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Did anyone else thought aesthetic attraction = sexual attraction?


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During my early teens I thought they were the same thing, until I was about 16 I didn't know the difference. I've never felt sexual attraction towards anyone or even had a sex drive, but ever since I was 13 I've felt aesthetically (and also romantically, but that's another story) attracted to females, on a fairly regular basis, and I thought that was pretty much it. I liked (and still do) how they look and could tell if they're beautiful although not in a sexual way, more like looking at a painting and enjoying how it looks. Whenever I got asked "do you find **** hot" I would say yes or no based on how I find them aesthetically, but if I got asked "would you f*** her" I just wouldn't know what to respond, those situations really confused me because there was "something else" apart from just liking someone's looks that everyone else felt and I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Later, even tough I identified as straight, I progressively realized I was "different" than my peers (never got horny, had no sexual fantasies or urges, indifferent/apathetic towards sex, etc...) but it wasn't until I found out about asexuality that it all clicked and learnt the difference between those two attractions.

Did other aces also felt this way? I'm curious to know.

I apologize in advance if I didn't express myself correctly, as English is not my first language :)

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❅Snowflake❅

No.

Aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction are totally different.

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I don't experience either of those things, so I was never able to make that connection, at least in my mind.

I've realized that it's probably that way for many other people, though

No.

Aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction are totally different.

I'm pretty sure he knows that now; he's asking if anyone USED to think that way.

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Absolutely! That was something I had so much trouble with. I had someone suggest to me a few years back that I was asexual and I quickly brushed it off because I had a bad definition of asexuality and though 'I clearly find girls attractive, I can't be asexual' whilst at the same time being conscious I didn't entirely see things the same as my friends.

And yes, I have also done the 'i think x is aesthetically attractive so I'll say she's hot/would do'.

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I'm pretty sure I also confused them earlier. I think a majority of the "attraction" I feel from appearances is aesthetic in nature. I'm always much more interested in seeing them emotionally and intellectually naked than physically.

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Definitely! I always thought aesthetic attraction was the same as sexual attraction, until a few months ago when I suddenly realized it wasn't. I also though that every time I got a squish on a guy, it must be a crush, which made figuring out that I was aromantic difficult for a while.

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editingatwork

My aesthetic attraction is mixed in with a bit of sensual attraction, so yeah, I mixed up aesthetic attraction with sexual attraction for pretty much my whole life.

Being on AVEN has helped. After reading the FAQs and various people's descriptions of their emotions and urges, I've realized that just because I'm fascinated by someone's body doesn't mean I like the idea of having sex with it. I can find someone "hot," but again, it's a strong sensual or aesthetic attraction, not a sexual one.

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I see them as different things but it's a bit hard for myself to remember how I thought about since appearntý last week I got surprised by how somone described sexual attraction.

I always thought that people spoke about sexual attracted when someone was really beautiful and that made them want to have a relation with them. I also thought that it was a joke to immediately say that they wanted to have sex (not literaly a joke but more like acting though).

I now heard some people on Aven saying that sexual attraction IS a feeling about wanting to have sex with that person. That knowledge is kinda mindblowing to me...

So to be short: I always thought that being beautiful causes people to find you sexual attractive.

I now know that finding someone sexual attractive isn't (completely) caused by being beautiful. Beautifulness has more to do with astetic attraction. And to me it makes sense now... although I am going to ask sexual friends how they describe being sexual attracted to someone.

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I'm pretty sure I also confused them earlier. I think a majority of the "attraction" I feel from appearances is aesthetic in nature. I'm always much more interested in seeing them emotionally and intellectually naked than physically.

Yes, that. Exactly that. Well put.

I also used to confuse aesthetic and sexual in my teen years. I could find people's faces attractive (but mostly their expression, smile, light in their eyes, anything that shows intelligence and emotion) but I never wanted to see them naked. I always found clothed people more attractive. Clearly not a sexual thing then.

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I didn't always understand that sexual attraction existed because I have never experienced it. I was always confused by some of the things friends, family, etc did because I did not know those things were motivated by sexual attraction.

There were times when I thought that the aesthetic attraction that I experience was all that was possible .......at other times, I kinda thought of it as a mild form of sexual attraction. When it dawned on me that there was something else that I was not experiencing, I google and found aven and discovered that I was asexual.

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WhenSummersGone

I didn't think they were the same. I knew some guys that I liked were good looking but I never wanted to have sex with them.

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I equated them for the longest time lol...that was before I found AVEN, learned about asexuality, and learned the difference in attraction! I would identify as bisexual because I thought guys and girls were cute. That was the term I was familiar with, so I used it. Although I never really felt sexual attraction (it turns out now lol!), I thought that if I had a crush on them or thought they were good-looking, that was the same. I certainly know the difference now, but I didn't for most of my life lol.

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Conscientious Ghost

I don't think that thought has occurred to me. I remember admiring or liking someone's appearance, but I had no sexual interest or desire to pull them into a love hotel. When my friends asked who would we all want to bang in bed, I opted out of the conversation because no one would pop into my mind. All of my friends who highly expected teenagers to be horny rabbits began to blurb out most of the attractive people on their mind, and I still wouldn't bang any of them despite the aesthetic attraction. I didn't understand what the terms were or what the hell was up with me until I discovered AVEN during 10th grade.

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poor naive me just thought that when people were talking about sexual attraction they were talking about aesthetic attraction. boy was i wrong.

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Marshmallow Tree

Yup. I thought that finding someone attractive meant I was normal, and if I was normal then that would mean I'm sexually attracted to them. Thankfully I know otherwise now.

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nerdperson777

I don't experience it, but I thought they were the same. Either way someone is going to call such person "hot". But I guess for different people good-looking to one might not be good-looking to another. I remember some show on TV talking about how women were going crazy for actor Brad Pitt. When asked which movie one liked the best, one answered (don't know the title) because he had his shirt off a lot. Then the show was saying that he was sexually attractive since he had characteristics that made women want to mate with him.

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I didn't think they were the same. I knew some guys that I liked were good looking but I never wanted to have sex with them.

This. Except substitute "guys" with "gals". :)

I've always known that I don't want sex, ever since I first heard about the concept at around five years old... and that just never changed, despite developing a sizeable libido at puberty. When I started reacting to women with "ooh pretty" and/or with romantic obsession, that didn't change it either - it's always been clearly different enough from sexuality, leading me to feel that there's simply no neat orientation label I fit into... until I found AVEN, many years later.

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I'm attracted aesthetically and for or the longest time confused this with sexual attraction. The attraction I experience is more admiration ..it's a different type of stimulation altogether.

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Janus the Fox
Initially when first learning about it and associating words to feelings.
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I used to think along those sort of lines. My libido tends to use women I find aesthetically attractive in order to entertain itself, hence the confusion. I was actually wondering for quite a while if there was such a thing as aesthetic attraction when I first heard about asexuality.

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I always thought that the feeling of aesthetic appreciation = sexual attraction, until I realized that there's no difference for me between seeing a beautiful person and a cute animal... lol

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It took me forever to realise that aesthetic attraction was definitely not sexual attraction! I always thought that because I could look at a man, or occasionally a woman, and think "Oh, they're hot", that meant I was sexually attracted to them. Nope. Definitely not. There is absolutely nothing sexual about what I feel for people.

Although I will add that I probably mixed up sensual attraction with sexual attraction as well. Doing something like cuddling with someone I had a crush/squish (whatever you want to call it) was something I always thought about, but I never realised that most people actually go past the cuddle to a lot more. :/

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Sebastian Grace

Yes. I didn't know the difference between the two, and I wish that I had. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. :(

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Your English is absolutely perfect and yeah I couldn't put my finger on what I was missing until recently too. I was confused by experiencing attraction but also feeling like it wasn't what everyone else was calling attraction but not knowing what else they could mean. Knowing you find someone attractive but not tying that to wanting to have sex with them, I often also describe it as admiring a painting but not wanting to have sex with a painting to allosexuals when they don't understand.

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