“Demisexuality is a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond.”
“Demiphobia is real”
What the fuck are you talking about
I just feel so bad that there are fourteen year olds out there who have come out as demisexual to their parents and it’s been so awkward and uncomfortable that I’m cringing just thinking about it hypothetically.
I still don’t understand how demisexuality is any different than “I don’t really like casual sex”.
It’s fucking different because the attraction is not felt until a bond is established. It’s a revelation, a switching on. It’s on the asexual spectrum and it’s not fucking hard to understand.
demisexuality is so loose as to probably include vast numbers of people who don’t think about it.
my query was more on the notion that ‘demiphobia is real’ seems like one hell of a stretch.
Mmmm, I think people shade people quite a bit for not being able to engage in “he’s cute, she’s cute” conversation. I doubt people are getting murdered for it, but queer oppression’s not a competition.
Oh really? Didn’t realise it applied to like, not being able to appreciate aesthetic qualities in people.. like when a lot of people say “that person is cute” its not like a lustful thing. Interesting.
I’m not ace or ace-spectrum, but as I’m reliably informed, it’s not gonna stop you going “she has great hair, he has a great bum,” but those comments aren’t gonna be flavoured with sexual attraction. There’s no implication that “he has a great bum and I’d like it if he asked me out.” It’s just appreciation of a bottom. Like wallpaper. My partner spends about as much time favourably commenting on wallpaper as on people’s appearances, and considerably more commenting on passing birds. And she’s actually a very sexual person with a strong sex drive – she just doesn’t experience passing attraction. Pretty much ever. It’s just a small thing for the most part, but it’s the kind of queer trait which gets called out and treated as strange and threatening. She doesn’t identify with the pop song, she doesn’t think the backing dancers are interesting, she fell out with all her friends when they were teenagers and started getting intense about dating boys, and all she wanted to do was watch Dragonball Z. It can be alienating and othering. Like most queer theory, the term exists to make people go OH THAT THING, WAIT I’M NOT BROKEN.
In my experience one very unsettling symptom of asexuality is not being able to appreciate most media and the social culture around sex in the expected way. If you do not know you can be asexual, you kinda learn to take things for granted- that people need sex, that people feel lust, that people’s emotions are triggered by certain songs, phrases, images, etc. that certain things are understandable, relatable- you kinda fake it even though you don’t relate to them at all. The issue is that unless you are familiar and comfortable with the concept of asexuality, you feel like you should be relating to them, you feel like there’s something wrong with you and you just gotta fake it til you make it. Like any closeted queer person trying to convince everyone around you you’re ‘normal’. Including yourself.
I’ve faked it. It didn’t end well.
I haven’t got a clear definition of where I fall on the ace(and aro) spectrum but the whole point is to be able to consider yourself asexual and then see what that means for you, instead of trying to dodge a quota that somehow makes you allosexual and then forces you to continue faking it by dismissing your actual needs. All it takes to start questioning your supposed heterosexuality is to have feelings for a gender other than the opposite. All it should take to start questioning your allosexuality is to notice you are not really responding to sexual things the same way most people around you are. And going back to the former analogy, let’s remember bisexuality exists, as do genders that are not male or female.
For me it was really an issue of separating What I Have Been Told and What I Have Tried To Live Out from What I Really Feel. I say with confidence now that I am asexual and aromantic because I cannot and do not want to relate to the typical expectations for a sexual and romantic adult relationship.
This is a very fragile identity and has been hard won, and requires constant defense against my own insecurities and other people’s expectations. And I’m a grown-ass adult.
It’s no skin off of anyone’s nose to let people think of themselves as demisexual, even at fourteen, especially if that means these people will not force themselves into situations they are not comfortable with based on the idea that ‘everyone else acts normal you’re just making this up’.
What’s the worst case scenario? Maybe they’ll figure out they weren’t demisexual after all. But they will have a better understanding of their own sexuality in relation to their own expectatios, and not just society’s pressures.
When I grew up, I was very aware of the step between childhood and teenager – it’s perfectly accepted for a child to display disgust at any intimate or kissing scene in media, it’s cute even how they are appalled! But when you become a teenager, it gets more and more expected for you to enter a discussion about intimacy, judge the hotness of the characters who are kissing, tell your own fantasies. And these discussions were always so alienating to me, my friends looking at magazins, judging who of the Kelly Family was the cutest, which backstreet boy was probably the best kisser. And my friends were alienated by me since I didn’t join at all. I stopped talking about my favorite characters in middle and high school because I was unable to answer the inevitable question about the “hotness level” of the character. Just as inevitably I faked these conversations at some point.
When I finally was interested in a band, I tried so hard to project sexual feelings towards the band members because my friends would approve of that, saying “You are finally cured, I knew you would eventually have interest!”. Ugh no, it felt so fake and so uncomfortable and the facade didn’t last long.
The first kisses I shared with somebody I really liked felt SO BORING. I didn’t understand why we had to do that, but I felt obliged to like it. It took me several more years before I engaged another relationship, and again, I felt obliged to like things I didn’t. If I had known about the concept of asexuality and demisexuality back then, that would have spared me quite some time and effort and emotional stress.Today, I don’t feel the need to apply any of these labels to myself (maybe somewhen I decide differently?), but if these labels help anybody understand them better, please use and spread them.
“IT’S NO SKIN OFF OF ANYONE’S NOSE TO LET PEOPLE THINK OF THEMSELVES AS DEMISEXUAL, EVEN AT FOURTEEN, ESPECIALLY IF THAT MEANS THESE PEOPLE WILL NOT FORCE THEMSELVES INTO SITUATIONS THEY ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH BASED ON THE IDEA THAT ‘EVERYONE ELSE ACTS NORMAL YOU’RE JUST MAKING THIS UP’.”
Fuuuuuuuck yeeeeeaaaaasss!!!
!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!
(All caps and bolding mine)
Thoughtfulfangirling 