Demisexual and Asexual Relationship

[Anon1224]

I am a demisexual person in a committed relationship with an asexual person (they are sex repulsed). Even though my partner has said it would be okay with them for me to seek sex in other people, Since I am demisexual I do not feel a desire to do that. It is has been hard not getting my sexual desires met but I do not want to bring this up to my partner because I do not want them to take it as me trying to guilt them into having sex with me. I understand and respect their boundaries and do not want them to feel uncomfortable. Anyone else have a similar experience?

[Liara]

A lot of sexual people in mixed relationships, yep...

[everywhere and nowhere]

17 minutes ago, Anon1224 said:

Anyone else have a similar experience?

No, but unfortunately this is what I always thought: that despite similarities between asexuality and demisexuality, demisexual + sex-repulsed asexual may be a very bad combination. Some people are comfortable with open relationships and it can sometimes work really well... But a demisexual person doesn't just "desire sex", they desire sex with a specific person, the way I understand it - other people are sexually transparent to them.

I am a sex-repulsed asexual myself... at least I anyway don't even know how to form relationships, I have never had any tiniest bit of success at that. But as a person proud of accepting my sex and nudity aversion, I am also obviously very much against guilting anyone into sex. So I admire your behaviour. However, if you keep hiding something from your partner, it can even unintentionally widen an emotional gap between both of you. And yet speaking about your desires would be wrong as well, because it might very well mean just that - putting pressure on your partner, and sex-repulsed people should be free to never try sex. Just remember that you are really in a difficult and sensitive situation which requires as lot of awareness on your side.

[RoseGoesToYale]

My friends ask me all the time if I'd be okay dating an asexual, and this is the primary reason why I say no. Even if the relationship started out fine, with neither of us needing/wanting sex from each other, if/when sexual attraction would eventually hit me, it hits me like a ton of bricks and I become almost insatiable. It wouldn't be fair to either of us.

 

What it comes back to sexual incompatibility. You want partnered sex and they don't. They're sex repulsed, so compromise is off the table. Even though your partner is fine with an open relationship, it just doesn't work like that for demis. The longer you go stuffing your feelings down, the greater chance you have of resenting your partner. If you attempted to have your needs satisfied with your partner, there's a good chance they'd wind up resenting you. Unfortunately, the odds of such a relationship working out are not good.

[ei-hvað]

I've been on the other side of that, as the asexual person with a demisexual partner, and it was honestly quite terrible. Especially since she did actually have quite a high sex drive once it "activated". 

 

It annoys me a bit when she calls herself asexual, because she most certainly wasn't while we were together. She is demisexual and under the asexual umbrella, but asexuality is not the same thing. I agree with some of the other people here that it's a very unfortunate mix, because there isn't a ready made solution or compromise which doesn't directly go against one of the partners sexuality.

[Philip027]

1 hour ago, ei-hvað said:

It annoys me a bit when she calls herself asexual, because she most certainly wasn't while we were together. She is demisexual and under the asexual umbrella, but asexuality is not the same thing.

Precisely why the ace spectrum/umbrella is a load of codswallop.

 

Demisexuality potentially "feeling like" asexuality outside of the confines of a relationship still does not make it the same thing as asexuality.  The potential for sexual attraction is still there.  It never is with asexuals.

[nanogretchen4]

Queer is an umbrella identity containing multiple sexual orientations and gender identities. You can't just randomly pick two people under the queer umbrella and assume they will be sexually compatible or relationship compatible with each other. That is not how umbrella identities work. That does not make the queer umbrella a load of codswallop, since finding compatible relationship partners is not the sole purpose of the umbrella. Different identities under the queer umbrella may share similar experiences with external and internalized bigotry. They may want to come together for mutual support and joint social and political action.

 

By the same token, it might make sense for asexuals and demisexuals to respectfully coexist under an ace umbrella community and/or movement. That doesn't mean that in general it is a good idea for asexuals and demisexuals to date each other.

 

That said, it depends on how well that particular demisexual can adapt to having a sexfree relationship.

[Philip027]

1 hour ago, nanogretchen4 said:

Queer is an umbrella identity containing multiple sexual orientations and gender identities. You can't just randomly pick two people under the queer umbrella and assume they will be sexually compatible or relationship compatible with each other. That is not how umbrella identities work. That does not make the queer umbrella a load of codswallop, since finding compatible relationship partners is not the sole purpose of the umbrella. Different identities under the queer umbrella may share similar experiences with external and internalized bigotry. They may want to come together for mutual support and joint social and political action.

 

By the same token, it might make sense for asexuals and demisexuals to respectfully coexist under an ace umbrella community and/or movement. That doesn't mean that in general it is a good idea for asexuals and demisexuals to date each other.

 

That said, it depends on how well that particular demisexual can adapt to having a sexfree relationship.

I said ace spectrum, not queer spectrum.  My statement was not directed toward the latter, so please don't put any words in my mouth in that regard.  If I was talking about the queer identity, I would have said so.

 

Respectfully coexist, sure, but I am under no delusions that demisexuals are just like me, and it's honestly insulting for them to try to pretend like they are.  At the end of the day, they are still capable of sexual desire/attraction -- like sexual people generally are -- and I am not.

 

I don't understand how something can be viewed as ace-adjacent or within any sort of ace "spectrum" when, by its very definition, it has already failed at the single core aspect that defines what asexuality is.

[ubereatsme]

I’ve never heard a good solid definition of Demisexual that separates them from sexual people. They don’t seem to have a unique identifying feature. 
 

also, let’s separate demisexual and monogamous. A person not committed to monogamy would probably find an open relationship helpful if they don’t need sex with every partner. An open relationship is unattractive because the person is monogamous and/or needs sex with all romantic partners, not because they are demisexual.

[Philip027]

The unique identifying feature is that they are basically incapable of experiencing sexual attraction to people they aren't already close to.  Some sexual people (who aren't demisexual) can potentially experience it outside of that sort of context, even for strangers or people they otherwise don't know all that well, or (as an extreme sort of example) at "first sight".  What tends to be unattractive to demisexuals is the offer of "oh, just go have ONS with random people or go find a sex worker, I don't mind" (which is not the same thing as an offer to find another actual relationship partner; there are partners who might be okay with the former but not necessarily the latter) because demisexuals are generally already uninterested in this sort of thing.  It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether they're poly or not.

 

A demisexual's experience might seem "normal" to a sexual person, but there are absolutely differences; otherwise I (as a demiromantic) would not have felt as alienated as I often was from other people on the romance front.  People all around me were constantly displaying (and vocalizing) their crushes on people seemingly at a glance, or for people like celebrities; it's something I have not ever been able to relate to and never will be, and I was commonly "othered" for this by my peers, particularly in adolescence.

[nanogretchen4]

Although to meet the definition of demisexuality it is technically only necessary to have some type of emotional bond with a person before you can feel sexually attracted to them, the label is probably more useful and meaningful to demisexals who experience this attraction very rarely or who take an extraordinarily long time to develop a sufficient emotional bond. I guess if you want to you could zoom in on a moment in a person's life when they are in a relationship with someone they are sexually attracted to and say, " They look just like an average sexual person to me." If this moment of experiencing pretty average sexual attraction came as a shock following twenty years of zero attraction, then in the broad view of that person's life and experiences they do not look so much like an average sexual person. If the long period of zero attraction preceded their first instance of sexual attraction, they may well have come out as asexual and had all the same experiences as an asexual person for decades. Even if they experienced sexual attraction prior to the long period of zero attraction, they may start questioning that attraction when they are looking at it in the rear view mirror at a distance of twenty years. 

 

Yes, experiencing sexual attraction or an intrinsic desire for partnered sex to a nonnegligible degree is inconsistent with many people's definition of asexuality. If all you are saying is that demisexuals are not asexuals, I agree with you as far as I am concerned. I think demisexual is and should remain a separate identity from asexuality. However, demisexuals who experience sexual attraction very rarely or take an extraordinarily long time to develop sexual feelings for a new person spend the great majority of their adult lives having a not at all average sexual experience. During most of their adult lives they need community support around not experiencing sexual attraction and not fitting in with mainstream dating culture at all. I don't see how a person who has not experienced sexual attraction in years is less likely to be pressured to seek medication or therapy for their "condition". If anything, the fact that history shows that they "can" experience sexual attraction is likely to be used against them. And if being demisexual results in being single and not looking for many years at a time and they get asked lots of nosy questions, which they will, if anything demisexuality is harder to explain and less likely to be taken seriously than asexuality. 

 

Anyway, this may be a little off topic but I think the OP has enough problems right now without also having their sexual orientation invalidated on AVEN of all places. 

[ErickO70]

23 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

My friends ask me all the time if I'd be okay dating an asexual, and this is the primary reason why I say no. Even if the relationship started out fine, with neither of us needing/wanting sex from each other, if/when sexual attraction would eventually hit me, it hits me like a ton of bricks and I become almost insatiable. It wouldn't be fair to either of us.

 

What it comes back to sexual incompatibility. You want partnered sex and they don't. They're sex repulsed, so compromise is off the table. Even though your partner is fine with an open relationship, it just doesn't work like that for demis. The longer you go stuffing your feelings down, the greater chance you have of resenting your partner. If you attempted to have your needs satisfied with your partner, there's a good chance they'd wind up resenting you. Unfortunately, the odds of such a relationship working out are not good.

I have found many women who are allosexual are like this too basically their sexual needs are high. I was married to one, and it led to her not feeling desired and lonely and was a big part of our divorce. I did not know I was asexual until close to the divorce.  So I have to agree that sexual compatibility is essential. Though I am sex positive, I feel it is worse on the asexual male with a more sexual woman, because society puts the pressure on the man to perform and want sex, that when we don't perform that way it lessens the experience even with compromised sex.

 

So I've basically stopped thinking I can make it work with a Gray/Demi or allosexual.  Unless they happen to have a low or no libido. So I am now just looking for an asexual woman that I match on, which has got to be way less than one percent chance out there. Alternatively, I'm also very happy being single.