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Sexuals - Initial Attraction Thoughts?


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I've rarely seen people not get personal, when sarcasm upsets them :unsure:

*bad 40s mobster voice imitation* "Ehhh, people annoy you, you annoy them back, right?"

But I do get what you're saying. I don't think my sarcasm is my best trait, by a far cry... I just have to choose between that and angrily flipping my shit when stuff annoys me too much, and go by what I consider the lesser of two evils.

(And you would probably be shocked how much sarcasm I edit out of posts before ever clicking reply. A lot of times, you're already seeing the filtered version. :redface: )

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@Serran: It occurs to me that by "desiring sex" you mean something very specific. I never meant it to mean "desiring sex specifically and nothing else would do". I just meant someone going "Yeah, having sex again would be nice, I wouldn't mind doing that over masturbation". Not that they'd be totally devastated if they couldn't have sex again.

I do mean something specific. Though, I dislike the wording of devastated - I don't think all sexuals who have given up sex for aces would consider themselves devastated over the knowledge they won't get sex. So, that obviously does not separate sexuals and asexuals. Mmm. Feel like something is missing, perhaps would be a better way to say it? Not needed to be happy, but a noticeable loss anyway. Whereas, if it's just a "Yeah I wouldn't mind" it shouldn't feel like a loss really to lose it.

As for sarcasm and such... I pretty much have to rewrite most my posts like 5-10 times (so even a short post can take like an hour..) just to try to make it not sound offensive. So, meh. I don't really apologize for my viewpoints, but I will try to say it in the most diplomatic way I can.

Oh and Teagan - It's not so much the PEOPLE we're finding offensive. It's the fact that these IDEAS are so well accepted and we are supposed to just blindly take them on faith too. The people, a lot of the time, are just regurgitating what they've heard "All sexuals find people hot from across the room and just wanna jump their bones right then and there, I don't feel that, so I must be asexual". It's not really their fault. But, that idea being popular, is offensive to a lot of sexuals and honestly that being the only definition and us who don't agree with it being told we aren't ace is offensive to us. So, you're seeing a bit of anger at the IDEAS, more so than the people.

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I've rarely seen people not get personal, when sarcasm upsets them :unsure:

*bad 40s mobster voice imitation* "Ehhh, people annoy you, you annoy them back, right?"

But I do get what you're saying. I don't think my sarcasm is my best trait, by a far cry... I just have to choose between that and angrily flipping my shit when stuff annoys me too much, and go by what I consider the lesser of two evils.

(And you would probably be shocked how much sarcasm I edit out of posts before ever clicking reply. A lot of times, you're already seeing the filtered version. :redface: )

I find that bitter resignation to the futility of all our efforts helps a lot with that particular problem. ;)

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I've rarely seen people not get personal, when sarcasm upsets them :unsure:

*bad 40s mobster voice imitation* "Ehhh, people annoy you, you annoy them back, right?"

But I do get what you're saying. I don't think my sarcasm is my best trait, by a far cry... I just have to choose between that and angrily flipping my shit when stuff annoys me too much, and go by what I consider the lesser of two evils.

(And you would probably be shocked how much sarcasm I edit out of posts before ever clicking reply. A lot of times, you're already seeing the filtered version. :redface: )

I use sarcasm near-constantly. I figure if I'm going to piss someone off, I may as well amuse the onlookers :lol:

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I Shot the Serif

Hi; I'd just like to make a statement that basically throughout my entire romantic relationship (only one I've ever had, and one that I fully intend to keep forever), I said I was asexual and my boyfriend argued first that asexuality wasn't real and then that it didn't apply to me. I thought he was definitely wrong, and I was frustrated. But then I just realized that yeah actually he had a point.

And this happened with romantic, too: For a while I was convinced that I was aromantic. Then my little sister asked me some questions and I realized that yes, I did in fact have a crush on a boy.

I guess you could say that due to lack of information, I thought I was more special than I really was. I wonder what we can do to help other people who have or may develop this problem.

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So can an asexual desire sex without experiencing sexual attraction. As in, "I want sex, but just not with anyone in particular."

In my opinion, no. They'd be a sexual who bases their sexual partner selection on something other than attraction. (love, availability, etc)

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So can an asexual desire sex without experiencing sexual attraction. As in, "I want sex, but just not with anyone in particular."

Depends on what you mean by "desire". If you replace "desire" with "would like/would enjoy", I'd say they could be asexual.

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TheKindredSoul

Sexual attraction as the defining factor for sexual orientation is the innate desire for partnered sex with other people of a certain gender/s. It's that innate desire (the desire to connect sexually with other people) that makes people ''sexual'' as opposed to ''asexual'' and sexual people have that desire for all sorts of different reasons, usually having nothing to do with seeing an attractive stranger in public. Maybe they desire partnered sex with their partner when in love, maybe they just love the way partnered sex feels and that's why they desire it with other people, maybe they just desire a deep connection with certain other people and obtain that through sex. It's not always (not even often) about appearance either, sexual people can be attracted to a persons personality, their mannerisms, attracted just because they are in love with that person. There are all sorts of reasons someone can desire partnered sexual activity with another person for sexual/emotional satisfaction.

Seeing people and finding them attractive is not sexual attraction, that is aesthetic attraction, which most asexual people are just as capable of experiencing to the same extent that sexual people do (and there are some sexual people who do not experience aesthetic attraction as well).

It seems to be a generally accepted idea on AVEN that sexual people look at random strangers on the street and get sexy thoughts about them, and want sex with them or become sexually aroused or whatever, and that's what makes them sexual. This just is not true. Sure some sexual people will react that way to the site of attractive strangers, though certainly not all. However all sexual people desire partnered sexual activity (under certain circumstances, not all the time, and some more than others) as a deeply intimate bonding experience (for some), some desire it for pleasure, some for companionship, some for fun. The reasons are endless. But what all sexual people have in common is that innate desire for partnered sex, and being unhappy (some moreso than others) at the idea of having to go without partnered sex for long periods of time/at times when they are desiring sex (ie if they are in love with a partner and desire to have an intimate sexual connection with that person as an expression of their love, but the other person is asexual and wants no sex at all ever. The sexual person will be hurt/unhappy as they are desiring the sex but being denied it. Some are perfectly capable of remaining in the relationship despite having no sex, some cannot remain in such a relationship or if they do they are deeply unhappy and feel as though they are being torn to shreds they are in so much emotional turmoil... Totally just depends on the person. But all will feel some level of unhappiness at not being able to have the intimate sexual connection that they are desiring. That's just one example)

As someone who never experienced sexual attraction in almost 27 (never felt the type of attraction that made me want to connect with someone on a sexual level) and now who has experienced it, I can say it feels like a strong pull, a desire inside you that may not even involve genital arousal, to connect sexually with another person for fun and for emotional/physical pleasure etc. It's not about another persons looks for me (although I do think my partner, who I desire sex with, is aesthetically attractive) it's just about the bonding experience of the sex itself. Of sharing something fun and deeply intimate with a close friend. Being able to be kinky and just do anything to/with each others bodies, and the bonding experience of that trust, of giving yourself over to the other for pleasure and intimacy. It's as emotionally pleasurable, moreso even, than it is physically pleasurable. That's how sexual attraction feels for me and my partner.

Wow, you just changed my perspective on sexual attraction. I still hope I never feel it, but wow. Thank you for enlightening me on sexual attraction! I knew it couldn't just be "See sexy person on street, mate, mate". People who deeply love each other want to be as close as they possibly can, so it makes a lot of sense. I know I sound dumb, but I haven't experienced sexual attraction before, so how should I know?

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So can an asexual desire sex without experiencing sexual attraction. As in, "I want sex, but just not with anyone in particular."

Depends on what you mean by "desire". If you replace "desire" with "would like/would enjoy", I'd say they could be asexual.

That's exactly the difference we "desirists" mean when we call the differentiation thing innate desire, or urge (comparable to German Verlangen - the word used in AVEN.de's definition of asexuality - and not just to the far weaker German Wunsch).

I certainly agree, and have always said, that the question of enjoyment of sex has no impact on a person's asexuality. Some aces enjoy partnered sex, others don't. But no ace innately desires sex, even when they can obviously choose to have it.... they'll never feel internally driven to have partnered sex, and can do indefinitely without it, with no adverse effect on them whatsoever.

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I Shot the Serif

I didn't desire partnered sex--actually, anything sexual involving another person--until I had been in a relationship for a bit. Should I label myself "demisexual" or forget about all these labels. Thoughts?

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I didn't desire partnered sex--actually, anything sexual involving another person--until I had been in a relationship for a bit. Should I label myself "demisexual" or forget about all these labels. Thoughts?

It's up to you. If you only had these desires awakened with your current relationship and they are only directed at your current partner, I would say demi would fit you fine though. You can always revisit later if for some reason you break up and you're still desiring sex, but don't need that emotional bond.

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I Shot the Serif

I didn't desire partnered sex--actually, anything sexual involving another person--until I had been in a relationship for a bit. Should I label myself "demisexual" or forget about all these labels. Thoughts?

It's up to you. If you only had these desires awakened with your current relationship and they are only directed at your current partner, I would say demi would fit you fine though. You can always revisit later if for some reason you break up and you're still desiring sex, but don't need that emotional bond.

But people seem to be saying that their sexual-ness is largely emotional... :- )

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So can an asexual desire sex without experiencing sexual attraction. As in, "I want sex, but just not with anyone in particular."

Depends on what you mean by "desire". If you replace "desire" with "would like/would enjoy", I'd say they could be asexual.

That's exactly the difference we "desirists" mean when we call the differentiation thing innate desire, or urge (comparable to German Verlangen - the word used in AVEN.de's definition of asexuality - and not just to the far weaker German Wunsch).

I certainly agree, and have always said, that the question of enjoyment of sex has no impact on a person's asexuality. Some aces enjoy partnered sex, others don't. But no ace innately desires sex, even when they can obviously choose to have it.... they'll never feel internally driven to have partnered sex, and can do indefinitely without it, with no adverse effect on them whatsoever.

Yeah.. essentially, you can enjoy sex all you want. But, if your partner says "OK, I don't wanna have sex ever again" and it's like "Man, I really have to give up sex? *frown*" ... it shows you desire it, even if ultimately it's just a small sacrifice and you can be totally happy giving it up to be with the person still.

Serif - Erm. Let me try to explain how my ex explained this to me...

He only actually wants to have sex with a person if he's CLOSE to them and cares about them. If he isn't, he WILL NOT want to actually have sex with them. He'll say no all day to pretty girls. However, he still feels a desire to HAVE SEX, just he has no one to direct it at, so it's not a big deal. He will sometimes be like "I wish I had a partner, I would really like to have sex again"... but he has no partner, so his desire has no direction at all due to that lack of emotional connection.

Whereas, a demi is supposed to not have that desire, UNTIL it also has a direction.

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So.. internal desire instead of innate? :)

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I Shot the Serif

Serif - Erm. Let me try to explain how my ex explained this to me...

He only actually wants to have sex with a person if he's CLOSE to them and cares about them. If he isn't, he WILL NOT want to actually have sex with them. He'll say no all day to pretty girls. However, he still feels a desire to HAVE SEX, just he has no one to direct it at, so it's not a big deal. He will sometimes be like "I wish I had a partner, I would really like to have sex again"... but he has no partner, so his desire has no direction at all due to that lack of emotional connection.

Whereas, a demi is supposed to not have that desire, UNTIL it also has a direction.

Okay...before I had a partner, I did not desire partnered sex. Now that I have a partner, if I ever broke up with him (which I definitely won't, because we're too awesome together), then as soon as I was ready to start dating, I would acknowledge to myself that I would be including, in my mental image of The Chosen One, a desire to have sex with him when we were ready. Additionally, in my unpartnered state, I would be likely to miss sexual things along with missing cuddling. Sooo maybe that would translate into one of these "undirected desires."

ETA: I just saw Ficto write earlier on this thread, "Honestly I actually don't think it's that uncommon for a sexual person to not really get what the big deal about sex is until they actually start partaking in sexual activity and realize how pleasurable (emotionally and physically) it is, usually sometime in their teens."

So that is me. And, as I suspected, I am not as special as I thought I was. :- ) It's been an enlightening couple of days. Started when I read an article about men and women and sex and realized, "I sound more female than asexual." :- P

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I Shot the Serif

So would we say that being "sexual" involves desiring sex for reasons that have something to do with human connection?

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So would we say that being "sexual" involves desiring sex for reasons that have something to do with human connection?

I would say involves, yes, but isn't required... obviously if someone's just a hornball and wants to (as my charming neighbor says... "get his dick wet"), that's not looking for an emotional or human connection but is obvs still sexual. Serif, you sound very demi to me... whether you want to identify as demi or not is a whole other thing... there seems to be increasing social knowledge of demisexual so identifying as such may not be as isolating/ confusing/ whatever as some of the more... specific labels.

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I Shot the Serif

So would we say that being "sexual" involves desiring sex for reasons that have something to do with human connection?

I would say involves, yes, but isn't required... obviously if someone's just a hornball and wants to (as my charming neighbor says... "get his dick wet"), that's not looking for an emotional or human connection but is obvs still sexual. Serif, you sound very demi to me... whether you want to identify as demi or not is a whole other thing... there seems to be increasing social knowledge of demisexual so identifying as such may not be as isolating/ confusing/ whatever as some of the more... specific labels.

Okay, interesting.

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Autumn Season

"apologetic" in the loose sense. you don't exactly go "OMG I'm so sorry" that's not really what I mean. IDK if I've sen anyone do that really lol! Just that, if you say something and accidently step on toes, you take the time to clarify what you meant, and have a reassuring tone instead of like, like you're insulted that they're insulted or something xD

I am too abstract lol

Actually, especially in the beginning of the conversation, I wished you used more examples to illustrate your point. I know, you do have a message to tell, in fact it's probably many messages, and I am trying hard to understand them. But my brain can only process this much and when you are being abstract, I find it difficult to see what exactly you are talking about, what you (don't) agree with, what you're complaining about. And I'm only saying this because I'm really trying to understand. ^^° Sorry.

As for sarcasm and such... I pretty much have to rewrite most my posts like 5-10 times (so even a short post can take like an hour..) just to try to make it not sound offensive. So, meh. I don't really apologize for my viewpoints, but I will try to say it in the most diplomatic way I can.

I see! I always felt like your messages are very nice to read and now I know why.

So can an asexual desire sex without experiencing sexual attraction. As in, "I want sex, but just not with anyone in particular."

In my opinion, no. They'd be a sexual who bases their sexual partner selection on something other than attraction. (love, availability, etc)

This is something to think about.

Maybe "sexual attraction" has two meanings, which are both used nowadays.

1)

Sexual attraction is an emotional response that sexual people often feel that results in a desire for sexual contact with the person that the attraction is felt towards.

This sounds like something similar to romantic attraction to me. When I experience romantic attraction, I get addicted to the other person. My whole world centers around them. And I am able to feel this way a couple of minutes after getting to know them already. (This is how I know I'm not demi.) My romantic attraction again triggers my sensuality. So even with a person, whom I usually wouldn't feel sensually attracted to, I would want to cuddle, hold hands and so on.

A sexual person once told me, that they experienced romantic and sexual attraction in very different ways. When romantically in love, they would want to do calm, gentle things: Walk in the moonlight, have a candle-light dinner, "make love". When sexually in love (this wording sounds weird), then they would want to do exciting, brutal, quick-lived things: Rip the clothes off, pull hair, f__k the other person hard. *cough* Of course, only if the other person wanted this too. And in their case they could only feel one of the attractions towards one person.

So I would say, that any kind of "attraction" is a fixation towards another person (romantically, sexually, aesthetically, ...).

Also, it is obvious that one feels aesthetic attraction towards the looks of another person. When it comes to sexual attraction, I would say that it can be triggered by many more things than aesthetics: Character, voice, smell, clothes even if it's a fetish, ... It can also be a collection of those things.

Problem: However this definition excludes everyone who says they don't feel a sexual pull towards anyone and still want partnered sex. This can actually lead to sexual people questioning their sexuality.

2)

Sexual attraction as the defining factor for sexual orientation is the innate desire for partnered sex with other people of a certain gender/s.

This would mean that (1) whether somebody only wants to sleep with another person because this person seems sexually desirable (2) or because they generally want to have sex and with this person in partcular they want to share a deeper emotional bond with (or any other reason which is not related to "sexy"), both kinds of desire would be called "sexual attraction".

That's fine with me. It does make things easier. For instance it makes the definition of asexuality more concrete and thus more practical.

Problem: However this definition ignores those people, who say that they do feel the pull to get intimate with a sexy person.

Conclusion/ Suggestion for a different approach:

I believe that "sexual attraction" as a fixation towards one person and the "innate desire for partnered sex" are two different things. Both are innate and both can be experienced at the same time or not.

However a person who only has a "desire for partnered sex", will want sex (in a relationship or in a different scenario), no matter whether they experience sexual attraction or not. And in any case they would count as "sexual" or "grey-(a)sexual". (This is a point where I hope Pan agrees with me.)

A person who only experiences "sexual attraction", will only want sex with another person they are sexually attracted to. And here again, they would be "sexual" or "grey-(a)sexual"

A person who experiences both the desire for partnered sex in general and sexual attraction in particular, would, I hope nobody argues with that, be "sexual".

A person who experiences none of those feelings, would be "asexual" (that one was simple).

So there! We have fresh food for our discussion. xD *goes hiding*

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I guess I am stretching it a little xD but, based off of some things I've seen, some sexual people feel attraction for other people in a sexual way, while other sexual people feel generally attracted towards a sexual life style. and of course many who feel both

This is a great way to put it.

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I guess, it's more often Pan or Myst that I've seen say something I felt was too harsh, sometimes Serran or Skully or Tar do step on toes but as soon as they realise they have I've seen them be pretty apologetic. and like, ok yea you don't have to be apologetic like that all the time and dance around people like their glass but the thing is, the thing that's really important is all of us being high-count posters, and active members, we aren't just people going through our day on AVEN, we are the representation of the community.

Well, I can't speak definitively for any of the others, but I think some of the sarcasm and "harshness" you're seeing is coming from a place of frustration/exasperation. As someone with reservations about defining asexuality based on a lack of sexual attraction, I've often felt a sense of resignation after participating in the "definition debates." This isn't merely because some people disagree with me; I fully anticipate that not everyone will agree with my point of view. In fact, I welcome any rational challenges to my point of view - I've already changed my view once to side with the "desirists" after finding their arguments more logically convincing, and I'm open to changing my view again.

However, the general climate on AVEN strongly favors the sexual attraction definition in such a way that it can seem hostile to those who question or challenge the definition. Debates can get very personal, with people on both sides feeling like their identities are being attacked or invalidated. I think it's valuable to critically evaluate the definition of asexuality to increase our understanding of (a)sexuality. However, it can get tiring when it feels like the arguments of myself and others are consistently being misconstrued and shut down. It's especially difficult to see the attraction-based definition being repeatedly used as a way to prop up oversimplifications about sexual people (e.g. that they all just want to have sex with anyone who seems "hot" on the street)... and this has been going on for years.

I'm not saying this to excuse anyone's behavior (and I'm also not saying that you, Teagan, are personally at fault for any of this), but do think there's a context behind the frustration some people are showing. Personally, my own frustrations are a large part of the reason I haven't chimed in on this thread until now.

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TheKindredSoul

I didn't desire partnered sex--actually, anything sexual involving another person--until I had been in a relationship for a bit. Should I label myself "demisexual" or forget about all these labels. Thoughts?

How about forgetting all the terms? You love someone, and that is all that matters, right? :)

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