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Let’s get this (sex fav.) schism started!


neverlove

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Have you ever been told by the asexual community “you’re sexual”, “that’s not what asexuality is”, “that’s sexual attraction”, and much, much more? Well then you are in the right place!

 

This is for the people drawn to the asexual community because of the differences they notice in themselves, but then find the door slammed in their faces! You may say gray-ace, you may say sex favorable, you may say a unicorn is a donkey with a horn, but you are welcome here (And friends).

 

This is a place for people to commiserate. I am trying to make this a SAFE place.

 

This is meant to be an exploration of what identities can and do exist at the edge of the asexuality umbrella and beyond. People who have come up with titles for their brand of asexuality are encouraged to share. Personally I like

a-typical. 😋

 

*So much for that...

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1 minute ago, Firefly8 said:

Shouldn't this post be in the "Gray Area" forum? 🤷‍♀️
200w.webp?cid=790b7611437bb075c79ae1c1b2

Drat, you may be right. Moderator will move it if so.

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I’d like to hear more about your guys’ sex favorable stories and how you guys are relating to the asexual community, so tag: @Demi Dad, @DemiDummy, @greynonomous, @Michael_91, @oldsoulvocalist, @InShadesofGray, @Strange But Not a Stranger, @KendraPM, @DogObsessedLianne, @Spectre/Ex/Machina

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I hope this remains a safe space 😊

 

I’ll share this here:

 

I identify as a sex-indifferent asexual, but it arguably varies between favourable / indifferent / repulsed depending on my mood and the precise act.

 

I have not felt a lot of love here on AVEN when I’ve discussed being relatively sex favourable. I have been told directly a few times that “you’re not asexual if you do x, y & z”. Other posts I’ve read are way worse.

 

It really got to me for a while and I nearly left. A friend of mine was the same and told me some of her ace friends stay away from AVEN for that reason.

 

I ultimately decided to stay and not engage the elitists in conversation if they’re going to be rude. If they get too rude or personal I just use AVEN’s Ignore feature.

 

In my opinion, if someone honestly and thoughtfully relates to one or both of the main definitions of asexuality and feel the label resonates with them, they can adopt it, or not, the choice is theirs. This view is very much in line with the main FAQs on asexuality.org which I always refer back to when I’m being told I’m not asexual 🙄

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1 hour ago, neverlove said:

People who have come up with titles for their brand of asexuality are encouraged to share. Personally I like

a-typical. 😋

I’ve gone with hypersensual asexual 😊

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9 minutes ago, Iam9man said:

I’ve gone with hypersensual asexual 😊

Incidentally, I first heard of this term on the below thread which I’d highly recommend to anyone leaning towards sex-favourable. It made me realise there are other asexuals like me and probably stopped me from leaving AVEN:

 

 

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I’m starting this thread so I guess I better share too 😊

 

So I never really understood why people were acting so (from my perspective) crazy over each other, ending up in relationships that were bad for themselves and everyone around them. I was told this was love and I’d eventually be infected and then I’d understand...but I’m still fine. People would mention celebrities, men and women walking down the street and sometimes I could nod my head along and get back to the more interesting topic at hand. Other times I would be utterly perplexed by the fascination of my peers (One direction was a flat-liner for me). I even faked crushes because that was something people talked about and it was fun, like playing house. 

Then I got really close to my best friend. What I feel for her is almost everything I’ve ever been told love is like...but I don’t want to sleep with her. I could spend the rest of my life with my best friend, I want to hug her and cuddle, maybe even share a bed, but only in the literal sense. No kissing, no hand-holding, no sex. Yet if I think about having sex with a guy in a general sense I think I could do that. The reality of it just isn’t particularly attractive, even if fantasies that don’t involve me are...fun. Maybe, I could get close enough to a man in the future where I could have sex, but I would have to trust him with my life, feel safe, he’d have to like my family, have similar beliefs, and a laundry list of things that don’t involve his appearance or any kind of intangible attraction.

Basically, I think I’m asexual because I don’t seem to “get it” and I have this gut feeling I never will. 

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Awww, you included me in here.  That's so sweet!  I'm not ace or aro, but I sure do love the one I'm with.  🥰

 

I'm just a straight up bisexual.  But I help moderate a nonexclusionist LGBTQIA+ safe space (we currently have over 28 k members!) so I'm very sensitive to people's identities.

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3 hours ago, Iam9man said:

I’ve gone with hypersensual asexual 😊

I've heard you say this before.  I was able to resonate with some of what you feel based off of what I observe from my boyfriend.  He loves sensual touch and he seems to greatly enjoy foreplay.  However for him, there is definitely a Killswitch from that transition from foreplay to sex.  He's completely uninterested.  I don't think he would be bothered if he never had sex again.  But foreplay does lead to intercourse occasionally between us.  And he tells me that it feels really good.  I'm never quite sure what he goes through when he jumps that bridge between foreplay and sex but whatever it is, it's not comfortable nor is it natural.  He has to force himself over the gap.  But then he seems okay.  Then again, he has stopped right in the middle before because something shut down and he suddenly didn't feel comfortable.  I'm never sure where things are gonna go but I always appreciate his efforts.  I never get mad at him.  I always let him know that it's okay when he needs to stop.

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17 minutes ago, xstatic ☆゚°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ said:

He loves sensual touch and he seems to greatly enjoy foreplay.  However for him, there is definitely a Killswitch from that transition from foreplay to sex.  He's completely uninterested.  I don't think he would be bothered if he never had sex again.  But foreplay does lead to intercourse occasionally between us

That is indeed 100% my experience too 😊

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Grey-Ace Ventura

I'm a sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed ace, it depends, so I haven't struggled on here as hard as some sex-favorable folk, but I'm glad @neverlove made this thread because I'm pretty indignant that if someone posts a negative comment on a thread, generally something would be done about it, but if someone says "I enjoy sex," you'll see a whole bunch of nasty posts telling the person they're not ace. That's the kind of thing that happens to a lot of people irl, so they come here and think they'll be accepted. In a bunch of welcome posts, the stories are super long because it looks like people feel like they have to justify how ace they are, so as not to be rejected. Telling your story is one thing, but having to justify all of the parts of your identity is another thing that shouldn't be a thing.

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everywhere and nowhere

I'm quite the opposite of sex-favourable - I'm very strongly sex-averse, don't want to have sex ever and can't imagine any reason which could make me consent to "give it a try". However, I sometimes get into similar conflicts for a few reasons:

  • I prefer the desire-based definition of asexuality ("an asexual person is someone who doesn't experience desire for partnered sex") - which is, by itself, not uncommon in any way - and define "sexual attraction" in a way different from most of the forum. For me, what I consider to be sexual attraction doesn't necessarily have to lead to sexual desire. I experience something I consider to be sexual attraction according to my definition, or at the very least esthetic attraction with a clear sexual component - but I still never want to have sex with anyone, no matter how sexually attractive someone may be in my eyes. Instead, I fantasise in third person. This is my sexuality: fantasies and no personal involvement in partnered sex. Perhaps indeed, I don't even need the "effectively asexual" label, because I reject the idea that Actual Partnered Sex is the pinnacle of sexuality. I don't perceive sexualities which don't involve partnered sexual contact as "inferior". But still, not being sexually available to anyone is very important to me. And I have come into a few clashes with other users for considering sexual attraction relatively unimportant compared to desire vs. no desire for sex.
  • I am open to the idea of a person's sexual orientation changing. Or rather: how could I feel entitled to question someone's feelings if they feel convinced that their orientation has changed over their lifetime? They are the expert on their experience, not me. So I also consider non-inborn sexual identities to be valid. Well, a little bit of an external verification is necessary - something may qualify as a new orientation if it persists over a longer period of time. But in many cases it does. What matters to me is that the person in question accepts their feelings and doesn't want them to change. If they accept it, they may have super-clear and even "treatable" reasons which made them asexual - but for me, they have a right to identify as asexual.
  • I have repeatedly questioned the goal of asexual visibility, saying that instead the goal should be sociocultural acceptance of sexual diversity - including celibacy. I remember some of my discussions with the user @Pramana, who doesn't seem to visit the forum lately :( - I don't remember his exact words, but in some post he said something like: that a strict differentation and distancing asexuality from celibacy could lead to asexuality becoming "the only acceptable reason for not having sex". This is exactly a development I would never want. There is way too much sexual pressure in out culture, too much glorification of sex and too little... just basic empathy for people who feel thrown under the bus in these sociocultural circumstances. Instead, everyone should have the obvious "right" to not have sex and not desire sex. It's so obvious for me that I can't see anything controversial in it - after all, the idea of sexual freedom becomes contradictory if the option of not having sex is forgotten or even ridiculed. For me this is more important than asexuality. Renewed social acceptance of celibacy - along with more understanding of sexual diversity - would anyway benefit asexuals. And I believe that the asexual community should never reject people who are celibate for reasons other than asexuality.
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I'm personally sex-neutral/borderline repulsed, but I have no problem with someone claiming the sex-positive asexual title.

 

I'm a little disappointed at a few posts I've read. Lots of aces already get invalidated from heteronorm AND LGBT+, because our experiences are just unrelatable. The same thing is happening here. I can't step into other people's shoes, but I'll try my best to be understanding.

 

On the plus side, the LGBT group I met included asexuality, and the page, iirc, included sex-positive along with neutral and repulsed. 

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Hi All

 

Here is a bit of my story. Please keep in mind I am 64 years old and when I was young nobody knew the term Asexual, and none of us had any of the sub catagory terms we all talk about here ón AVEN nowadays

 

Up until the age of 35 years old I was never sexually attracted to anybody. It did not bother me one jot. 

 

I had some idea of things I would like to do romantically but if you would have asked me to pick somebody that I could get romantically involved with I really would have struggled to decide whom this person should be. 

 

Hence, I spent most of those years doing other stuff that I considered to be more important than dating, art, music, science, history, the list goes on

 

I obviously new that other folk dated and heard the odd thing they were up to but I never really analysed it, never really put much thought into any of it. You are going to think I am lying now, everybody does, but I am being straight up when I say this, I had no idea that so many people had crushes, watched porn, were attracted to other people when they were in love with somebody, that folk masturbate and so on. Honestly, these things I believed went on with less than 1% of the population. Since I was not doing any of this stuff I assumed others did not either. And I know this is going to sound crazy but it was only very recently I learn the true extent of how many people do do all this, and that it's normal! 

 

Anyway, fast forward to my 30s. As many of you already know I met my now wife. For two years we were close friends, and then for two years we were romantic partners, following this I eventually became sexually attracted to her, we got married and are still together

 

When I first joined AVEN I enquired about my lack of interest in relationships, masturbation, porn etc and somebody told me this is known as a non-libidoist 

 

Anyway, from what I can gather non-libidoist do not usually develop sexual attraction, but I did

 

Like I have said it was when I was 35 years old and this has been the only person I have ever been attracted to. I continue to have no interest in pornography, I still do not masturbate, and I still don't get crushes. There is even more I don't do but I cannot think right now off the top of my head

 

Nevertheless I know what the main reason is why I am like this. I have Total Aphantasia. I cannot visually fantasize, nor hear myself speak in my head, hence no erotic stories, no smell, taste or touch. No reliving my sex life. Yep I can remember stuff, but never do I actually re-experience it in my mind and so on

 

I accept that now that I identify Demisexual, I should not use the term Asexual, and I don't. But nonetheless with the points that I have made above I think folk might be able to see how I am experiencing sexuality different than most other people. My wife and I needed to find AVEN so that we could figure out what the heck was going on

 

If anybody is interested here is a link that explains Aphantasia

 

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/kwkway/what-its-like-to-instantly-forget-what-friends-and-lovers-looks-like

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39 minutes ago, Nowhere Girl said:

I'm quite the opposite of sex-favourable - I'm very strongly sex-averse, don't want to have sex ever and can't imagine any reason which could make me consent to "give it a try". However, I sometimes get into similar conflicts for a few reasons:

  • I prefer the desire-based definition of asexuality ("an asexual person is someone who doesn't experience desire for partnered sex") - which is, by itself, not uncommon in any way - and define "sexual attraction" in a way different from most of the forum. For me, what I consider to be sexual attraction doesn't necessarily have to lead to sexual desire. I experience something I consider to be sexual attraction according to my definition, or at the very least esthetic attraction with a clear sexual component - but I still never want to have sex with anyone, no matter how sexually attractive someone may be in my eyes. Instead, I fantasise in third person. This is my sexuality: fantasies and no personal involvement in partnered sex. Perhaps indeed, I don't even need the "effectively asexual" label, because I reject the idea that Actual Partnered Sex is the pinnacle of sexuality. I don't perceive sexualities which don't involve partnered sexual contact as "inferior". But still, not being sexually available to anyone is very important to me. And I have come into a few clashes with other users for considering sexual attraction relatively unimportant compared to desire vs. no desire for sex.

It’s fine if you have a different definition. The only thread requirement is not questioning another’s asexuality and then being respectful in general. There is obviously more to all of this than what is currently being defined and I think there needs to be a safe place to explore. I think people might feel constrained in how they express their experiences in an effort to be accepted by the community and it’s beginning to limit it. Of course I’m new here, but if people who identify with the community are being driven away by it...

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1 hour ago, neverlove said:

@Marlow1 and @Dawning 

 

tagging non-elitists 

 

I hope you’re okay identifying with that label  😉

Thanks for the tag! I have to sadly agree that there is a problem with people coming to this forum and feeling like they have to justify who they are and what they identify as rather than receiving the support that they were hoping, and logically expecting, to get here. Some of these people are fragile, vulnerable, emotionally overwrought, terrified of coming out, or possibly have already come out and are dealing with ugly fallout, and the last thing that should be happening when they come to the biggest asexuality community in the world is to be attacked and argued with about their identity!

 

If we are ever to survive and move forward as a community, and to be accepted as having a valid orientation, we need to stick together, and present a strong united front, rather than attacking each other and splitting into even tinier factions. If we can't agree on even the most basic definitions, we should expect that any rational person in the allosexual world will view us as wackos and malcontents and special snowflakes, and that does NOT benefit us! And we are an US in this forum, the THEM is out there... or at least that's how it SHOULD be!

 

Gay, straight, and bisexual people don't have to adopt different labels based on whether or not they feel desire, so why should asexuals have that requirement? Conversely, if we try to make asexuality be about lack of sexual desire, we'll lose any basis we have for making asexuality a different sexual orientation; we'll go back to the days of being seen as just dysfunctional allosexual people.

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3 hours ago, Dawning said:

Gay, straight, and bisexual people don't have to adopt different labels based on whether or not they feel desire, so why should asexuals have that requirement? Conversely, if we try to make asexuality be about lack of sexual desire, we'll lose any basis we have for making asexuality a different sexual orientation; we'll go back to the days of being seen as just dysfunctional allosexual people.

Second this 👍

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5 hours ago, Dawning said:

if we try to make asexuality be about lack of sexual desire, we'll lose any basis we have for making asexuality a different sexual orientation; we'll go back to the days of being seen as just dysfunctional allosexual people.

But that's basically the definition of asexuality: having no innate desire to have sex with another person.  Asexuality is finally being accepted as an orientation.  

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On 9/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, neverlove said:

This is a place for people to commiserate, and ANYONE MAKING JUDGEMENTS ABOUT SOMEONE’S ASEXUALITY WILL BE KICKED. This is absolutely off topic behavior. You know who you are, and you have been warned. I am trying to make this a SAFE place, and in order to create that I am implementing a ZERO TOLERANCE policy within this thread.

Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, as actually kicking people would probably be against AVEN’s ToS can we all agree to simply not engage with anyone making such posts on this thread?

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45 minutes ago, Sally said:

But that's basically the definition of asexuality: having no innate desire to have sex with another person.  Asexuality is finally being accepted as an orientation.  

Please delete your comment. You should’ve read the subject of the thread and this is not respectful. We can get this everywhere on AVEN, I want one place this doesn’t happen.

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6 minutes ago, neverlove said:

Please delete your comment. You should’ve read the subject of the thread and this is not respectful. We can get this everywhere on AVEN, I want one place this doesn’t happen.

That is a very inappropriate demand.  This is a forum for everyone who doesn't post against the ToS; no  one commenter controls it.  

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This is probably a good time for everyone to remember the clause in ToS about vigilante modding. Skycaptain moderator PPS 

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15 minutes ago, neverlove said:

We can get this everywhere on AVEN, I want one place this doesn’t happen.

We can’t restrict who posts here but we can simply choose to ignore anyone who’s being negative 😎

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1 minute ago, CBC said:

I would really hate to live in a world where everyone considered disagreeing to be synonymous with being negative.

Would you say this is a positive comment?

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Maybe we're trying to say the same thing in different ways?

 

Attraction and desire are different things:

 

It's possible to experience sexual attraction without a desire to have sex with that person; you can have attraction for someone who is beautiful but who you know is a disgusting person that you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, and so don't desire sex with.

 

It's possible to desire to have sex with someone without being attracted to them... or else all the ugly hookers in the world would be out of business.

 

And, it's possible to just have the desire for sexual release that you can just lay back and enjoy without having to do the work for it yourself, such that whoever is available that you would feel comfortable touching your body would suffice, without attraction to, OR desire for sex with, them.

 

Does that sound like hair-splitting? That could be a valid point… But remember, to allosexual people, the difference between romantic and sexual attraction is an even finer hair, one so fine that the vast majority of them refuse to believe it even exists, even though we make that distinction here in this forum every day.

 

Which hairs do we split, and which hairs do we not split? It's the same kind of question as comes up in the gender arena; at what point do we stop accepting new genders as valid, and start telling people that they just have to pick from what's already available, and that that has to define them? Who do we exclude from our little life raft of asexuality in the stormy sea of allosexuals? It's human nature for people who have been excluded to be eager to exclude others in turn, but I say that we should all rise above that urge and embrace inclusion instead! In a world where 99% of people feel sexual attraction, it's a humongous thing to never feel that attraction; we are such a tiny group, we should be embracing each other rather than battling over definitions! We should focus on how lack of attraction makes us the same, rather than telling people, "Unless you eat your turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread like we do, you can't be a member of our club"!

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5 minutes ago, CBC said:

I would really hate to live in a world where everyone considered disagreeing to be synonymous with being negative.

Me too 😊

 

I do find definition debates tend to get negative at some point or other, quite apart from any difference in opinions though.

 

So whilst I don’t necessarily endorse exclusionism (nor even the appearance of vigilante modding) I do like the idea of a “safe space” for people who feel they’ve experienced negativity elsewhere on AVEN for falling on the more sensual side of asexuality.

 

So, in my opinion, all welcome to join in the discussion here but please be respectful of each other and don’t turn this into a war zone or definition debate 😊

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