/u/Snackrattus on In-between romantic and sexual attraction?

This is long, but important.

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Okay, one: the idea of finding your partner attractive is wholesome. Most (allosexual) people need to feel desirable. Describing it as 'less wholesome' I find concerning, because it treats sex as a immoral action (sex-negative) rather than your personal relationship to it.

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Two: asexuality isn't a 'club', it's just a term to describe your experience. If your internal life changes and your label does too, you were never 'lying' about being ace beforehand. Don't let any label be a 'club' you must deny your internal self to maintain 'membership' of.

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You can also have sexual attraction, but still be sex-negative ("sex is perverse/animalistic/immoral!") and/or sex-averse ("Sex is gross/invasive/fine for you, but not me!"). A common case for people who experience sexual trauma, or from religious upbringing where sex is demonised. The idea of wanting to touch them, wanting them to touch you, wanting to be physically intimate - but stopping short of sex, because it's too scary, dangerous, painful, disgusting, etc.

Demisexuality is a form of grey-sexuality under the asexual umbrella (a-spec). Where one does feel sexual attraction, but only to a person they truly have connected with, first. Not that they only want to have sex with a person they know (most allos make that choice), but that the idea of sexual desire to a stranger, regardless of how they look, is alien.

What you describe could be what some would call 'sensual attraction'. Closely related to sexual attraction, but is still present in asexual/chaste relationships. It focuses on the idea of sensual closeness, independent of sex itself. To touch, smell, hold, kiss, feel. Then there is also aesthetic attraction: to want to admire. Just to view, and admire. To enjoy admiring.

However, these terms are only used by aces. We use them to establish the nuance in our relationships. Sexuality is a spectrum, and by trying to strictly define the shades within it, we continually blur the lines between them. That's why allosexual people look at terms like 'demisexual heteromantic' and can't see the difference between that and 'straight with standards': we've divided the spectrum into progressively smaller and smaller slices, where most people still look at them as chunks.

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In the ace community, sex itself is typically of little interest (be that because you're sex-averse or sex-indifferent, sex-negative, or have experienced sexual trauma) but you may still experience physical attraction to people for their bodies.

But for allosexual people, these are closely linked, different positions on the same spectrum. Aesthetic attraction is enough at one end that allos can distinguish it from sexual attraction (eg: straight men still admiring Ryan Reynolds, or Henry Cavill), but because sensual attraction is so close, most allos consider it to be essentially the same thing. It's true that in a sexual relationship, while sex can be 'pure' and animalistic/mechanical - 'sexual chemistry' - it is typically most enjoyed when sensual attraction/intimacy is involved, as well.

So maybe it's sensual attraction, and you're ace! Maybe it is sexual attraction, and you're sex-averse! Maybe it's sexual attraction, but you're hoping it isn't, because you're sex-negative and feel filthy by the idea of wanting sexual touch! All of those descriptions can look the same. Who are we, to tell you which is right for you?

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I still enjoy sex, but I don't look at my partner thinking 'I want to fuck that', and if we were to skip to sex, it would be fine, but not as interesting. I do, however, look at my partner and think 'mmm you a snack': I want to admire him, run my hands all over him, smell him, play with his hair, rub his back, spoon him and hold him tight to me. Once I am doing that, I often end up wanting sex, too - but I'm not initiating it with sex in mind. So... what do I call that? I used to be completely asexual, sex-averse. Then asexual, sex-indifferent. Now I consider myself grey-asexual, sex-positive, and sex-favourable. These terms mean something to many here, but not all of them, and mean very little to people outside the a-spec community.

The short of it is that you just want to find terms that describe you. These shouldn't be 'identities', flags we fly, banners we live under. Our lives will naturally evolve and change as we do, and how we relate to others (and ourselves) is among that. If you were a goth in high school, do you still have to be a goth when you're thirty? You can, if it resonates, but why would you dictate to yourself that you must live that way under that term, now that you've claimed it... even when it no longer fits? You didn't lie about being a goth when you were 15.

December 02, 2021 at 12:09AM