Another orientation?

[ryn2]

I’m going to drop this in here because we’ve been discussing terminology a lot recently, and because I’ve seen some related confusion.  If it should go somewhere else, please move as needed.

 

Not that we need yet another term, but does anyone else feel this might be less confusing?  I’m basing it on “sex drive/libido determines how often you want sex, and orientation determines who you want sex with.”

 

 Using that, and  its prefix and root, someone who is asexual does not want sex with anyone.  That applies perfectly to alibidinous asexuals, and perhaps also to asexuals who are libidinous but repulsed by masturbation.

 

Does it make more sense to use the prefix “auto” for libidinous asexuals, though?  Libidinous asexuals, strictly speaking, do want to have sex with someone:  themselves.

 

I feel like this might address some of the head-scratching, for both asexuals and sexual partners, over people who don’t want partnered sex but masturbate, don’t want partnered sex but use toys and/or porn, etc.

 

Thoughts?

[Alejandrogynous]

My first issue with this is, whether I masturbate or not or like porn or whatever, is really nobody else's business. If someone asked what my orientation is and I say autosexual, I'm essentially saying, "I don't want sex with other people but I do like masturbating. " And that's... pretty awkward? I mean, I personally have no shame and overshare constantly but having my orientation label literally mean that I diddle myself is taking it a bit far even for me. Unless you only mean to make autosexual a subset of asexuality, in which case I'd reject it for the same reason I reject autochorissexuality - because it's beside the point. I lack the ability to form sexual desires for other people, that is bottom line all I want/need my label to tell people. That I don't want partnered sex, it's not personal, I'm just incapable of it. The rest is personal, which I can choose to share if I want to, but I don't need more fancy words do to that.

 

To be fair, I'm coming at this from a standpoint of being single, not trying to date, and not having a partner who doesn't understand me. I've been there, but even then, I'm not sure having a different word that I'd need to define for them would be much clearer than just explaining it to them in the first place.

[ryn2]

33 minutes ago, Alejandrogynous said:

My first issue with this is, whether I masturbate or not or like porn or whatever, is really nobody else's business. If someone asked what my orientation is and I say autosexual, I'm essentially saying, "I don't want sex with other people but I do like masturbating. " And that's... pretty awkward? I mean, I personally have no shame and overshare constantly but having my orientation label literally mean that I diddle myself is taking it a bit far even for me.

Hah, yes, that’s a good point.  I was thinking about it in the context of discussions here, where people are pretty frank, but I can see why it might be an issue “out in the world.”

 

35 minutes ago, Alejandrogynous said:

To be fair, I'm coming at this from a standpoint of being single, not trying to date, and not having a partner who doesn't understand me. I've been there, but even then, I'm not sure having a different word that I'd need to define for them would be much clearer than just explaining it to them in the first place.

Makes sense.  I see a lot of “how can my partner be ace if...” and “how can I be ace if...” questions but they are primarily from people in/wanting to be in relationships.

[anisotrophic]

I'm not sure "if DIY" is the most useful distinction, but maybe "if/what fantasies". I think autochorrisexuality is pretty distinctive within asexual subsets. That said, for similar reasons to @Alejandrogynous's I think it's unlikely to catch on as a public identity...

[Alejandrogynous]

10 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Makes sense.  I see a lot of “how can my partner be ace if...” and “how can I be ace if...” questions but they are primarily from people in/wanting to be in relationships.

Yeah, I see a lot of this too. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure if there's a way around it other than simple education, though... If a person needs to learn to separate libido from desire, fantasy from reality, etc., then they're going to need to do that whether we call it asexual or autosexual. 

[Guest]

And it doesn't take long to simply say:

 

''Some asexuals do have a biological libido so may masturbate to relieve that, they just don't innately connect 'partnered sex' with any notion of intimacy or libido release.''

 

I mean, you're going to have to say that anyway even with that new term, because as soon as you say that term the person will ask: what does that mean? And you're back at square one with having to explain it to them word for word 

 

[ryn2]

9 minutes ago, FictoVore. said:

And it doesn't take long to simply say:

 

''Some asexuals do have a biological libido so may masturbate to relieve that, they just don't innately connect 'partnered sex' with any notion of intimacy or libido release.''

It doesn’t, but it seems like a lot of people aren’t listening.

 

I suppose that wouldn’t change, though.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, ryn2 said:

It doesn’t, but it seems like a lot of people aren’t listening.

 

I suppose that wouldn’t change, though.

I haven't actually seen any of this recently where people aren't understanding that aces can have a libido without wanting partnered sex, could you direct me to any such threads so I could have a read through? And yes I think even with a new term, one would still have to explain what the term means.. and those who aren't listening would probably continue to not listen 😧 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

I'm fairly sure autosexual is already a thing, it's where you find yourself sexually attractive. Ironically it also has nothing to do with fapping.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

I'm fairly sure autosexual is already a thing, it's where you find yourself sexually attractive. Ironically it also has nothing to do with fapping.

Wait, I thought autosexual means you literally only want to fuck yourself, so masturbation is your preferred form of sex because you're banging youself when you fap? lol

[ryn2]

5 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

I haven't actually seen any of this recently where people aren't understanding that aces can have a libido without wanting partnered sex, could you direct me to any such threads so I could have a read through?

I’ll try to remember to link the next one I see... it’s Monday again and I won’t have time to look during the work week.

 

[ryn2]

1 hour ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

I'm fairly sure autosexual is already a thing, it's where you find yourself sexually attractive. Ironically it also has nothing to do with fapping.

 It looks from the various definitions like the tie-in to fapping is whether you like it or consider it a nasty/tedious thing you have to do to solve a problem.

[Ceebs]

Yeah I'm with @Alejandrogynous. I don't know too many people who essentially want to say "I love pleasuring myself sexually" when describing their orientation. Outside of AVEN discussions directly in regards to masturbation... which, good lord, there sure are a lot... it seems of relatively little importance, and perhaps TMI.

[ryn2]

That easily could be why it hasn’t caught on.

 

The main thing that got me thinking about it, besides the occasional confused partner, was the sense I get in some of the other forums that asexuals who are fine with sex are sometimes seen as “not asexual enough.”  I guess one could just go with “everyone is different.”

[Anthracite_Impreza]

9 hours ago, FictoVore. said:

Wait, I thought autosexual means you literally only want to fuck yourself, so masturbation is your preferred form of sex because you're banging youself when you fap? lol

Welp, that's what I heard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Philip027]

On 9/30/2018 at 8:24 PM, ryn2 said:

Does it make more sense to use the prefix “auto” for libidinous asexuals, though?  Libidinous asexuals, strictly speaking, do want to have sex with someone:  themselves.

Not really.  Sex is not a thing that happens without two or more people, and not only is it troublesome to imply that anyone who masturbates are somehow having sex with themselves, if we were to present these libidoist aces with a perfect clone of themselves I highly doubt most of those pairs will want to fuck.

 

It's overall kind of a troublesome implication to make; you're just trading one big potentially misconstrued aspect of one's sexuality for another.

[overturn overturn overturn]

We are aware of ourselves as marriage in one body, so we express ourselves as asexual toward others.

And technically we don't see that we ''masturbate''. Since our body is different entity, we see it as having sex with our body.

Or, from our youth when we did not know who we are and what is with us, if our body had sex, we just watched it from aside.

We weren't able to experience sex of our body with others directly connected with it. Just as voyeurs, and attracted to our body, not in others.

Sorry to say, we just used them, to replace invisibility of our missing physical side in this marriage (regarding males). Or watch and listen to women, replacing with it missing soul of woman which our body does not have.

But, now we don't have problems or doubts anymore.

Because we were influenced by society, and expectations from us how we should live, but once when we became aware of two of us in same body, all problems resolved. We found our match, so we see that our ''need'' for someone else was caused only from social construct, and wrong thoughts that we are single. We actually don't need no one else physically, except that we wish to become visible with all our sides.

And hug our body and kiss her a lot, millions times in a day. And give her all love what we wanted to give her, but we could not...

[ryn2]

Thanks, all.  It sounds like - although the reasons vary - it doesn’t clear up more than it muddies.

 

46 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Sex is not a thing that happens without two or more people, and not only is it troublesome to imply that anyone who masturbates are somehow having sex with themselves,

I suppose that depends on whether you define sex as “any activity that’s sexual in nature” or not.  Some sexual activities require a partner whereas others do not.

 

49 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

if we were to present these libidoist aces with a perfect clone of themselves I highly doubt most of those pairs will want to fuck.

Agreed, I think most people would consider this partnered sex.

[ryn2]

25 minutes ago, HayaH said:

But, now we don't have problems or doubts anymore.

That sounds like it was challenging to unravel, HayaH!  I’m glad you’ve collectively reached a comfortable place.

[Philip027]

Stuff can be of a sexual nature without actually being sex.

 

Imo "partnered sex" is redundant.  "Partnered sexual activity" on the other hand is not, because there are sexual activities that can be done on one's own.

[ryn2]

Yeah, it depends on the definition you go by.  I was using the dictionary definition (sex = sexual activity) but if you consider sex a subset of sexual activity you’d understandably interpret the question differently.

[flesh-pocket]

i thought the distinction between aces who masturbate and aces who dont was already "libidoist" versus "non-libidoist." 

 

i suppose a division between libidoist aces who enjoy vs dont enjoy masturbation could be made, but i dont see what difference that would make in a relationship. whether someone can enjoy masturbation does not mean theyll also be more open to partnered activity, so i cant say i see the point in making the distinction.  

 

ive also heard the term autosexual elsewhere to mean sexually attracted to yourself, which does not sound like a typical asexual experience to me. 

[overturn overturn overturn]

We wish to add to our comment from above,  this subject is very interesting for us. We would not mind labels as autosexual, or any similar, but we don't quite feel belonging to this group of people who want to have sex with themselves, even if we look like them, from aside, or from outside. It's a surface.

Because we feel our body as completely different entity of who we are, so we just tried to expand point of view, on this subject, commenting here and giving our example. Just to be considered, as one existing case or phenomenon...If it can help somehow in this researching.

 

And ryn2, thank you very much for understanding, and for your comforting words, it means a lot to us.