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Demi or love? (I mean I know I’m in love, just that I’m not sure if I’m demi as well)


benjiboi

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So, I’ve never posted on this website, but my girlfriend has turned me onto it and I’ve found it to be one of the most supportive and knowledgeable communities on the internet. My best friend and I started dating a few weeks ago when we discovered that we’ve loved each other, and those weeks have given us an opportunity to really explore our sexualities. For me, this love has recontextualized the way I know I can feel with desires surfacing to do things like just lie there with her for hours and to very simply just be closer and closer to her. Before this, I hadn’t realized this capacity for love and looking inward, I’m not sure whether it would be appropriate to attribute this discovery to love or that maybe I’m demisexual or demiromantic. I’ve dated before but I was never the person excited to advance our relationship and become closer. I had never really wanted to explore my partner’s body. It’s not that I didn’t care about these people, because I did, I just found it difficult to more fully immerse myself in these relationships. With this history, and because I don’t much care for things like porn, I think that I may have a lower sex drive than my peers.

To put my question more simply, I hadn’t given the degree of my sexual and romantic capacities much thought until now when I feel both of these things more intensely than ever before, so do you guys think—having given this topic more thought—that I may be demi-something or that my experience more accurately describes the difference between the infatuation of my previous relationships and the love I’m experiencing with my girlfriend? I don’t need to slap a label on how I feel but I’d like to be able to bounce these thoughts off of people who might be more experienced with the grey-a spectrum and with love.

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NickyTannock

Welcome to AVEN!

 

I don't have any experience with love, but it sounds like that to me.
Your desire to be closer to her sounds like a sensual and romantic desire, rather than a sexual one.

 

Incidentally, it's tradition to offer new members cake.

10.jpg

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anisotrophic

Welcome @benjiboi!

 

It's hard to tell from your post what your context is (e.g. who your peers are), I think I'm curious about your age and gender identity. It seems like you might be young, as you seem to be exploring your romantic and sexual experiences. :)

 

Love might be what takes root after infatuation subsides? Maybe it didn't need infatuation? For me, love involves a lot of trust and loyalty and caring a lot about that person's needs & wants.

 

I'm fully sexual. For me, love entangles with sexuality, I'm sexually attracted to someone I love because I'm aroused by causing them to experience sexual arousal and pleasure. And love means I trust/desire being vulnerable in sex, it makes me want to experience arousal and pleasure in sex with someone I love.

 

If I feel sexual attraction without love, it's usually much weaker. And I can have sex without attraction, but it's pretty meh, but happy to make someone I care about happy.

 

For my partner (to try to share a different experience), he's driven by love but not sex.  He identifies as mostly ace, and not personally experiencing sexual fantasies or desires. But he's also capable of it, experiences physical pleasure, doesn't mind it -- if I ask for it, and he sees how much I need/want it and likes that it makes me happy. (That is to say, my understanding is that sex for him is about caring a lot about my own needs and wants.)

 

To wrap this up, I didn't start feeling romantic love or sexual attraction to other people until I was 18. I'm more than twice that now.

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Go with what you feel and find out. Just give your partner a heads up that this is curiosity and not necessarily a statement of permanent interest in sex/physical exploration/whatever is on your mind.

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8 hours ago, MichaelTannock said:

Welcome to AVEN!

 

I don't have any experience with love, but it sounds like that to me.
Your desire to be closer to her sounds like a sensual and romantic desire, rather than a sexual one.

 

Incidentally, it's tradition to offer new members cake.

10.jpgThanks for the cake and your thoughtful response, I think you make a pretty spot on point with our relationship maybe being more romantic and sensual rather than sexual-- I just didn't have the words to describe it :) could we talk about what it's like to not experience love, I've never met someone who is aromantic and I'm really curious as to what that experience is like

 

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