Which is easier?

[Asex92]

which of the following has potential to succeed:
1) asexual man to marry straight girl

2) gay man to marry straight girl

[InfjAceGirl]

The first one!! Why would a gay man marry a woman?! That wouldn't end good for nobody..

[Ceebs]

How would a gay man marrying a straight woman have any chance of succeeding at all...?

 

As for an asexual man and a straight woman, that would depend on many things. I assume you mean an asexual man who's into women romantically. What's their relationship like as a whole? How much does sex matter to her? (It matters to almost all sexual people, to varying degrees.) Is the man willing to have sex at all, or is it a no-go? Is the woman okay with sex that's willingly had, but still knowing she's not truly desired in that way? What are the circumstances of the relationship in terms of being monogamous or polyamorous? Etc.

 

In general, sexuals and asexuals don't usually tend to have completely fulfilling relationships. The sexual partner will feel that something vital in terms of intimacy is missing, and that can take a serious toll on their sense of self and overall mental wellbeing. The asexual partner will often feel a sense of pressure and perhaps like they're inadequate, which will take a toll on their psychological health as well. There can be lots of miscommunication, resentment that builds on both sides, etc.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible, but mixed couples who make it work in a way where they both feel completely happy with the relationship are pretty rare. Some couples find enough benefits in staying together despite the sexual mismatch, but there's almost no way there won't be difficulties that come up.

[everywhere and nowhere]

37 minutes ago, Claudia12 said:

Why would a gay man marry a woman?! That wouldn't end good for nobody..

Still, it happens. Usually it's because the man is looking for a "beard", or sometimes even, having internalised homophobia, hopes that if he tries to act straight hard enough, he would become straight...

[Janus the Fox]

Potentially both can succeed, there’s many factors involved before making the decision of Marriage or equivalent legal arrangement.

[Ceebs]

3 minutes ago, Janus DarkFox said:

Potentially both can succeed

How are you defining success? What does a successful marriage between a homosexual man and a heterosexual woman look like?

[Janus the Fox]

Not defining but we don’t know exactly what goes on with Mixed Orientation Relationships, not assuming either and only persons in that arrangement can answer how it is working for them.

[Ceebs]

Ok, so basically you mean you have no idea if it's true, but you're basing your answer on the fact that there are gay men out there married to straight women and it's technically possible that some of these marriages would be described as 'successful' by both parties involved.

 

'Potentially' just about anything that doesn't defy the laws of physics, I guess. Potentially, I'll give birth to quintuplets at the age of 42. Potentially, I'll discover I'm related to the Queen of England. Potentially, I'll win the lottery if I buy a ticket.

 

I know you can't speak definitively for others; I was just curious what you thought a successful marriage as described would look like.

[godace]

I mean, if you see marriage exlusively in the optics of financial advantages and making LGBT+phobic parents proud, both can be a success. But if you view marriage as the epitome of shared intimacy and physical/mental matching, there might be a problem. 

It depends on the romantic orientation fo both people involved. If the man is homosexual but biromantic (or panromantic, or in general, romantically attracted to woman), things will mostly work fine ? there will still be a mismatch in terms of intimacy, and that will go approximately the way CBC described it : sometimes it works out well. Same thing for the asexual man, if he's romantically into women, it might work ! but I'd say it would work a little bit less, because at least the gay man has sexual preferences, and is attracted to certain types of body you know. An asexual person might not have that. Depends on the ace man ! 

By the way, I see and use a lot of technical terms in those threads, yet I'm always scared when people use asexual instead of ace and homoromantic instead of lesbian, because it feels like people are calling me by my full name and I'm about to get an earful. Has anybody ever had that feeling ? 

[Phi!]

Not sure it would truly count as 'successful' but surely there are couples out there who's sexuality orientations don't match (perhaps internalised homophobia or not realising/accepting themselves till after marriage) that can still love each other, since we know from the idea of QPR's that love isn't solely sexual / romantic. The example I'm thinking of is Phillip Schofield and his wife, from everything I've seen about his relationship they do still love each other. While relationships between two cis het people can still be unsuccessful... (My assumption of unsuccessful means ending in divorce)

 

I would probably still say that a gay (homosexual homoromantic) man married to straight woman would be more likely to be unsuccessful than asexual heteroromantic man married to straight woman since there's higher likelihood of equal attraction in the second option. But then if you mean asexual aromantic man married to a woman then I'm less sure...

 

9 minutes ago, godace said:

By the way, I see and use a lot of technical terms in those threads, yet I'm always scared when people use asexual instead of ace and homoromantic instead of lesbian, because it feels like people are calling me by my full name and I'm about to get an earful. Has anybody ever had that feeling ? 

Hmm, can you explain more?? When I use the full words it's because I want to be super clear. When using ace then perhaps I'm referring to asexual or maybe asexual spectrum. And if I said lesbian I'd be wary that others may assume homosexual homoromantic (unless clearly specified). But me trying to be clear about how I'm labelling a hypothetical person wouldn't be the same as referring to yourself in a specific way. (Eg I could feel free to refer to myself as asexual homoromantic or ace lesbian (or something else) whichever I felt more comfortable with - though neither of those are me so I'll stop my long explanation there 😛

[godace]

40 minutes ago, Phi! said:

Hmm, can you explain more?? When I use the full words it's because I want to be super clear. When using ace then perhaps I'm referring to asexual or maybe asexual spectrum. And if I said lesbian I'd be wary that others may assume homosexual homoromantic (unless clearly specified). But me trying to be clear about how I'm labelling a hypothetical person wouldn't be the same as referring to yourself in a specific way. (Eg I could feel free to refer to myself as asexual homoromantic or ace lesbian (or something else) whichever I felt more comfortable with - though neither of those are me so I'll stop my long explanation there 😛

oh, I really meant "lesbian ace" as a whole being replaced by "asexual and homoromantic" in a conversation ! when I'm talking with my friends and they turn to me, and say "Jude, since you're asexual and homoromantic," it makes me feel like something weird is about to be said, I feel a lot of apprehension ! I don't know why. 

[anisotrophic]

Gay is probably generally “worse”, but there’s a lot of issues. For example, someone with no sexuality whatsoever may fail to recognize the importance of that in their partner. I would hope someone gay would understand that, but people don’t always have empathy.

 

I’ve wished my husband were “gay” and became more attracted to my transition and masculinization, but this isn’t the case. I enjoy my transition, but with respect to his sexuality (or lack thereof) it doesn’t matter what gender I am.

[Phi!]

1 hour ago, godace said:

oh, I really meant "lesbian ace" as a whole being replaced by "asexual and homoromantic" in a conversation ! when I'm talking with my friends and they turn to me, and say "Jude, since you're asexual and homoromantic," it makes me feel like something weird is about to be said, I feel a lot of apprehension ! I don't know why. 

Hmm, yes that does seem a bit odd... Do they know that the way you prefer is lesbian ace? Maybe they don't realise they don't have to say it using the technical terms... And yeah I do see how it would definitely feel odd if they start it with "since you're..." and I think that would get to me more than the words they use (but your friends may know the wording better than any of my friends would 😛

[verily-forsooth-egads]

Spoiler

 

[Ceebs]

5 hours ago, godace said:

If the man is homosexual but biromantic (or panromantic, or in general, romantically attracted to woman), things will mostly work fine ?

Will they, though? What if the woman really likes to have sex with someone who truly desires her? Her homosexual husband, by definition, cannot do that. So either she has to genuinely not really give a toss about sexual compatibility, or in saying that things will 'mostly work fine', it's another instance of sex being devalued here on AVEN since it's not important to asexuals. But I can say that, as a sexual woman, if I realised my husband was fantasising about men every time we had sex, or didn't want to have sex with me at all but made it clear that shagging dudes was his Thing, I would be sad and frustrated and confused as to what to do. Especially if he was biromantic and the romance part was genuine and I was in love with him, but I knew he could have the full deal (romance + sex) with someone else (a man). That would be quite painful and I'm pretty sure I would end up leaving so that I could find a man who wanted me sexually as well as all the other ways (or a woman for that matter, since I'm bi), and so my husband could go find his own guy as well. If he was homosexual, he'd almost certainly feel sad about the absence of fulfilling sex in our relationship as well.

 

Plus homosexual biromantic/panromantic is a bit edge case-y anyway. Possible? Mm yeah, sure. Common? Not very.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

51 minutes ago, CBC said:

Especially if he was biromantic and the romance part was genuine and I was in love with him, but I knew he could have the full deal (romance + sex) with someone else (a man).

As long as we're discussing "edge case-y" cases, how about homosexual heteroromantic? (It certainly happens.)

[Carbon-12]

Hope this doesn't come off as too snoop-y, but check out OP's post history for context - it'll help clarify this hypothetical.

[godace]

11 hours ago, CBC said:

if I realised my husband was fantasising about men every time we had sex

Yeah, that would be really fucked up of him, because he would clearly be dishonest with you, and use you without your knowledge. 

I'm not trying to dismiss sex, I'm trying to bring the light to the fact that relationships are rarely ever that fusional perfect understanding of each other that we're trying to describe and obtain. I think on the contrary, there will always be a mismatch somewhere, be it sexual, or moral, or in terms of rythm of life, or cultural, or in terms of expectations and life plans. How rare is it, that in a relationship everything matches ? 

Now, I know that I'll never understand how important sex is in a relationship for allosexual people, but I've been in relationships where sex was the least of our problems, even though the person was very sexual. I think the idea that only asexuals have this "sex-repulsed / indifferent / favorable" spectrum, is not completely exact, and allosexual people can be sex-repulsed sometimes, and precisely repulsed by a certain sex or gender. It's a broader concept, and it would really just depend on the individuals themselves, what the woman feels, what her past experiences have been with men, what the man feels, what his past experiences have been with women, how their relationship works, whether or not it's an open relationship. 

I mean, it's not very common, but after all we're discussing a homo V.S. ace battle right now - that's nearly a competition of how far we can stretch to prove our points. 

[nanogretchen4]

I don't like the odds for either one. Why isn't "asexual man marries an asexual woman" on the list? 

[Guest]

Personally, I'd rather my spouse was ace and sexually into *no one* than into *other people but not me*. 

[LeChat]

22 hours ago, CBC said:

...What if the woman really likes to have sex with someone who truly desires her? Her homosexual husband, by definition, cannot do that...it's another instance of sex being devalued here on AVEN since it's not important to asexuals...

I thought of this, too, while reading the thread and was planning on mentioning it (if no one else had), that it might not be fair, if, in either of those situations, a straight/gay person were forced/led into a relationship with an asexual/gay person, etc., who wouldn't be compatible for them, sexually (particularly if their sexual needs are important to them).

[anisotrophic]

The main potential advantage for gay/straight is that the gay partner is hopefully more likely to respect the importance of sexuality & thus, one hopes, more likely to be supportive of an open/poly approach for their straight partner.

 

People form bonds for many reasons.

[Guest]

On 3/6/2021 at 4:08 AM, Asex92 said:

which of the following has potential to succeed:
1) asexual man to marry straight girl

2) gay man to marry straight girl

I think the asexual, as they are heterosexual and the chances for compromise could potentially be there for both to make it work. 

 

The gay person is living a lie, so would be driven to misery over time. 

 

Sure a connection could be made, and gay makes marry women all the time in settings where they either choose to vs getting out of the closet, or out of fear of consequences for where they lived. 

 

These relationships am sure, start off as happy. 

[nanogretchen4]

I don't understand why anyone thinks a gay person is more likely to be living a lie than an asexual person. Heteronormativity is a thing, so either a gay person or an asexual person could get into a mixed orientation marriage before they understand their own orientation. However, once they come out most gay people try to date within their oriention from then on.  As far as I know there are more mixed orientation relationships than asexual with asexual relationships represented on AVEN. It is extremely common for asexuals who know they are asexual to ask for and receive advice about looking for new sexual partners to date. If you go to a gay website, I doubt you will find many out gays asking for advice about dating heterosexuals.

[Ceebs]

Yes well that's because of the romantic orientations still matching up for many sexual/asexual pairings.

[nanogretchen4]

In real life, there is no gay person involved in this thread who is considering entering a mixed orientation marriage. While I think most of us can agree that would be a bad idea, in the current situation it is purely hypothetical. Even if it were clearly the case that a gay man marrying a heterosexual woman would be worse than an asexual man marrying a heterosexual woman, the second possibility, which is the one that might be under consideration in real life, would still be a really bad idea.

[LeChat]

7 minutes ago, nanogretchen4 said:

In real life, there is no gay person involved in this thread who is considering entering a mixed orientation marriage. While I think most of us can agree that would be a bad idea, in the current situation it is purely hypothetical...

I'm unsure whether it's just hypothetical because...

 

On 3/6/2021 at 3:53 PM, Carbon-12 said:

Hope this doesn't come off as too snoop-y, but check out OP's post history for context - it'll help clarify this hypothetical.

...reading @Asex92's other posts about being Muslim, attracted to guys, and asking about how they could marry and feel attraction for women gave me the impression that this thread might not be just a hypothetical question.

[nanogretchen4]

Fair point. The OP's profile just says asexual.

[Asex92]

On 3/8/2021 at 3:46 AM, LeChat said:

I'm unsure whether it's just hypothetical because...

 

...reading @Asex92's other posts about being Muslim, attracted to guys, and asking about how they could marry and feel attraction for women gave me the impression that this thread might not be just a hypothetical question.

I am not attracted sexually to any men.

I don’t want to have sexual relationship with any man.

[LeChat]

@Asex92 Alright. I apologize if I got it wrong; I was just confused, based on this post of yours, where you'd mentioned you were "only attracted to" and excited by male giants and asked whether you were gay.