Sexual/Aesthetic descriptors

[Algedonic]

Are sexual descriptors such as "hot" necessarily sexual? I have seen people and thought/said "I would tap that" or "That person is hot," but I don't imagine myself having sex with them at all. I had thought previously that I was using the terms correctly. No one came up to me and informed of the specific uses of them, but I intuited their meaning and just started using them one day. It's strange because when I think of the feeling that I get when I see their faces/bodies, the best description I can find is "hot" and "I would tap that," and that thought comes immediately. I don't know if it's habit or bad learning or if I'm just not interpreting my feelings correctly--I'm not the best at feelings. To describe it: I want to stare at them for a while in silence, long enough that they would probably become uncomfortable if I actually did so; I want the world around me to freeze; I think the particular feature(s) that attracted my attention is...positive? I'm not really sure how to describe this bit. I just get a positive feeling--a glow, though I hesitate to sound so juvenile? Sort of like the feeling you get when a view just clicks for you, and your eyes get wide, and you don't move anything, and you just stare, and you feel like you could be content sat there forever just staring. Sometimes I want to touch them and run my hands over them.
I'm not sure if I'm describing aesthetic or sensual attraction or something? It might be sexual. It doesn't happen often, but I also have difficulty separating some of those impulses. I mean, I have thought this about a pair of legs and someone's cleavage before, which would suggest some sort of sexual urge? But I don't imagine having sex with them, and I don't want to have sex with them. I'm not sure if that's because it's not a sexual impulse or if it's because it is sexual and the fact that they're people and not mindless sex dolls is making me uncomfortable fantasising about them in that way and killing my libido or if it's something else. It's very confusing.
I want to know if this is the typical use of such words. Does "hot" always describe a sexual urge? Is it a passive sexual urge or an active one? That is, is it an idle thought, or do you actually imagine having sex with them or them being naked? If it's not a sexual urge, could you describe it?

[9Lives]

Since "hot" can also be used to describe a chili pepper, I wouldn't say it necessarily describes a sexual urge. 

 

Personally, I use "hot", "cute", "attractive" and "sexy" to describe people or outfits, without ever being sexually attracted to the person in question or imagining having sex with them. Mind you, I also use the word "adorable" on adults I work with, and when I say "nice" I usually mean anything from "boring" to "ugh", so you should probably take that with a grain of salt

[Allegra]

I've used "hot" to describe people I've found attractive before, though I never meant anything sexual about it. Mostly I think it was because everyone else was using "hot" so I did too, even though no doubt at least some of us meant different things, which is probably the case with a lot of slang words as they develop. Definitely agree with @9Lives about us all using words to mean different things at different times ("nice" isn't always a nice thing to be called, hehe).

[Ashmedai]

I've never thought of "hot" as a sexual connotation, and have used it several times for people I've found aesthetically attractive.

[swirl_of_blue]

I am very particular to which words I use to describe people's appearance. To me "hot" is connected to sexually attractive, and I don't use it at all. I can somewhat identify that would be generally thought of as hot but usually they don't look attractive to me in any sense. The same goes for "sexy". Also "handsome" is not something I use often as I don't find most handsome people aesthetically attractive either. There are people I find aesthetically attractive to the point that I would love to touch them, just to have a closer look (and smell, and taste... But never actually have sex!), but I don't call them hot or sexy. Usually I would just say someone "pleases my eye" or is "nice to look at", or just use the plain old "good looking", especially if I cannot quite put my finger on what I exactly like about their appearance. In general I feel very uncomfortable assigning any words with even slight sexual connotations to any person at all, good-looking or not. The words themselves feel "dirty" in my mouth!

 

To me the urge to touch is definitely not sexual. I rely a lot on my sense of touch and love feeling different textures, and when I see something I like the urge to touch comes naturally. It doesn't matter if the good looking thing is a material, for example a fabric, an object, like a statue, or a person. In people I especially like beards and long hair.