Capacity intersection

A capacity intersection, 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 both/all 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 intersection.

=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 intersection demi∩nide would represent the set intersection {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}. This would still be a capacity prefix that would be prepended to a type of attraction. For example, a (demi∩nide)romantic individual would only experience romantic attraction towards someone whom one has emotionally connected with, and even then, this would be limited to general desires for a romantic relationship without specific attractions. Thus, a (demi∩nide)romantic individual could experience any romantic attraction that both a demiromantic indidivual or a nideromantic individual could experience.

As another example, a (caligo∩gray)mental individual would rarely experience weak mental attraction and would never experience strong mental attraction.

=Combining with Unions= One of the capacity prefixes that a capacity intersection takes in may be a capacity union. 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 only experience romantic attractions towards people whom one has emotionally connected to, and even then, these attractions would usually only be general desires for a romantic relationship and only rarely would include urges for specific romantic activities.

Capacity-Affinitive Intersections
One can take the intersection of a capacity prefix with an affinitive prefix to get a prefix that describes both which gender(s) one is attracted to and how one experiences that attraction (although this technically would not be a capacity intersection). In this case, one typically would not bother including the intersection sign (e.g., demihomoromantic) except in order to take the union of these capacity-affinitive intersections in order to describe a parosexual, paroromantic, etc… person.

=History= Capacity intersections were conceived alongside capacity unions 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 intersections, e.g., demigreysexual is more properly (demi∩gray)sexual.