Demisexuality is Real, You Just Have Gendered Prejudices
It’s on you to challenge them for yourself
Is it just me, or is friction within the queer community all the more intense this year? Most of it seems aimed at bisexual people for some odd reason, and the belief that any bi person in a relationship with the opposite sex isn’t actually bi.
Once again: attraction and action are two different things.
Which leads me into the point of this article — once again, demisexuals like myself are subject to scrutiny, mistrust, scepticism, and the same old claims that we’re muscling our way into a community where we don’t belong.
It is now the 21st of June. The last time this happened to me was three days ago and I fully expect it to happen several times before the end of Pride Month.
What is demisexuality?
A quick explanation once again — it’s a type of asexuality where we experience sexual attraction, but only on condition of a pre-existing bond.
That means we need to feel romantically attached to a date first, and very often long before we start to experience sexual desire for them. For me, friendship is also a strong sexual attraction trigger. This is a complicated experience that I’d really rather never undergo, especially when platonic affection turns to intense romantic and sexual desire, but it is what it is and I have to just deal with it when it happens.
This differs from asexuality in that people who identify as asexual don’t experience sexual attraction (but might experience romantic attraction). Allosexuals (the umbrella term for non-asexual gay, lesbian, straight, pan, and bi people) experience it frequently, even daily according to some. They just don’t act on every occurrence of that happening.
Sexual attraction for demisexuals is rare and fleeting, and rarely directed at total strangers no matter how physically appealing they are. Some of us can remember every single person to whom we experience that sexual desire because it is such a rare thing.
Where the confusion lies
On hearing this for the first time, the first answer we usually get is “isn’t everyone like that? Don’t we all need to like someone before sleeping with them?”
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times — these are two completely different things. Liking someone and waiting to see if they’re trustworthy enough for you to feel comfortable sleeping with them is completely different from not experiencing sexual attraction until a bond has been formed.
Think of the last person you dated that you ended up sleeping with. How long did it take you to experience sexual desire towards them (the desire to sleep with them, not how long it took before you slept with them)? The first date? The second? The third? How long did you know them before wanting (again, not actually sleeping with them) to sleep with them? Was it a week? Two weeks? A month?
Now imagine feeling a close romantic bond with them after six dates or more, or taking a year of feeling emotionally close to them before you even start to think about wanting to sleep with them.
That’s the difference we’re talking about here.
“That’s being a normal woman though”
Six words that show even the most liberally minded people can cling to gendered stereotypes about sex and sexuality.
“Men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”
“Women are the gatekeepers of sex. Men are the gatekeepers of commitment.”
“Men are visual. Women are emotional.”
“Men chase and women choose.”
“Women use sex to get love and men use love to get sex.”
“Men cheat because they’re driven by a primal urge for sex. Women cheat because they’re lacking a need in a relationship that isn’t being fulfilled.”
Do any of these sound familiar? Let’s leave aside that some of these quotes demonise men and make victims of women (especially the last two). These ideas all come from the same place — men want sex, women want love.
But these mantras are so toxic and far too many believe and repeat them as if they’re received wisdom. It presents that idea that all women are driven by emotional connection, while all men are driven entirely by physical connection. Men just want sex! Every minute of every day!
Not only do these mantras and the underlying beliefs infantilise straight women, it simultaneously erases the experiences of demisexual men like myself. All my life I’ve been told I’m an “old romantic” and people have presumed I’m “scared” of women, relationships, and sex. That’s kind of weird as I’ve always had female friends. There have been times in my life where I’ve had no male friends and a small group of trusted female friends (I’m an introvert, small groups are how I function).
Not all demisexuals are hetero attracted
All of the above, of course, presents a very heteronormative attitude towards sex and sexuality. Not all demisexuals are heteroromantic, of course. You can be a same sex attracted, bi or pan, or even aromantic, and still be demisexual.
I recently realised my attraction exists in a grey area between bi and hetero. I don’t fully quote fit either as I’m attracted to women and to AFAB non-binary, femme presenting and androgynous people. The word for that is “Neptunic”.
It also indirectly erases the experiences of gender non-conforming people — non-binary, agender, genderfluid etc of both AMAB and AFAB backgrounds. To insist that these people still conform to the sexuality and attitudes based purely on the sex they were assigned at birth, you’re still erasing them and their experiences, and pushing them into a binary.
If you want to undo so-called toxic masculinity, you need to challenge your own prejudices on all these issues.
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