Jump to content

What is 'Sexual attraction'?


Guest member25959

Recommended Posts

simplybeourselves

I think so. I'm just trying to understand what it means to have them without feeling them.

Link to post
Share on other sites
simplybeourselves
51 minutes ago, Homer said:

There's a button that reads "quote" right next to the "+" that does the multiquotes (which works just fine for me)

Thank you! for some reason I thought the word "quote" wasn't clickable and it was just referring to the other button.

Link to post
Share on other sites
AceMissBehaving
24 minutes ago, simplybeourselves said:

I think so. I'm just trying to understand what it means to have them without feeling them.

It sounds like there is something that compels you to act on them, so I would imagine that, wether it’s something you can identify or not?

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
simplybeourselves
7 hours ago, CBC said:

Well this is the most confusing thing I've read today...

 

I don't know how you have a desire without feeling a desire for that thing. You mean you don't feel it strongly, maybe? I don't know. Do you have trouble connecting to emotions and wants in general?

I experience desires in a purely mental, non-emotional and non-physiological way. 

I just have desires as dispositional states. 

I have drives ... in the same way a robot might have drives if they were programmed to have desires ... without them actually feeling anything.

I'm not aware of my emotions due to alexithymia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia

And I'm rarely aware of many of my non-emotional sensations too ... due to my autism.

Link to post
Share on other sites
simplybeourselves
7 hours ago, AceMissBehaving said:

It sounds like there is something that compels you to act on them, so I would imagine that, wether it’s something you can identify or not?

Yeah, to me, desires are just preferences + motives ... without having to feel anything. They're just strongly correlated with feelings which is why 99% of people feel feelings alongside them so that they coincide in such perfect symmetry, almost always, that they seem like part and parcel of the desires themselves even though, in my view, they're not ... and people like me are an example. It's like finding one black swan and realizing that swans don't have to be white: you find one person who has desires without emotions and that's all it takes to realize they are non-identical.

The metaethicist and philosopher Michael Smith also agrees with me that desires can be purely dispositional states.... anyone who is interested in heavy philosophy and metaethics may be interested in reading his book The Moral Problem

Here's the Wikipedia article of him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Smith

I can also have values and experiences I like but the idea of me feeling any of them seems weird to me. 

Lets put it this way: I had CBT and I was asked where in my body I felt any of my feelings and I always said "Nowhere" which frustrated the therapist but she didn't know I was autistic ... and nor did I at that point ... I hadn't had the diagnosis yet. 

The way I see it is I have sensations, and desires, and emotions but my emotions are unconscious and the only sorts of feelings I have are non-emotional (sensations).

I can't tell hunger or thrist or boredom apart either. Besides physical pieces of evidence like a dry mouth, painful stomach, etc. Everything 'negative' is just like a sense that I 'like' something without feeling anything anywhere. Everything positive is just a sense that I want something to continue, that an experience is preferable, without feeling anything anywhere.


I almost never feel anything in my body even when listening to my absolute favorite music. I can dance around and feel the sensations of dancing but those sensations don't feel nice... there's nothing emotional felt. So I usually don't bother. It's like I intellectualize everything ... but not intentionally ... I just can't help it. I'm extremely left-brained to the point where my right brain is extremely undeveloped .... hence the blindness of my mind's eye (aphantasia), practically non-existent spacial awareness and almost completely non-existent emotional feelings. And I say "almost completely non-existent" because if I am absolutely terrified and having a complete meltdown .... I sense fear, anxiety and stress. But unless things actually get that bad my emotions don't come to the surface and I don't feel them. Aside from extremely rare moments where I'll get nice shivers down my spine during a particular favorite section of a favorite piece of music (and this happens like 1 out of every 1000 times of listening to one of my favorite songs .... and it only works with songs I already know) .... hence why I said I almost "never feel anything in my body even when listening to my absolute favorite music."

Edited by simplybeourselves
Link to post
Share on other sites
simplybeourselves
30 minutes ago, CBC said:

Gotcha. I understand alexithymia and read your earlier posts, yeah. Just kind of curious as to what makes it a desire exactly then, although I can see why it would be hard to figure out your sexuality.

 

However, if you want to have sex or have a drive to have sex, whatever you term it really, I guess that makes you sexual.

To me, a desire is just something that drives me to continue to have an experience that I prefer or to stop having an experience that is causing me to suffer. I still experience stress ... and perhaps frustration but I am not sure because if frustration is an emotion then I think it would have to be felt in my body somewhere. But I don't feel stress or frustration in my body. Unless, like I said, I'm literally having a complete meltdown and only then do the emotions come to the surface. I don't think I even feel positive emotions during the absolute best days of my life. 

I consider myself to be the happiest person I know because it's almost impossible for me to have a bad day .... but I'm certainly not if we notice the fact that for me emotional neutrality is as good as it gets! (aside maybe rare shivers down my spines but they last a few seconds (and they're extremely rare)).

Well, I also get physical pleasures like the taste of food and orgasm and stuff. And physical pains. But I am sure we can all agree that physical pains and pleasures are distinct from emotional pains and pleasures. 

And, yes, I think I'm a sexual person too. Hypersexual, in fact .... (although a little less since getting a little older) .... I just don't think feeling sexual desire is required to have it.

But, at the same time, I'm still a little curious because I'm not sure how I could tell the difference between having sex for stress relief and having it for sexual attraction. The only way I can really tell is that I have a heterosexual orientation. If I were, for example, pansexual ... I don't think it would be possible for me to tell the difference between sexual attraction, sexual desire and merely having sex for stress relief .... and I don't think having sex purely for stress relief would count me as a sexual person. So the only piece of evidence, I think, that I have .... is the fact I have a sexual oritentation (that isn't asexual).

But .... then I start wondering: couldn't it be purely aesthetic? Couldn't I just prefer the female body in a purely aesthetic sense? And maybe also in a romantic sense (on the extremely rare occasions when I'm in the 'mood' (mode) for romance). And once I start thinking like that .... I start asking myself "Can I actually even tell the difference between sexual desire and sexual attraction and just having particular aesthetic and romantic preferences + having sex or masturbating for stress relief?" .... like, literally the only reason I prefer sex to porn is because it physically feels nicer. I could happily watch porn my whole life and never get bored of it ... my primary motive is always stress  relief. 

I also don't have compassion and I don't feel love for my family or even my own girlfriend. Rarely even for my future-self. I have no remorse, guilt, pride or shame. I have weaker-than-average cognitive empathy (I struggle to read people's intentions and see the POV of anybody but myself (hence why it took me so many years to realize that other people were different to me)) .... and I have absolutely non-existent emotional empathy. I also have no sense of disgust ... both physiologically (I don't find dead bodies or garbage or dirty toilets or certain foods or anything physically disgusting) and morally (I never feel moral outrage). 

With all these differences ... it does make things very confusing for me ... well, it has ever since I realized I was different to other people. I always knew I was very different in some way because I clearly didn't fit in and didn't have any friends .... (for most of my life I didn't even have friends on the internet and I still don't have any in RL) .... but I wasn't sure, for most of my life (until slightly before my complete diagnosis) .... why I was different. 

Also, it's difficult for me to not sometimes use the word 'feel' in conversations out of sheer habit from spending most of my life believing I had feelings because I didn't think anybody literally felt them ... and it's hard  to know what other word to use as the word is very useful metaphorically as well. For me a feeling is less of a mood and more of a mode. A feeling is just a way to fit in socially: it's purely behavioral for me.

P.S. One exception!!! Embarassment is something I am actually capable of feeling! But, like fear, it perhaps only happens when it gets really bad. I guess, if I had never been capable of having embarassment then I wouldn't be able to make sure I'm not a complete wreck socially. And I experience that embarassment as upleasant tinglings. It's only when I make an absolute fool of myself. And it's more intense than absolute terror for me ... because even though absolute terror gives me the shakes or a meltdown ... even terror is still mostly intellectualized for me.

 

Edited by simplybeourselves
Link to post
Share on other sites
simplybeourselves
25 minutes ago, CBC said:

What is it you like about these things if you don't feel anything? How do you even arrive at the conclusion that you like something if you have no feelings about it?

 

(Genuinely curious, not trying to be critical.)

Yeah, it is hard to explain.

It's just an experience I want to continue, that doesn't stress me out, and that seems safe. I can still enjoy myself. I can find things interesting and non-boring. I get restless if I don't amuse myself. The being restless doesn't itself trigger a negative emotion ... I just don't like being restless. I want to be at rest. 

Boredom to me seems just like a lack of enjoyment rather than some presence of anything emotional in my body that is negative.

I guess I'm behaviorally and dispositionally hypersexual but emotionally asexual? Anybody who knows me really well would think I was super sexual, and I spent most of my life believing that, but how it goes on internally is what's at stake here ... rather than my behavior, I presume.

Edited by simplybeourselves
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
fooledbysecrecy

i don't think i've ever experienced sexual attraction, well i wouldn't even know what it feels like. a while ago i talked about this with a friend who is sexual and even though i've known it at some level, i was surprised to learn that among other first impressions, people actually evaluate people they meet on the basis of would they have sex with them or not, even imagine what sex with them would be like?? i possibly cannot imagine ever thinking this. and apparently people think about sex quite often? that's wild.

Link to post
Share on other sites
fooledbysecrecy
1 hour ago, humantoafault said:

I'm sexual and that shit be wild to me yo. I don't do that.

 

1 hour ago, CBC said:

I've never done that yet in my 34+ years of life.

 

...or it might be just my friend who does that 😆

 

anyway yeah this is a completely alien world to me.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Spectre/Ex/Machina

I've come to describe it as an innate and instinctual desire for partnered sex with a specific person(s) of a specific gender(s). This is based on my observations of allos, how I see them express this particular aspect of themselves. I've never experienced this phenomenon, but I've always been curious and open to engaging in new things. 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, humantoafault said:

I think about it a fair bit I guess, but mostly in terms of my OTP lol. I've never dated anyone, so no clue what I'd be like in a relationship

Me: *imagines my OTP having sex* rad

Me: *imagines me having sex* huh, weird

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
On 8/16/2019 at 10:17 PM, humantoafault said:

Me: *imagines my OTP having sex* rad

Me: *imagines me having sex* huh, weird

Me: *imagines my OTP having sex* rad

Me: *imagines me having sex* oh my god my eyes! My brain! Get it out! Get it out!!! 
🤣

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
WilliamJJackson

I live this. I have what I call physical attraction to women. I have no problem seeing one, appreciating her beauty. But I'm also demi and can't fathom just even dating someone I didn't know very well first and having a mutual desire to be around them. To me it makes sense (and here with y'all), but explaining it is tiresome. Just yesterday ( I'm an indie author) someone commented on my story on Wattpad about my first ace PC. They felt my PC liking the way his female friend looked but hating sex made him not ace. They even sent it to some asexual friends of theirs for review lol. Me saying I'm ace and explaining it meant nothing. Weird.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/18/2012 at 10:39 AM, Guest member25959 said:

So, what is sexual attraction, you ask?

As the AVENwiki states, 'Sexual attraction is a feeling that sexual people get that causes them to desire sexual contact with a specific other person.'

But we can expand on this:

This is something that is often grouped together with sexual desire, and vice versa. But don't be fooled! The two do not equate, as is explained here:
 

 


You've probably seen term 'sexual attraction' thrown around a lot on AVEN, and you may have wondered how it feels. Well, here are some insightful analogies:




And PiF's humorous analogies:


As noted earlier, sexual attraction and sexual desire are two distinct experiences. Meaning, you can experience one and not the other, which also means that you can not experience sexual attraction, whilst experiencing sexual desires, and vice versa.

Seems confusing? Fact is, sexuality isn't always so straight forward, as is thoroughly explained in 'Sexuals aren't all the same either...I think'. Everyone's sexuality has unique qualities.

CBC shares their experiences here.

Hopefully this thread has been helpful, hopefully now you are more in the know. biggrin.gif

Quick summary:


If you wish to read further into this subject, and others, have a read though the 'Asexual-Sexual Q&A thread'

A big thanks to 'gnik', 'That One', 'Jillanimal', 'Olivier' and 'SkulleryMaid' for their contributions that contributed led to this thread's creation.

Thanks for reading

 

In response to some confusion:

Edit by Faeriefate

It has come to the attention of the Q&A moderator that the definitions of Sexual Attraction and Sexual Desire as stated here are confusing, and not everyone agrees with them. For further understanding of these definitions, please visit the Helpful info for those questioning their (a)sexuality thread and read the related post.

I mean you can have desire and 0 attraction. Some people are sexually into objects or scenes but not into doing stuff with people. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
On 1/29/2012 at 5:03 PM, DexM said:

Quick somebody help that poor girl find her contact lense.She's obviously trying to get ready for work,but can't put her Jeans on,as she can't see.

*bad bed linen*That's great.God bless you for that.

What if I don’t have sexual fantasies?? 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Phantasmal Fingers
22 minutes ago, Stevemart said:

What if I don’t have sexual fantasies?? 

Why worry that you don't? You're free and don't need to bother with what other people fixate on. 

 

Who is the you who thinks you should have sexual fantasies? Where is that coming from? 

Link to post
Share on other sites
49 minutes ago, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

Why worry that you don't? You're free and don't need to bother with what other people fixate on. 

 

Who is the you who thinks you should have sexual fantasies? Where is that coming from? 

If I don’t am I asexual 

Link to post
Share on other sites
Phantasmal Fingers
1 hour ago, Stevemart said:

If I don’t am I asexual 

I would say if you don't appear in your own fantasies then that indicates that you don't want to act them out - though you might still be curious as to what it would be like if you did. I think that the curiosity that might arise in this case might largely stem from perceived cultural and societal norms as to who is normal and or healthy, depending on where and when you grew up. 

 

If you don't have fantasies I would say that that would indicate such a lack of interest in sex that if I myself were in that position then, as far as I can tell, I would self-identity as asexual on that basis. If I told others about this situation and they categorically disputed this I would then dismiss them as what has become known on AVEN as invalidating. 

 

Does that answer your question? 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
LiteraryLady

I'm still confused about sexual attraction, but am beginning to understand that I don't experience it. I think...
Like, for example; I see a random guy that catches my attention because I think he looks very aesthetically pleasing, or 'my type'. Feeling-wise, there's not much there. No twinges 'down there'. No initial thoughts of 'oh, I want to have sex with them'.

Maybe if I really, really, really think and use my imagination to conjure up a fantasy, there might be something there...

But I'm guessing most people will see someone and have a reaction that will affect them in some way. Maybe even long after they're gone.

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 4/7/2020 at 4:29 PM, LiteraryLady said:

I'm still confused about sexual attraction, but am beginning to understand that I don't experience it. I think...
Like, for example; I see a random guy that catches my attention because I think he looks very aesthetically pleasing, or 'my type'. Feeling-wise, there's not much there. No twinges 'down there'. No initial thoughts of 'oh, I want to have sex with them'.

Maybe if I really, really, really think and use my imagination to conjure up a fantasy, there might be something there...

But I'm guessing most people will see someone and have a reaction that will affect them in some way. Maybe even long after they're gone.

This is far too simplistic to represent what sexual attraction feels like to most people most of the time. Not everyone feels something "down there" right off the bat. "Oh, I want to have sex with them" isn't usually an initial thought. There is a lot of je ne sais quoi about feeling attracted to somebody that isn't easily compartmentalized. If your aesthetic (or platonic or romantic or whatever) attraction to a person leads you to want to get to know them, and once you've clicked with them it feels like a natural step for you to express that sexually, there was likely something sexual about that initial attraction, even if you weren't willing to take your pants off upon first sight.

 

But, if no matter how good looking they are or how sweet they are or how much you get along, you just feel no inclination to be sexually intimate with them...in that case it's not sexual attraction. It's not so much about initial reaction; it's about eventuality, the natural course of things as you interact and process your own feelings.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Kadence said:

Question: Is it possible to have sexual desire but not sexual attraction?

Yes. Some people will give that a label and call it a kind of asexual, but that can be very misleading.

 

Is the sexual desire just a libido that can be satisfied through masturbation (or go away if outright ignored)? Then that's not really sexual desire in an interactive sense, just libido in an individual physiological sense.

 

Is the sexual desire a longing to connect sexually with another person, but no attraction is felt because you just aren't into anyone? People can go through spells like that for sure. Some people might find it really hard to ever feel specifically attracted to another person for a variety of reasons, while still feeling some kind of desire for partnered sex underneath that.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
MariahKat

Well, this is not something I never thought I would do but here I am. I'm 22, straight and never had a relationship or sex with anyone but I've always had a very high libido and sexual fantasies (about me and a guy, just never an actual person I know). I've 'questioned' my sexuality a lot since I've always had a fear of being a lesbian (i have nothing against it, absolutely nothing but the idea of being one scares me) although I find some women aesthetically pretty and wish to look like them. Anyway, earlier my friend and I were discussing 2 celebs that are in a film we just watched. I'm a fan of one and find him very physically attractive and the other guy I find somewhat physically attractive. However, my friend says that while she can appreciate the good looks on the one I like, she just doesn't find him sexually attractive. That shocked me a bit because when I say someone is attractive, it usually means I find their looks or personality attractive but there's never been any desire to engage with them sexually because I don't know them. Sure, I would love to date them but I don't just have this innate sexual desire to be with them. So I've been researching this and well, here I am, very confused. I've had my doubts for a long time because I've never had a 'crush' or anything on anyone, especially since I was so tragic looking in school that no one as much as glanced at me and I'm very introverted. Conversations like the one I had with my friend are another thing that has had me questioning whether I might be asexual since I never seem to have any sexual attraction to anyone. Physical? Absolutely. Sexual? Nope. I definitely want to have sex which is what has me confused but I've just never met anyone who I wish to have it with, no matter how attractive I find someone. Then I thought that maybe I'm demisexual but then again I don't have many male friends or interact with many (my college course is all female) and have never had a sexual thought about any of them. So basically, I'm just confused and frustrated that things that come so naturally to everyone seem to be complicated and impossible to me.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Snao Cone

Hi @MariahKat and welcome. :cake: It's very very common to find people physically attractive but not want to have sex with them then and there. Your situation doesn't seem demisexual to me. Demisexuality is being virtually asexual until you form a deep bond with someone that turns on a switch in you. It sounds like you have this general sense of wanting sex, but you just haven't come across somebody who really jives with you.

 

Of course, it could just be that you think you want sex because you know what sexual attractivity looks like, and you can appreciate it on an aesthetic level. It might take some direct experiences for you to determine if you ever actually end up wanting sex. I thought I wanted sex for a long time, but used excuses as to why I wasn't getting any. Then after several times of putting myself into sexual situations and being completely bored and unimpressed by it, I knew something was up. Sometimes it takes coming across situations in your life to separate what you can understand in your head versus what you feel in the moment. It's fine to be questioning, and it's fine to change how you identify based on new experiences. We were all wrong about some part of ourselves at some point. That's just being human.

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
death angel

do aromantic people still feel asthetic atraction?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guilli Milli Mu
On 7/24/2020 at 11:06 AM, deathreaper159 said:

do aromantic people still feel asthetic atraction?

Yes, aromantic people can feel aesthetic attraction, since they are two different types of attraction.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

  Okay I am just reading through the first two pages of this and:

 

(Quoted from a guest, bold text edited by me.

 

Quote

 

  On 7/15/2012 at 5:46 AM, Sally said:
  On 7/15/2012 at 5:20 AM, vampyremage said:

What is sexual attraction if it isn't, precisely, the desire to have sex with another person?

This just occurred to me; why it didn't before I don't know.

What "my" sexuals (the two I've had relationships with) and other sexuals have indicated has been that a certain person is someone they would want to have sex with, if they wanted to at the time. Meaning they didn't necessarily want to have sex with that person right then, but that person was someone who would be a very good candidate for the job when the time came. :lol:

I have no idea how to get that into a short phrase, other than "sexually attracted to".

 

I agree with this... which is why I have a hard time seeing the difference between demisexuality and actual sexuality, since for most sexual people, sexual attraction is a feeling of potentiality of future desire.

 

Sooooooo does that mean I misunderstood sexual attraction all the time???? I thought sexual attraction was this "hot and shakey" feeling, literally "having the hots" and hungry craving for someone. I've never had that.
(But also, I've never been in a relationship or have even kissed so I am a noob who doesn't know if that might develop one day)

 

But I have DEFINITELY met people where my first thought was "dang her boyfriend is lucky" and the feeling that if I got into a situation with her the existence of my sexuality would certainly be tested. Like I wouldn't say no. But then also I don't think about fingering that girl, just a tiny flash in my brain about how I wouldn't say no if I was offered to be generally physically intimate with her. Not explicitly sexual-sexual. Yet (?). 

 

So.... does that mean I am indeed sexual? 

 

Wah I am just confused hahaha. (But I think other sexual people would already welcome me in their ranks with those sentiments??)

h e c k i n   m i n d b l o w n ^^;

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...