Capacity union

A capacity union, represented with ∪, is an operation taken from set theory that combines two or more capacity prefixes to yield a new capacity that is capable of experiencing any attraction that either/any of the original capacities can experience. It can be thought of as viewing each capacity prefix as a set of attraction type-situation pairs that the person is capable of experiencing then taking the set union.

=Examples= For example, the capacity prefix demi- could be interpreted to represent the set {general desires for a relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, urges for specific activities towards people whom one has emotionally connected with}, and the prefix nide- could be interpreted to represent the set {general desires for a relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, general desires for a relationship towards strangers}, so taking the capacity union demi∪nide would represent the set union {general desires for a relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, urges for specific activities towards people whom one has emotionally connected with}∪{general desires for a relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, general desires for a relationship towards strangers}={general desires for a relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, urges for specific activities towards people whom one has emotionally connected with, general desires for a relationship towards strangers}. This would still be a capacity prefix that would be prepended to a type of attraction. For example, a (demi∪nide)romantic individual could feel general romantic desires towards anyone and may have either general romantic desires or urges for specific romantic activities with people whom one has developed a close connection with but cannot experience urges for engaging in specific romantic activities with strangers. Thus, a (demi∪nide)romantic individual could experience any romantic attraction that either a demiromantic indidivual or a nideromantic individual could experience.

As another example, a (caligo∪gray)mental individual would frequently experience weak mental attraction and would rarely experience strong mental attraction.

=Combining with Intersections= One of the capacity prefixes that a capacity union takes in may be a capacity intersection. One still takes set unions and set intersections using the standard rules, and one uses more parentheses so that grouping is unambiguous. For example, a ((demi∩nide)∪gray)romantic individual would frequently experience general desires for a romantic relationship towards people whom one has emotionally connected with and would rarely experience: general desires for a romantic relationship towards strangers; urges for specific romantic activities towards people whom one has emotionally connected with; and urges for specific romantic activities towards strangers.

Paro- Capacity-Affinitive Unions
A union of two or more capacity-affinitive intersections can be used to describe someone who is parosexual, paroromantic, etc….

=History= Capacity unions were conceived alongside capacity intersections by MathAndCode on October 25, 2022 in the sense of using a specific symbol and conceiving a general pattern, but because MathAndCode does not have a Tumblr account, these terms were first publicly posted by tulipian on November 14 of the same year. There previously existed terms for capacities that can be retroactively identified as capacity unions, e.g., cupioquoisexual is more properly (cupio∪quoi)sexual.