger.]" that later sources repeat as the etymology.
- 4. Community Frayromantic. LGBTQIA+ Wiki. Accessed 2026-03-30
Secondary aggregation, cited only for tracing the five-stripe Frayromantic variant it dates to 18 October 2020. The date and the anonymous authorship have not been checked against the wiki's revision history.
- 5. Image file page File:Fraysexual flag.png. Uploaded by YT0. Wikimedia Commons (2021-09-13). Accessed 2026-08-14
A 5000 by 3000 PNG uploaded 13 September 2021 as a cross-wiki transfer from Simple English Wikipedia. The page gives the date as 28 July 2014, cites the pridearchive post as its source, names Pride Archive as author, and declares CC0 in the first person, while the file's structured data names Tacielle as creator. The four flat colour values published in this entry are measured from this file.
- 6. Social media So those who are unaware about what the colors of the fraysexual flag mean!. fraysupport, reblogged by aroworlds. Tumblr (2018-05-31). Accessed 2026-08-14
The fraysupport definition post of 13 April 2018, reblogged by aroworlds on 31 May 2018 with an accessible text transcription of the image. A later transcription and recirculation, not a source of authorship.
- 7. Community Fraysexuality. likeappletrees and others. Asexual Visibility and Education Network (2015-08-03). Accessed 2026-08-14
A thread opened 3 August 2015 that reproduces the flag's colour explanation in full and asks whether the term should be recognised. It documents early circulation and mixed reception across replies dated 3 to 5 August 2015.
- 8. Organizations Aromantic Identity Terms. AUREA. Accessed 2026-08-14
Terminology resource listing frayromantic alongside its synonyms, including protoromantic, and attributing the ignota coinage to Arcresources. Whether that account is the same as aroacesafespace is not established here.
- 9. Social media Ignotaromantic, Ignotasexual. aroacesafespace, reblogged by demigray. Tumblr (2014-12-14). Accessed 2026-08-14 · Archived version
The synonym proposal, from aroacesafespace on 14 December 2014, explaining "'Ignotas' is Latin for 'unfamiliar'". The reblogger's own note records that others had already coined protosexual and fraysexual for the same experience.
- 10. Reference fray. Merriam-Webster. Accessed 2026-08-14
Standard dictionary evidence for the English word: Middle English fraien, from Anglo-French freier, froier, to rub, from Latin fricare; and separately Middle English fraien, short for affraien, to affray. It records no Old English derivation and no sense meaning stranger.
Image Sources
- Rendering
- Archive reconstruction at the source artifact's 500:319
- Archive reconstruction at the source artifact's proportion, with colour values measured from surviving source imagery. [5] · Credit: Encycloflaggia reconstruction after pridearchive · Measured colours · 500:319 source proportion · Rights in the underlying design unresolvedA reconstruction, not the historical artifact. The bands are equalised as an archive normalisation; the served raster carries resampled boundaries.
- Catalog copy of the shared four-band flag. [2] · Credit: Design by Pridearchive; catalog copy by Pride Color Schemes · Tumblr · 2 July 2016 · 1153 × 692 · No licence located; rights unestablishedRights No licence statement accompanies the catalog post. Rights in the underlying design are unresolved.
- The heart-overlay variant as cataloged. [2] · Credit: Attribution unresolved; cataloged by Pride Color Schemes · Tumblr · 2 July 2016 · 1153 × 692 · No licence located; rights unestablishedRights No licence statement accompanies the catalog post, and the overlay's authorship is not established.
- Later mirror of the design, and the source of the measured palette. [5] · Credit: Uploaded by YT0; page credits Pride Archive · Wikimedia Commons · 13 September 2021 · 5000 × 3000 · CC0 declared on the Commons file page, authorization unverifiedRights The Commons page declares CC0 in the first person, but the upload was made by YT0 rather than by the documented 2014 creator, and the file's structured data names a different author again. The original creator's licensing intent has not been verified.