6 Things a Demisexual Person Finds Weird
An outside perspective from a rarer sexuality on the rest of you.
The dictionary definition of demisexuality: Only being able to experience sexual attraction for someone after forming an emotional connection with them.
My definition: I can’t make a friend without getting a crush on them.
Well, loosely. An ‘emotional connection’ means something like a friendship, but it can also be resonating with a fictional character or celebrity from afar, or the feeling of admiration towards a mentor of some kind. For me and other demisexuals this is a pre-requisite for sexual attraction in all cases.
Apparently the rest of you don’t work like that?
Rather than do an explanation of demisexuality in the standard way, I thought I’d turn it on its head and focus on what it’s like to live as a demisexual in a non-demisexual world.
The generalisations and trends that lie ahead aren’t critiques, just a cultural comparison. A key rule in Sociology is the need to stand outside your culture in order to study it, so I hope this little bit of entertainment helps to foster that.
1. One Night Stands
This is the most absolutely, utterly, does-not-compute concept for someone who’s demisexual. It runs completely against the grain of what it means to be demisexual after all.
So, if I have this correct, you spot somebody at a bar or somewhere, see ‘something’ in their outer appearance that makes you want to have sex with them, and somehow enjoy jumping into bed with a total stranger to then never see them again? You enjoy the sex just because of their physical appearance and the physical pleasure?
I’m not judging here, I’m just trying to understand this completely baffling concept.
The idea of seeing someone and instantly feeling/deciding — I’m not even sure what thought process it is — you want to have sex with them? That’s a thing?
Enjoying sex based on the physical appearance of your partner — What? How? Like… what is there to enjoy that much about someone’s looks? Is it aesthetic, like appreciating a finely carved sculpture? Or because they’ve got a big *bleep*?
And wanting sex just for the physical pleasure of it — Is sex that good? Like, I guess sexual arousal feels good. But doesn’t emotionally connecting with another human being, deepening a relationship or revelling in how deep your relationship already is, always feel a thousand times better than the physical aspects of sex ever could? That part might just be my personality/brain-wiring but still, sex is all about the emotional, not the physical, for me.
There are plenty of people that don’t engage in one night stands, so at least I’m not alone on this one. I’m not sure what else there is to say when there’s such a fundamental conflict in this concept.
Power to you if you do like one night stands. I think it’s a great thing if you want to. They just remain the number one baffling thing to me as a demisexual person.
2. Picking partners based on the shape of their body, particularly whether they have an innie or an outie between their legs
This one’s from a less universal demisexual perspective as some demisexual people do experience attraction only to certain sexes or genders. But this chimes with a deep aspect of being demisexual that we’re attracted to people based on whom they are, not what they are; I have no rule-outs based on genitals, skin colour, even age really. Personally, I’ve never been able to understand the idea of ruling out 50% or more of potential partners based on physical characteristics — I know people get no choice in it, so again, this isn’t a criticism. It’s simply something that’s odd from my personal perspective.
The standard, heterosexual way of living seems to be to rule out those of the same gender as lovers yet happily be friends with them, and then only see the other gender as potential sexual partners and never friends. I don’t understand that line, why people draw it so sharply between lovers and friends (A point I’ll return to later in #6)
My best guess is this line being drawn has something to do with masculine/feminine physical characteristics and non-demisexual people basing their sexual attraction on physical attraction.
3. Physical attraction = Sexual attraction
I experience physical attraction to people instantly upon seeing them, yes. I see someone’s features and instinctively find them appealing or otherwise.
But I do that with paintings too, and I don’t want to have sex with a painting just because I like how it looks.
That’s all physical attraction is to me: An aesthetic appreciation of another human being’s outside, physical appearance.
Sexual attraction, wanting to have sex with another human being, is something so completely disconnected in my world people can have a 10 on one of my scales and a 0 on the other, either way round. And I tell you, being sexually attracted to someone you don’t find physically attractive is weird, sometimes approaching disturbing. Or maybe not disturbing… Confounding? I think that’s because I’ve absorbed this message the two are one and so, in my head, it creates a puzzle where there isn’t one trying to work the disconnect out.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that it’s probably pretty normal to be physically attracted to people without necessarily being sexually attracted. That seems like a thing I’ve seen in media and heard about. Some people seem totally incapable of that divide admittedly, but I think this one is a bit more universal. I’m not so certain the physically unattractive + sexually attractive thing is though.
It’s hard to tell for me because so much of my understanding of the norm is based on media and its tropes, such as…
4. Love at first sight
Maybe if you spent ages instant messaging with someone and then finally saw them for the first time then yes, if that still counts.
Otherwise — What the hell?
I know a lot of people don’t believe in this anyway but it seems to be a thing in media at least.
Maybe there’s a reason it recurs in stories: Is it something people want to believe in because, as a demisexual knows, taking the time to form an emotional connection with someone takes ages and massively narrows down potential partners you could sift through in your life? Maybe people want the convenience love at first sight offers.
Here it might be worth noting the links back to #1 if one night stands involve sexual attraction at first sight. But ‘love’ tends to mean more than that, something romantic as well.
I haven’t really touched on romantic attraction up to this point as separate from sexual attraction — I’m demiromantic too by the way, which works in the same way — mainly because… What is the separation? I don’t actually know what the difference/dividing line is, genuinely.
I tend to take romantic attraction as the ‘wanting to hold hands’ or ‘kiss’ part of attraction, and maybe incorporating a ‘wanting to live with them’ aspect as the equivalent of going all the way sexually?
In that case, romantic attraction doesn’t really have a place in my system. I only like to be touched by people I’m sexually attracted to, which I feel kind of bad about sometimes because I know my mum would like to hug me but it freaks me out. For some reason, I see all forms of touching another human as sexual — I think this is more of an autism/no-hugs-growing-up thing unique to me though.
And on the ‘wanting to live with someone’ aspect, that’s something I’d want to do with friends. If they’re someone I really like being with and rarely get tired of, which is how your best friends feel, then they’re a person I’d want to live with. No hand-holding or sex required.
So I don’t understand ‘love’ in this ‘love at first sight’ context. You can really experience romantic attraction at first sight? I could understand wanting to hold hands and kiss if there’s some sexual/physical attraction going on. But does that mean people could see someone and want to live with them for life at first sight? That idea makes me laugh at how fantastical and peculiar it seems. Yet, I’ve almost seen evidence of it of media.
Gosh, some of these ideas are bizarre to me. Mainly just how anyone can know at first sight whether they’ll like a person or not.
5. Having types
Okay, so I have types too admittedly, just in a different way. But liking anyone whose hair is blond? Who’s a guy over 6’? Who has freckles? Reverting back to #1, these things might be enough for a one night stand but how do people expect to find reliable relationships based on totally irrelevant factors like that?
The types I have are personality types. I’ve mentioned them before on my blog but they’re roughly guys that don’t care about upholding their masculinity cred, gals that in one way or another are two fingers up at what society says a woman should be and anyone at all non-binary — I like people who break the gender mould, or at least live unconstrained by it. Perhaps in the way other people are attracted to masculinity/femininity you could say I’m attracted to androgyny, in personality at least.
Maybe this is another item that depends on ‘physical attraction = sexual attraction’ but it just seems odd people start pursuing others based on physical characteristics in the futile hope their personality will turn out to what you like/need. It seems like a double gamble compared to my way of liking someone based on their personality and then forming sexual attraction from that.
I actually develop physical types based on the people I’m already sexually attracted to — I like one person with a certain hair colour or beard style and then start feeling attracted to anyone else with that characteristic. But I’m pretty sure that’s just an association thing based in my face-blindness that means I tell people apart based on those distinctive characteristics.
Perhaps non-demisexual people are doing a bit of this association too; I don’t know. I’m not sure how it works but from what I see, they seem to be at the whims of their body’s desires for a physical feature and then have to hope and gamble they’ll discover a personality they can match with behind that.
The whole thing seems such an odd way to pick partners; it doesn’t happen when we make friends. Why should it happen in love, an arguably more important choice if it leads to sex/marriage? But then non-demisexual people separate the two in a way I don’t understand either.
6. Not being best friends with your partner
This is more of a generational thing to finish off that I’m thankfully seeing fall by the wayside increasingly with my age cohort but the old standard for my parents’ generation and beyond was that men and women couldn’t be friends, and thus you were meant to practically hate your partner.
Think of all those jokes about men calling their wives a ‘ball and chain’ and lamenting getting married as an end to the fun of being a bachelor. For women, it was constant belittling of their husbands and moaning he never did anything to help around the house, just wanted sex and so forth.
Why on Earth would anyone want a relationship like that?
The heterosexual norm was to be like two opposing teams trying to pull the relationship apart — Men want to be free of the household, go out golfing etc, and gripe about all the work they do to make the money. Women are stuck at home building the nest for someone who doesn’t appreciate it or seem like he wants to be there.
You should be happy with the person you love! You should be a combined team that wants to work together, not constantly be finding any possible ways not to spend time with one another!
Queer people have always gotten this better and thus it’s more of a heterosexual norm but it just baffles me why anyone wants to be in a relationship with someone less enjoyable to be with than their best friend. The person you’re living with should be your most preferred person in the whole world considering what an intimate, important role they have in your life. Yet most people separate friends and lovers in this strange way I don’t understand the purpose or process of instead of just having one criteria and way of liking other human beings. For me, there’s just people I like; that’s it.
That line’s a pretty good one to end all this on: For me, there’s just people I like. All these different categories of friends, romantic love and sexual attraction make no clear sense to me.
Being demisexual does come with the unfortunate habit of feeling like I’m in love with every friend I make, but I’ve learnt to control it and tell a platonic crush — They’re called a ‘squish’, isn’t that cute? — from something more serious by now. In most cases, the attraction burns out pretty quick anyway.
I think I get your divisions, despite having typed the words ‘odd’ and ‘strange’ so many times this piece. Trying to explain my experience of this whole thing is hard without sharing the divisions but I did my best.
If you’ve still got questions or want to correct me on my guesswork, then go right ahead and leave a comment below. Everyone needs another position to see things from to understand what we all take for granted.
Originally published at millitflakes.wordpress.com.
