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For the sexuals and everybody, honest opinion: Is sex really all that great?


Tyger Songbird

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I might have misunderstood the original post but to me assuming some people feel there’s a point implies thinking people fantasize on purpose... which is sometimes true but often not.

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1 hour ago, CBC said:

It holds no appeal to me personally,

Shipping’s just a way to explore emotions and behaviors in a fictional setting... if you don’t enjoy fiction and/or struggle to see fictional characters as “real” it’s just adding more boring relationships between (non-existent) people who don’t interest you to start with.

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Anthracite_Impreza
4 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Isn't the point of creativity to use your own ideas rather than just nick someone else's?

Sometimes you just get attached to a character and want to "spend time with them". I love writing and reading fanfic about my fave characters *cough*BuckyBarnes*cough* It's a way to explore the character in different scenarios, plus it's excellent writing practice and cathartic (depending on what you're writing/reading). Just this afternoon my mate sent me her latest Bucky and Steve fanfic xD

 

On the previous subject, I spend a great deal of my time "daydreaming" (the word fantasising has too much of a sexual meaning to me), to the point I think about my OCs (original characters) almost every day. They're practically real to me and I love them to bits (except the evil ones, of course). I can't even begin to imagine how many hours have gone into them - emotionally, mentally, through writing and doodling... 😥

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Anthracite_Impreza
1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

I guess I don't really understand why you'd invest so much of your own creativity in someone else's characters. Each to their own though, obvs.

Cos you love them ❤️ 

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anisotrophic
2 hours ago, CBC said:

more just like... quick snapshot pictures in my head...

I'm like this, very brief snapshots or fleeting thoughts... ah, like apple's live photos, I guess? I tend to think of them as involuntary and unconscious thoughts, which I could choose to dwell on but usually just set aside.

I get the feeling a lot of people are like that? Not like, elaborate narrative fantasy, just these brief little imaginings that happen? And sometimes it's easy to set it aside, and sometimes it's more sticky and a bit distracting?

(And then I found my partner never has anything like it -- nada, never, not responsive to me flirting either -- and I was like 😧 but y'all know all that... 😛 )

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Anthracite_Impreza

Wait, detailed, long daydreaming isn't normal? 

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Isn't the point of creativity to use your own ideas rather than just nick someone else's?

You are using your own ideas, you’re just building off existing characters (which, often, are already built off of existing characters in other fiction, history, mythology, etc.).

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34 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Wait, detailed, long daydreaming isn't normal? 

I’ve always done it and, while it may not be normal, I’ve talked to lots of friends and acquaintances who do it too.  Sometimes it’s outright fantasy, sometimes it’s just imagining your upcoming vacation in the midst of a boring meeting.

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1 hour ago, CBC said:

I also tend to "feel" imagined scenarios more than I see them.

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, based on other posts, and wondering how/if it ties into a love of fiction.

 

My memory, dreams, imagination, daydreams, etc., are all very visual.  I think in words, and am often thinking in words while remembering/imagining, but what “comes up”/“comes back” is nearly 100% visual (not other senses, not accompanying emotions).  I can sometimes call up those things as well but they are a lot more work (emotions) and may be impossible to access (other senses, sometimes).

 

* to clarify, I do get the emotions but in reaction to the visual imagery.  I remember the visual part first and then (re)experience the emotion.  It’s very difficult for me to remember the emotion without first picturing the scenario.

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

I guess I don't really understand why you'd invest so much of your own creativity in someone else's characters. Each to their own though, obvs.

Well, it’s often this:

 

2 hours ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Cos you love them ❤️ 

...but also can be that you relate well to them, are fixing canon, enjoy sharing the experience with a large group of like-minded others, etc.

 

It’s not really different than fictionalizing history, writing a song about a book (e.g., Go Ask Alice), making a movie about Jesus or Thor, etc.

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2 hours ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

They're practically real to me and I love them to bits

I don’t write (so far, at least) anything where all the characters are original but most of my fanfic includes some OCs in amongst the canon characters and once I get them fixed in my head there’s no real difference in writing the two types of characters.

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Anthracite_Impreza

Feeling the emotions of a story, RP, character, etc. is integral to me. I can see and feel them - if they're sad, I'll feel sad. I end up crying or feeling sick if a character does (in a recent RP I was poisoned and ended up feeling properly ill!). My heart rate goes up when they're angry and if they get hurt, I can physically feel that injury. I cry at the idea of having to kill my characters off, both on my behalf and other characters. All this time I'm also visualising the text, not just reading. In fact I don't think I can read without visualising, I don't understand how that even works...

 

Is this weird? I didn't even realise it was possible to not visualise until I heard about aphantasia...

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2 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Feeling the emotions of a story, RP, character, etc. is integral to me. I can see and feel them - if they're sad, I'll feel sad. I end up crying or feeling sick if a character does (in a recent RP I was poisoned and ended up feeling properly ill!). My heart rate goes up when they're angry and if they get hurt, I can physically feel that injury. I cry at the idea of having to kill my characters off, both on my behalf and other characters. All this time I'm also visualising the text, not just reading. In fact I don't think I can read without visualising, I don't understand how that even works...

This is true for me as well.  I visualize (and react emotionally) while reading and while thinking.  It’s like watching a movie, more or less, the kind where you’re really engrossed and it’s very much like experiencing the situation for real.

 

Afterwards I feel a little disoriented when I realize it didn’t actually happen... like dreaming you had a fight with someone/got cheated on/lost a pet or family member and then struggling upon waking to shake off the bad feelings.

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Anthracite_Impreza
1 minute ago, ryn2 said:

when I realize it didn’t actually happen

I don't think I ever get this stage, because to me it does happen, even if only in my head. 

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29 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

I don't think I ever get this stage, because to me it does happen, even if only in my head. 

I guess what I meant was... the physical world wasn’t changed by it.  The character isn’t sitting at my kitchen table and I can’t text them to go out for a beer.  My arm isn’t broken.  That sort of thing.

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Treesarepretty

In response to the OP:

 

I feel like I need sex or the possibility of sex to feel good about myself. It is intimate, and also validating. I would not voluntarily go a lifetime without sex for $1,000,000. That is a laughably small amount of money for me to give up the ability to feel good about myself. Add 3 or 4 more zeros  to it, and I would take that money, donate it to charity, and then kill myself.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

Absolutely, yes. The difference it makes to my self-worth -- being wanted and desired in that way, when it's connected to love -- is massive. Intimacy and vulnerability (when you trust someone with such things) are vital to genuine connection, connection is good for feeling validated as a person, and validation is good for self-worth and thus beneficial to our overall mental health.

You can get that validation and connection in many other ways. Therapists for example are supposed to understand and connect with their clients without any kind of intimate contact.

As for genuine connection, that's psychological, not sexual. Sex can be a means to it yes, but so can many other things.

Besides, when you connect with someone through your sexuality that's only a part of who you are. I suppose there's more to a person's whole self than that part that they show when they are vulnerable during sex and that side itself shows in non sexual ways too. I think that putting so much emphasis on sex limits intimacy. It says the greatest connection you can have is with people you have sex with.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

Did I say anywhere that sex is the only way I receive validation?!

You did say it is a big part of it. I addressed that.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

The definition of "big part" in my mind would be if I said "75% of my self-worth comes from someone wanting to fuck me".

 

3 hours ago, CBC said:

I don't want to go a lifetime without sexual intimacy in a way similar to how I wouldn't want to live in a world with no music or the ability to spend time in nature. All of those things make what sometimes feels like the abject horror of existence (lol sorry, I'm coming from a background of decades of mental illness) a little less harsh, and often what I can really only describe as straight-up beautiful. If something makes me so happy it makes me cry -- and all of those things sometimes do -- why in the hell would I ever live without them for any amount of money.

Ok. Maybe I misread. I don't want to argue. Just pointing it out.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

What's wrong with finding beauty or happiness in a loving relationship?

Nothing. I never said there was.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

I'm not talking about getting my self worth from stuffing my bra so men whistle at me on the street and proposition me.

Nothing wrong with getting validation from that either, as long as someone doesn't make that their sole source of validation, or their main one. Things like that are like junk food, nothing wrong with having them every now and then with moderation.

 

That remark sound awfuly like slut shaming to me though. What's wrong with a woman getting a sense of empowerment from showing off her body?

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Anthracite_Impreza

@BrumesEtPluies You're completely misunderstanding CBC here; she isn't slut shaming at all. She's saying she doesn't get anything from it.  Plus, we aces can't tell sexuals how much validation they're "allowed" to get from sex, it's just... not our place.

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BrumesEtPluies
2 hours ago, CBC said:

More that it sounded like you had some sort of sense that sex in general was kind of a "cheap" place to get validation from

Let me clarify my position then: I understand perfectly well the sense of vulnerability and the intimacy that people get out of sex. I understand exposing that hidden side of you. My point is that that kind of connection is psychological, which means sex isn't the only way of getting it, and that there's more to a person's self than what can be shown through sex. Hence why I say putting too much emphasis on sex hinders intimacy, instead of furthering it. Maybe I misunderstood how much value you put on sex, I admit I could have gotten the wrong idea from your posts. Apologies if I have. I think we both agree that sex can be important, but it's not all there is.

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On 8/23/2018 at 9:25 AM, Telecaster68 said:

Aces on the other hand (again as a general tendency) seem perpetually baffled by the whole concept of physical touch in relationships. 

 

Baffled?  If you're talking about aces on AVEN (which you must be, since I doubt if you have a huge acquaintance of asexuals IRL), I've been here longer than you, and have read at least as many threads as you have, and what I've seen is asexuals being either disturbed by touch, or wishing for touch if it can be given with sexual expectations.  Bafflement, no.   And I'm talking about asexuals over the age of say 25, not very young asexuals who are baffled by the whole thing anyway.  

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anisotrophic

All my feet do is provide a variety of physical purposes... support and leverage, some adjustment stuff to help me balance, but all that can be done in other ways. There's people that live their whole lives without feet and it doesn't hold them back. There's things I could use instead of my feet, I can use my hands to balance me, get leverage from my knees... I don't really need my feet.

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Many things are better described by the "links in a chain" model than by "different weights".  

 

In order to feel love / romance, I need a number of things.  One of those things is a good sex life.  Is it the "most' important?  Is food,or air, or shelter "most'" important.   You need them all. Or is the heart more important than the brain?  

 

Since this is an asexuality discussion groups, when sexuals come here, it is usually because of issues in their sex life.   If they had other issues, then they would likely be in another group 

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, uhtred said:

Many things are better described by the "links in a chain" model than by "different weights".  

Maybe “strands comprising a rope” makes more sense for some people?  Each of the strands twisted together to form a rope is equally important to the strength and integrity of the rope.  If one breaks/is severed, the rope is not instantly destroyed... but it’s weakened, and the loss of that one strand puts additional stress - potentially so much that they will eventually break as well - on the remaining strands.

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4 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Maybe “strands comprising a rope” makes more sense for some people?  Each of the strands twisted together to form a rope is equally important to the strength and integrity of the rope.  If one breaks/is severed, the rope is not instantly destroyed... but it’s weakened, and the loss of that one strand puts additional stress - potentially so much that they will eventually break as well - on the remaining strands.

For me links in a chain is different from strands in a rope. In a rope, a strong strand can compensate for a weak strand, but in a chain the weak link is what matters.  For some people (including me),  if one of those links is missing, it doesn't matter how good the others are.  

 

Of course reality is always between the parallel and series type situation. 

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To me they imply two different things:  the chain is a quick, guaranteed, and complete failure; the rope is a more gradual one where the final outcome isn’t so predictable.

 

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5 hours ago, ryn2 said:

To me they imply two different things:  the chain is a quick, guaranteed, and complete failure; the rope is a more gradual one where the final outcome isn’t so predictable.

 

I wasn't thinking in terms of time constants, but of an "and" rather than an "or" sort of situation.   Shows how simple analogies can mean very different things to different people.

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