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Does anyone have any information on sex repulsion and what causes it?


Dr. Beat

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I am quite curious about what causes sex repulsion, particularly in those on the ace spectrum. I suppose this is mainly a question about myself because I'm curious as to why I'm sex repulsed and didn't really know where else this question was appropriate to ask. I looked up sex repulsion fist on google and then on some academic databases but couldn't find anything on sex repulsion that didn't classify it as an anxiety disorder possibly relating to sexual abuse or trauma. I recognize that this may be accurate for many people, but I'm not sure that I have a sexual anxiety disorder. I don't see any cause for the disorder in my case as I've never experienced sexual abuse or trauma and I don't exhibit my typical anxiety symptoms when sex is brought up. I simply find it uncomfortable to talk about, find it gross is general, and can't imagine myself ever doing it. I personally feel that my sex repulsion may be tied to my orientation, but I have no idea if that's how it works. If anyone on here has any knowledge of the causes of sex repulsion or links to any sources that could provide some information, I would greatly appreciate it.

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21 minutes ago, Vårin said:

 

I think you might be right. Sex is gross if you really think about it. Sharing bodily fluids and all. It is not the most hygienic thing one can do. Both sexual and asexual can feel sexual repulsion, but I think it might be more common for an asexual because sexual attraction sort of makes the whole thing more appealing. I have read that when you are aroused, you are less disgusted by things. 

I agree with your statement. Like my sexual friend said she was so grossed out before but when she was turned on she could careless. 

 

I am a bit of a hygiene freak so it gets gross for me to think about it even when we do it in biology, 

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When I came out to my mom and said that sex was gross, she said that "When you are turned on it is more appealing, but yeah sex is gross when you think about it" So I agree with the above comments. Sex repulsion is definitely tied with asexuality.

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@Dr. Beat I'm sex repulsed too, I've always found the idea of it absolutely disgusting and I hate it when people insist on talking about it. So weird!!

 

I've never been diagnosed but I'm pretty sure I have OCD and I used to be really weird about touching people and germs and things although I'm a lot better about things like that now but I suppose they could be "causes"

 

I've also never been sexually abused or experienced and sexual related trauma.. That I can remember 🤔

 

The way I'm seeing it at the moment is that there doesn't necessarily need to be a cause, it's just the way we are and that's okay. I think another one of my issues is I overthink stuff a lot like sexual people can just get on and do it... Like @Vårin says when someone feels sexual attraction they don't think of how gross and weird what they're about to do is whereas asexuals do... Well I'm not sure about all asexuals but I do at least, even with stuff like kissing. 

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6 minutes ago, AwkwardSquid said:

my sexual friend said she was so grossed out before but when she was turned on she could careless. 

Sexual friends are such good resources!!! I really should talk to mine about this more 🙄

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Galactic Turtle

From what I've read there's lots of ways people can be sex repulsed so in the grand scheme of things I'd say I'm only mildly sex repulsed. I have a fear of nudity so things like visual porn or erotica have me shutting my eyes and running away before my brain can fully make sense of the image. I also have a fear of physical pleasure like masturbation. Physical contact makes me uncomfortable as well particularly if it's skin to skin. I'm not sure what caused all of this but I was exposed to erotic content too early which was a bad experience and since then consent has never been a factor in any vaguely sexual situation I've found myself in.

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3 minutes ago, Vårin said:

If I ever get in a relationship with a sexual person I really hope it does not turn out I am demisexual because the feeling of arousal is honestly really distressing. The body is like DOOOOOO SOOMMETHING. And I am like: WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO???? PLEASE STOP.

OMG! I feel the same way!

I hate arousal and anything sexual!

I have OCD and a fetish that I hate. I don't like feeling aroused for any reason and so even though I'm Ace I hate having a fetish that arouses me sometimes. I obsess over it so much that I've actually developed a type of PTSD towards the fetish and anything sexual. What I struggle with is unusual, to have something that you do but hate so you try not to. It's all really confusing. Not I totally understand what you are saying.

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12 minutes ago, Galactic Turtle said:

From what I've read there's lots of ways people can be sex repulsed so in the grand scheme of things I'd say I'm only mildly sex repulsed. I have a fear of nudity so things like visual porn or erotica have me shutting my eyes and running away before my brain can fully make sense of the image. I also have a fear of physical pleasure like masturbation. Physical contact makes me uncomfortable as well particularly if it's skin to skin. I'm not sure what caused all of this but I was exposed to erotic content too early which was a bad experience and since then consent has never been a factor in any vaguely sexual situation I've found myself in.

I have to ask if it's ok.

You say you have a fear of mastrubation. But do you or have you ever done it? (Sorry if this is an uncomfortable question)

I'm just wondering cause I hate it but I struggle with doing it occasionally. But I hate doing it and the porn it is with and like I said in previous post I have PTSD from it. I'm sex repulsed because of that. So I often wonder if others struggle with the same thing.

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Galactic Turtle
Just now, Lonely Leafeon said:

I have to ask if it's ok.

You say you have a fear of mastrubation. But do you or have you ever done it? (Sorry if this is an uncomfortable question)

I'm just wondering cause I hate it but I struggle with doing it occasionally. But I hate doing it and the porn it is with and like I said in previous post I have PTSD from it. I'm sex repulsed because of that. So I often wonder if others struggle with the same thing.

No problem! I have never masturbated because I've never had the urge to. My body can have a physical response to things but it's not paired with any sort of urge. It feels no different than sweating. 

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45 minutes ago, Wolfe said:

Sexual friends are such good resources!!! I really should talk to mine about this more 🙄

they are especially when I have a male and a female and they both bi 🤣 if ever need to know something of the unknown I have resources 

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3 minutes ago, Galactic Turtle said:

No problem! I have never masturbated because I've never had the urge to. My body can have a physical response to things but it's not paired with any sort of urge. It feels no different than sweating. 

Lucky...

Having feelings you don't want is traumatic over time.

I have a libido towards the fetish I mentioned but I try to avoid looking at it or masturbating to it cause I hate doing it. It feels wrong and just unnatural. Luckily it isn't as strong as it used to be so maybe it's fading.

I do wish I had absolutely no libido though. It's just weird having something you'll never use. It just annoys me and gets in the way. I've thought about castration before too possibly get rid of it but people say it may not do that. I just don't know why some people have nothing and I have to have this...

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4 minutes ago, AwkwardSquid said:

they are especially when I have a male and a female and they both bi 🤣 if ever need to know something of the unknown I have resources 

Goodness!! Alright I'm coming to you if I think up any questions for sexual people!! 😆😆😆

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33 minutes ago, Wolfe said:

Goodness!! Alright I'm coming to you if I think up any questions for sexual people!! 😆😆😆

I have the encyclopedia of that XD welcome to ask lol 

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everywhere and nowhere

I have a feeling that in this case being sex-averse, but not fully sex-repulsed can bring interesting results.

I am able to overcome the "sex is gross" feelings when it's not about myself - in fantasies, for example (all my erotic fantasies are in third person). It probably wouldn't work like this for myself - I have never been in any kind of partnered sexual situation, but also when I pleasure myself, I avoid any contact with body fluids. But I also feel that for me the aspect of esthetic repulsion is not as strong as the aspect of fear. I'm sex-averse first of all because I'm nudity-averse and this aspect is never weakened, there are most likely no circumstances under which I could tolerate being naked in another person's presence.

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Give me some time. I can't formulate thoughts properly now. Don't have info on it specifically, but can talk about the root cause. There's a psychology behind disgust and an evolutionary aspect to it as well. Understand what disgust is and you can fathom the origins of a particular disgust if you look hard enough.

 

Like I said. Give me some time. Will show up later if my head's not upside down.

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It's not like a deep, emotionally charged hatred of sex. It's just that I know I don't want to look at it, hear about it in graphic detail, or do it ever. I really don't think it comes from a disorder (otherwise I fee that my asexuality as a whole could be counted as a disorder), but again I am not a specialist and have no idea who to ask about it. And it really doesn't feel like the anxiety I normally have (I've never been diagnosed but probably have some form of social anxiety)

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3 hours ago, Vårin said:

The thing about addiction, any addiction is that the craving for some good feeling (candy, alcohol, sex, anything) gets worse when you are afraid and/or are feeling other negative emotions. Soo... the fact that you @Lonely Leafeon are so distressed by your arousal might make the urge to make it go away worse. You know how one can continue eating candy even when one is sick of it because the body has become addicted to sugar. And the one thinks: I really should not eat more, but then do anyway 🙃 because emotions rule over logical thoughts. It is like a wild animal tok over your body for a short while and now you have to deal with the shame. If you somehow could calm down this animal, prett it a little, then maybe it will stop howling so much. My way of petting is is literally imagining being petted. This method works because love and sex can not coexist in my mind at the same time. Probably something to do with being asexual.

 

Also dancing might work to. Isn´t arousal just blood flowing to the genitalia? To me it feels like a bunch of energy stuck in the lower half.  If you could somehow turn that sexual energy into something else (because it needs to go somewhere right) like movement then maybe it would go away? 

Thanks the advice. I know, my therapist says the same things and I try but it's hard to not let something bother you when you have been so distraught by it you develop PTSD.

 

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Not sure if this counts as repulsed, but hearing people talking about sex grosses me out in the same way watching my nasty lil brother eat boogers grosses me out.

 

There's really not much more I can say about my personal experiences. Lol, gagging just typing about the boogers

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Head is partially not upside down. Let's go.

 

Disgust is both an evolutionary defense mechanism and a culturally inherited trait. The evolutionary aspect to disgust obviously is that it saves us from things that threaten our lives by creating a feeling of repulsion strong enough that we avoid the thing that disgusts us. Most natural things that are disgusting to us tend to be parasites, things that carry disease, or things that are toxic. All of these things would not otherwise appear as lethal or dangerous to us if we were not disgusted by them. As for the cultural aspect, well, that's the tough one. We know that disgust is also partially inherited by culture and the influence of people, because different cultures consider different things to be disgusting.

 

But at its core, disgust and revulsion is a defense mechanism.

 

So here's my little theory for you. You're asexual. You believe that, you feel that, you live it. What's the most threatening thing to this aspect of your identity? Sex. The notion of it, the implications of it, the depictions of it. It's my little theory that disgust arises from this in asexual folk. Our brain is a highly defensive thing in regards to its identity. It puts up barriers and blocks out ideas and things that threaten its foundation of reality.

 

This is why there's no convincing some people that they're wrong on certain subjects. Their brain's reality is cemented on their worldview. To change this worldview would be to destroy their reality. As you can guess, having your reality destroyed is devastating. It is easier to deny than it is to accept a reality. So, if I think of sexuality in light of disgust, here's what I come to.

 

Sex is not a physically threatening thing like a charging bear. It has no indicator that it is dangerous like a rattlesnake. But it is a threat to your brain in some sense. Not the physical, just your identity. So the only tool left that your brain has in its arsenal to protect itself from harm is disgust and repulsion. So that's what it applies to sex to keep itself safe.

 

Apart from trauma, this is the only reason I can think of for revulsion to manifest itself in this particular area.

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@Jade Cross There are chemicals that are released in the brain when someone feels sexual attraction that make it appealing to them.

 

I think the repulsion might be to keep people who aren't biologically compatible from mating. Asexuality is part of our biological makeup so that could be why so many more asexuals appear to be sex-repulsed than not. Though I am not certain how sex-indifferent and sex-positive asexuals factor in.

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@Moon Spirit ☽ Do you of any academic sources I could look at that aren't just about sexual aversion disorder? Obviously some sort of chemical reaction is happening, but I'm not sure it has to do with being biologically 'compatible' just because I feel that way about everyone (and the hardware would work, I just won't ever use it). Perhaps it is currently classified as a disorder, but I'd like to know if there has been any genetic research done on it (such as looking for biomarkers like they've done with asexuality)

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6 hours ago, Jade Cross said:

This partially makes sense although I would still question that if sex causing repulsion is a defense mechanism for aces, why do sexuals also fikd sex gross unless they are aroused? And even then, some still find it gross so is it a threat to sexuals as well?

 

That's the tough part. We can talk all day about the evolutionary aspect of disgust but we can't ever forget that it is also influenced by outside factors like culture and personal views.

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