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Can sexuals describe what 'sexual attraction' is to them?


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Holly Hobgoblin

When I see a girl I find sexually attractive, it's usually a quick progression of "Wow, she's pretty" to "I get chills when I think about her" to "I wonder what she would do if I did this to her? And what if I did this to her?"

It's kind of like seeing a delicious-looking piece of cake. Your mouth may not be full of drool as soon as you lay eyes on it, but you can't help imagining yourself eating it and enjoying it.

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FirstAidKit

Hey! I'm new here, but as a sexual I thought I could share how I feel :]

WARNING: SOME OF THIS COULD BE TMI

I feel sexual attraction for a lot of people, but don't act on it very often due to other factors. I'm predominantly attracted to males but have experienced some female attraction.

Attraction is not directly linked to purely physical aesthetics - though there are some features I find particularly appealing (dark hair, wide smile, pretty hands with long fingers). The more I spend time with and like a person will also make me subjectively see them as more attractive. It can come on gradually, with coming to finding a person more and more attractive as I like them more, or it can come quite immediately in a purely physical sense.

For both types, I find myself quite fixated on the person in question. I'm quite acutely aware of where they are in relation to me, I get distracted by how their mouth moves when they talk, I'm hyper-aware of if they are touching me, or close to touching me. They'll stay in my head for a while afterwards.

Physically, if its quite strong, I feel a rush. My skin feels flushed and warm, my breathing increases, I feel like an electric jolt, or a column of heat, has run through me from somewhere around my mid-stomach down to my genitals. I don't get as much the wanting to see them naked, like some previous posters have said, but I want to feel them touch me, I want their skin on my skin and their hands on my body and their lips on my neck. I can relate to the feeling of wanting to "have them, posess them" - except I want it the other way as well. I want to be had, posessed, used - I want to lose myself in them. I find this is most intense when I have the emotional connection as well, but it's not necessary. I pretty much always am sexually attracted to someone before I am emotionally involved with them.

Hope this was helpful.

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Lady Heartilly

Hey! I'm new here, but as a sexual I thought I could share how I feel :]

WARNING: SOME OF THIS COULD BE TMI

I feel sexual attraction for a lot of people, but don't act on it very often due to other factors. I'm predominantly attracted to males but have experienced some female attraction.

Attraction is not directly linked to purely physical aesthetics - though there are some features I find particularly appealing (dark hair, wide smile, pretty hands with long fingers). The more I spend time with and like a person will also make me subjectively see them as more attractive. It can come on gradually, with coming to finding a person more and more attractive as I like them more, or it can come quite immediately in a purely physical sense.

For both types, I find myself quite fixated on the person in question. I'm quite acutely aware of where they are in relation to me, I get distracted by how their mouth moves when they talk, I'm hyper-aware of if they are touching me, or close to touching me. They'll stay in my head for a while afterwards.

Physically, if its quite strong, I feel a rush. My skin feels flushed and warm, my breathing increases, I feel like an electric jolt, or a column of heat, has run through me from somewhere around my mid-stomach down to my genitals. I don't get as much the wanting to see them naked, like some previous posters have said, but I want to feel them touch me, I want their skin on my skin and their hands on my body and their lips on my neck. I can relate to the feeling of wanting to "have them, posess them" - except I want it the other way as well. I want to be had, posessed, used - I want to lose myself in them. I find this is most intense when I have the emotional connection as well, but it's not necessary. I pretty much always am sexually attracted to someone before I am emotionally involved with them.

Hope this was helpful.

I actually do experience the majority of this when I am romantically attracted to someone, but I'm asexual. I'm not sure if this is such a good description of sexual attraction as attraction in general, because I have never had any sort of desire to have sex. When I'm with someone I'm romantically attracted to, I also feel flushed and warm with increased breathing, and I become extremely aware of how close they are to me and how much I want to touch them. However, I still don't experience the desire for sexual contact or wanting to see them naked. I guess romantic attraction and sexual attraction aren't always quite that different.

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FirstAidKit

That's a very interesting point - though I should probably have added: I NEVER experience romantic attraction without sexual attraction, although a lot of the time they're hard to tell apart. I'm not sure if this is normal or not amongst sexuals, but it's been that way for me ever since I was pretty young. I've also experienced strong sexual attraction to people without wanting them romantically.

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Hi,

This topic is interesting. I can't define myself as sexual or asexual. I used to be sexual once upon a time. Something made me go off it. Onto the thread now, I feel a lot of sexual attraction when I see a type of man on television or on romance book covers (muscular, ruggedly handsome, ect) and I fantasise about those. I often feel tingling sensations when I daydream about men I've simply imagined being with. I've never met anyone who resembles these fantasy men, and no man IRL makes me feel goosebumps or tingling. I'm only drawn to the ideal type of man. When I see men who look a bit like this on television, I'm filled with remorse because those men are simply not going to meet me and I can't have them anyway.

Occasionally I've found some good looking men usually outside in the streets but they also look at me and I know chemistry happens. I can only describe it as a sensation of being touched by an energy. It makes me feel very red faced and flustered. I can't stop smiling but unfortunately I'm unable to speak. Nothing comes of these experiences. I never see them again.

Also in my teens when I felt attracted to guys in school/college the feeling wasn't returned. They were more interested in other girls.

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This whole topic has been very enlightening. I for sure have never felt any of these feelings towards anyone. Sure, I can find people attractive and whatnot, but my mind never really strays from that. I'm much more interested in the person and finding out who they are and all about them because that to me is really exciting (not that all you sexual people don't appreciate that either). I think it's really interesting that just by looking at a special someone that all these wild and crazy feelings can happen. I guess I sound really dumb but I never really understood this concept until just now.

This topic has me wondering though... and I hope its cool that I ask it here, since I don't feel another topic is necessary. My question is, what is feeling "horny" like? I ask because I'm not entirely sure that I have felt that way before. And after reading some of yous responses, it has me wondering if that feeling is related to sexual attraction? Do the thoughts you get from seeing a girl/guy that rates a 10 on your personal scale lead to you getting the urge to stick it in/rub one out or whatever? Is it just random, out of the blue? Or is being "horny" just another way of saying "sexually attracted"? Haha, I'm sooo confused/naive!

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This topic has me wondering though... and I hope its cool that I ask it here, since I don't feel another topic is necessary. My question is, what is feeling "horny" like? I ask because I'm not entirely sure that I have felt that way before. And after reading some of yous responses, it has me wondering if that feeling is related to sexual attraction? Do the thoughts you get from seeing a girl/guy that rates a 10 on your personal scale lead to you getting the urge to stick it in/rub one out or whatever? Is it just random, out of the blue? Or is being "horny" just another way of saying "sexually attracted"? Haha, I'm sooo confused/naive!

"Horny" is another way of saying "sexually aroused." Arousal is not the same as attraction: I think there are a few threads that talk about arousal. For me, at least, it's as you say: seeing a good-looking girl leads to the urge to "stick it in/rub one out." Arousal can also just be random, or it can come from someone talking about sex, or wearing revealing clothing. The thought of having sex with someone typically leads to arousal for me, even if the person isn't good-looking, and even if I'm not sexually attracted to the person.

Feeling aroused typically means that men get an erection, and women feel their genitals becoming wet and swollen and tingly. Your heart rate increases and you just feel excited.

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  • 1 month later...
BlackRose

Sexual attraction for me is like a weird animal lust. I don't mean I can't control it, I just don't want to control it. It's a pain in the ass. It drives me to spend time with people just in case we could get some sex out of it, and I don't even approve of that sort of thing. Its impersonal, seductive, and makes being single a totally shitty existence. And it makes my brain produce romantic crap to cover up for the fact I'm just trying to get laid for my own pleasure, because I don't approve of that sort of thing. It makes me forget logic, ignore important details, and compromise my social well-being. Or maybe I just haven't got used to managing these feelings yet. Basically I think sexual attraction sucks but I want to keep feeling it forever. So go figure. I can't.

:( I wish you could approve of getting laid for your own pleasure. Cause it's awesome. *hugs* :cake:

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HMTQ - Madge

Hey! I'm new here, but as a sexual I thought I could share how I feel :]

WARNING: SOME OF THIS COULD BE TMI

I feel sexual attraction for a lot of people, but don't act on it very often due to other factors. I'm predominantly attracted to males but have experienced some female attraction.

Attraction is not directly linked to purely physical aesthetics - though there are some features I find particularly appealing (dark hair, wide smile, pretty hands with long fingers). The more I spend time with and like a person will also make me subjectively see them as more attractive. It can come on gradually, with coming to finding a person more and more attractive as I like them more, or it can come quite immediately in a purely physical sense.

For both types, I find myself quite fixated on the person in question. I'm quite acutely aware of where they are in relation to me, I get distracted by how their mouth moves when they talk, I'm hyper-aware of if they are touching me, or close to touching me. They'll stay in my head for a while afterwards.

Physically, if its quite strong, I feel a rush. My skin feels flushed and warm, my breathing increases, I feel like an electric jolt, or a column of heat, has run through me from somewhere around my mid-stomach down to my genitals. I don't get as much the wanting to see them naked, like some previous posters have said, but I want to feel them touch me, I want their skin on my skin and their hands on my body and their lips on my neck. I can relate to the feeling of wanting to "have them, posess them" - except I want it the other way as well. I want to be had, posessed, used - I want to lose myself in them. I find this is most intense when I have the emotional connection as well, but it's not necessary. I pretty much always am sexually attracted to someone before I am emotionally involved with them.

Hope this was helpful.

I actually do experience the majority of this when I am romantically attracted to someone, but I'm asexual. I'm not sure if this is such a good description of sexual attraction as attraction in general, because I have never had any sort of desire to have sex. When I'm with someone I'm romantically attracted to, I also feel flushed and warm with increased breathing, and I become extremely aware of how close they are to me and how much I want to touch them. However, I still don't experience the desire for sexual contact or wanting to see them naked. I guess romantic attraction and sexual attraction aren't always quite that different.

Same for me. I experience most of these things when I am romantically attracted to someone- I just don't desire sex. The live between romantic and sexual attraction may just be as simple as that, don't you think? You could feel swoon-y, out of breath, flushed, and maybe even aroused- But the main difference between sexual and romantic attraction is whether or not you want sex too when you feel these things.

That's just the way I see it, anyway. :lol: And it definitely helped to cement myself as asexual.

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BlackRose

Hey! I'm new here, but as a sexual I thought I could share how I feel :]

WARNING: SOME OF THIS COULD BE TMI

I feel sexual attraction for a lot of people, but don't act on it very often due to other factors. I'm predominantly attracted to males but have experienced some female attraction.

Attraction is not directly linked to purely physical aesthetics - though there are some features I find particularly appealing (dark hair, wide smile, pretty hands with long fingers). The more I spend time with and like a person will also make me subjectively see them as more attractive. It can come on gradually, with coming to finding a person more and more attractive as I like them more, or it can come quite immediately in a purely physical sense.

For both types, I find myself quite fixated on the person in question. I'm quite acutely aware of where they are in relation to me, I get distracted by how their mouth moves when they talk, I'm hyper-aware of if they are touching me, or close to touching me. They'll stay in my head for a while afterwards.

Physically, if its quite strong, I feel a rush. My skin feels flushed and warm, my breathing increases, I feel like an electric jolt, or a column of heat, has run through me from somewhere around my mid-stomach down to my genitals. I don't get as much the wanting to see them naked, like some previous posters have said, but I want to feel them touch me, I want their skin on my skin and their hands on my body and their lips on my neck. I can relate to the feeling of wanting to "have them, posess them" - except I want it the other way as well. I want to be had, posessed, used - I want to lose myself in them. I find this is most intense when I have the emotional connection as well, but it's not necessary. I pretty much always am sexually attracted to someone before I am emotionally involved with them.

Hope this was helpful.

I actually do experience the majority of this when I am romantically attracted to someone, but I'm asexual. I'm not sure if this is such a good description of sexual attraction as attraction in general, because I have never had any sort of desire to have sex. When I'm with someone I'm romantically attracted to, I also feel flushed and warm with increased breathing, and I become extremely aware of how close they are to me and how much I want to touch them. However, I still don't experience the desire for sexual contact or wanting to see them naked. I guess romantic attraction and sexual attraction aren't always quite that different.

Same for me. I experience most of these things when I am romantically attracted to someone- I just don't desire sex. The live between romantic and sexual attraction may just be as simple as that, don't you think? You could feel swoon-y, out of breath, flushed, and maybe even aroused- But the main difference between sexual and romantic attraction is whether or not you want sex too when you feel these things.

That's just the way I see it, anyway. :lol: And it definitely helped to cement myself as asexual.

Wow, definitely not for me. It's not just "wanting to have sex with someone," it's more like "OMG I need you so bad you are such a sexy looking piece of meat and all I can think about is sex now and that's totally taking over my brain and body and any other thoughts and feelings." (I don't mean that in a demeaning way.)

For me sexual attraction by itself doesn't make me swoony and out of breath and flushed. That's more romantic attraction.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Musical Lottie

Thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread; I was fairly sure of my asexuality before, but now I'm absolutely 100% sure. Some of the descriptions of sexual attraction have blown my mind, because - with all due respect - I didn't think that normal people ever felt like that! I've come to accept that people can want to have sex with someone, but I had no idea quite what sorts of feelings that entailed!

Romantic swooning I understand, and I have experienced it, but I can't ever imagine becoming aroused by anyone, not even the person I love romantically. It's just such an alien concept - in fact, when I have on occasion been incidentally aroused (hormones, grr), the instant I start thinking about somebody the arousal disappears - which is quite useful, actually!

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It first I believed sexual attraction was If I looked at someone and thought they were hot and wanted to date them. I am sexually attracted to only women... but my asexual partner is a man that cross dresses.. I may not like certain parts but she has beautiful hands and bum :).. and we have the best chemistry ever.. I still consider myself a lezbo. we are commited been together 2 years.. I still like women but thats what tv is for :P

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It first I believed sexual attraction was If I looked at someone and thought they were hot and wanted to date them. I am sexually attracted to only women... but my asexual partner is a man that cross dresses.. I may not like certain parts but she has beautiful hands and bum :).. and we have the best chemistry ever.. I still consider myself a lezbo. we are commited been together 2 years.. I still like women but thats what tv is for :P

What a beautiful story.

See, this is exactly why when people ask my gender preference, I always say, "Strictly heterosexual so far, never even been slightly bi-curious, but who knows what may happen in the future? I may meet an amazing woman, realise she's my soulmate, and fall in love. It could happen."

I know for most people who are strictly het or gay, they wouldn't say or think this for themselves, and it might annoy them that I do, but I guess I'm lesnostic (portmanteau of lesbian and agnostic); I've never been attracted to a woman so far, but the right person might change my mind - even if only just for her. :wub:

I love love. Even right now, when it hurts almost unbearably (I have just this week been dumped by my boyfriend, who I loved deeply, and I'm genuinely devastated - sometimes, I can go an hour or two feeling almost normal, and other days, every breath hurts and I'm just crawling towards the time when I can go to sleep and escape it for a few short hours), I am floored by the beauty of love (all forms, not just romantic). I think it is the defining characteristic of sentient beings, and one of the most important things in the world. And I respect all kinds, as long as they're consensual. And I like the idea that love might be strong enough to, just occasionally, maybe rock a person's paradigm and self-image.

Thank you for sharing your love story with me, and helping to remind me of that.

P.

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Great Thief Yatagarasu

After reading all these responses, I think what I experience is a kind of physical attraction which isn't sexual. My heart feels really fluttery, and I think that they look really nice and that I want to get to know them, but I don't feel anything in my "parts", and if I do think about sex with them, then the idea still lacks any real appeal. So I think I get physical and aesthetic attraction, but not sexual attraction.

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Great Thief Yatagarasu

It first I believed sexual attraction was If I looked at someone and thought they were hot and wanted to date them. I am sexually attracted to only women... but my asexual partner is a man that cross dresses.. I may not like certain parts but she has beautiful hands and bum :).. and we have the best chemistry ever.. I still consider myself a lezbo. we are commited been together 2 years.. I still like women but thats what tv is for :P

What a beautiful story.

See, this is exactly why when people ask my gender preference, I always say, "Strictly heterosexual so far, never even been slightly bi-curious, but who knows what may happen in the future? I may meet an amazing woman, realise she's my soulmate, and fall in love. It could happen."

I know for most people who are strictly het or gay, they wouldn't say or think this for themselves, and it might annoy them that I do, but I guess I'm lesnostic (portmanteau of lesbian and agnostic); I've never been attracted to a woman so far, but the right person might change my mind - even if only just for her. :wub:

I love love. Even right now, when it hurts almost unbearably (I have just this week been dumped by my boyfriend, who I loved deeply, and I'm genuinely devastated - sometimes, I can go an hour or two feeling almost normal, and other days, every breath hurts and I'm just crawling towards the time when I can go to sleep and escape it for a few short hours), I am floored by the beauty of love (all forms, not just romantic). I think it is the defining characteristic of sentient beings, and one of the most important things in the world. And I respect all kinds, as long as they're consensual. And I like the idea that love might be strong enough to, just occasionally, maybe rock a person's paradigm and self-image.

Thank you for sharing your love story with me, and helping to remind me of that.

P.

THIS. Hell yeah. :D I love the fact that my friends and family still put up with me, and no offence to the aromantic folk out there, but I could not stand the idea of being devoid of romantic love. Love is a many splendered thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all we need is love!

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After reading this thread, I think for me the physical feeling is the same, but its not a desire to have sex with them.

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I'm a sexual and I know for a fact that I am and always will be a sexual.

However...I'm not quite sure what the definitions of sexual attraction and desire are. I've been reading this thread and honestly I've gotten more confused by the second, to be honest. >__>

Is there a simple way to explain what it is?

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Perpetual_Paradox

I've just been reading this thread and I also signed up so as I could find some answers that I have been questioning myself for a long time, though never sought a response from anyone else for fear of ridicule; so I hope you can understand.

I'm a twenty-three year old androgynous, though more boyish woman (think almost gay man in a lesbians body ;p) just to clarify for the moment.

This is going to sound incredibly odd, but when I was around eight years old at my school church with me and my girl friends mucking around, as bored children do, when my friend grabbed my rear in a giggling fit. In that moment, I felt strange tingles, of course they were brushed off due to the fact that you don't really think of that sort of thing when you're at that tender age. The second time was with my best girl friend, when we were at this live show with school, when she had put her head on my shoulder and I felt the same tingles, that time I found that I enjoyed those feelings and no matter how sore my shoulder got, I refused to move because I wanted her to be happy and I loved the closeness. Another time I could think of that I felt those strong urges, it was the first time that I felt incredibly flushed, hot, 'tingling' in the lower extremities and the feeling of wanting to be close to this individual, not only in a physical sense but emotional sense.

Also, I felt the urges when I watched lesbian scene from a movie named Bound and from The L Word, though I felt ashamed of it when my parents had almost caught me and I pushed it to the back of my mind.

Now, I was never a girl you would have noticed in high school, I was never treated like I even existed, I was treated like I was the most detestable and horrendous thing that had ever walked the earth and I just ignored those feelings and I could never look any girl in the eye or talk to any girl that I was attracted to, it wasn't because I was gay, because it was never an issue, but I just felt like no-one would ever want me. (Though I've actually come a long way now and I am quite a confident person these days, and I have nice features I suppose, *laughs*)

The relation to this thread, I like sex, I also really like climaxing (so rare it's sad), mainly though I'm happiest when I give my partner pleasure, but I 'love' cuddles, touches and kisses so much more. The thing is I feel the butterflies mildly, there are times when I've known a person enough to become comfortable with them I get a rush, but I don't get aroused or sexually attracted as I used to.

With women I can become easily mentally, emotionally, physically, very rarely sexually attracted, though I just love the fact that women are so soft, warm, affectionate, cuddly and just honest to god beautiful in their own way. Now, I've never been emotionally, mentally, or physically attracted to men at all(well I do like the strong physique), then again there has been one or two times I have been sexually attracted to males. Whereby we have sex, I roll over, get dressed and then leave. It's good for that ten something minutes and then once it's all over I end up feeling physically ill. On that note I have nothing against men, I have many male friends and I don't necessarily believe in heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual etc etc, (I prefer to be a lesbian though) I believe that you do what you feel is good; I'm just confused as to what is wrong with my body, it's as if I'm dead.

I'm hopelessly confused, I don't know what I am, all I really want is love in my life and I'm sick of tired of sex being such a major thing, it's just that in my head that if you love someone or really like that person, you connect with them on all levels. It's an odd feeling, almost all the time I feel like my body is primed to go but when I try to satisfy the urges nothing works, I don't particularly want to have sex when I know I won't feel anything and yet I'm really tired of this feeling of frustration and feeling of inadequacy.

Maybe I just haven't figured myself out yet, *sigh*, I just hate this feeling.

I know this is long but I'm honestly desperate and although I feel like I'm being unreasonable here; I need to at least try.

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After reading all these responses, I think what I experience is a kind of physical attraction which isn't sexual. My heart feels really fluttery, and I think that they look really nice and that I want to get to know them, but I don't feel anything in my "parts", and if I do think about sex with them, then the idea still lacks any real appeal. So I think I get physical and aesthetic attraction, but not sexual attraction.

You may have just jotted down my thoughts. I get a weird mixture of physical and aesthetic attraction too, I think. There's one person who I had a class with, and my eyes just naturally gravitated to where he sat and looked around for him. If he looked my way, I turned bright red and whenever he wasn't around I thought about him way too much. Not in sexual way, more in the way that I had a squish on him, though it wasn't quite that in that I didn't feel I knew him well enough to feel that odd sort of intellectual attraction where I want to spend all my time with someone and talk off their ear. It was a bit weird to be honest.

I can't believe I just managed to mangle a pretty simple agreement.

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