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Hi I'm not ACE but I think my wife is.


SG100084

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15 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

I'm a bit wary about framing "motivated to do something because it makes someone happy" as a "chore" or "compromise".

(But clearly it's easy to forget about something that someone else cares about, if you don't personally care about it.)

There are definitely some fine lines here.

 

To me a compromise is what you institute whenever two people have differing “ideal” states/options/choices.  It may or may not involve some degree of sacrifice, depending on how far apart the ideals are and on how committed each person is to them.

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22 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

I think I would be more amenable to kink than vanilla sex with someone that I'm not sexually attracted to.

Same.

 

This is why I think it could be a meeting place for some mixed couples.  If the ace likes kinky sex better than vanilla sex (everyone’s going to be someone the ace isn’t sexually attracted to)...

 

...the ace and sexual may be able to identify things they both like (albeit for different reasons).

 

E.g., the sexual enjoys the sex aspect of it and is neutral towards the kink, whereas the ace enjoys the kink and is neutral towards the sex.

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On 7/25/2018 at 9:22 AM, Grimalkin said:

Let me be clear about this: Asexuality is not a bad thing, but it's a difficult thing to reconcile in a relationship with a normal allosexual person. Very often the allosexual person ends up neglected and often shamed for having a normal, healthy sex drive. Don't let her shame you. Sex is very important for most allosexual people, and you shouldn't be made to feel bad for desiring it.

 

 

It sounds to me like a potentially asexual person is being stigmatized not only in this thread, but in others in this forum. 

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1 hour ago, AliceAbernathy said:

It sounds to me like a potentially asexual person is being stigmatized not only in this thread, but in others in this forum. 

It's like... I feel that sometimes you need to separate the sexual orientation from the person, you know? You've got to look and see if they're being considerate of their partner, regardless of sexuality.

 

I'm always trying to find the balance. I don't want it to seem like I'm shaming someone for not having sex. I would never want to force somebody to have sex if they weren't wanting it. I don't want to equate "withholding" sex with "forcing" sex. I'm not saying that any allosexual person in an ace/allo relationship is entitled to sex. I mean, I'm asexual myself. I don't want to stigmatize anything or anyone.

 

But I also think asexual people tend to vastly underestimate how important sexual compatibility is. I spend a lot more time on this forum advocating break-ups than I ever wanted to, because I'm such a romantic at heart. But sometimes, relationships need more than just love. They need commitment, respect, compromise, compatibility in all areas. And if those things aren't happening, how can things improve?

 

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to ace/allo relationships. But as long as both partners are giving it everything they have, then things are looking up.

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3 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to ace/allo relationships. But as long as both partners are giving it everything they have, then things are looking up.

Yes to all you've said here, @GrimalkinMy husband and I are in the midst of working this stuff out as we speak. I'm fortunate that he's trying right now. But it seems that some partners, of any orientation, won't - and then it's much harder to expect that relationship to survive. Not because of one partner's orientation, but one partner's reluctance to address an issue or make a needed change. Of course I realize that an Ace can't and won't change, and doesn't need to change. I'm saying that any relationship where one partner, or both for that matter, can't or won't engage in efforts to make it work, especially if that effort is simply communication, it is bound to fail. That isn't a judgment of asexuality, that's just basic human relations. 

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The only thing I would add to the above two posts is that not everyone has the skills to be a good communicator - and even when both partners do, it’s easy to fall into unhealthy patterns over time - which is why a therapist or counselor can be helpful.  We shouldn’t assume a partner who isn’t communicating knows how to/intuitively understands why it’s important.

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anisotrophic

Chatting about the lists with my partner, he felt he's mostly "willing" (neither "want" nor "won't") because he doesn't care, just isn't experiencing desire.

And he thought (I paraphrase): "If someone feels strongly against a lot of sex acts, that means they have strong feelings about sex acts... maybe they're actually sexual??" For him, I guess, indifference feels more asexual than aversion.

Which made me laugh! So I thought I'd share. I don't think it's true at all, I said is much. It describes his particular experience of a very diverse demographic.

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That’s along the same line as hatred versus apathy, I suppose. :)

 

I get feeling that way (mostly wills, no wants, few won’ts) but I feel like that makes me a little less ace than the averse folks.

 

Diverse thought is at least interesting!

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7 hours ago, anisotropic said:

And he thought (I paraphrase): "If someone feels strongly against a lot of sex acts, that means they have strong feelings about sex acts... maybe they're actually sexual??" For him, I guess, indifference feels more asexual than aversion.

I actually agree with him somewhat, in the sense that being sex negative is still having feelings about sex. I also think that aversion would have causes which could possibly be addressed though not necessarily - for example and indifferent ace with a partner expecting sex would soon learn to be averse, but fixing the aversion wouldn't make them want sex. On the other hand, if unpleasant experiences or selfish sexual partners cause someone with a low libido learn to give sex a pass or associate it with a bad experience, it could be fixed with someone they cared for and who was respectful and sensitive. Indifference or lack of awareness altogether can't really be "fixed" in that sense, because there is nothing to fix to begin with.

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On 8/14/2018 at 6:31 PM, ryn2 said:

I don’t think this is a libido mismatch issue.  Someone can want to have sex multiple times a day and be very vanilla/disgusted with all sorts of things, and someone else can have much less interested in frequency/sex as a whole and yet be more kinky/more adventurous/less squeamish.

True - its a more general sexual mismatch.  I guess I see a libido mismatch as a subset of all sexual mismatches. I don't know how often low libido is correlated with also wanting low variety.  My wife is both. 

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On 8/15/2018 at 9:29 AM, Alejandrogynous said:

If I had the choice between sex or no sex, I'm going to choose no sex, but if I'm going to have sex (for compromise or whatever reason), I'm going to want it kinky over vanilla every time. 

 

Which is all @ryn2 is trying to say, from what I can tell. 

Interesting and different from my wife who in addition to little sex wants very little variety.  Her Ideal sex life would be us doing the same (very vanilla) think every couple of months.  Its almost funny  -  she sometimes says that she is too "tired" for more exotica activities - even though the things we sometimes do take no more effort.  Lately she has started saying at the beginning of every session that she is "tired" to keep me from suggesting anything other than the usual. 

 

Of course "kink" also might mean very different things to different people. When you say that if you have sex you prefer kinky, do you mean kink elements AND conventional sex, or kink INSTEAD of conventional sex.    (no need to answer if you don't feel like it - I just like getting other viewpoints to try to better understand my situation).

 

 

 

 

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Best - kink elements only

Better - kink elements mixed with sex

Least optimal - vanilla sex

 

Re: tired, it may take more mental energy to do things that stress her out more, so in that sense she could legit. be too tired for things outside her comfort zone and yet okay to do things within it.

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Alejandrogynous
45 minutes ago, uhtred said:

Interesting and different from my wife who in addition to little sex wants very little variety.  Her Ideal sex life would be us doing the same (very vanilla) think every couple of months.  Its almost funny  -  she sometimes says that she is too "tired" for more exotica activities - even though the things we sometimes do take no more effort.  Lately she has started saying at the beginning of every session that she is "tired" to keep me from suggesting anything other than the usual. 

 

Of course "kink" also might mean very different things to different people. When you say that if you have sex you prefer kinky, do you mean kink elements AND conventional sex, or kink INSTEAD of conventional sex.    (no need to answer if you don't feel like it - I just like getting other viewpoints to try to better understand my situation).

 

For me, I enjoy kink in its own right, so in an ideal world, I would prefer to engage in kink without sex. That would make me happiest. But if (conventional) sex is something I agree to do, I would rather do it by mixing something I don't enjoy (sex) with something I do enjoy (kink), to make the overall experience easier to handle. Maybe even find a way to enjoy it in my own way.


But again, I'm kinky from the start. If your wife isn't (and it's not something you can really convince a person to be, they're either into it or they're not), and she's already having sex as an asexual person, it makes sense that adding anything "extra" is going to feel even more draining. Even if what you do doesn't take more effort in the physical sense, it probably takes much more emotional/mental effort for her to not only engage in sex, but also engage in something else she doesn't feel a connection to, at the same time.

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26 minutes ago, Alejandrogynous said:

For me, I enjoy kink in its own right, so in an ideal world, I would prefer to engage in kink without sex. That would make me happiest. But if (conventional) sex is something I agree to do, I would rather do it by mixing something I don't enjoy (sex) with something I do enjoy (kink), to make the overall experience easier to handle. Maybe even find a way to enjoy it in my own way.

This was my reasoning as well.

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6 hours ago, Alejandrogynous said:

For me, I enjoy kink in its own right, so in an ideal world, I would prefer to engage in kink without sex. That would make me happiest. But if (conventional) sex is something I agree to do, I would rather do it by mixing something I don't enjoy (sex) with something I do enjoy (kink), to make the overall experience easier to handle. Maybe even find a way to enjoy it in my own way.


But again, I'm kinky from the start. If your wife isn't (and it's not something you can really convince a person to be, they're either into it or they're not), and she's already having sex as an asexual person, it makes sense that adding anything "extra" is going to feel even more draining. Even if what you do doesn't take more effort in the physical sense, it probably takes much more emotional/mental effort for her to not only engage in sex, but also engage in something else she doesn't feel a connection to, at the same time.

Yes I can see that and it makes sense.  For me though its yet another compounding problem - I'm somewhat kinky myself, and having sex be both rare and extremely vanilla seems more depressing.   I know its  not true, but it feels like she goes out of her way to avoid doing things that I like. (again, I know its not true). 

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Can you enjoy kink without sex, uhtred, or are the two inseparable for you?

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On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 11:39 PM, uhtred said:

 

my wife who in addition to little sex wants very little variety.  Her Ideal sex life would be us doing the same (very vanilla) think every couple of months.  

I think this is my scenario too.

Ask my wife "what do you fantasise about?" and you will never get an answer, just a change of subject.

Yet when she is on board, she is TOTALLY on board... goes right into herself, always orgasms hard, goes completely soft and floppy and becomes totally adorable. But still very very passive.

What's been new this time round though is that now she's actually ready to go again after just a few minutes, whereas before, she would just fall asleep and only want to sleep.

Actually I am pretty much only into vanilla (with the kind of lingerie she'd be happy to wear) myself, so this is pretty workable for now and she's opening up to the idea of oral now. I don't blame her sexuality for her repulsion in that area, rather the fact she's a nurse and probably sees more dodgy dicks every day than most sex workers.

 

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2 hours ago, SG100084 said:

I think this is my scenario too.

Ask my wife "what do you fantasise about?" and you will never get an answer, just a change of subject.

Don’t assume the former from the latter, if you are.  One thing that seems to distinguish ace and nearly-ace people from sexuals is a lack of self-insert fantasies, fantasies about themselves or their partners having sex, the kind of sex they hope to have or scenarios they want to do it in, etc. - e.g., if you ask me about my fantasies you will get a bunch of fannish stuff than would sound normal to my ace friends but from what I understand much less so to many sexuals).  It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what people are/aren’t willing to do.

 

My partner gets evasion on this question 100% of the time as I know from related discussion that he’s actually asking “what do you imagine us doing” and would not be pleased to hear the answer to his voiced question.

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anisotrophic
10 hours ago, ryn2 said:

One thing that seems to distinguish ace and nearly-ace people from sexuals is a lack of self-insert fantasies, fantasies about themselves or their partners having sex, the kind of sex they hope to have or scenarios they want to do it in, etc.

...My partner gets evasion on this question 100% of the time as I know from related discussion that he’s actually asking “what do you imagine us doing” and would not be pleased to hear the answer to his voiced question.

Yeah, very ace! My partner has no fantasies (not third-person autochorrisexual stuff either). I recall Bogaert's book suggesting that fantasies are a good way to try to understand orientation.

I think it's great that you're rekindling sexuality! But I'd agree with @ryn2 in noting that your partner could still be asexual – that is, not experiencing desire/attraction. (Not that you should decide their identity for them, but remember that this is still possible.) Someone might be a "responsive desire" type, and you might want to research that! But also... asexuality can exist despite an ability to experience pleasure in sex.

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This far into this story I've stopped making assumptions ryn. 

The number of categories that flourish in this forum are completely bewildering to me and I can't imagine that anyone can define themselves 100% based on any of them and that we all have some degree of fluidity in this area.

We're taking it as it comes and seeing where it goes for now. So far, it seems to be workable and enjoyable for us both, which I did not anticipate when we began this process.

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Glad to hear things are improving!

 

I might not have been clear there... what I meant was not to assume she prefers a lack of variety based in her not having sexual fantasies.  Both could be true together, or she might prefer variety/be up for more things than you’d think.

 

In short, someone trying to get at the sexual activities an ace is willing to do via some flavor of “talk to me about your fantasies” isn’t going to get useful results.

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anisotrophic
1 hour ago, ryn2 said:

someone trying to get at the sexual activities an ace is willing to do via some flavor of “talk to me about your fantasies” isn’t going to get useful results

oh, yeah, that's also true. but I think @SG100084 said they did go through a yes/no/maybe list...

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12 hours ago, anisotropic said:

oh, yeah, that's also true. but I think @SG100084 said they did go through a yes/no/maybe list...

Maybe!  I thought he just looked at himself, thought a lot of it was less vanilla than he’d like, and said she would be shocked... but I could be mixing that up with someone else.

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On 8/20/2018 at 12:59 PM, SG100084 said:

Ask my wife "what do you fantasise about?" and you will never get an answer, just a change of subject.

Not sure about other aces, but mine does fantasy in such a different way that he never had answers for such questions. I stopped asking them. Instead I tried to find out what he likes and dislikes (and some typical answers):

 

"Do you like porn?" (No) "Erotica?" (Yes) "What sort of erotica?" (um... odd stuff) "As in?" (Can't say - different things) "ooookay. For example?" (Can be anything, but not typically romantic. Dystopian struggles, machines, odd and surreal...) "So like say.... us in a post apocalyptic world?" (Not us. Other people) "Enjoying sex machines?" (Other people enjoying. Not me) "What sort of machines? Steampunk, generic dials and stuff, levers? Futuristic? Plug in brain for virtual stuff...?" (Varied answers) "That arouses you?" (I don't exactly get aroused, it is... difficult to explain) "Do you fantasize about me?" (Sometimes) "What sort?" (Different stuff) "Us doing things?" (Not me, but someone doing things you like and getting you very hot) "oookay. You ever visualize us?" (Yes, but mostly memories of stuff we did. Not for sex though. Just generally remember sometimes) "What is the best thing about erotica?" (Text) "Text?" (I like reading and forming my own fantasies instead of seeing pictures or video) "Do you imagine stuff during sex" (Always, or I can't have sex. I have to keep my mind in sex mode) "What sort of stuff?" (Mostly I imagine reading sexual stuff) "You think will be interesting if I do you while you're reading erotica?" (NO) "Do you enjoy chats about sexual stuff we did?" (YES! *apparently remembering also can be erotic. lol*) "Do you like me giving you massages and stuff" (not particularly) "Do you like seeing me touch myself?" (*indifferent shrug*).... and so on.

 

This, of course is not one conversation, but the result of a series of curious questions over time. With this, I could slowly figure out what works for him and what doesn't. Also there are hacks. While he doesn't, for example, enjoy porn, he does enjoy dystopian films, so a series or film with such a romance can be very enjoyable for him to watch and will work better than me trying to seduce him. Though of course we watch tons of those without anything sexual as well. Just because he enjoys.

 

Important thing is to accept that his mind works differently and to not take things personally in the sense of "dude I was totally trying to seduce you and you don't even like it and are thinking of some other erotica when we have sex?" Yes, that is how it is. But if you accept and remain genuinely curious, the answers sometimes get more and more detailed as he realizes that he can genuinely share this and I am enjoying the conversation and not at all bothered or taking it personally.

 

Edit: One thing I have consistently noticed is that he is never a participant in his fantasies. The closest it gets is to memories of us during some sexual encounter he may have enjoyed. And usually it is about my response with himself pretty vague.

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anisotrophic
1 hour ago, anamikanon said:

he is never a participant in his fantasies

Autochorrisexuality seems to be a common experience within asexuality's diverse experiences...

 

Sounds complex! But that hopefully means, the more you understand it, the more successfully you'll be able to engage him on this stuff. :)

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12 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Maybe!  I thought he just looked at himself, thought a lot of it was less vanilla than he’d like, and said she would shocked... but I could be mixing that up with someone else.

Yes that's correct.

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1 hour ago, anisotropic said:

Autochorrisexuality seems to be a common experience within asexuality's diverse experiences...

Because this was nearly always true for me (and even on the rare, rare occasion I was part of one of my fantasies the other person involved was never my actual partner at the time and never even someone I could meet/know in real life), and fantasies always felt like something private that I couldn’t share without risk of ridicule, requests like “tell me about your fantasies” were puzzling (and a bit upsetting) to me.

 

Reading here, I can finally see why more sexual people might normally converse about fantasies.  :)

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