Trying to understand my spouse's demisexuality

[MarriedToDemisexual]

This is long and confusing. But I've spent 17 years feeling like my spouse is lying to me and now finding some others that feel like he claims. I'm a sexual person,  always enjoyed porn and had crushes on celebrities.  When we met we spent lots of nights on my couch talking about everything.  We really quickly became close friends, then he said he didn't know what was happening but he was attracted to me and had never felt anything like it. He said he'd never felt sexual until me, now he's very sexual with me. He's always insisted he thinks nudity or women acting sexual is disgusting and sick, he doesn't understand how anyone wants to see that. He claims he's never found anyone pretty or cute or anything unless he sees they are nice,  he says it has nothing to do with their physical appearance and people might as well be robots until he sees they are nice or mean. I've never believed him because it seemed so foreign to me. I figured he was trying to hide something, I don't know.  He goes crazy knowing I have been sexual in my life before him and can't understand it. There have been 3 time periods  in these 17 years he has gotten so crazy picturing it he (knowing I'm very insecure and jealous) has gone through porn on Google images, just anything he can think of trying to get revenge but says it just makes him more mad and sick. I don't believe him when he says he didn't like it because I'm such a sexual person when it comes to porn, I can't imagine going through pages of sexual pictures and not finding anything attractive or feeling anything. He says it all looks the same and how could he have found any of it attractive and he doesn't understand my way of thinking. We went to a counselor who believes him that he wasn't looking at the pictures or caring.  It's making me feel so confused and the counselor recommended I come here to try to hear from some other people who understand how he thinks. Right now I just feel he's lying. I know his friends were surprised he had a girlfriend when we got together because he tried to have sex twice at a girl's insistence and couldn't get an erection and they said he wouldn't watch if there was nudity or sexual scenes in movies. I'm so confused and would love to understand him and believe him finally. 

[Shadowstepper]

I can tell you that I never had sexual thoughts or feelings about anyone.

 

My wife was my first time, and it was more of a "supposed to" type situation. And I wanted to please her. Not physically, but as a person.

 

To this day, I still don't find anyone sexually attractive, including her. But I very much enjoy the closeness of having sex with her and am willing and able any time she is. But for me, it isn't the sex so much as the connection I feel it creates. I can't feel that connection with anyone else. I've tried, but it always felt pointless and like it was a waste of time.

 

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me that your husband is the same. I don't have the aversion to porn or nudity that he exhibits, but there are plenty of others on this forum that do.

 

Oh, and welcome. I hope we are able to help.

[Guest]

I'm a female, and both myself and my male partner are a lot like your partner, though we don't identify as demisexual. To us, we're just regular sexual people who don't give much of a toss about external things like apperance and can't desire sexual intimacy with randoms in any way. We both have to develop a specific emotional bond to be able to desire any form of sexual intimacy, but are both hypersexual once that bond has formed.

 

My partner was actually a virgin who believed he was 100% asexual, no sexual interest in anyone else, no enjoyment of seeing naked bodies or anything like that. Then when he met me he started wanting all those sexual things he'd never assumed he could be capable of wanting, and this is a 19 year old very aesthetically attractive guy at University we are talking about.. it's not like he couldn't have got sex if he wanted it, it's just something he literally never had any desire to engage in with other people, though he's very hypersexual with me!

 

I'm slightly different because I was under this impression that females *had* to have sex if they wanted to be loved, so I got into a 5 year long relationship and had sex I hated for 5 years before finally giving up and leaving him (the relationship was also very abusive but even if it wasn't, I just couldn't want or enjoy sex with my ex partner or anyone else). When I was 17 a doctor even told me I had to keep having sex so I could eventually learn how to enjoy it!! I'm a bit different from your partner and my partner in that I can find people 'cute' or even 'sexy', though I have to already have an appreciation for them in some way before I can notice they're attractive. Like I find Tom Hardy attractive but never noticed him when I first saw him, it wasn't until I'd developed an appreciation for his acting talent that I started finding him attractive. HOWEVER that does not and never has extended to an actual desire to have sex with him or anyone else who I can find attractive. I find the idea of sex an actual turn off, no matter how attractive I find that person.

 

It wasn't until I met my current partner when I was 28 that I developed the particular type of bond required that made me able to actively want sex with him! I also realized that it's extremely important for me that the other person doesn't WANT or EXPECT sex. As he didn't want or expect sex I felt very free to fall for him, and in the process we both realized we can desire and enjoy sexual intimacy with each other!! So yeah like I said, now we are both hypersexual but only with each other! Porn or seeing other people naked has never turned either of us on but we don't really see that as strange, we just know we needed each other to be able to experience anything like that

 

I think you may have seen some of the claims floating around here right now that demisexuals can desire casual sex outside of romantic relationships and whether you saw those claims or not, please understand that is utter bullshit. That's exactly the type of uninformed nonsense that can cause issues for demisexuals and asexuals in relationships with sexuals when their sexual partner sees it and are like "see, other demisexuals/asexuals can want casual sex so why can't you??" .. People trying to spread nonsense about asexuals wanting sex for pleasure and demisexuals wanting casual sex don't understand the kind of harm they're doing to real people who are actually experiencing these things. So anyway, if you saw those claims floating around, please don't take them seriously!

 

Your partner sounds like a classic case of a demisexual and yes everything he said he feels and has experienced  is most probably 100% true and pretty common for *actual* demisexuals! 

 

Just to clarify

 

Actual demisexual: someone who doesn't desire sexual intimacy with anyone for an unusually long amount of time, pretty much 100% asexual UNTIL a specific type of bond has formed (which happens quite rarely for the demisexual) and at the time the bond has formed, they can desire sex with that person and can seem very 'normal' sexually, but ONLY with that one specific person.

 

Regular sexual person who certain AVENites confuse with demisexual: Someone who doesn't want sex with people based solely on immediately noticeable characteristics like gender, appearance, smile, clothing, etc. Someone who can find people attractive to look at, sure, but needs to get to know them a bit better before they can actually actively desire sex with them. Desires sex based on appreciation of someone's personality, humour, intelligence etc, as opposed to just looking at hot strangers and instantly wanting to fuck them. Doesn't require a 'special bond' or even a relationship, but DOES need to know that person a little before being able to want to engage in sex with them.  That's a perfectly average, normal person. No not all sexual people are like that, some LOVE casual sex with total statngers, but someone isn't 'demisexual' just because they're not a fan of casual sex (and especially if they actively desire casual sex like certain vocal AVEN members are claiming right now). There's a lot more to it than that and @MarriedToDemisexual's partner is a classic example of a demisexual.

 

Edit also I don't even bother going into the whole 'sexual attraction' thing. I see the poster above says they don't experience it for their partner but enjoy the intimacy that sex brings, and that's exactly how me and my partner feel too. There isn't any 'specific feeling' that is or isn't there, we just love fucking each other Sexual attraction is defined so differently from person to person that I think it's pretty pointless trying to pin down exactly what it or isn't. If someone desires sexual intimacy with you, that's enough. I avoid using the term 'sexual attraction' now because it really does come down to whether or not someone desires sexual intimacy with someone else for sexual and/or emotional pleasure or not. Other factors, like whether they get aroused just from looking at you or whatever, are pretty irrelevant. If they actively want to fuck you for pleasure and enjoyment of the intimacy partnered sex brings, that's what matters

 

 

[Star Bit]

While it's possible to find others who think like him on here, AVEN isn't a place targeting that (it's a place for asexuals, aromantics, sexual partners, romantic partners, and atypical sexual/romantic people). And while the lack of sexual desire prior to you is how most demisexuals discover their sexuality, that doesn't automatically mean demisexuality. His prude preferences are unrelated to demisexuality; that's just how he is personally. Suddenly sexually desiring someone isn't demi, it'd be under the umbrella of Grey-(hetero/homo/bi)sexual because they find the type of person that triggers them once in a blue moon (rather than it having anything to do with a long span of time or bond). Grey encompasses many things; some of which have titles like Demi and others don't; like interest just being rare, but it can be used to refer to either. Needing a bond before desiring sex however, is normal for anyone. Demisexuality is about needing an abnormal span of time exposed to someone before you desire sex, that's all (and then that person also coincidentally/luckily being your type). Anything else can happen past that. Aceflexible is also an option; in the same way hetero/homoflexible is used to refer to bi people with a rare diviation from their primary interest.

 

As for understanding him, alot of people have an easier time understanding lack of sexually desiring others if they think of them as gay (assuming he's straight), or in this case, you could also be asking your straight partner why he doesn't get turned on by other men... well, that's exactly why. Fact is, these other people just don't sexually trigger him and the type that does is very very rare. And you can't fully understand eachother because your sexual minds are polar opposites in that regard; you can't get what you don't experience. But what you can do is respect eachother and take eachother at your word.

[Lucinda]

Pan, I appreciate your post, but can you explain this:

 

Quote

He goes crazy knowing I have been sexual in my life before him and can't understand it. There have been 3 time periods  in these 17 years he has gotten so crazy picturing it he (knowing I'm very insecure and jealous) has gone through porn on Google images, just anything he can think of trying to get revenge but says it just makes him more mad and sick. 

Perhaps he is also a very insecure and jealous person, but the way he deals with it seems rather nutters to me.

 

Thanks,

Lucinda

[MarriedToDemisexual]

12 hours ago, Lucinda said:

Pan, I appreciate your post, but can you explain this:

 

Perhaps he is also a very insecure and jealous person, but the way he deals with it seems rather nutters to me.

 

Thanks,

Lucinda

Lucinda, I will try to elaborate.  When he met me I was having sex daily with different random strangers.  He saw some of what happened. He doesn't understand how anyone can do that with no care for the person or attachment or connection and gets really sad. He's since gone to counseling to deal with it. He would get so angry and hurt and knowing I was very jealous would go through stuff hoping to feel like  he'd had some sort of revenge but he says it would just be sickening stuff and he wouldn't feel any better. He said he wouldn't even be looking but just seeing a bunch of the same stuff as he'd scroll through and he claims he doesn't understand how anyone could possibly find pictures of strangers attractive.  I don't know, sometimes I believe him since it only has happened a few times when I knew he was upset, but as visual as I am it's really hard to believe anyone could not like it. And yeah,  he knows it's nuts and went to counseling. 

[Marlow1]

On 8 December 2017 at 4:23 PM, MarriedToDemisexual said:

 This is long and confusing. But I've spent 17 years feeling like my spouse is lying to me and now finding some others that feel like he claims. I'm a sexual person,  always enjoyed porn and had crushes on celebrities.  When we met we spent lots of nights on my couch talking about everything.  We really quickly became close friends, then he said he didn't know what was happening but he was attracted to me and had never felt anything like it. He said he'd never felt sexual until me, now he's very sexual with me. He's always insisted he thinks nudity or women acting sexual is disgusting and sick, he doesn't understand how anyone wants to see that. He claims he's never found anyone pretty or cute or anything unless he sees they are nice,  he says it has nothing to do with their physical appearance and people might as well be robots until he sees they are nice or mean. I've never believed him because it seemed so foreign to me. I figured he was trying to hide something, I don't know.  He goes crazy knowing I have been sexual in my life before him and can't understand it. There have been 3 time periods  in these 17 years he has gotten so crazy picturing it he (knowing I'm very insecure and jealous) has gone through porn on Google images, just anything he can think of trying to get revenge but says it just makes him more mad and sick. I don't believe him when he says he didn't like it because I'm such a sexual person when it comes to porn, I can't imagine going through pages of sexual pictures and not finding anything attractive or feeling anything. He says it all looks the same and how could he have found any of it attractive and he doesn't understand my way of thinking. We went to a counselor who believes him that he wasn't looking at the pictures or caring.  It's making me feel so confused and the counselor recommended I come here to try to hear from some other people who understand how he thinks. Right now I just feel he's lying. I know his friends were surprised he had a girlfriend when we got together because he tried to have sex twice at a girl's insistence and couldn't get an erection and they said he wouldn't watch if there was nudity or sexual scenes in movies. I'm so confused and would love to understand him and believe him finally. 

Hi

 

I am much like your partner. Maybe not so repulsed, but similar in regards to a lot you are saying here.

 

I was Asexual before my current partner, no attraction or desire etc. It took us well over two years to get together. Now that we are a unit I still do not get attracted to anybody else, no interest in porn, no crushes etc

 

I know that in my case my inability to fantasise and lack of attraction is all tied in with my 'total' aphantasia

 

https://www.vice.com/sv/article/kwkway/what-its-like-to-instantly-forget-what-friends-and-lovers-looks-like

 

My partner is the opposite to me, she has a very very high level of phantasia. Tells me she can imagine/visual basically anything she wants

 

I have read that attraction can be tied in with imagination. That folk have preconceived ideas of what they are looking for etc, and that when they see somebody that may fit their ideals they can become attracted based on the near match physical appearance. It is said that they project onto a certain look characteristics and traits they assume such a person would have

 

I do not really have anything like this going on. Not a set of ideals represented as a whole, so to speak. My thinking is more fragmented. I guess I have lots of wants, needs, things I hope for in a partner, but I cannot really project them onto somebody just by looking at them

 

Regarding my partner, the attraction grew little by little. As I discovered more about her, the way she actually is, the different aspects of her character, intellect, warmness, fun loving, etc and many many shared experiences; she is a family friend. The whole package, if you like, eventually, given time to get it all together in my mind, I could then envisage a potential partner, I guess, and it is from there that the attraction and relationship grew and grew

 

I could talk all day about my partners perspective, she struggles with a lot of things that me being an Aphantasiac can have no real comprehension of. But long story short, she said she waited all that time for me, so to speak, because she could see I was not a hypersexual (Past experiences taught her she did not want a relationship like that) And that although in the early days we did not know what demisexual was, what demisexual is, it is what she unconsciously wanted

 

I have posted elsewhere how I believe a demisexual like me feeds off the sexual energy of the more hypersexual person like my partner. And she says I help her to ground herself, help her not to venture where she does not want to go.

 

We have what many would call a mixed relationship but now we have a common language (thanks to AVEN) things are better than ever. We have struggles, yes, but we keep in mind always the things that brought us together in the first place

 

Hope some of this helps

 

 

 

 

[gisiebob]

I'd just like to note that

 

if you are on a cliftside somewhere and someone says hello but you cannot see them, there is sertainly the possibility that they cannot see you either.

 

looking back at the confusion and the antics, you might see the same eyes of someone wanting to believe their partner, but not able to see them, as you have. and I think a lot of times we just don't have the tools in our english human toolboxes to communicate that sort of thing. try talking about it through a hug, maybe?

[Marlow1]

On 10 December 2017 at 10:57 AM, gisiebob said:

I'd just like to note that

 

if you are on a cliftside somewhere and someone says hello but you cannot see them, there is sertainly the possibility that they cannot see you either.

 

looking back at the confusion and the antics, you might see the same eyes of someone wanting to believe their partner, but not able to see them, as you have. and I think a lot of times we just don't have the tools in our english human toolboxes to communicate that sort of thing. try talking about it through a hug, maybe?

Gisiebob, your post describes how things have been for my partner and I for many years. I have showed her what you have said and she said what a perfect way to explain all this!!! 

 

We just want to thank you for your insight, and indeed everybody that has posted here on this thread, it really has been the most helpful thread for us that I can recall. So much acknowledgement of the painful struggles folk go through when information is missing (eg before I new about Aphantasia I thought everybody was the same as me, I had no idea people could visualise things in their heads; and regarding the instantaneous attraction thing my partner thought everybody was just like her) and/or things cannot be believed because they seem to be impossible????

 

And especially how we often do not have the language to describe what we mean, because it is next to impossible to see what the other person is seeing; and nobody teaches us about these things. And how  through all the pain comes the communication breakdowns, more pain and so on!

 

AVEN, thank goodness, is helping us with all this now. Once the communication and understanding begins the healing begins too!!!! I do think that we who have found AVEN are so very blessed! It has definitely saved our relationship!! Nobody in the world, except those folk that go through all this would ever understand. Thank you all of you guys!!!