It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I experience heterosexuality very differently than my peers. Iāll describe in broad terms to keep things SFW.
Bodies are not āhotā to me. Iām drawn to feminine features because I find them pretty, but bodies do not physically excite me in the way that they excite others.
My sexuality is focused on receiving loving and romantic physical affection, and to a lesser extent, giving it. To my brain, affectionate physical contact is sex ITSELF, not a prelude. In practice, this means that Iām very attracted to kisses and donāt care about real sex unless I had a partner who wanted it.
If I approach a woman, itās because she seems nice and I want to get to know her, not because I find her physically attractive. I never pursue romance from the get-go; I develop friendships for their own sake and romantic feelings may develop later.
I have some concerns about this.
Iāve long suspected that there are certain signals that I donāt give off. Female friends have called me things like āinnocent,ā āadorable,ā or āChristianā (lol). While that may be due to my gentle demeanor, I wonder if my unique attraction profile eliminates behaviors that signal sexual availability, such as flirting. Perhaps the absence of these signals creates an impression of purity and sexual abstinence.
If thatās the case, I feel like that might prevent most people from finding me attractive, simply because I lack the hardware to speak their language. My actions might just come across as friendly, and I donāt want to lie about feeling attraction that I donāt have.
Another concern of mine is submissiveness: my physical attraction is centered around receiving. Although I want a relationship thatās reciprocalāgiving and receiving in equal measureāI absolutely need moments of receiving affection to be sexually fulfilled. From what Iāve seen, submissiveness is stereotypically a turn-off, and I donāt know how widespread that is.
But Iām not BDSM-submissive; I donāt want a dominatrix. I just want someone gentle, kind, and willing to kiss me a bunch lol. I want to create a space of warmth and safety where we meet each otherās needs and I love the idea of being an affectionate and caring partner. The receptiveness I describe is episodic, not all-consuming.
These worries may sound silly, but being different is a catalyst for insecurity. Itās very easy to speculate because I canāt measure how much heterosexuality varies. I would expect that Iām a rule-breaking outlier and most heterosexuals have similar attraction models.
But I lack perspective, especially because Iāve never been in a relationship.
What do you think?
I did! It was nice to read about other people with similar experiences to me, but I also realized that I donāt entirely fit the label. I donāt need a strong emotional connection to feel physical attraction; I just need to be shown affection, which can happen way sooner than it takes to develop a relationship. Though, I bet my attraction would increase as the relationship develops.
So you could consider me demi-adjacent, but Iām careful not to box myself into that label. My attraction to affection may give me many things in common with demisexual people, but itās also not the full story. Theyāre cool though, and if there was a place where I could meet lots of single demi people, I would definitely consider looking there!
Thereās a term called grey ace that is a little like demi but different. It might fit, it might not, but regardless thereās no harm in knowing about it :)
Yeah, I think this label probably fits me best! Iāve read that it can refer to attraction based on specific conditions, and mine seems to be conditional on physical affection, real or imagined.
Yeah, sexuality doesnāt really fit in neat boxes and this is especially true for the asexual spectrum. I get the vibe that you want to find something to identify with though, so yeah iād say youāre in the ballpark of asexual