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57 minutes ago, Apostle said:

doesn't seem that much of an ace to me

I think it's complicated, thinking through intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation for sex with someone one loves. Which is why in the end it's important that an individual figures out their sexuality for themselves! We can't get in their head.

 

For us, I think there's a zone that's like "I want to do the dishes". I don't have any intrinsic love of the chore, but I "want" it because it'll have a positive outcome & neglecting it is making life unpleasant. And I guess once I get into the rhythm of dishes, the chore isn't so bad. I tend to think it's like this for my partner, he hasn't disagreed.

 

Oh, here's another way to look at it. He doesn't "want me" (sexually) [spontaneous desire], and he doesn't "want to be wanted" (sexually) (flirting is a signal he has to deal with, it's not making him feel sexual desire) [responsive desire]. He has no sexual desire of either type. Once we are having sex, it can physically feel good, but -- well -- it's still "getting it done" (doing what I want/need), he's happy to stop at any time, not disappointed.

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Yeah, to me, what @anisotropic‘s partner is doing seems comparable to going to a sporting event/theatrical performance/whatever with your partner when it’s not one of your own favorite things.  You don’t hate it, and may even have a really nice time yourself (in contrast to only enjoying knowing your partner is happy) while you’re there, but you wouldn’t think of it on your own or pick it - on your own - from a smorgasbord of fun things to do.

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Not being defensive of other asexuals behaviour here. But you can't make yourself want something you aren't interested in....even if occasionally enjoyable in a well that's not so bad kind of way.  It's obviously not enjoyable in the same way it is for sexuals but you can't understand the impact of something where you haven't experienced the impact....just heard other people talk about it.

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Yeah, there’s a big difference between wishing a situation was different (which is what I see most often from concerned partners of all orientations here) and wanting the people in it to force themselves to behave against their respective natures.

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3 hours ago, Apostle said:

So a bit like going out with a friend then? You like the friend and hopefully the friend likes you and you both have perhaps shared passions/interests etc. The excitement is in what is shared (to use a loosely defined term) and really not actually in the intimacy part of the partnership. Am I right?

No, it has nothing to do with whether their relationship is romantic or platonic.  I was just giving another example of doing things more for someone else than for yourself, and how

doing things for someone else does not preclude enjoying them in the moment.

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Yes. I agree. I only now am beginning to realise what it must have been like for my ex. Because sex and physical intimacy beyond a hug to denote how close I am with someone, has no importance for me. I only understand that "glue" as an observer. So I must have seemed like an "observer " in my relationships. Even though for me I was as committed to that person as they would have been to me if I had been sexual. Instead my asexuality ultimately put him off and I couldn't understand that.

 

Anyway for me it is now water under the bridge....although as we remain amicableish I can empathise with him.

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4 hours ago, Apostle said:

I wasn't referring to either of these types of relationships. To me romance is in books or films. It's all lovey dovey nonsense and doesn't reflect the real world. Its fantasy land.

A relationship I was talking about is where it is turned from an intimate one to a friendly one. As soon as it's friendly with no intimacy then the people in that relationship are no more than friends. I could sleep in the same bed as a friend, male or female and it wouldn't change that relationship. As soon as one or the other or both made an intimate move then that relationship changes completely

To be in love with someone is not romance as such. It's a chemical ans physiological reaction of one person with another. 

If you've never experienced an intimate relationship and/or enjoyed it then it is very difficult to understand or put across it's importance from a sexual point of view.

A “romantic relationship” is not synomamous with “romance.”  It’s one where you feel romantic love for your partner.  A platonic relationship is one where you feel platonic love (often considered synonymous with deep friendship) for your partner.

 

A romantic relationship is not “friendship plus sex.”  That’s friends with benefits.

 

Asexuals who are not also

aromantic develop romantic love for partners without sex.  Aromantic sexuals have sex with partners without developing romantic love.

 

It’s certainly possible that you, personally, cannot develop romantic feelings for someone you are not having sex with... or that you are aromantic and do not develop romantic feelings at all (sex or no sex).  I’m just saying that isn’t universally true for everyone.

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(I’m specifically using the word sex rather than the word intimacy as the latter has other meanings as well)

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Status update,

About 7 months ago, my best friend of 3 years and I started dating when I asked her out. I was super excited because she's my favorite person in the world and I was hoping to spend more time with her and explore if we worked well together. She's an ace survivor, and I'm a non-sexually driven cis male, so thought it could actually work out for both of us since I figured sex would never happen and everything about her feeds me in every way I deeply need to be happy. We even decided to go to proactive relationship counseling (boy was the counselor surprised we weren't walking in with anything to talk about!).

 

For whatever reason (fear of cis men, bad timing, self-imposed expectations...) she grew more and more distant, filling her schedule with anything not me. I spent most of the 6 months we were "dating" waiting for her to want to / have time to hang out together so we could have adventures, talk, overcome challenges, and have other shared experiences that would help us get to know one another. But aside from 2 or 3 fun adventures and the best first date / best friend hangout either of us had ever had, I never got to explore that with her. It got to the point where I would have to book in advance 10-14 days just to get lunch with her. She brought up being unsure if she was okay with me being on the "raw end of this deal," despite me saying I was patient and willing to let her define the relationship since she'd never had that. Maybe that was a bad attitude on my part.

 

Anyway, she seemed like she wanted out and she thought maybe we could spend more time together if there weren't the label giving her self-imposed expectations, so we became "just friends." Now I hear nothing from her, and I have the worst case of a broken heart for a month now. We used to hang out a lot, and now I wish I had never asked her out because then at least I'd still have my best friend.

 

Better luck to my Fellow Sexuals!

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I’m not fond of being pigeonholed either.   It’s just that whenever someone mentions romantic love/attraction/etc., you seem to confuse it with the storybook term “romance.”  It’s not being in fairytale love with someone; it’s the sense of having a special bond that goes beyond friendship.  For some people that has to include sex; for others, it doesn’t.  For those where it doesn’t, they still love their partners differently than they do their parents and their friends.

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@ryn2, couldn't agree more. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in semantics so I find it helps just to think about things as simply as possible. I am one of those whose definition of romance would include sex; my wife isn't. However the relationship as whole is such that it is clear to us both that we love each other in a singular and special way that is, in its most basic characteristics, different to the love we have for other people in our lives. Our sexual mismatch doesn't stop us from understanding this, it only makes it a bit more difficult to imagine the details of how we experience and interpret it.

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2 minutes ago, anewman said:

@ryn2, couldn't agree more. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in semantics so I find it helps just to think about things as simply as possible. I am one of those whose definition of romance would include sex; my wife isn't. However the relationship as whole is such that it is clear to us both that we love each other in a singular and special way that is, in its most basic characteristics, different to the love we have for other people in our lives. Our sexual mismatch doesn't stop us from understanding this, it only makes it a bit more difficult to imagine the details of how we experience and interpret it.

Yes, exactly.  While I totally get it that for some (many, probably people) there is no reason to consider romantic and sexual love separately, they aren’t the same thing in the sense that asexual people are feeling solely friendship for their partners.

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

As a general point, I think you'd struggle to find anywhere except asexual discourse where romantic love didn't include sex by default.

Which makes sense as sexuals are the large majority.

 

It’s not really the terminology that matters, it’s the point that - even if for many sexuals there is nothing but friendship in any relationship where sexual attraction does not exist - asexuals can feel a love different than that which they feel towards their friends for their partners.

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Maybe a clearer way to look at it is “aces love their partners just as much as/in the same way their partners love them; they just express/communicate their love differently.”  That presupposes you agree with the sexual posters here who have described sex as a way they communicate their love.

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6 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Agreed.

 

It's just the AVEN 'some', which can give a false equivalence even though it's technically true. Some people get to be president of the USA, some scientists deny climate change. But it's an inaccurate precis to use 'some' in a context that implies it's anything like equal numbers.

I’m not sure I’m following you here.  Are you saying most ace people don’t love their partners differently than they love their friends?  Or just that - because aces are so comparatively rare - saying “some people” experience romantic love in the absence of sex makes this phenomenon sound more common than it is?

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11 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

The latter. It's not wrong technically, it's just implying that expecting sex to be part of romance is a 50-50 thing, and sexuals are somehow being obtuse or entitled when they assume it will be. It isn't and they aren't.

Sorry, no, that was not what I meant at all.  I simply meant that - while it seems difficult for Apostle to fathom, perhaps because it is so different from his own experience - that (whatever you want to call it) aces “in love” are feeling something different than friendship or familial love for their partners.

 

That has nothing to do with whether or not it’s reasonable on the whole to expect sex by default as part of a romantic relationship.  It’s just something I wish people would accept and acknowledge, as the whole “no, honey, I get that you have feelings.  I love my friends too” business gets old.

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I agree with you Ryan and it finally makes sense. I have no “ right” to expect or demand sex by default simply because I’m married.   I struggle with it though on a regular basis.The difficulty arises for me because of course, sex is a part of deep romantic attraction and love for ones partner.  As his wife, my husband doesn’t often display other examples of romantic love, either:  kissing , touch, romantic talk....so often I find myself in what feels like the role of  Close Friend,sister(big sister too!) mother and caretaker.  Maybe others don’t agree that my feelings should negate the ability to have romantic love with an asexual spouse.  Can’t seem to change mysel too easily in this regard

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6 minutes ago, SusannaC said:

Maybe others don’t agree that my feelings should negate the ability to have romantic love with an asexual spouse.  Can’t seem to change mysel too easily in this regard

Feelings are feelings.  You can’t change them.

 

I don’t think people who don’t/can’t experience romantic feelings in the absence of sexual feelings are somehow wrong.  I just want people to recognize that the two things aren’t connected all the time (and therefore that people who don’t connect them aren’t somehow wrong either).

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I get it  that as an asexual( this is what IMO, my husband is) my spouse doesn’t want or need sex to have romantic love for me.  It’s just so damned hard for me as a sexual woman to come to peaceful terms with that understanding.  Because of my sexuality.  Doesn’t really add to a peaceful everyday existence for me either.  Feel like my rapidly passing life is lacking, deficient, almost defective!.....never saying that HE is defective- heck maybe I AM!!!! Probably am, just being honest.

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9 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Feelings are feelings.  You can’t change them.

 

I don’t think people who don’t/can’t experience romantic feelings in the absence of sexual feelings are somehow wrong.  I just want people to recognize that the two things aren’t connected all the time (and therefore that people who don’t connect them aren’t somehow wrong either).

Perhaps this inability to recognize is part of a simmering anger and delayed acceptance of the partners Asexuality?  Thinking this was the case w/me.  Why it took so long and took me a while to come here too.

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11 minutes ago, SusannaC said:

Feel like my rapidly passing life is lacking, deficient, almost defective!.....never saying that HE is defective- heck maybe I AM!!!! Probably am, just being honest.

No way are you defective. Incompatibility doesn't mean you should stop wanting/needing what you want/need. I do appreciate that isn't much comfort if there's no way of getting that thing though.

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On 11/12/2018 at 1:27 AM, xstatic said:

When he came forward as probable ace/ possible demi, I felt terrible about overstepping his boundaries like that.  He was trying to make me happy, but at his own expense and that is not what I want from him at all.

I guess this is like a universal state of torment for sexuals coming to terms with a partner's asexuality. If it is any consolation, over time I have learned (with some knocks on the head from my ace) that consent is consent. If he agreed to have sex, then that is a yes, and I didn't force/overstep/impose, etc. 

 

If he isn't sex averse/repulsed, he is unlikely to be overly traumatized by the sex. Mine can enjoy sex when it happens too, though he isn't likely to want it anyway. In the sense that "it is a whole different world how an ace brain operates about sex, and the best way to know is to ask him and trust that he is being honest in his answers"

 

Most of the time, asexuals agree to have sex to make the sexual happy, given that it is not usual for an ace to want sex for themselves other than perhaps rare curiosity or specific triggers - more like masturbation, but with a person. This is a mind fuck for us, but perfectly normal for someone who understands that someone they love really enjoys sex and sees it as intimacy in the relationship. It isn't all that different from us going out of the way to do something our partner really enjoys, even if we may have no particular feelings about it.

 

On 11/12/2018 at 1:27 AM, xstatic said:

 So I started to ask all sorts of questions.  Is this okay?  Is that okay?  What about these situations?  I could tell that it was making him nervous.

My ace finds it far more difficult to talk about details of sex than to have sex with me. That is because he doesn't really have a lot of preferences or aversions. He be more like "whatever makes you happy and I am able to do, I don't mind". So detailed questions about various things being okay or not.... he has no idea what to say, because often he will not know whether he is okay with it till we actually do it. And of course, sometimes something may be okay and other times not.

 

We have found it easier to proceed with sex and be attentive. If he seems uncomfortable, I stop and check. If he doesn't like something, he tells me. Frankly, it is quite rare for him to rule something out. Mine is mostly.... indifferent.

 

On 11/12/2018 at 1:27 AM, xstatic said:

That being said, I'm still working on my own issues with our relationship.  He's wonderfully affectionate in person, but isn't giving me a ton of affection when I'm away from him via text/messenger.  This puts me in a state of uneasiness because then I start feeling paranoid that he doesn't care for me as deeply as I care for him.  I intend to address these issues with him, but I also don't want to worry him again now that he's starting to feel more comfortable. 

We went through a hundred ways for why I didn't think he doesn't care about me as deeply as I did for him. Being communicative or not, talking about emotions or not, being attentive or not, being blah or wah, etc. The bottom line is that as sexuals, we expect a certain sexual vibe as an indicator of attraction and interest, which is simply absent with an ace. So we tend to find reasons for why we feel uneasy. It has helped me to try and identify the ways (doing things for me, sharing activities he enjoys with me, general pampering...) he shows he loves me - which are so totally different from what I'd expect (being more "into" ME) - it is a more "talking side by side" or "walking along" feeling rather than "talking face to face staring into each others eyes", but they are very real and very solid. Feels a lot like companionship. That reassures me in dark times.

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29 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I agree. It's just 'not all the time' actually means 'very occasionally', and saying 'some' makes it sound like it's closer to 50-50.

I have a hard time picking descriptors because - at least where I live - I feel like this stuff is never talked about so I have no idea how common/universal or unique/rare anything is.  When I use “some” I mean “I know it’s not none, but I don’t have evidence that it’s many.”

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18 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

It may be both asexuality and that lack of focus on a partner more widely are often based in the same kind of approach to the world.

It may also be a lack of “recognizable” focus rather than an actual lack of focus.  As in, the ace partner may actually be focused (even intently) on the sexual partner but not in a way the sexual partner can spot/receive/recognize.

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