Can you have sexual desire... but not like sex?

[CaseyWinters2]

WARNING: I don’t get graphic, but I do talk about sex a little bit here.

 

Spoiler

So, this is very weird question to ask, but this website has a pretty great community of people that’s pretty accepting and I wanted just other opinions on this.

I thought for many, many years that I was ace, only to figure out I wasn’t.  In college I became more and more open to the idea of a physical relationship and figured I couldn’t call myself ace anymore.

Here’s something really weird that I’ve figured out about myself.  I don’t like sex.  I get turned on by certain things and I want to be physical with a partner, but I realized that I don’t like sex. At all.

What on earth do I call myself?  The very definition of being ace is to not feel sexual attraction, but I do feel that.  But I really don’t enjoy sex at all, it’s doesnt even turn me on in the moment. Just other physical things that lead up to it.

Wow, this is a super weird thing to write out, but yep. I’m just looking to figure out if anyone else has experienced this or if anyone has any age old wisdom for me.

 

[Homer]

Yep. There are sex repulsed sexuals out there.

[Just Somebody]

Yeah , you can even be (allo)sexual  and antisexual,  what is nonsensical but true, sexual people can be sex positive , apathetic,  negative, or even sex averse/repulsed or genital repulsed.

 

 

Sexual attraction is not linked to the acts of sex,  it's actually linked to wish to have an orgasm or make others feel so.

[Alejandrogynous]

I'm curious how you're defining sex. Are you including things like oral, handjobs, other non-penetrative acts, etc., or are you just talking about PIV? Because it's totally okay to not like certain sex acts and still like others, it just means you have preferences, which isn't bad or even necessarily weird. And while society (depending on where you are) often portrays PIV sex as the only "real sex" act, it's just not true.

If that's not what you're talking about and you mean you like the foreplay but always stop enjoying it as soon as genitals are involved, the others are right that it's completely possible to be sexual and still be sex repulsed. At the same time - and please take this with a hefty grain of salt because you didn't mention how many times you tried or how much you experimented - this very well might be the case of just not having had good sex. Sex isn't something people are good at right away, it takes practice and experience to make it enjoyable, and that applies to you and your partner both. It's pretty normal for a person's first sexual experiences to not be great (especially if you're female-bodied) simply due to inexperience, and it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what you like, what you don't like, and how to communicate those things to your partner.

 

But anyway, bottom line: if you feel like you really don't like sex and are okay with that, don't have sex. Your body, your rules. Do the things you like and leave out what you don't! But if you want to like sex and feel like maybe it's possible to under the right circumstances, it's totally fine to experiment. Try new things, by yourself or with other people. You might surprise yourself.  

[Guest]

Some sexuals only like certain acts. I dislike oral, anal, PiV for example. So most "sex" is off the table. But, lots of sexual acts are very enjoyable. 

 

There are also people who only enjoy sex acts under the right conditions - fetishes for example - so would get turned on and everything but if it doesnt happen right then it becomes a turn off to advance. 

 

And it has to be done the way you like it regardless. Sex can be boring, awful or even painful for lots of people if it is bad sex.