Confusión

[Thebookishkeep]

I been having an internal battle recently, for a year now I’ve identified as asexual but I started to doubt it. I was confusing aesthetic attraction for sexual attraction and I’m still a little confused but I’m feeling better. Has anyone else had this problem? And how did you deal with it?

[Gldlynch]

Hey bookishkeep

 

I know exactly how you're feeling right now - I feel this confusion "confusión" quite often too.

 

To me, sexual attraction is thinking, "damn, I'd tap that" literally, whereas aesthetic attraction is appreciating the way a person looks. E.g. when I look at Zac Efron, I think to myself, wow what a beautiful human with an Adonis of a torso, but would I want to go the extra mile to sleep with them? Negative.

Think of it this way, if you were slightly under the influence at a club and a super attractive looking person came onto you, would you leave it as, wow you're gorgeous! Or would you think, wow you're gorgeous AND let's get jiggy with it.

 

I have no idea if this helps... best of luck!

[Thebookishkeep]

Sorry for the bad grammar  my mother language is Spanish 

[Andiamo]

Not exactly the same thing, but I sort of confused romantic attraction for sexual attraction before I realized that they were two different things. I just kind of figured I was straight because I knew that I was experiencing some kind of attraction. It made a lot more sense when I learned that they were different.

 

Also, welcome to AVEN!

[Cnyb]

I'll hide a bit of TMI in a spoiler cause so much stuff....  In my early college years I had wondered if my low interest in dating/sex with girls was latent homosexuality.  I proceeded to get rather Obsessive-Compulsive about whether I could feel things for men or not, whether I was repressed etc.  It was a horrible state of tense confusion.  It took a long while for me to accept that I wasn't going to get the type of certainty that I seemed to be craving, that it wasn't the end of the world whatever was the case, that I could begin to accept the uncomfortable questions without having to engage in never-ending tortuous ruminations doubts attempts to prove, etc.

 

TMI:

Spoiler

In high school when a girl was feeling me up at a party in front of everyone, clearly interested, at a certain point I disengaged, was able to react and go to the couch where a restrained non-sexually expressive girl was, who I then cuddled with.  For months with this girl we mostly kissed passionately.  I was safe, I had escaped sexuality.  But there was pressure to have sex and be a man, and there was tension trying things out to prove something, a mixture of arousal/desire/just proving something, uncomfortable, never fully relieved.  Eventually in the back seat of a car, with condom on backwards, began to have intercourse, couldn't continue because condom on backward.  This was the one girl that 'fell in my lap' as an escape after a girl came onto me at a party.  I had not pursued dating except awkwardly to fit in as expected if there was a dance, and it never went well, I didn't want to date really.  So my girlfriend a little later had the house to herself and a bedroom ready, but I had piano lessons; so I went to piano lessons.  From time to time we'd passionately kiss or we'd explore some oral (up to a point anyhow, uncomfortably, not to 'completion'), and I never got around to pursuing intercourse with her since.  The relationship faded.  I was relieved, as I was grieving several deaths in my family that year anyway.  Last couple years of high school, only dated I think once, half-heartedly, just because nice girl didn't want to disappoint, just one date.  Never got a prom date.  Don't think I even asked anyone.  The girl who came onto me strong at the party years ago, later on came on to me in public, again, sort of frozen, I didn't pursue things privately, after a little while I disengaged as it was public anyhow, the ability to be aroused didn't motivate me to pursue her seriously.

 

First two years of college, no dating, but eventually thought maybe I was latent homosexual, and for the first time masturbated to completion/orgasm.  Very uncomfortable and guilty.  No matter how hard I tried I was never sure if I was aroused really by men or by male organs or male aesthetics or just friendship/personality, whether it meant something.  Was I any more aroused/interested with guy fantasies than with girls?  There was always some doubt.  It took a while to get aroused, but I did get aroused.  The act seemed distant and alien, but then so was sexual exploration with a girl.  Maybe I needed to explore fantasy more and I would become fully sexual toward men, but then, that didn't help me with women.

 

Third year of college, close friends with a girl, thought maybe we could be together, but what about all that gay fantasizing?  What if I left her for a man, what if I couldn't satisfy her or never felt fulfilled or always longed for a man.  She said she was fine with me masturbating to porn.  I wanted to cuddle, kiss, hold hands, and that's it.  She wanted more.  I agonized, but I just wasn't comfortable with more with her, and yet I wasn't comfortable pursuing men.

 

No dating till after college, finally trying to do things with some guys, awkward explorations, was I really any more aroused than I was with women?  Was it satisfying enough, was I incapable of truly being sexual in a normal way with a man?  Things happened, nothing permanent.  At one point I was getting anxiety over the possibility that by having sex with a man who I didn't know had a son at the time, caused his son to die of asthma at 3 years old.  OCD can be strange.

 

Eventually met someone assigned female at birth, who had trauma history, could be ok with sex or could be repulsed/non-sexual, didn't have a high sex drive, we both thought stress relief was a major benefit of sex, and she knew I might want to pursue guys.  The environment was perfect for exploration.  Started to become bored by anxieties about orientation.  Explorations didn't convince me that any long-standing satisfaction from sex was in the cards for me, sometimes things were awkward but there was at least a payoff (orgasm), sometimes things were very pleasant, sometimes things were uncomfortable, nothing enough to motivate me to remember oh yeah we're in a sexual relationship during months of no sexual contact, nothing to make me comfortable pursuing sex after we drifted apart.  I was no longer obsessing about orientation.

 

I still compulsively sought out some interactions with men, and then tried some dating sites, thinking this must be able to fix me, but nothing 'took'.  I realized I might as well be like a monk or celibate/abstinent person, instead of trying to hook up, the 'therapy' wasn't helping, the 'therapy' of sexual expression was conflicting and never satisfying enough to justify continuing.  Then years later I realized I wasn't just better at self-control than other people, or just a bit less sexual than others, I was particularly uniquely suited to celibacy, it was like 100% gift on a spiritual gifts inventory for me (by now I was totally at peace with not dating, not looking for a partner ever, not trying to have sex to fix my emotions or to fit in).

 

And finally, I realized, my compulsive self-treatment with sexual exploration was based on the false assumption that my problem was I wasn't sexual like others, that this was some horrible thing.  It wasn't just social pressures or cultural conditioning in a hyper-sexual culture.  I wasn't oriented to sex like others, I didn't fit in as gay, straight, bi, pan, and that's ok.  I don't identify with sexual orientations, and I NEVER DID, but I tried to fix it instead of accepting it -- for decades.

I ultimately learned a few things, after years of experimentation, doubt, confusion, and struggle:

• paying attention to my nads and what they were doing could result in arousal just because of the attention, i.e., just thinking a bit could this be arousing could that be arousing, eventually arousal would happen, it's just what the body does when attention gets directed in those places or on certain subjects (or even from random stimuli), and it meant nothing certain at all, except that nads react.
• creatively fantasizing about being with this or that person or doing this or that sexual thing could encourage me to get emotionally invested/conflicted in various ways, without clearing up just what I was really comfortable with naturally.
• there is always an element of doubt about how strongly one is attracted/committed, one can always doubt that one would remain loyal or that one would forever be longing because of a mistake, i.e., the worse thing in the world could be exploring/pursuing/avoiding X, or it could be NOT exploring/pursuing/avoiding X, the mind can arrive at a way to draw out the longing/tension/regret either way, so maybe agonizing too much over whether or not to explore/pursue/avoid is wasting energy.
• things change so the unexpected can happen and things can be unstable, i.e., some things may not go as planned, no matter how well they are plotted out, level of libido can go up or down, interest can go this way or that, relationships can change, and there are lots of choices that can be made either way, so maybe agonizing over how things will be forever in life, or agonizing over a sexual orientation/identity is pointless.
• it seems to be always possible to find some evidence for or against X identification/orientation, if it is pursued with enough intensity/grim determination to uncover the feared awful hidden truth.

[iff]

moved from census forum to the grey area

 

Iff,

Moderator,

Census forum