What Is Sexual Attraction?

[5678bunni]

I'm confused about the definition of sexual attraction. Does it mean?

A) finding people sexy/hot
B) Wanting to have sex with a
partner/person.

For me personally I have never experienced A, the concept itself is foreign to me. I go to a gym with a lot of very fit males and I feel nothing at all, I look at both men and women completely platonically. Just like you would look at art or flowers.
whereas my friends might find them "hot" and comment on their looks or look in their direction often.

However I have experienced B, only twice in my entire life.
After reading a lot of posts in this forum it's become clear a lot of asexuals do not experience either.

PS - I am aromantic
 

[MacAran]

Bunni, You've stumbled onto what is perhaps the single biggest point of contention about and amongst Asexuals.  Or perhaps more generally, what does it mean to be asexual?  (Lack of sexual attraction being relevant only if you use sexual attraction as part of the definition of being asexual).  

Specifically addressing sexual attraction: there are varied definitions and no definitive consensus.  I think it is fair to say that a desire for sex with a specific object of that desire would constitute sexual attraction.  So the two criteria are 1) a desire and 2) a target or object which attracts that desire.  I think this is a good rule of thumb definition.  That said, these criteria are not complete, and probably not even sufficient.  That is, there are situations that criteria do not cover that could be sexual attraction, I am certain someone on this forum could come up with a set of situations that meets these criteria but would not, for whatever reason be sexual attraction.  

A side note on "desire" particularly "desire for sex":  Sex, and wanting sex is so ingrained in our culture and so thrown at us over and over again that sometimes (or at least in my case) we experience some attraction to a person, aesthetic attraction for instance (which can be summed up by the idea of "I like looking at that person"), and we think that this is sexual attraction, we think "I want to have sex with that person" not necessarily because we actually want sex with that person, but because that is what we have been trained to think by our culture in response to attraction in general.  I know at least, that such was the case for me.  I thought I was sexually attracted to my ex-girlfriend because I (somewhat) enjoyed making out and a few other things, but when sex went from an abstract concept to a concrete possibility, and I started to have some inkling of what she was experiencing (from talking to her about it, and reading her reactions and body language) I realized that I was not experiencing anything at all like that.  I thought I was experiencing sexual attraction because I thought what I was experiencing WAS sexual attraction, and I thought that because I had no reference for what sexual attraction felt like, and (at the time) no idea that there was even such a thing as a person who didn't experience sexual attraction.

[Ashmedai]

I think it can be a combination of both points you've brought up, plus some other things that may or may not be included there. This would be tricky to answer without input from people who do experience it though. An asexual describing sexual attraction is like a blind man describing the colour green.

[Nidwin]

It's the human version of gravity. X gets too close to Y and suddenly both become glued to each other. And asexuals have that uncanny ability to avoid getting too close to someone, most of the time

[Xavy]

6 hours ago, 5678bunni said:

I'm confused about the definition of sexual attraction. Does it mean?

A) finding people sexy/hot
B) Wanting to have sex with a
partner/person.

For me personally I have never experienced A, the concept itself is foreign to me. I go to a gym with a lot of very fit males and I feel nothing at all, I look at both men and women completely platonically. Just like you would look at art or flowers.
whereas my friends might find them "hot" and comment on their looks or look in their direction often.

However I have experienced B, only twice in my entire life.
After reading a lot of posts in this forum it's become clear a lot of asexuals do not experience either.

PS - I am aromantic
 

I think you have described a lack of sexual attraction very well here. That is almost exactly the way I would describe my own lack of sexual attraction. You also seem to be describing aesthetic attraction rather well, which is also something I experience. 

 

I am also aromantic. 

[WhenSummersGone]

I'm on the desire side of this debate (yes this is a hot topic here), but thinking someone is hot or sexy is Aesthetic attraction. Everyone seems to have their own opinion on sexual attraction but for me I use it when I desire sex with someone, saying I find them sexually attractive or I'm sexually attracted to them.

[MacAran]

19 hours ago, Nidwin said:

It's the human version of gravity. X gets too close to Y and suddenly both become glued to each other. And asexuals have that uncanny ability to avoid getting too close to someone, most of the time

 

I'm a bit uncomfortable with how you've described this Nidwin.  It rather comes across as if we asexuals are emotionally distant or unable to form meaningful connections with people.  Or if not unable to, then actively avoid (which in sexual terms would be more akin to celibacy).  I don't think that is what you were trying to get at, but that's how it strikes me.

[WinterWanderer]

On 12/7/2016 at 7:53 AM, WhenSummersGone said:

I'm on the desire side of this debate (yes this is a hot topic here), but thinking someone is hot or sexy is Aesthetic attraction.

^ This.

 

For many sexual people, aesthetic attraction plays a role in their sexual attraction. But liking someone's appearance doesn't necessarily mean you feel an urge to have sex with them.

 

You can have aesthetic attraction without sexual attraction (I.e. , if you admire a person's beauty as you would a painting or a stylish car or something). And you can have sexual attraction without aesthetic attraction, too (if you're turned on by something about a person besides their appearance). They are not the same thing, and having one doesn't mean you have to have the other, too.

 

Of course, you will find many different viewpoints here. For a site about asexuality, we have a hard time agreeing on what asexuality actually is.

[HazelArcher]

This has been a really useful debate. I have had experiences were I think I feel sexual desire or attraction but it is not the result of actually feeling it, but a result of feeling like that was what I was supposed to feel.

 

Maybe you could try asking one of your friends to describe sexual attraction to sexual desire to you, but only if you feel safe and comfortable of course. This may help with the understanding of it.

[Lost247365]

It's B.

[Salted Karamel]

On 12/7/2016 at 0:57 AM, MacAran said:

A side note on "desire" particularly "desire for sex":  Sex, and wanting sex is so ingrained in our culture and so thrown at us over and over again that sometimes (or at least in my case) we experience some attraction to a person, aesthetic attraction for instance (which can be summed up by the idea of "I like looking at that person"), and we think that this is sexual attraction, we think "I want to have sex with that person" not necessarily because we actually want sex with that person, but because that is what we have been trained to think by our culture in response to attraction in general.  I know at least, that such was the case for me.  I thought I was sexually attracted to my ex-girlfriend because I (somewhat) enjoyed making out and a few other things, but when sex went from an abstract concept to a concrete possibility, and I started to have some inkling of what she was experiencing (from talking to her about it, and reading her reactions and body language) I realized that I was not experiencing anything at all like that.  I thought I was experiencing sexual attraction because I thought what I was experiencing WAS sexual attraction, and I thought that because I had no reference for what sexual attraction felt like, and (at the time) no idea that there was even such a thing as a person who didn't experience sexual attraction.

Super good point here that I want to highlight. In fact, culture doesn't just cause us to conflate sexual and aesthetic attraction, but a lot of other concepts that go hand-in-hand for most—but not all—people.

 

I used to think that if I had an aesthetic or romantic attraction to a guy then I must have a sexual attraction to him, too, because that was just the general idea of how things function. There were maybe 4-5 guys in college that I forced myself to have sex with, usually by getting drunk first (note: not under any pressure from them, but from myself, and heck even sometimes me persuading them) and imagining they weren’t there, or just facing the simple reality that if I can endure a gynecological exam then there was no reason why I couldn’t get through sex if I just went somewhere else in my mind and put on a good show until the awkwardness passed. And it never occurred to me that I wasn’t feeling sexual attraction to them, because I thought they were cute; I wrote it off as me being “sexually repressed,” and hell at least part of me forcing myself to go through with this was a notion of treating my “sexual repression” via some sort of exposure therapy.

 

I don’t even dislike the act of sex itself, but I know now that I was definitely not sexually attracted to any of those guys. I enjoyed introducing power dynamics into sexual activity and experimenting with kinks, and I enjoyed knowing other people’s sexual secrets and, in a way, exerting a sort of sexual power over them through that (consensually, of course). But I’ve learned here in AVEN that it’s not even an entirely uncommon thing for sexually compromising aces and demis to enjoy kink and BDSM because it introduces a fun element to sex that isn’t just the sex itself.

 

But, see, it can be difficult to distinguish in your mind between what discrete parts of a whole are the parts that you like while you’re actually ambivalent to the others, because you’re so used to only looking at the whole. It also calls into question fundamental questions like “what is wanting?” and “what is desire?” and whether wanting or desiring a thing for ulterior joys that it can bring you as part of a package actually constitutes wanting or desiring the thing itself. My analogy is usually: “I want to have a good job that I enjoy with a good salary, therefore I ‘want’ to go to college.” And college could be your goal for years and you could believe all your life that you ‘really, really want to go to college’ until someone blows your mind by telling you that there’s a difference between ‘wanting’ to go to college to have a good life and just having a really insatiable urge to just be in college, especially if you never realized anyone actually felt that way and thought all the anecdotal evidence was mostly just hyperbole or eyeroll-worthy posturing about what good and ideal students they are.

 

So, OP, you ask whether “sexual attraction” means “finding a person sexy/hot” or “wanting to have sex with a person,” and I’d have to ask what’s the difference and also what the heck do those two concepts even mean, individually? Because frankly I’m not even sure anymore.

 

For what it’s worth, I favor the and/or definition (of "experiencing sexual attraction" or "having an innate desire to engage in sex with a specific other person") precisely because these two concepts are so difficult to define and so difficult to differentiate, especially when you’re essentially asking people with varying degrees of colorblindness to identify whether their eyes are green or blue.

[Star Bit]

All dictionaries that define sexual attraction word it as "attractiveness on the basis of sexual desire". (sexual desire being the desire for sex in general; for any reason)

 

Some define attractiveness with it and it translates to "something about someone evokes the impulse to have sex with them", which is different from desiring sex after foreplay or arousal (which has nothing to do with 'something about someone' but to do with what they're doing to you). So most men have sexual attraction aka spontaneous sexual desire and most women have responsive sexual desire.

 

By 'sexy/hot' people can mean 3 things; sexual attraction, willingness to have sex with someone (e.g. being willing to date someone because of X positive quality does not actually mean they're romantically attracted to them), or (perhaps a minority) aesthetic attraction (the pull to look at someone due to beauty or attractive mannerisms and different from simply recognizing good looks).

[MacAran]

1 hour ago, Star Bit said:

So most men have sexual attraction aka spontaneous sexual desire and most women have responsive sexual desire.

My direct observations with my female ex, and anecdotal evidence from many of my female friends contradict this conclusion.  I.E. they have a desire for sex the precedes any arousal or foreplay.  Also, it's validity aside, that conclusion does not logically follow from any point in your quoted definitions, and so is unsound as well.  

[Star Bit]

One, i said MOST; meaning a minority are the other way around (if i recall the ratio correctly it was 1/10). Some women can rarely feel sexual attraction but their experience is still predominantly responsive sexual desire. Two, how do you know they aren't aroused prior? And I've heard from sexual studies that it's common for women to not notice they're sexually aroused, so unless they're checking that's also inconclusive. Also, as i said, alot of women dont look at someone and have the desire for sex emerge, they desire sex prior and suffice with having sex with X person for X positive reason (which some people cant separate until you do the romantic attraction comparison). My point in reiterating this being that if they word their experience as sexual attraction then it's irrelevant because they may not know the difference and the phrase is already colloquially meaningless because it's used on everything. Also, if someone is always sufficing and hasn't experienced genuine desire (i.e. like alot of women in this regard) then they may not realize it as such. So basically it comes down to order; do they look at someone and suddenly want sex (while not prior) or do they desire sex prior and do so with whoever looks good. Even if it is the former, you have the chance on your side; 1 in 30 is the chance of you having 3 female friends with that kind of sexual desire as their main experience.

 

If most women dont experience sexual attraction why do they use the phrase to describe their experience? Because sexologists only relatively recently realized that male and female sexuality (for the most of them) are two different things, so with thinking they were the same for so long (especially since the phrase's creation in the late 1800s) and people just not fully talking about/studying sexuality until recent decades, they just assumed they were the same thing because they both wanted sex. It's much of the same reason why some asexuals had the misconception that their aesthetic attraction was actually sexual attraction or why some aros had the misconception that their squishes were crushes; because they have a similar reaction facially. But if its commonly used in one way now doesn't it just change the meaning of the phrase? Words change. Not quite, and the reason for this lies in the phrase itself; sexual and attraction both have their own meanings; even without looking up the dictionary definition of the phrase it translates to the same thing due to sexual and attraction's definitions. Just like you cant change the fact that buffalo is commonly synonymously used with bison when factually the only bison are in the US and the only buffalo are in Africa. This common misconception does not change the official species information of these animals (who aren't even related btw).

 

And i dont understand your last sentence. Unless you're just stating i need to present the studies on it. In which case just google responsive desire and spontaneous desire.

[dissolved]

Attraction is dumb, and shouldn't be used to differentiate between sexual and asexual folk.

 

The problem with definitions in dictionaries is that they try to be as concise as possible, and whereas they might be useful when you're looking up "aardvark", human feelings, emotions and experiences are notoriously difficult to describe. Also, asking a forum of people who probably haven't experienced it isn't going to produce any decent answers, really If you want to go paragliding, who do you talk to? Someone who's done it a number of times, or someone who's looked up the definition in the dictionary? I'd hope you go with the person who's actually done it.

 

Ok, so: attraction of a sexual nature. A quality that's attractive to someone causes attraction, right? So something that causes a sexual response is attractive in a sexual way. Basically, if something or someone turns you on - causes physical, sexual arousal - then you find it attractive in a sexy fashion (this is assuming there's no touching of course, because that could simply be a regular bodily function). That's all it is. You can't control it, it's a totally normal human thing and nothing to worry about. Attraction and arousal may or may not lead to the desire for sexual contact - and that's the deciding factor for sexuality and asexuality. If desire is triggered, or there's a general desire for sex present that isn't directed at anyone in particular, it's safe to assume sexuality. If there's no desire, be it generally ("I could really go for some sex right now") or directed at someone specific, chances are that person is asexual.

[Lost247365]

There is a trend on AVEN by some people to treat non-asexuals as the authority on what makes a person ASEXUAL or not.  I disagree with it.

 

Yes, a person who experiences sexual desire/attraction/whatever knows what it FEELS like and an ace doesn't.  But that doesn't mean I don't understand what it is I am missing.  

 

It's like the North Pole, I don't know exactly what it FEELS like to be there in person; but I know I have never been there, that it is to the North, and it is COLD.  

 

Now a non-asexual might be able to go into greater detail but that doesn't mean I was wrong about what I said.  And, if a sexual person tried to tell me that I have been to the North Pole, when I haven't, they would still be wrong.

 

Just because an asexual have never been there doesn't mean we don't know what we are talking about.

[dissolved]

8 minutes ago, Lost247365 said:

There is a trend on AVEN by some people to treat non-asexuals as the authority on what makes a person ASEXUAL or not.  I disagree with it.

 

Yes, a person who experiences sexual desire/attraction/whatever knows what it FEELS like and an ace doesn't.  But that doesn't mean I don't understand what it is I am missing.  

 

It's like the North Pole, I don't know exactly what it FEELS like to be there in person; but I know I have never been there, that it is to the North, and it is COLD.  

 

Now a non-asexual might be able to go into greater detail but that doesn't mean I was wrong about what I said.  And, if a sexual person tried to tell me that I have been to the North Pole, when I haven't, they would still be wrong.

 

Just because an asexual have never been there doesn't mean we don't know what we are talking about.

I'm guessing this was passive aggressively aimed at me.

 

You (general you) can guess what being at the north pole is like, just as you can guess what attraction is like, but you have absolutely no authority to tell people that they're wrong when you haven't experienced it first hand.

 

I regularly experience sexual attraction and desire, so it's completely batshit for people on here to say "this is sexual attraction, therefore you're wrong". I've been told I'm wrong, quite regularly, about what I feel. It's been suggested that I'm not sexual, just because an asexual person has decided sexual attraction is something else, which is bonkers.

[Guest]

Imagine if you had a man saying "I'm gay. I literally only ever want and desire sex with women, I'd never have sex with a man as I have no interest in that or desire for it. I'm only sexually interested in women and have no sexual desire for men in any way"

 

Looked at like that, it's clear that it's desiring sex that defines someone's orientation because it wouldn't matter if he's "sexually attracted" to men or rainbows or elves. He's still not gay, regardless of who he's "sexually attracted" to. The desire for partnered sex (for sexual and/or emotional pleasure) is what's relevant here: Asexuals do NOT experience that innate desire for partnered sexual contact, sexual people DO experience it. "Sexual attraction" is irrelevant, even sexual people cannot agree on what that is and not all experience it.

 

It's worth noting that the AVEN website defines sexual attraction AS "the desire for sexual contact with someone else", so if you're defining it like that, then your two examples in your question are the exact tame thing. Sexual attraction IS the desire for partnered sexual contact, according to the AVEN General FAQ (though the sexuals I've talked to here strongly disagree with that defintion of sexual attraction. They say that what makes them sexual is the desire for partnered sex and sexual attraction is irrelevant regardless of how you define it)

[Lost247365]

1 hour ago, dissolved said:

I'm guessing this was passive aggressively aimed at me.

 

You (general you) can guess what being at the north pole is like, just as you can guess what attraction is like, but you have absolutely no authority to tell people that they're wrong when you haven't experienced it first hand.

 

I regularly experience sexual attraction and desire, so it's completely batshit for people on here to say "this is sexual attraction, therefore you're wrong". I've been told I'm wrong, quite regularly, about what I feel. It's been suggested that I'm not sexual, just because an asexual person has decided sexual attraction is something else, which is bonkers.

Your post prompted my reply, but it was building from many other post by other users who have stated the same thing on AVEN.

 

If someone tells me they been to the North Pole and claims it's a tropical climate with lots tigers and camals there, I would have full authority to say that person is wrong or lying despite never having been there.  If they told me it extends to the equator I have authority to say they are wrong.  Inexperienced does not equate with ignorance.  Experience does not mean competence.

 

There are romantic sexual who equate romance with sexuality, and aromantic aces who know better.  

 

Just as it is wrong for others to tell you what you think and if you are sexual (which I never claimed you did nor did I do to you), it is wrong for you to do the same to asexuals.  

 

Just because one is sexual, does not mean that one has Supreme authority to declare who is or isn't an asexual or define something with an objective definition.  It does not mean you can't be mistaken in the definition of what makes one asexual or not.

 

I reject this notion that I have no say or am incapable of debating these things with sexual.  I reject this notion that just because I am an ace I should shut my mouth and accept whatever an allosexual tells me without thought.  Especially when there are respected authorative sources on the subject.

 

Allosexuals are not always right and can be, and have been in the past, wrong about asexual issues.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Lost247365 said:

Your post prompted my reply, but it was building from many other post by other users who have stated the same thing on AVEN.

 

If someone tells me they been to the North Pole and claims it's a tropical climate with lots tigers and camals there, I would have full authority to say that person is wrong or lying despite never having been there.  If they told me it extends to the equator I have authority to say they are wrong.  Inexperienced does not equate with ignorance.  Experience does not mean competence.

 

There are romantic sexual who equate romance with sexuality, and aromantic aces who know better.  

 

Just as it is wrong for others to tell you what you think and if you are sexual (which I never claimed you did nor did I do to you), it is wrong for you to do the same to asexuals.  

 

Just because one is sexual, does not mean that one has Supreme authority to declare who is or isn't an asexual or define something with an objective definition.  It does not mean you can't be mistaken in the definition of what makes one asexual or not.

 

I reject this notion that I have no say or am incapable of debating these things with sexual.  I reject this notion that just because I am an ace I should shut my mouth and accept whatever an allosexual tells me without thought.  Especially when there are respected authorative sources on the subject.

 

Allosexuals are not always right and can be, and have been in the past, wrong about asexual issues.

It really depends. When someone is like: "I'm asexual and I love having sex and desire it deeply, I just don't experience sexual attraction the way sexual people do" I think a sexual person has every right to ask that person how they're defining sexual attraction, and then explain that not all sexual people experience whatever their answer is (because they've made something up they believe to be true about sexual people and as they themselves don't experience that made up thing that they can't properly define because they don't actually experience it, they must be ace). Sexual people desire partnered sex (for pleasure) with certain people under certain circumstances. All other factors (including attraction/whether or not attraction is even present) can and do vary massively from sexual person to sexual person. So yeah, when an asexual-identifying person is clearly just very, very confused about normal sexuality and is trying to tell people you can love and desire sex and still be asexual based on some made up concept that certainly not all sexual people experience, I think it's perfectly valid for a sexual person to explain normal sexuality to the ace identifying person in the hopes of helping them understand where they went wrong (ie in thinking they're so special and so vastly removed from "regular, beastly sexuality" that they can love and desire sex for pleasure but their reasons are so "unique" that they have transitioned to a higher plane of existence called "asexuality" *sigh*)

 

That wasn't aimed at you OP, this has been an ongoing debate on AVEN for years now and it just happened to flare up again as a result of your question. Finding people attractive to look at (ie hot) is actually more a form of aesthetic, sensual, or even physical attraction (when I say physical attraction, I mean you feel physically drawn to their appearance). Both asexuals and sexuals experience these forms of attraction, and there are both aces and sexuals who don't experience them (appearance certainly isn't as important to many sexual people as people on AVEN would have us believe). It's perfectly possible to desire partnered sex with others without having any interest in their appearance whatsoever (I've met plenty of sexual people like that, some even here on AVEN!)

[Sally]

1 hour ago, ℃å℞t☉☧hℹĿẹ• said:

When someone is like: "I'm asexual and I love having sex and desire it deeply, I just don't experience sexual attraction the way sexual people do" I think a sexual person has every right to ask that person how they're defining sexual attraction, and then explain that not all sexual people experience whatever their answer is (because they've made something up they believe to be true about sexual people and as they themselves don't experience that made up thing that they can't properly define because they don't actually experience it, they must be ace).

That sexual person has every right to say, "BS, you're sexual", and I hope they would.  Even sexuals who know nothing about asexuality can see that's BS.  

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Sally said:

That sexual person has every right to say, "BS, you're sexual"

Haha, the sexual person has that right everywhere except on AVEN

[binary suns]

20 hours ago, ℃å℞t☉☧hℹĿẹ• said:

Imagine if you had a man saying "I'm gay. I literally only ever want and desire sex with women, I'd never have sex with a man as I have no interest in that or desire for it. I'm only sexually interested in women and have no sexual desire for men in any way"

 

this is a very long stretch, when has a gay person ever said such a thing? I feel like this is misconstruing the situation that's being used as an example, and on top of that, is doing that thing where another group of people is being thrown under the bus to defend another group of people. I feel uncomfortable seeing this type of argument being made. 

[binary suns]

1 hour ago, ℃å℞t☉☧hℹĿẹ• said:

Haha, the sexual person has that right everywhere except on AVEN

I thought that a very common concern about asexuals is that when they try to come out, every sexual seems to say "BS you are sexual"? so I am asking, how is it our duty to trust when that is a person's argument for being valid, when our direct and regular experience is that it's a BS argument that people make out of ignorance? we don't ignore the language because we're special snowflakes, we ignore the language because we've learned that it is a faulty argument on principle and should not be trusted. 

 

 

also, wait, pretend that this is quoting saly's quote please and not pan's, no better yet pretend that I know how to quote text without having the person who said it be on display like you used to be able to do.

I don't mean to be singling out pan, I don't want this to be misconstrued as me disagreeing with any particular person, I am only responding to the words themselves. I do not find any issue with any individual I promise. 

[binary suns]

I find that the stereotype "Sexual attraction is finding people hot" or "sexual attraction is seeing someone and wanting to bang them" are both limited descriptions of sexual attraction, that also "sexual attraction is finding sex to be moreish" and "Sexual attraction is feeling desire for sex in general" should also be kept in mind. As star bit pointed out, it is often a definition of sexual attraction that, "Sexual attraction is interest on the basis of sexual desire" and as such I look at that definition and see it as a way to describe something that is not one direct describable thing but instead its own set of varying but similar emotional experiences - that sexual attraction is any kind of interest which leads a person towards sexual activity that exhibits behavior resembling desire.

 

that the following are all included (but not limiting to them) in sexual attraction - 

 

1) feelings of aesthetic appreciation IF it has some kind of sexual nature to it (finding people hot in a way that you don't feel when appreciating flowers) 

2) feeling lust towards sex with a particular person

3) feeling a need or want for sex in general, despite a lack of being drawn to individuals

4) feelings of excitement during sexual activity

5) other ways in which sex has value to it that transcends the physical acts itself - ie, any emotional experience which sets sex apart from masturbation

6) anything causing a sexual response, such as cuddling leading to arousal.

7) finding sexual imagery arousing

and other things

 

and I feel that while, generally speaking, saying "asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction" to be an adequate, generic, definition, naturally definitions are not all-encompassing, and no definition, whether defining an aardvark or a subjective experience, should be treated as literal law. 

 

I find that it is useless to argue that "if a person feels X, that makes them a normal sexual person" because both 1) there is no authority on what a normal sexual person is, and in fact while every person should not feel like they are weird and rejectable, the reality is that nobody is normal, normality is nothing but a statistical word and ASEXUALITY itself could be, under the right details, included in "normal sexuality" 

but more importantly 2) asexuality is not a kid's table, it's a sand beach. some of the sand gets touched by the "pure asexuality" water while other sand is the "pure sexual" dry stuff. (lol I probably should have done it the other way around, since sex is moist  )

 

but the point is that, so what if there's "asexuality scale 0" where a person literally doesn't ever feel arousal and never finds people hot and finds literally no point in sex, while someone who is "asexuality scale 2" finds porn engaging but not real people, and gets erections during cuddles, but generally doesn't want sex, and "asexuality scale 4" enjoys and desires sex but doesn't find people individually appealing, and "asexuality scale 5" is the fabled normal sexual person who has no feelings of seperation from other sexual people outside of preference for bodnage versus role play versus anal play verses missionary. 

 

it is arbitrary to state how much of the scale is validly asexual, and how much of the scale is validly sexual, any person can summon up arguments they believe in to defend it either way. we need to not forget the foremost fact that this is a spectrum, the middle ground exists, and the quarter ground exists, and there isn't even a line that's capable of being toed in reality, because there are several lines that can be toed at any point in the spectrum, so why do we even bother making the line except out of desire to segregate?

 

 

If you desire asexuality visibilty, what you need to do is focus on the stuff that is most important for sexuality, not nitpick the exceptions that the general public isn't exposed to. the large majority of any group has exceptions that will misconstrue the group in general during the individual case, and all that you do by trying to gatekeep certain exceptions is bring more attention to the exceptions rather than less attention to them. gatekeeping itself is more problematic for the publicity of a minority than the ignorance people have because of any of the individual experiences being gatekept.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Every Red Heart Shines said:

this is a very long stretch, when has a gay person ever said such a thing? I feel like this is misconstruing the situation that's being used as an example, and on top of that, is doing that thing where another group of people is being thrown under the bus to defend another group of people. I feel uncomfortable seeing this type of argument being made. 

That's exactly the point!! No actually gay person has ever said that but it's EXACTLY the same as an asexual saying "I'm asexual and I desire sex". It's the exact equivalent of a gay person saying "I'm a gay man and I exclusively only desire sex with women and have no desire to have sex with men, ever". That's the whole point. Why is asexuality suddenly a special magical orientation where different rules apply?? (which completely illegitimises asexuality as an actual orientation)

 

It makes no sense for a gay man to say that, because it goes totally against our ideas of what it means to be a gay man, it goes against what sexual orientation means at the *most fundamental level*. (And that applies when you don't even have a fully conscious understanding of what sexual orientation means, if you can't put it into words properly or whatever. You STILL know it's impossible for a legitimately gay man to have absolutely no innate interest in any way in having sex with men, and to only ever desire sex with women for pleasure and intimacy etc)

 

But when an asexual says that they are asexual but desire and love having sex, the "attraction" supporters rally behind them and say "YES all sexual orientations are exclusively about attraction and not who you desire sex with, you can 100% be asexual and love and desire partnered sex!" 

 

I wonder if the same "attractionists" would heartily agree that a gay man can categorically only innately desire sex with women (for sexual and/or emotional pleasure) and have absolutely no desire to have sex with men, ever.

 

(Edit; again, this isn't at the OP, this is regarding the general idea here - widely accepted among "attractionists" - that an asexual can desire partnered sex for sexual and/or emotional pleasure)

[binary suns]

oh, that makes more sense. but then, how is choosing words that has not been said prove anything about words that have been said? 

 

I don't exactly disagree with you about what you are saying, but when you use the gay angle it's only confusing the discussion, not helping it. I have a hard time understanding that angle, and like I've said, it feels like you're throwing homosexuality in front of the bus..

[binary suns]

1 hour ago, ℃å℞t☉☧hℹĿẹ• said:

among "attractionists"

I don't think that there really is a split. maybe I misunderstand the whole debate, but my belief is that sexual desire is a subset of attraction - A definition that would use desire is doing nothing more than accepting that attraction is part of the deal, but making the declaration of that more precise. the idea is that there are ways in which a person can feel attraction without being sexual, and ways in which attraction is felt that isn't necessary to be sexual. 

 

but all sexuals do feel attraction in some way - which is why the "feel sexual attraction for X gender" is what has been used. it was transferred to asexuality - but because it isn't the most precise story, fails to grok for everyone. 

[Star Bit]

I do agree that sexual people dont know everything about sexuality; some sexual people insist that if a guy can get aroused by male-on-male erotica then he's bi/gay. But i still agree that they have a major stance on the matter. And sexologists dont even have a full footing on it; as they have similar misconceptions too. Like, they want to call straight men who suffice with gay sex in prison "sexually fluid" (which has many more pointless meanings).

[binary suns]

nobody, of any orientation, is an authority on the matter. is there even a literal authority that is tracking definitions and word use, and maintaining the theories the community discusses and develops?