Demisexuality is an ironic orientation, at best. You’ve been blessed with a perfectly healthy libido, but you're rarely going to find anyone, of either sex, attractive. Then, when you do eventually start to find yourself drawn towards that rare person, you’ll be so deep in the friendzone, you won’t stand a chance. It's the sexual orientation of loneliness.
Demisexuals, like asexuals, feel no physical attraction towards members of their preferred sex. Instead, they grow attracted to as they get to know a person and develop a bond. Because a demisexual is inclined to reject premature sexual advances from a potential mate, the chances of them ever forming a bond with someone who also finds them attractive are greatly diminished. In short, it sucks.
Whilst psychologists and academics bicker amongst themselves trying to work out if demisexuality is real, I’ll tell you about my personal experience of living with it. It’s real enough for me to blog about, anyway, so take that as you will.
I was a normal young teenager on the surface, as hormone-driven as the rest. I chased the same boys my classmates did, with varying degrees of triumph and heartache.
It was only in retrospect I realised I wasn’t chasing them because I found them attractive. I was chasing them because my friends found them attractive, and therefore I believed that they must be attractive somehow. It was this same flawed logic that led me to follow musicians around the country when I turned 14. When so many thousands of other girls found these men attractive, then surely they had to be attractive. These formative experiences set my path in life, and I remain deeply entrenched in the music industry some 20 years later… all because I was running around after men I had zero sexual interest in.
It finally clicked when I was 21. I’d been in a relationship for three years by that point, and it struck me that I’d never once been physically attracted to a guy. I was going through the motions, with a man I didn’t even like so much, just for the sake of appearing normal.
The sexual crisis began. Was I gay? I didn’t think so – the thought of sleeping with a girl turned my stomach at the time. The closest definition I could find was ‘asexual’, but that didn’t quite fit either, because there had been some degree of attraction in my life with certain men along the way. I settled on the definition ‘low sexual intensity’. Where the average person would maybe find one person in ten in some way sexually attractive, I was lucky if I met one person a year I felt even a hint of attraction towards.
My sex drive was just fine. Instead of deriving pleasure from the partner I was with, I’d derive pleasure from the act and sensation of sex itself, or the psychological aspects of intimacy. I could even get pleasure out of pornography by focusing on the act instead of the actors. When I realised I could get sexual pleasure out of sleeping with just about anyone, I went ahead and did that. Then, when the novelty and freedom of promiscuity wore off, I had another relationship with someone I wasn’t even slightly attracted to, just because he was attracted to me, and the sex was good, and we got on well enough to have a relationship. That one lasted 8 years.
It’s only over the last 5 years I’ve fully identified as demisexual, and even then, I feel like I’m cheating the label a bit. A pure demisexual will feel no physical attraction at all towards their preferred sex, and in my defence, I didn’t for 30 years. As I’ve grown older, there have been odd occasions where I’ll find someone I don’t know attractive, and it is getting more frequent with age. Once or twice a year now, I may recognise a certain spark of passion or uniqueness in a man, something non-conventional that draws me in. It soon fades and dies unless the emotional bond is formed, but I can no longer say that ‘it’s never happened’.
Is there hope for the future? I’ve been trying out a few strategies lately. I joined a dating website, spent hour upon hour swiping left until the faces I’d already seen came around again. Out of 74K potential mates in my local area, there were 5 I thought I may be able to grow to find attractive if I got to know them better. Out of the 5, there were 2 who were attracted to me. We’re undergoing negotiations – I believe some people call that dating.
I’ve also started reaching out to people who I find interesting for whatever reason. Getting out more, and fielding the comments of the random guys who express an interest.
I’ve memorised this line and I use it:
“It takes me a long time to grow attracted to someone. I’m not playing games, I have no idea if this will work, but let’s go out for a drink sometime, anyway.”
I’m going out for a drink, sometimes, anyway, and that’s better than I’ve done for a very long time.
Demisexuals, like asexuals, feel no physical attraction towards members of their preferred sex. Instead, they grow attracted to as they get to know a person and develop a bond. Because a demisexual is inclined to reject premature sexual advances from a potential mate, the chances of them ever forming a bond with someone who also finds them attractive are greatly diminished. In short, it sucks.
Whilst psychologists and academics bicker amongst themselves trying to work out if demisexuality is real, I’ll tell you about my personal experience of living with it. It’s real enough for me to blog about, anyway, so take that as you will.
* * *
I was a normal young teenager on the surface, as hormone-driven as the rest. I chased the same boys my classmates did, with varying degrees of triumph and heartache.
It was only in retrospect I realised I wasn’t chasing them because I found them attractive. I was chasing them because my friends found them attractive, and therefore I believed that they must be attractive somehow. It was this same flawed logic that led me to follow musicians around the country when I turned 14. When so many thousands of other girls found these men attractive, then surely they had to be attractive. These formative experiences set my path in life, and I remain deeply entrenched in the music industry some 20 years later… all because I was running around after men I had zero sexual interest in.
It finally clicked when I was 21. I’d been in a relationship for three years by that point, and it struck me that I’d never once been physically attracted to a guy. I was going through the motions, with a man I didn’t even like so much, just for the sake of appearing normal.
The sexual crisis began. Was I gay? I didn’t think so – the thought of sleeping with a girl turned my stomach at the time. The closest definition I could find was ‘asexual’, but that didn’t quite fit either, because there had been some degree of attraction in my life with certain men along the way. I settled on the definition ‘low sexual intensity’. Where the average person would maybe find one person in ten in some way sexually attractive, I was lucky if I met one person a year I felt even a hint of attraction towards.
My sex drive was just fine. Instead of deriving pleasure from the partner I was with, I’d derive pleasure from the act and sensation of sex itself, or the psychological aspects of intimacy. I could even get pleasure out of pornography by focusing on the act instead of the actors. When I realised I could get sexual pleasure out of sleeping with just about anyone, I went ahead and did that. Then, when the novelty and freedom of promiscuity wore off, I had another relationship with someone I wasn’t even slightly attracted to, just because he was attracted to me, and the sex was good, and we got on well enough to have a relationship. That one lasted 8 years.
It’s only over the last 5 years I’ve fully identified as demisexual, and even then, I feel like I’m cheating the label a bit. A pure demisexual will feel no physical attraction at all towards their preferred sex, and in my defence, I didn’t for 30 years. As I’ve grown older, there have been odd occasions where I’ll find someone I don’t know attractive, and it is getting more frequent with age. Once or twice a year now, I may recognise a certain spark of passion or uniqueness in a man, something non-conventional that draws me in. It soon fades and dies unless the emotional bond is formed, but I can no longer say that ‘it’s never happened’.
Is there hope for the future? I’ve been trying out a few strategies lately. I joined a dating website, spent hour upon hour swiping left until the faces I’d already seen came around again. Out of 74K potential mates in my local area, there were 5 I thought I may be able to grow to find attractive if I got to know them better. Out of the 5, there were 2 who were attracted to me. We’re undergoing negotiations – I believe some people call that dating.
I’ve also started reaching out to people who I find interesting for whatever reason. Getting out more, and fielding the comments of the random guys who express an interest.
I’ve memorised this line and I use it:
“It takes me a long time to grow attracted to someone. I’m not playing games, I have no idea if this will work, but let’s go out for a drink sometime, anyway.”
I’m going out for a drink, sometimes, anyway, and that’s better than I’ve done for a very long time.
