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Gray-Sexual Musings and Rantings


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  • 7 months later...
iyamwhatiyam

I'm still asking myself how sure I can really be that I'm a gray ace at this point, but really, signs point to yes. And I'm wondering what that means for my future as a person. 

 

I don't like the sexual world in its social dimension. I never have. It seems like most strictly sexual people are so focused on getting and keeping a sexual partner that everything else revolves around it. To just about everybody else that appears to be completely normal and sensible...or maybe it's a chemical thing for them that has as strong a drive attached as hunger or having a home, such that it doesn't matter what they have to do to sate it. Maybe in the same way I spent years and still spend some of my time doing work I hate with people I don't like because it was the only way I could be sure to keep a roof over my head and food on the table, other people would rather their lives weren't so wrapped up in finding and keeping a sexual partner but they see no real alternative given their needs and resources. I can only guess what it's like for others, but to me it seems like the ultimate case of the tail wagging the whole dog.

 

What worries me is this...basically most people seem to prioritize their sexual partner far above and beyond all else. That means that when push comes to shove, I am not anybody's priority unless I start having sex with someone. I'm not even my mother's priority - I come from an abuse background. She hates me. You know, I'm not even aromantic...I could put another person first and have a wonderful close sweet relationship on every other level, but to people like the guy I just decided I'm breaking up with because I can't take it anymore, nothing else matters unless he can put his penis inside me. But basically unless I'm willing to either call my abusive mother in Chicago and say "I'm sorry for having my own life and my own will. From now on you control everything," or just spread my legs and say "do whatever you want" to someone, I'll never be more than an accessory in someone's life. No one will ever make a commitment to me like I could to them.

 

I guess the question is whether that's a problem. 

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Hello @iyamwhatiyam, welcome to the AVEN forums. Have some cake... :cake::D

 

Not all people are like that. Not even all sexual people are like that. To many, it's important to have a sexual partner. To others, it is less important. Some will value their partner higher than their friends, others will not. And I wouldn't want to decide which is better in that case.

 

If you feel that your former partner only appreciated you as a glorified sex toy, you're right to dump him. That's not how relationships should be. Take some time for yourself. Learn to appreciate life on your own. And then, when you feel good about yourself, you may start to look out for candidates to share a part of your life with. But when that time comes, don't look out for an all-or-nothing committment right from the starts. Relationships need to grow. Partners need time to get to know eachother, to learn how the other feels and behaves in unusal situations, under pressure, or totally relaxed. Take small steps with calculated risks to establish and strengthen connections with friends or potential partners.

 

All the best to you! :cake:

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@iyamwhatiyamThis is where we need to be upfront about our sexuality because otherwise people may assume you're down for sex on the first date or even in the first few weeks when that's really not the case. Even if you don't straight up say "hey I'm demisexual and this is all that entails" usually just saying "I won't have sex outside of a committed serious relationship" is enough to scare those type of people off. 

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  • 2 months later...

😳 Ugh @iyamwhatiyam I feel this si hard. I feel the frustration, disillusionment, despair and loneliness that you're expressing here. I've been through a similar journey and had the same thought. No one prioritizes or takes care of you if you're not a sex partner. It's like you're a second class person and it's really demoralizing. I even tried to call people out on it and they never admitted it. They looked at me like I had two heads.

I'm still trying to pick myself up from that. Radical acceptance doesn't fix it but it can with time make you feel better. 

I also think making ace friends can be nice. Take care. 🎂

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just wanted to rant a bit about my gray-ish situation and who knows, maybe someone will find anything familiar.

Warning - the post might contain "too much information", but I always try to be analytical towards myself and to be open about it because that's the only way to go if I want others to truly understand how it works (or more correctly - doesn't work) for me.

 

In one sentence, I constantly feel torn between more-than-just-a-friends but not-sex-partners desire towards short, quiet women and almost-fetishistic almost-sexual, very unstable desire towards elder men.

 

When I am in relations with a woman, it feels stereotypical - I want to protect her and to see her doing "women stuff" - being awesome at decorating the house and keeping that "home sweet home", "warm and fuzzy" atmosphere. Yeah, it sounds somewhat stereotypical and sexist but I can't do anything about it; I just feel romantic attraction to the women who are "natural housewives" and I really appreciate their work and creativity and I often tell them compliments about how good they are at what they do. I also like to hug them, being playful, talking (but not about fashion or stereotypical "girl stuff" - I'm totally not interested in that) and have shared moments of silence or listening to music while holding hands. But it never gets fully romantic nor sexual because I feel completely no attraction. On the contrary, I feel repulsed by kissing and I feel desire to clean myself up after being kissed. I get sad at those moments because I really want our relationship to go further, but my body just doesn't accept that at all. So I usually back off and let her go.

 

With men it's different. In general, I feel no desire whatsoever to be together with a man of my age or younger; nor sexual, nor romantic desire, nor that more-than-friends desire that I feel for women. I feel repulsion against kissing or any closer bodily contact with any man. With just one narrow exception - I feel romantic attraction and sexual reaction somewhat old-fashioned men in their 60 who look like professors and like to dress in suits; baldness, glasses and beards are even more attractive; muscles or fat do not play any role whatsoever. But this attraction seems very selective and unstable. For example, when I look at two photos of the same man with a beard and without it, I feel sexual reaction if I imagine being intimate with the bearded one and I feel repulsion when thinking about being intimate with the beardless one. The same switching between attraction / repulsion can be caused by many details - his clothing, voice, manners, behaviors. It's not actual desire for the sexual act "as such"; it's more desire for being hugged, protected, and then sexual reaction kicks in automatically. I cannot reach orgasm through masturbation no matter how I try, but I have "wet dreams" where it happens automatically. Even in my dreams it never gets to sexual act itself, it just ends with hugging and sometimes some kind of fancy "blending together", so I myself become this men. It's like a father-fetish with some unresolved underlying psychological issues fueling it. I have always felt like being not "manly enough" and wanted to be taller, stronger, less emotional.

Anyway, I can't imagine how such kind of fatherly-fetishy attraction might work in real relationships because currently I can't find any other common points of interest with such men. Maybe when I myself will be in my 60s... unless my attraction will also "get older" and maybe then I'll be attracted to men in 80s :D

 

So, it's totally messed up. I'm an introvert person and, in general, I feel good alone but I often find myself missing that special person who would always meet me home with a hug and with whom I could have shared moments of joy... maybe I just need a dog :D 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/28/2018 at 12:08 AM, martinicus said:

maybe I just need a dog :D 

Sounds like a plan :D:cake:

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  • 5 months later...
The_Squished_Elf

Sharing my Gray story:

 

I guess I'll start this with middle/high school, when people started getting sexual.

I never felt like I was different, that other people were just undisciplined. I had my fair share of crushes, who I generally barely knew and who I would fantasise about regularly, but when I'd hear of people getting sexual and breaking the law (minors) I'd just shake my head and think how impatient those fools were. I'd see people being straight-up gross and offensive, manipulating and lying just to get themselves some inroads on sex with others, and I'd wonder what kind of a psychopath you'd have to be to even consider such a thing. I'd established a strong romantic relationship with a friend of mine and she quickly escalated it into sexual acts, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable but I justified with "dude, you're lucky, you're barely doing anything and here's this girl practically throwing herself on you. You know how many guys would kill for that! Even just about every role model you've ever seen on TV/in books/in movies would be stoked about this!"

 

Then, one day, 2 years later, at 17, after a physically demanding course that made me tap into my deepest reserves of adrenaline and testosterone, it happened. I felt sexual drive for the first time. Every girl around my age even mildly attractive to me would bring on a strong desire to be with them sexually, something I had literally never felt before. I'd had my fantasies, but they never involved being terribly pro-active. They were always about being happy that I was pleasing them, and even sex with my partner was mostly appreciation of the stimulation and forcing myself through the act to please her. Now I had no issue with potentially being rude to someone during sex, because *I* would be enjoying it. This lasted for a solid two weeks, during which, terrified of this new sensation I was experiencing that I had always associated with just generally being an unpleasant person, I sat practically comatose gaming to distract myself.

 

A year and a half passed, and this sensation hadn't appeared again. I was back to feeling slightly sick to my stomach during sex because it wasn't what I wanted; I was forcing myself to do it for my partner's sake. Me and my girlfriend had recently had a major argument, and still weren't on the best of terms. My family went on holiday, leaving me home alone to watch the pets for three weeks, and almost simultaneously my girlfriend started university. She was stressed, busy, and excited, and we were still mad at each other, so we barely talked, and when we did it was awkward and stilted; this didn't help our situation, seeing as the main issue was me being jealous, which only got worse the less we communicated. Being already an introvert, I started to get cabin fever, having almost no human contact at all for two and a half weeks. Eventually I broke down, and when I did, the wall I'd put up over a year ago came down with my sanity.

 

Desperate to get some tail, I tried talking to my girlfriend, but she hadn't so much as replied to a text or email from me in days, and I'd kept asking her to come stay at my place over the past weeks whenever she complained about living with her family, to no avail. So I decided to join various and sundry dating sites and apps, most notably Tinder, using my seldom-used middle name. I went on long hikes to try and find my way around the region to get to any potential connections I might make. If I drank alcohol, I'd've been at the bar down the road trying to pick up chicks; I think the only reason I didn't do that was that I didn't consider it.

 

It continued even after my family got home, and ended up lasting three weeks. When it finally faded, I was left confused and terrified at my sudden lack of control. I eventually made up with my girlfriend, and when we did have sex, always, still, I had the weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, which I'd gotten so used to I barely even noticed it anymore.

 

At the end of the year, I decided to investigate what this was, because it clearly wasn't inexperience; to still be having it after being sexual for over three years, something else must be going on. So I looked it up and found sex aversion, which lead me down a rabbit hole of learning about asexuality. Suddenly, everything clicked. It wasn't that I'd been more patient, or stronger, or more disciplined than any of my high school classmates; I simply didn't experience half of what they were going through. My discomfort with sex in person and in media was suddenly explained. It all made sense - except for the weeks of sexual drive. After a bit more investigation, I found graysexuality (or however the heck it's spelled!) and even those weeks made sense. I quickly told my girlfriend and started considering myself as graysexual, which helped me a lot in figuring out what I wanted to do day by day, and just generally improved my mental wellbeing.

 

Now, I've accepted that I'm Gray-Ace, and since I'm not repressing it, it comes out a lot less intensely and suddenly. Overall I still only am in the mood for like 20 days in the whole year, but they're spread out now and aren't so overpowering. Having acknowledged my mostly ace nature, I now respect myself and don't have sex when I'm not in the mood; if I feel aversion, I nope right out of it.

It's so liberating and freeing to not feel weird or broken for not wanting to have sex, and also to know WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON when I do want to have it. I'm so happy I now know what I am, how to describe that, and that I'm not necessarily alone in it.

 

Thanks for reading :)

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  • 1 month later...
ADragonsFriend

I recently figured out that I’m gray-homosexual. I experience sexual attraction so rarely and mildly that it’s barely even a factor in my life, I’ve only had like three or four instances that I remember. 

 

In 7th grade I noticed my friend’s lipgloss and had the sudden urge to kiss her. It lasted 5 seconds and then disappeared and I never felt any attraction to her again.

Between then and now I’ve had two or three dreams that I kissed a girl(never the same one twice) and one dream where I knew I had sex with a girl but not of the act itself.

 

Those dreams never reflected on real life at all and they left me kinda confused but I just kinda accepted them and moved on with my life. In 7th grade,(the time of the first incident) I didn’t know what ace or gray sexuality was but as I became more aware the pattern emerged after awhile and I decided that gray-homosexual fit me perfectly.

 

Virtual cake for anyone who read my rambles!!!

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  • 4 months later...
WobblyWallaby

I've always labeled myself as a (tentative) Grey ace but never had to back up my claim. I don't believe in love at first sight or soul mates or any of that hogwash. The only reason that I've ever labeled myself as grey to begin with is because I didn't feel like it was fair to myself  or others to be completely closed to....things. ...and stuff. The problem is I think I may be in love and I feel stupidly ridiculous in saying that. I recently realized that I love one of my best friends...not in the things and stuff way but in the deep adoration/caring/ total trust kind of way. I feel this with him more than with any of my other friends. Like he is the only person I can think of that I would feel safe/ comfortable doing things and stuff with. There are problems (aren't there always problems) with this however starting with him knowing that I'm on the asexual spectrum. We've talked at length about the fact that I'm not into things and stuff or love in general. To suddenly flip and go "oh but I think I may love you" would go over like a ton of bricks. Never mind that he's one of my best friends and I don't want to destroy the relationship that I already have with him. There are a lot of other reasons but even typing this is making me feel really...It's making me feel like those people that I make fun of....with their hormones. So this is my predicament and I don't see an easy way out. Hey now I know for sure that I am indeed grey.

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  • 2 months later...

Does anyone else find it it is particularly difficult to get over crushes/attractions when they are so uncommon for you? 

I experienced attraction for the first time at 18. It was a new experience for me and I was happy to just feel this new stuff without expectations.  As I got older (and I guess, through college as well), the fact that my range of sexual desires was so much smaller than everyone around me started to make me feel alienated. Years later, I can count seven experiences where I have felt a level of attraction towards another person. Which sounds like a lot to me sometimes but then I remember that the majority of people is able to experience some level of attraction regularly, in a matter of days. can ya'll imagine??? d-a-y-s

Anyways, I have had a couple of crushes among these people that attracted me and  these end up being so much more meaningful to me than they probably should. Idk it makes me feel 'normal' to have attraction.

 

I was raised with varied opinions on sex but they always painted it as a huge deal: dirty, magical, immoral, beautiful, savage, freeing......positive or negative, these words described a powerful force that drove all humans with  an almost uncontrollable severity!!!!

But to me it's meh 

What a scam ya'll

what. a. scam

 

Back to my original point though. I find I have held on to these crushes for way longer than I should. Even when I have lost interest in the actual person, I hold on to being attracted to them! I get like a feeling of cultural validation that I don't know how to let go of. I am in this situation again rn (third time in my life ya'll). It's unhealthy for me and makes me feel so inadequate for someone my age. Moreover, I am scared to pursue a relationship knowing about all this baggage I just explained is in me. I am a female hetero, so how do I even begin to explain all of this to a partner. Is it even fair to approach someone knowing all this pressure might fall on them?

Can anyone else relate to these concerns? How is everyone able to balance the positive feelings experienced in your sexuality from social pressures from yourself and others?

 

It felt really so good writing that  = ) 

I'm so happy this community exists and that I found it

Hugs and cakes to everyone ❤️

 

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I feel like gray describes the experience of “feeling urges but wanting them to go away.”  That is where I am now. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Fraggle Underdark

@brightgrey I don't have the background to provide feedback on some of your questions but maybe some others. BTW I enjoyed the humor of your post, "what. a. scam" lol

 

My background is that I'm demisexual and alloromantic. But even though I'm alloromantic it's pretty rare for me to have crushes.

 

IMHO being normal is overrated. I'm not saying it's bad just that it's overrated. It matters to you only if you decide to care about it (on some unconscious level) and a lot of people seem to overestimate how much other people care about it, even "normal" people. I can see how feeling attraction makes you feel normal since that's obviously more typical. But if you want to change how you approach it maybe the best bet is trying to feeling valid in and about yourself, regardless of whether society does. (And I encourage everyone not to take society too seriously, it's frequently silly :)) That way you might not feel the need for the cultural validation you get from holding onto attraction.

 

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I am a female hetero, so how do I even begin to explain all of this to a partner.

I can't talk so much to this since I haven't dated since realizing I'm demisexual or an ace. One option is online dating where you can mention that from the get-go, at least that you're demisexual or gray-A and it takes a while for you to feel attraction or find out if you will, etc. Although it's not ace-specific OkCupid seems very geared to mentioning things like that and has a lot of very open-minded people on it. I don't know the best ways to explain it with someone you met in person. But I expect there must be a thread about it somewhere or feel free to start one!

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Is it even fair to approach someone knowing all this pressure might fall on them?

I definitely think that's fair. Basically everyone has some kind of baggage they bring with them. As long as there's communication and consideration between the people it's worth a shot, IMHO. I mean unless you're talking about stalking or harassing old crushes but I don't think you meant that.

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How is everyone able to balance the positive feelings experienced in your sexuality from social pressures from yourself and others?

Personally it seems to me that a lot of society has opinions it doesn't know much about. For example a large portion of society thinks asexuality and demisexuality are fake. Standing where we are that's clearly not true. I wouldn't take seriously the medical advice of someone who hasn't studied medicine and in the same way I don't take seriously the knee-jerk reaction of someone who can't be bothered to even check whether their assumptions about asexuality are true. They literally don't know what they're talking about. And if someone thinks that you're broken or not a complete person because attraction is rare for you then that's their problem and their mistake, not yours. 

 

I realize that not caring what other people think is easier said than done, but anyway that's my view of things and hopefully it helps a little. Basically my approach to social pressure is "meh", although I do have the benefit of not being financially dependent or anything on anyone who would pressure me.

 

Also this might not be answering your question, and this might be something particular to me rather than demisexuality, but these days when I do get crushes I just enjoy their presence. The last crush I had was someone in a relationship and I'd never be part of an affair and I knew they wouldn't either and that's part of what attracted me to them. But they were a really nice person with a casual wisdom and I just enjoyed when we would talk or she would smile and it was kind of like the sun. It was just nice. I never told her because I didn't want to pressure her, I just enjoyed the butterflies. So I'm not sure this really answers your question but it's one example of feeling attraction, for whatever it's worth.

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It felt really so good writing that  = ) 

I'm so happy this community exists and that I found it

Hugs and cakes to everyone ❤️

 

Yay! :)

 

It looks like this was your first post, so cake!

Unicorn-Cake_Summary.jpg

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Fraggle Underdark

@WobblyWallaby It was nice to read about your story and nice to hear that you got more clarity, hopefully that helps you. I realize my response is pretty late so maybe your situation has changed in one direction or another.

 

I'm alloromantic (and demisexual) so this probably isn't a surprise but I don't think love is silly at all. I definitely wouldn't describe it as just hormones run amok. Just that when some people get to know someone really well and develop trust and respect for them then they develop a certain kind of unconscious desire to spend a lot of time with that person, possibly their whole lives. Sure it's a feeling that can seem to come out of nowhere but it's not a random response, it has so much to do with the things you admire and appreciate about your friend. Also I feel like disparaging other sexualities as "just hormones" is somewhat unfair to people in general.

 

Unfortunately I can't give advice about letting your friend know you have feelings, as I only know that situation from the male perspective and I feel like it plays kind of different from the female side, what with some males not wanting females to make the first move (which personally I don't understand). I hope someone else can give advice, if the situation is still one where you're looking for it. Your question might have got kind of lost here but you could start a new thread with your question.

 

I can say from the male perspective that if he trusted that you were asexual and aromantic as you said, and as a good friend should, then he probably has avoided seeing you in that way, because he knows if he developed affection of that sort you wouldn't return it. So if you mentioned that "actually, as far as I knew I was aromantic and asexual, but now I don't think so" then he might see you more that way, if that's what you want. And I think that's a pretty normal thing to tell a friend, in general. But it's tough because he might piece together that you fell for someone and then think that either 1) it's him, and then that tricky situation develops of expressing romantic feelings for a friend, or 2) it's not him, and then he again thinks he doesn't have a shot.

 

Basically I can't give any good advice, sorry! I bet someone can but I don't know who. Maybe you've already resolved the situation, hopefully with good results, but I wanted to respond since it seemed like it deserved a response.

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I am so glad I now have a group of people who could perhaps understand me, For so long and I am 40 years old now. For so long I have always thought it was something wrong with me, I have tried relationships; I have children. I enjoy sensual touching but damn it, as soon as the act of sex comes into play I lose all drive. I have felt desire, while reading books perhaps or watching shows but unless i am shit-faced drunk; I cannot act on that desire. It comes along like a rare beast, no attachments and then I realized this had been a problem all of my life which is why I was not able to ever maintain a healthy romantic relationships. And so, all of this to say one thing.....I am happy I am not alone. 

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  • 1 month later...
FAT_WHITE_LIE

Random rant here:

 

I have been questioning since around 2 years ago after my first attempt at dating when I was 20. Nowadays after a somewhat long term relationship (8 month) I am more comfortable describing myself as grey-ace. I think it doesn't really matter what label I am using, I really figured out something about life partnering: I can only life-partner with someone who DOES NOT THINK ABOUT SEX MOST OF THE TIME, ESPECIALLY WHEN WITH ME. Otherwise no matter how sensible my potential partner is, it is not going to work.

 

When my ex and I first started dating, I already knew I was possibly uninterested in sex and told him as such. But none of us took it seriously. He thought women who haven't been in a relationship are in general not interested in sex and don't think about it. I thought I could do once a week with no problem. He was the first person to be interested in anything about me that is not my figure (unfortunately I have a pretty curvy figure for an asian...), and I thought it was time for me to start trying out life partnerships. I am only very slightly aversed to physical contact, mostly indifferent, and would likely to be indifferent if it is with somebody I am comfortable with. I already knew then that sexuals would like their partner to want them back. But hell, I could fake that, I could even initiate sometimes when I read he wants it. It's once a week. I have had exams once a week for my entire life, what is once a week to me. I can be on performance mode once a week for the sake of my partner. 

 

...No I can't! I have underestimated the amount of work it takes to "perform". This reminds me of how looking at the physical world everything is just right. But to construct something that makes sense in virtual reality, the sheer amount of effort is mind blowing. To read how much you turned your head, to display a different scene corresponding to what you see, to calculate what is in the front and what is in the back, what should be displayed and what should not be. Even then, the rotations are not perfect : when you turn too fast towards (0, 0, 1), the whole world starts spinning in irrational manners. This is what I feel about faking to be a sexual. It's hard, and it is pointless. And the amount of stress must have exceeded any exam I have taken in my life. 

 

[warning: explicit description here]

I cannot count the number of times when I see that he wants a kiss, then a Decision box pops in my head: do it? Not do it? I think about what I learned from the videos, how to please someone, and give a smile. I do the whole sucking thing, and the licking thing. Sometimes I feel a little warmth, most of the time it's just wet. I am bored, I am stressed, I don't want to continue this! I pull a little back and look at him, but he is clearly still into it. Decision box pop up: should I keep going, should I not? I give in, I calculate the moves and do it again. I am counting time. I think it is a respectable amount of time that I could stop. It seems he's more fine with me not kissing anymore now. I pull back, put my chin on his shoulder. Here we goes with caressing now. He is touching me, he seems to enjoy it. He clearly wants me to touch him. He just asked me to touch him!! How do you touch someone...what is the point? Ok, so you are supposed to feel something when caressing. Ok... literally what's the point, I am so stressed, I can't figure out how to correctly do this. It's been a while, I think I can start to distract him by looking at phone and suggest it's time to go home or look at his computer. 

 

To be clear: I was very romantically and aesthetically attracted to my ex. My ex also was a very sweet person who has always been nice about physical contact and always asks for my approval and even observes my emotions before doing anything (unfortunately he has never seen me unstressed so he can't differentiate). It's just...he has a strong drive, and he thinks about physical contact whenever he sees me, and as many sexuals, he want me to want him back. I knew it would hurt him if he knew whenever we did the stuff I am not, at all, interested, and that would take all the pleasure from him with doing stuff. Which is why from the very very beginning, I knew if we were to make it work, it must not involve me explicitly telling/showing him "I am not interested in this stuff". But I can't. I can't put up with the efforts. It was not meant to be from the very beginning. 

 

Part of me is repenting for all the unnecessary hurt I induced on both of us by agreeing to, and later breaking up the relationship. Part of me is so happy now that I no longer need to make so much effort. The past 8 month, it was like having a big exam coming up at undetermined moments on wednesdays, thursdays and saturdays (I proposed scheduled time to meet cause I could't stand the stress of undetermined "exam" time ANY DAY OF THE WEEK). Oh god I was so stressed. Not even grad app gives me so much stress. 

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CelesteAdAstra

Time for me to rant.

(possible warning for light tmi imaginary scenarios?)

So I've considered myself asexual for years, but I've recently switched to identifying as grey-asexual. It's still not clear to me if I feel sexual attraction - if I do, it's not the usual type of sexual attraction. But grey-a feels better, I think, because there are just too many differences between me and other aces.

So let me start by saying that I have a basically non-existant libido. I don't have any desire to be sexually pleasured. Yet I still like to imagine sex scenes with the one I'm in love with - it's never for sexual satisfaction and doesn't include arousal on my part. I don't masturbate to it. I choose not to think about genitalia in these fantasies. Instead, I'm an extremely romantic and sensual person and I love that part about the sex scenarios I imagine - the way two lovers lie in each others arms and become one. The spiritual connection that becomes physical. I could go on about this forever, but it would get too poetic very quickly. The point is, the type of sex I imagine is a very romanticized version with lots of kisses and carresses. Only very vanilla stuff that heavily relies on gazing into each others eyes, and the way I can see my partner experiencing the pleasure I bring him. I would really, really love to be able to have that in real life, too - but the problem is, I would most likely feel more than uncomfortable because in real life, sex does include genital stimulation. And I'm not there for that.

Another factor is that the person I imagine these things with is a fictional character (live-action, not comic). I desire him in this very sensual/halfway-sexual way, but I have never met someone "out in the world" with whom I wanted to get nearly as close. I have had crushes on real people in the past, but I never wanted more from them than possibly a few kisses. It would be different if my beloved were suddenly to become real, but that's not possible, now, is it?

 

Then there's also another part to my complicated sexuality. Only a few times (they can be counted on the fingers of one hand) I have felt a type of attraction (which I can not exactly pinpoint) to people I was not in love with (fictional characters again, of course... 😅) It was very different to the first scenario I described. There was a certain pull towards them, but no desire to share romantic acts. I first thought to myself: "Maybe this is the sexual attraction everyone is talking about!". I felt a desire to flirt with them and seduce them, to become almost physical - like a strong desire to tease them. Some sensual stuff perhaps. But when I tried to imagine more, I got bored really quickly as soon as the clothes came off, and I gave it up. It's like some sort of pseudo-sexual attraction that runs dry or walks off into nowhere while it leaves me behind with no one but my boredom 😂 I know even less what to make of this, but for the sake of wanting to name things, I called it "erotic attraction" and I'll keep it until I find something better. I wouldn't even say that I found these people aesthetically attractive. It was rather something about their behaviour that made me want to seduce them until they got weak at their knees, and then leave them because I was done. 🤣

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Well, @CelesteAdAstra.
I'm very sensual, and I don't consider it sexual. I can be sensually attracted and really want to share affection, hug, caress, as well as kiss (tenderly and lovingly). To me that's not sexuality, but I can see thinking of it as erotic. I can feel the disconnect and lose interest if it gets sexual, but sometimes it just feels like someone's sensitive parts are just more things to be sensual with, especially if I like them and want them to feel good (still, sensually), so to me, in my case, I do identify as gray/demi, because I can't deny that I don't mind sex, and it can be sensual. I don't know if I would say I'm 'attracted' to sex, because the affection and sensuality is the most important to me, but I see no problem with using the label :)

Anyway, it's more complicated when we're talking about being used to fantasizing, and not being connected emotionally to someone. I think when you do get to the point where you can just stare them in the eyes, and you care, it's so much easier to keep vibes going, you know?
It's ok in whatever case. I think relationships and love are worth exploring though
❤️

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CelesteAdAstra

Thanks for your answer, @Sarah-Sylvia 🙂

 

I think that the dividing line between sensuality and sexuality can get very blurry at times. Usually, aces stay on their side of the line while sexuals stay on the other one. I feel like I'm most comfortable living on that line along with all you other graces & demis :D

 

I'm very emotionally connected to the character I'm in love with, he's actually closer to me than anyone else. I get what you mean by keeping the vibe going, that's what it feels like with him in my thoughts. I think I would just have to see how far I would be willing to go in reality, but I don't see that happen anytime soon, soooo... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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1 hour ago, CelesteAdAstra said:

Thanks for your answer, @Sarah-Sylvia 🙂

 

I think that the dividing line between sensuality and sexuality can get very blurry at times. Usually, aces stay on their side of the line while sexuals stay on the other one. I feel like I'm most comfortable living on that line along with all you other graces & demis :D

 

I'm very emotionally connected to the character I'm in love with, he's actually closer to me than anyone else. I get what you mean by keeping the vibe going, that's what it feels like with him in my thoughts. I think I would just have to see how far I would be willing to go in reality, but I don't see that happen anytime soon, soooo... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

grace =  gray ace? I like that :D

I see. Well in my experience with characters (& yes I do have experience), there's a certain point when it becomes not enough, needing more input and feeling physically. But hey everyone's different,so as long as you're happy, it's what counts.

I guess I can see being 'on' the line. That's not a bad place to be. Although it'd still take to find someone you feel good about to play around that line huh? :P

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14 hours ago, CelesteAdAstra said:

I think that the dividing line between sensuality and sexuality can get very blurry at times. Usually, aces stay on their side of the line while sexuals stay on the other one. I feel like I'm most comfortable living on that line along with all you other graces & demis :D

This is a good way of describing how I feel too; like I’ll be just as into foreplay as people of other orientations, but I completely lose interest when it comes to partnered sexual intercourse. So probably “on the line” between sensual and sexual 😊

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It still surprises me how sloooow I can be in the sexual dept. When people are looking at me sexually the bulb may light... a few years later. Here is the latest example.

 

I understood that a former colleague had a foot fetish and that my summer sandals were quite revealing for him. He was a great colleague. I'm so sorry. I sometimes found him irritating because he could not look at me in the eyes on some days. Actually - worse - the foot interest part may have occured to me before but I brushed it off as very unlikely. Maybe a (selfish?) part of me did not want to know. I still have no idea how to deal with this anyways but I should really try to be more perceptive. Issues rarely disappear because you don't see them.

 

Does anyone have a trick on how to refine your sexdar?

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rainbowocollie

Oh the confusion. Am I ace, am I demi, am I really just allo and low libido.....it's hard to know how I really relate to sex when I have never had it. I kindaaaa think my relating to asexuality comes more from being aro-spec than anything else--like, without a relationship, I have no interest in sex, but I might if I were in one? But I don't want a relationship, therefore I don't care too much about sex.

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On 1/5/2019 at 11:12 PM, The_Squished_Elf said:

Sharing my Gray story:

 

I guess I'll start this with middle/high school, when people started getting sexual.

I never felt like I was different, that other people were just undisciplined. I had my fair share of crushes, who I generally barely knew and who I would fantasise about regularly, but when I'd hear of people getting sexual and breaking the law (minors) I'd just shake my head and think how impatient those fools were. I'd see people being straight-up gross and offensive, manipulating and lying just to get themselves some inroads on sex with others, and I'd wonder what kind of a psychopath you'd have to be to even consider such a thing. I'd established a strong romantic relationship with a friend of mine and she quickly escalated it into sexual acts, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable but I justified with "dude, you're lucky, you're barely doing anything and here's this girl practically throwing herself on you. You know how many guys would kill for that! Even just about every role model you've ever seen on TV/in books/in movies would be stoked about this!"

 

Then, one day, 2 years later, at 17, after a physically demanding course that made me tap into my deepest reserves of adrenaline and testosterone, it happened. I felt sexual drive for the first time. Every girl around my age even mildly attractive to me would bring on a strong desire to be with them sexually, something I had literally never felt before. I'd had my fantasies, but they never involved being terribly pro-active. They were always about being happy that I was pleasing them, and even sex with my partner was mostly appreciation of the stimulation and forcing myself through the act to please her. Now I had no issue with potentially being rude to someone during sex, because *I* would be enjoying it. This lasted for a solid two weeks, during which, terrified of this new sensation I was experiencing that I had always associated with just generally being an unpleasant person, I sat practically comatose gaming to distract myself.

 

A year and a half passed, and this sensation hadn't appeared again. I was back to feeling slightly sick to my stomach during sex because it wasn't what I wanted; I was forcing myself to do it for my partner's sake. Me and my girlfriend had recently had a major argument, and still weren't on the best of terms. My family went on holiday, leaving me home alone to watch the pets for three weeks, and almost simultaneously my girlfriend started university. She was stressed, busy, and excited, and we were still mad at each other, so we barely talked, and when we did it was awkward and stilted; this didn't help our situation, seeing as the main issue was me being jealous, which only got worse the less we communicated. Being already an introvert, I started to get cabin fever, having almost no human contact at all for two and a half weeks. Eventually I broke down, and when I did, the wall I'd put up over a year ago came down with my sanity.

 

Desperate to get some tail, I tried talking to my girlfriend, but she hadn't so much as replied to a text or email from me in days, and I'd kept asking her to come stay at my place over the past weeks whenever she complained about living with her family, to no avail. So I decided to join various and sundry dating sites and apps, most notably Tinder, using my seldom-used middle name. I went on long hikes to try and find my way around the region to get to any potential connections I might make. If I drank alcohol, I'd've been at the bar down the road trying to pick up chicks; I think the only reason I didn't do that was that I didn't consider it.

 

It continued even after my family got home, and ended up lasting three weeks. When it finally faded, I was left confused and terrified at my sudden lack of control. I eventually made up with my girlfriend, and when we did have sex, always, still, I had the weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, which I'd gotten so used to I barely even noticed it anymore.

 

At the end of the year, I decided to investigate what this was, because it clearly wasn't inexperience; to still be having it after being sexual for over three years, something else must be going on. So I looked it up and found sex aversion, which lead me down a rabbit hole of learning about asexuality. Suddenly, everything clicked. It wasn't that I'd been more patient, or stronger, or more disciplined than any of my high school classmates; I simply didn't experience half of what they were going through. My discomfort with sex in person and in media was suddenly explained. It all made sense - except for the weeks of sexual drive. After a bit more investigation, I found graysexuality (or however the heck it's spelled!) and even those weeks made sense. I quickly told my girlfriend and started considering myself as graysexual, which helped me a lot in figuring out what I wanted to do day by day, and just generally improved my mental wellbeing.

 

Now, I've accepted that I'm Gray-Ace, and since I'm not repressing it, it comes out a lot less intensely and suddenly. Overall I still only am in the mood for like 20 days in the whole year, but they're spread out now and aren't so overpowering. Having acknowledged my mostly ace nature, I now respect myself and don't have sex when I'm not in the mood; if I feel aversion, I nope right out of it.

It's so liberating and freeing to not feel weird or broken for not wanting to have sex, and also to know WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON when I do want to have it. I'm so happy I now know what I am, how to describe that, and that I'm not necessarily alone in it.

 

Thanks for reading :)

I'm still in the process of accepting that I am a gray-ace and what that means for my current relationship with a sexual partner. I know that I am very sex-indifferent but usually I just don't feel the need to act on any sexual impulse. I'm more aesthetically attracted to people than anything else. I have sexual desires and urges I just don't usually feel the need to do anything about it. And the times I have (when I was single) they tend to be very dysfunctional and self-destructive. Now that I'm in a committed relationship where I do feel sexual attraction to my partner i just can't seem to get the hang of having healthy sex. I'm kind of used to my sexual responses being based on dysfunction and I've been working with my therapist on how to change my body's response to what's happening. I haven't been able to come up with a clear answer yet but I hope to one day be able to know it inside and out the way you do.

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  • 6 months later...

I feel like I'm kind of settling into place with my orientation, I used to struggle quite a bit with the Asexual label, it felt like logically the right definition but something in me always told me that I'm lying to myself. I started using Aegosexual but similar problems came up, it felt a little closer to the truth, but not entirely there.

 

I was able to do quite a bit of self-reflection in the last couple of months (under obvious circumstances) and even though I didn't think about Ace-ness a lot I kinda became more in tune with how I feel, where feels come from and how to accept them. This for the most part stopped my anxiety about labels, I just started entertaining the thought of being "not really Ace, but not really anything else", and it felt kind of liberating. It feels nice to be able to appreciate how someone looks without having to do the mental game of "yeah but that's just aesthetic attraction right" even though I know it is. I was mentally raising the stakes so to speak, I put my identity on the line every time I was even slightly attracted to someone. I knew it couldn't go on like that, this is the solution I came up with that feels right.

 

If I think plainly I think: Sex sounds like a cool thing and I'd like to try at some point, but it's not at all a priority in my life. Be that Aegosexuality, Sex-positive/indifferent Asexuality, Demisexuality or whatever I don't know, at this point I don't really care. What feels right in this moment is what I'd call Dark-Gray. Pretty far on the Ace-side of the spectrum, but not all the way over there.

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  • 1 month later...

I found this thread and was wondering why it hasn't been active lately. Are there not enough graysexuals on the site? :P

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33 minutes ago, Sarah-Sylvia said:

I found this thread and was wondering why it hasn't been active lately. Are there not enough graysexuals on the site? :P

Perhaps not the busiest thread either, but the following thread has definitely been helpful to a number of us who ID as grey-a or somewhere around there:

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Iam9man said:

Perhaps not the busiest thread either, but the following thread has definitely been helpful to a number of us who ID as grey-a or somewhere around there:

 

 

I don't mind checking it out sometime, but I was more thinking of general graysexual talking, I think this thread was made for that :P

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/10/2019 at 11:03 PM, CelesteAdAstra said:

But when I tried to imagine more, I got bored really quickly as soon as the clothes came off, and I gave it up.

I imagine the clothes are off, but strangely I can only focus long enough on the part where my partner and I make out or something similar. I think I actually want to do some of the more typically sexual stuff in reality, but I can't imagine it for longer than a minute at best without it getting repetitive and boring. I find these thoughts arousing and enjoy them, but it's only for daydreaming. They don't really get me anywhere else ^ ^'

 

On 12/10/2019 at 11:53 PM, CelesteAdAstra said:

I think that the dividing line between sensuality and sexuality can get very blurry at times. Usually, aces stay on their side of the line while sexuals stay on the other one. I feel like I'm most comfortable living on that line along with all you other graces & demis :D

Wow, this is spot on. I have just recently written about this:

"I wonder… is it possible for an activity to still be considered more sensual than sexual even if it involves genitals (if you treat them like any other body part), and if it makes you feel arousal and you enjoy that feeling? That really challenges the definition, but if an activity that is usually not sexual can be considered one, why not the other way around? I suppose to someone who is sex-repulsed the border would be super clear but what about others..."

I guess arousal has to be unintended and not in the foreground in this case, though...

 

I could have shared my story in this thread instead of the one for sex-favourable aces but it seemed more alive, and the experiences are fairly similar so I guess it's okay x)

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Sometimes the very narrowest band of grey appears from nowhere and just leaves you in a state of shock 

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