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The Asexual-Sexual Q&A Thread


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Since we're talking about rejection, I'd like to ask a few questions to sexuals, if you don't mind.

 

1) Is there a difference between being rejected sexually and being rejected romantically? Does one hurt more than the other? Or is it equally painful, and it just hurts in different ways?

 

2) Let's say that you're in a LTR and you want sex 3 times a week, but your partner wants it once or twice. Obviously you won't feel as rejected as if you were in a mixed-relationship, but you will get rejected occasionally. Would it still hurt, or would you get used to it after awhile?

 

3) I can understand why a sexual person who's in a LTR with another sexual would take rejection personally. Lack of sex for a long period of time usually indicates that there might be something wrong with the relationship. But I've never understood why some single guys get angry when they're rejected by a woman. In my case, becoming attracted to someone was always something spontaneous; I can't control it. I'm pretty certain that most people probably feel the same way (if they're romantic and/or sexual), including those angry Nice Guys™. That's why I almost never feel bad when guys reject me. So why do they act as if dating was some kind of meritocracy? If no one (including them) can control who they're attracted to, why do they think that the person who rejected them is somehow implying that they're not good enough or something? :huh: (I apologize if that's a stupid question, but I'm genuinely curious)

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57 minutes ago, Visenya said:

Since we're talking about rejection, I'd like to ask a few questions to sexuals, if you don't mind.

 

1) Is there a difference between being rejected sexually and being rejected romantically? Does one hurt more than the other? Or is it equally painful, and it just hurts in different ways?

 

2) Let's say that you're in a LTR and you want sex 3 times a week, but your partner wants it once or twice. Obviously you won't feel as rejected as if you were in a mixed-relationship, but you will get rejected occasionally. Would it still hurt, or would you get used to it after awhile?

 

3) I can understand why a sexual person who's in a LTR with another sexual would take rejection personally. Lack of sex for a long period of time usually indicates that there might be something wrong with the relationship. But I've never understood why some single guys get angry when they're rejected by a woman. In my case, becoming attracted to someone was always something spontaneous; I can't control it. I'm pretty certain that most people probably feel the same way (if they're romantic and/or sexual), including those angry Nice Guys™. That's why I almost never feel bad when guys reject me. So why do they act as if dating was some kind of meritocracy? If no one (including them) can control who they're attracted to, why do they think that the person who rejected them is somehow implying that they're not good enough or something? :huh: (I apologize if that's a stupid question, but I'm genuinely curious)

 

1. Being rejected romantically hurts more, for me at least. Mostly because I have a large separation between romance and sex. Which, sorry @Telecaster68, but I believe a good portion of sexuals can separate the two, maybe not as much as I do, but to a good degree. Anyway, if I approach someone romantically, it usually means I've put a lot of thought into it and weighed the positives and negatives. and I usually only approach someone with it after seeing whether or not we're compatible, available, and at least trying to see if there's a good chance we could be together. So to get shot down at that kinda stings more because it means I went into it really hoping it would work. Whereas sex? I mean... The gist of it is "Do you want to sleep together?" "No." "Cool beans I'ma go talk to that guy over there, wish me luck." There's not much emotional investment in just sex so I don't think it would hurt more.

 

2. My first partner had a bit of a different sex drive than me, while sometimes if I was really riled up and got shot down it would feel like a bit of an annoyance at the time, it wasn't ever a big problem. Usually I would ask, if he said no I would continue about my business, no big deal. I didn't really get *used* to it, but it didn't really hurt me or make me FEEL rejected either, just, wasn't in the mood.

 

3. That's not a stupid question! There's no such thing, it just... happens to have a stupid answer. Some guys take it personally because they can't handle rejection and feel like the world owes them something for some ungodly reason. It's basically what telecaster said, rejection stings, but most of us deal with it in an adult way, some people... Don't

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

This is going to seem like a vast generalisation, but it's based on observation of my male gay friends: the 'fancy sex?' conversation as you describe it is overwhelmingly a male to male thing (or maybe gay, I dunno). It happens male to female, I'm sure, but it's not as common in my experience as men with men. I wish it was as it would make life simpler.  

I was actually going to make a comment on this in my post, saying mileage may vary since I'm gay and hookups/separating sex and romance are much more common in gay culture. But I'm more or less saying, even with straight people, I feel like there's a difference between falling for someone and trying to get into their pants. I'm afraid I haven't researched heterosexual mating rituals extensively :P But if I recall correctly there still is a "hookup culture", it just usually implies a bit more time before anything happening. It's hard to say, but I guess the best way for me to put it would be: Even in straight culture, there still seems to be (for most people) a divide between what you do to get sex, and what you do when you really want to be in a relationship with someone. Maybe that divide is a bit smaller or maybe a bit less common, but I still feel like it's there and prevalent?

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I agree, I think there is a lot of expectation, and both are capable of playing into or playing along with it. I'm just also stating from my perspective (which, as a college student in a very liberal area, may be slightly skewed on this topic). Just more or less saying that from what I've seen, it's not *terribly* uncommon for the separation to be there, at the very least.

 

There are also many factors that could be going into it, for all I know sex culture is vastly different in the UK (I'm east coast america), it could also be that maybe the younger generation, while less promiscuous, is much bigger on sexual freedoms and blurring the lines between things like relationships, friends with benefits, etc.  though both of those are generalizations, just stating them as possibilities (not meant to offend, but pondering,  since I know virtually nothing about both your generations sexual attitudes and the UK's sexual attitudes)

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Great, lost my post, can't recover it because my recovery plugin doesn't work with new fancyAVEN. Love it when updates break my workflow.

 

On 12/28/2016 at 1:04 AM, AshenPhoenix said:

But I'm more or less saying, even with straight people, I feel like there's a difference between falling for someone and trying to get into their pants. I'm afraid I haven't researched heterosexual mating rituals extensively :P But if I recall correctly there still is a "hookup culture", it just usually implies a bit more time before anything happening. It's hard to say, but I guess the best way for me to put it would be: Even in straight culture, there still seems to be (for most people) a divide between what you do to get sex, and what you do when you really want to be in a relationship with someone. Maybe that divide is a bit smaller or maybe a bit less common, but I still feel like it's there and prevalent?

Yes, of course there is. But many heterosexual males aren't so lucky as to be the target of some woman's desire for casual sex very often, so that part kind of falls away. For me, sexual rejection is a much more serious deal than romantic rejection, because frankly there's not much I can do about it. On the very rare occasion that I get a sense a woman might be attracted to me (and I'm talking once every few years here), it will sting extra if that leads nowhere. Meanwhile, romantic rejection? The only part of that which really stings me is the "romance implies sex" thing, and we're back to sexual rejection. But as for the romance itself, I couldn't ask for anything better than what I have with my partner, so I'm not really concerned about that. Whether anyone other than my partner would want to be friends, or be in a non-sexual romantic relationship, it honestly wouldn't matter to me at this point.

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On 06/12/2016 at 6:20 AM, Snow Cone said:

 

What do you mean by "varied sexual history"?

As in, I've had sex and engaged in sexual acts with people of various genders and in various situations, ie just one on one, threesomes, orgies etc. Hope that answers your question :)

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Username_2017
On 27/12/2016 at 11:17 PM, Telecaster68 said:

1. To most sexuals, romance implies sex, so being rejected sexually and romantically are pretty much the same thing. 

Hi Telecaster68, can I ask what sort of things you would think of as romance? 

 

I feel for me romance and sex are entirely different things but possibly I have the wrong idea of romance. 

 

I have started dating someone and I would consider the romantic things we do are him treating me to lunch, watching a TV series together whilst cuddling and also planning a weekend away which I feel would be romantic in the fact we would take walks together and spend the evenings in each others company. None of these to either me or him imply sex. Oh I also told him I wished he was with me today which I thought was me being romantic, this wasn't sexual at all, I just enjoy his company. 

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Username_2017

An expectation of sex in the general relationship or an expectation of sex tied in with those specific activities? E.g. I have treated you to lunch therefore I expect/hope for sex

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Username_2017

Got it! I was reading what you wrote wrong and thought I needed to consider my sexuality all over again. And yeah got worried that the lunch for sex was erm 'normal'. I apologise for probably asking stupid questions! 

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Anthracite_Impreza

On that note, something I've wondered for a long time but always got distracted before actually asking. Do sexuals instinctively know "what to do"; like if you'd been raised on a remote island in a small group of other sheltered people, would you know what goes where, or what the feelings you had meant? Or is it mostly through observation? #stupidquestion

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Some of it is instinctive, definitely. For instance, I've had fantasies about doing stuff to women's vaginas before I knew what they looked like (I was 8 at the time, OK?). When I later learned what they actually looked like, I was quite repulsed by the reality of it..

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On 27/12/2016 at 9:17 PM, Telecaster68 said:

3. Rejection does imply you're not good enough, for sexuals. We (sexuals) want sex with someone, but not this specific person, otherwise we wouldn't reject them. So in some way they're not good enough to have sex with.

 

First of all, I want to thank you and @AshenPhoenix for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it. ^_^

 

About the part I quoted, I still don't get it. >_< I mean, I've met a few guys who would be dateable/fuckable... in theory. They could be considered "good enough" for me, but in practice, I just wasn't into them. I don't know why, though. Apparently my brain prefers gay men, people who are in a relationship, smokers, homophobic conservatives etc. I guess that it's a common experience, so, if people are aware that we're occasionally attracted to assholes and/or to nice but incompatible people, why the "if she doesn't like me, it's because there must be something wrong with me" way of thinking? Do they think badly of everyone they don't want to sleep with? I hope not...

 

I think that maybe, unlike me, other people are a bit more in control of who they're attracted to? Or maybe that's because I'm not a "normal" sexual, and I'm used to rejecting guys for reasons that have nothing to do with them (the typical "it's not you, it's me" excuse was pretty accurate in my case. Everytime people ask me why I've rejected someone, I try to make something up and fail, because there's usually no explanation). Or maybe I'm so used to rejection that it doesn't even bother me anymore. :P

 

But anyway, even though I can't understand that, I'll definitely try to remember that people usually have a harder time dealing with rejection than me. I might have been insensitive a few times because I wasn't aware that it bothered them that much.

 

(And once again, sorry if I'm being slow and stupid. The fact that it's 40°C here doesn't help either :unsure:)

 

On 27/12/2016 at 10:35 PM, Telecaster68 said:

Market forces mean women get to choose what happens next, not men, and dating and relationships seems to be where they want it to go. Leave men to themselves and they unrepentantly go for hookups, and that's not just internet either, cf SF bath houses in the 70s.

 

Maybe I'll say that next time a guy asks me why I'm not into them/relationships/etc. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I'm doing this for you! I just don't want to 'put you on a leash' and ruin your sex life. You would be better off with other guys". :D (I'm joking, but I almost said it once to a guy, just to see his reaction)

 

But seriously though, I've said that a lot of times, but people wouldn't take it very seriously. One of the reasons why I love having gay friends is that most of them are ok with being single or in an open relationship, so I don't need to deal with the "loss" of a (gay) friend very often (my hetero friends usually stop hanging out with their friends when they're in a relationship). I also don't get why some people get upset when I say that I'd probably get along much better with other women. They just say that there's absolutely no difference between men and women when it comes to dating, but I'm not so sure of that.

 

Oh, and about the "women get to choose what happens next" part, I think it depends. I've read this article some time ago that claims how unequal gender ratio affects the dating scene (I wasn't able to find the original article, though). I know I'm completely biased, especially being a social sciences student, but it kind of made sense to me.

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10 hours ago, Visenya said:

 

First of all, I want to thank you and @AshenPhoenix for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it. ^_^

 

About the part I quoted, I still don't get it. >_< I mean, I've met a few guys who would be dateable/fuckable... in theory. They could be considered "good enough" for me, but in practice, I just wasn't into them. I don't know why, though. Apparently my brain prefers gay men, people who are in a relationship, smokers, homophobic conservatives etc. I guess that it's a common experience, so, if people are aware that we're occasionally attracted to assholes and/or to nice but incompatible people, why the "if she doesn't like me, it's because there must be something wrong with me" way of thinking? Do they think badly of everyone they don't want to sleep with? I hope not...

 

I think that maybe, unlike me, other people are a bit more in control of who they're attracted to? Or maybe that's because I'm not a "normal" sexual, and I'm used to rejecting guys for reasons that have nothing to do with them (the typical "it's not you, it's me" excuse was pretty accurate in my case. Everytime people ask me why I've rejected someone, I try to make something up and fail, because there's usually no explanation). Or maybe I'm so used to rejection that it doesn't even bother me anymore. :P

 

10 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

I just don't think anyone can come up with a rationale for why we fancy who we fancy. Sure, shared interests, attitudes, etc. help sustain a relationship, but I share those with any number of people I don't fancy.

For me, it's the total opposite. If I find out someone I'm attracted to is dishonest / superficial / genuinely heartless, my attraction dies instantly. Meanwhile, if they check all the boxes of what I like in personality, plus are at least somewhat attractive physically to me, I will be attracted to them in almost all cases. It's all very simple and straightforward to me. So if someone rejects me, to me of course it feels like it's also as simple and straightforward to them, so the rejection means I'm not good enough for them.

 

Although Telecaster, to address your point specifically.. The most "intimate" experience I've had myself, also was ironically in a situation where the other person didn't check all the items. Instead, I was simply pretending to be someone who I'm not, and filling a role to them that generally I do not fill. Unfortunately, to me that is not something I would actually be happy with in a relationship. I need to be able to be my honest self to feel happy in the long term.

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Isn't that because the things asked on dating sites are generally pretty inconsequential? To see whether someone ticks my boxes, I need to have an actual conversation with them. Static things don't really make up personality. It's analyzable for sure, but it's much more complex and beyond the grasp of stupid beings like us to really comprehend, thus any analysis will be very error prone.

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Frozen Fairy

Why do sexuals have a desire specifically for partnered sex as opposed to just masturbating? Isn't it the same thing?

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So I'm new to this whole asexual thing but my thing is I still get horny and masterbate, but I'm never physically  attracted to people and sex plain out scares and disgust me., Am I still asexual even though I masterbate?

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@Ash87 Masturbation doesn't rule out asexuality. An asexual person can still have a libido - that is, their hormones can still get them riled up in a way that requires genital stimulation to release. But if the idea of sex with another person simply does not appeal to you, and you have no innate desire to have sex that's being unmet, then you may still be asexual.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Question for allo/sexual people:

How often do you experience sexual attraction? Obviously the answer will be different for different people, but I'm curious. Is it like every day you see a good-looking person who you're sexually attracted to? More like once a month? If you had to guess, how many people would you think you've felt sexual attraction towards? I realize you're probably not counting, but just guess.

 

And of course sexual attraction counts for strangers that you see on the street as well as friends, celebrities, acquaintances, and partners.

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Definitely daily. I couldn't tell you the number of people I've felt attracted to thus far, but I do experience sexual attraction daily. That doesn't mean I want to bang someone on a daily basis, but I definitely do the 'ole double take more than once or twice.

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  • 2 weeks later...

biggreenmonkey........just got on this website yesterday, but would be very glad and willing to engage in a discourse with asexuals (and other sexuals as the conversation develops). Conversely, do you have a group of asexuals who would be willing to field questions from sexuals who are holding questions that they would like to have answered?

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Well, generally here would be the place to do it! Both here in this thread, or on Sexual Partners, Friends, and Allies at large (or perhaps somewhere else on AVEN). We have a number of asexuals who both read this thread and the sub-forum frequently who already answer sexuals' questions :)

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I have a couple more questions. The first one might get a little TMI, so I'm putting it in a spoiler. 

 

Spoiler

I have observed that for most people (i.e. non-asexual people), touching someone else's breasts/legs/bottom/I don't know where else means something that it just doesn't for me. I think it's inherently sexual for them. Is that true, and if so, how sexual is it? One of the things that helped me realize I was asexual was the scene in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon puts Vick's vaporub on Amy's chest, and it seems to be more significant to her than just relief from congestion. :) 

 

Also, what is the deal with "memorizing" a person? Actually, I'm not even sure if it's romantic or sexual. I heard it in a Taylor swift song, and I just thought it was a weird lyric that wasn't supposed to make sense. Then I heard it in another Taylor Swift song, and I thought it was just a Taylor Swift thing. Then I heard it somewhere else, so now I'm wondering if it's actually something most people experience. 

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For your first question, it kind of depends largely on the person to an extent. Some people are more "into" those areas, for others it's not as big of a deal. I, for example, really have no idea what the big deal is about breasts :P

 

But to actually answer your question, for me it's not really inherently sexual, but it can be sexual. Like, if I bump into a boyfriend or something, I'm not going to get aroused at contact with his lower half, but if we're actually doing anything sexual, well, yeah, maybe his legs and bottom will become more of an area of sexual attention for me. But I've never been one to find either inherently arousing that commonly. Sometimes, yes, but not commonly. I would think of it this way, people have oral sex, but people aren't constantly around by the sight of a mouth (well... most people).

 

As for your second question, I don't really know? I'm not sure what you mean by memorizing, I think it might actually just be a taylor swift thing :P

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Diamond Ace of Hearts
On ‎03‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 6:40 PM, Telecaster68 said:

As my old journalism tutor used to say 'if you don't ask stupid questions, you make stupid mistakes...'

with apologies to you and your tutor, I am stealing that saying.

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Diamond Ace of Hearts
On ‎04‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 6:56 AM, Quinoa said:

 

 

Also, what is the deal with "memorizing" a person? Actually, I'm not even sure if it's romantic or sexual. I heard it in a Taylor swift song, and I just thought it was a weird lyric that wasn't supposed to make sense. Then I heard it in another Taylor Swift song, and I thought it was just a Taylor Swift thing. Then I heard it somewhere else, so now I'm wondering if it's actually something most people experience. 

I can't say whether it is or isn't sexual, but there definitely is a romantic side to it. I don't think I can satisfactorily answer what it means romantically but I think/hope I can explain why it can't be adequately explained.

 

It's a loose metaphor that may not tally up exactly with anyone's feelings. It also strikes me as possibly multi-layered too, like you unpack the metaphor and there's another one in there, confusing the issue. I don't get it either but there are certainly other tropes in love songs that make just as little sense and which I could not explain if I wanted to but which strike a chord with me nonetheless. I suspect there's a deliberate vagueness to it, also. If something can be taken one of a few ways then anyone can take any reading of it they like and it's therefore more likely to be relatable to more people, meaning you sell more songs. Someone who experiences romance and love songs differently might be better placed to examine the meaning of the phrase but then they might not have the insider's perspective on how it feels.

 

I realise this was the least helpful answer of all time but I've written it now, I may as well post it. :)

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Oh, it didn't occur to me that it might be a romantic thing! Being an aro ace, it's hard to tell if things like that are romantic or sexual sometimes. The other place I heard it was in Divergent, and in that context, it sounded like a sexual thing rather than a romantic thing. 

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  • 2 months later...
Quote

I have observed that for most people (i.e. non-asexual people), touching someone else's breasts/legs/bottom/I don't know where else means something that it just doesn't for me. I think it's inherently sexual for them. Is that true, and if so, how sexual is it? One of the things that helped me realize I was asexual was the scene in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon puts Vick's vaporub on Amy's chest, and it seems to be more significant to her than just relief from congestion. :) 

I don't really know if you could call this a sexual's point of view but I can have a crack at this one anyway.

 

It may not necessarily be *sexual* but such a thing is very commonly viewed as physically intimate.  Those are "taboo" sorts of areas of the body that most people don't just let anyone have full access to.  As for how intimate that is (for some, yes, it could cross the line in the sand entirely and be considered "sexual"), naturally that's going to vary from person to person.  Having someone that you can entrust yourself to like that is a big, liberating, blissful thing for many, whether or not that necessarily translates into a sexual feeling.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/3/2017 at 5:08 PM, Anthracite_Impreza said:

On that note, something I've wondered for a long time but always got distracted before actually asking. Do sexuals instinctively know "what to do"; like if you'd been raised on a remote island in a small group of other sheltered people, would you know what goes where, or what the feelings you had meant? Or is it mostly through observation? #stupidquestion

From my own experience, nothing was instinctive. I learned everything while I was making out with my first boyfriends. I say boyfriends in the plural because learning was an ongoing process, and to tell you the truth there is always something else you can learn. While making out with my first boyfriends I learned not only what they liked, but also what my own body responses were. I found out that the times I couldn`t feel anything, it happened because the guy didn`t have enough experience to know what would be arousing to me, and I didn`t have enough experience to indicate it to him (or tell him). If my first experience ever had been with certain guys, I would have believed I was asexual. I had to break up with those. My first experience with sexual intercourse was simply boring. The pleasure I was feeling soon disappeared, and I couldn`t wait for him to climax. For months I couldn`t climax at all. Then I talked about it with a friend (by this time I had broken up with my boyfriend), and he decided to teach me how to climax. He showed me what my own body craved and I didn`t even know. We two experimented a lot, and I learned a lot about my own body and what men like in general. In fact it helped a lot that we were good friends and not into any other kind of relationship, because I felt comfortable about asking him things and we could talk about absolutely everything. When I got married years later (my first marriage, not the current one), I made my husband very happy sexually and he made me very happy sexually as well, because we both had learned from other, more experienced people. And we still discovered together other things that we had never experienced before. The kinds of things I learned (from the beginning) were things like where my pleasure points were, and where men`s pleasure points generally are, what worked best to make me aroused and to make my partner aroused, the kind of rhythm that is more pleasurable, how to make the intercourse last longer and this way have more time for both of us to experience pleasure, or how to make us climax faster if this is what we wanted, and even things like how to massage a man`s prostate. I have no idea whether somebody can learn these things instinctively. Just one more thing: no question is stupid, if you`re seeking knowledge.

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  • 4 months later...
On 2/4/2017 at 1:56 AM, Quinoa said:

I have a couple more questions. The first one might get a little TMI, so I'm putting it in a spoiler. 

 

  Hide contents

I have observed that for most people (i.e. non-asexual people), touching someone else's breasts/legs/bottom/I don't know where else means something that it just doesn't for me. I think it's inherently sexual for them. Is that true, and if so, how sexual is it? One of the things that helped me realize I was asexual was the scene in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon puts Vick's vaporub on Amy's chest, and it seems to be more significant to her than just relief from congestion. :) 

 

Also, what is the deal with "memorizing" a person? Actually, I'm not even sure if it's romantic or sexual. I heard it in a Taylor swift song, and I just thought it was a weird lyric that wasn't supposed to make sense. Then I heard it in another Taylor Swift song, and I thought it was just a Taylor Swift thing. Then I heard it somewhere else, so now I'm wondering if it's actually something most people experience. 

I am IMO very sexual.  Touching my wife's breasts,  legs, butt, rubbing her back etc all arouse me sexually.  It's just does.  IMHO memorizing my wife,  is remembering my happy sexual experiences with her visually and emotionally.  These memories help me survive my own bouts of depression.  They also help me masturbate without using porn. 

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