“Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, because it leads us to self-knowledge“. ~ Alice Walker
Asexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism … I’m sure you’ve heard of them all at some time or another in your life. But the other day I stumbled across a sexual orientation I’m sure you haven’t heard much of before – the mysterious and puzzling demisexuality. Even as I write this word it’s underlined with a red squiggly line, which shows that it hasn’t even been added to the dictionary yet.
Once I began researching this intriguing breed of sexuality I realized instantly that it was something I should write about. Why? Because I’ve gone through a lot of confusion surrounding my sexual identity in the past, and I’ve learnt of the importance of discovering who you are in order to feel comfortable in your own skin.
If you’re unsure about your sexuality, have a read. You may just discover something new and surprising about yourself!
Demisexuality: Still Waters Run Deep
Demisexuality can be located between the asexual and sexual spectrum of human sexuality. This means that the demisexual normally does not experience any feelings of sexual attraction, unless they are first deeply and emotionally connected with someone.
The demisexual is often said to experience no primary attraction towards anyone, which means no attraction towards the immediate outer qualities of a person such as appearance, style or personality. However, the demisexual differs from the asexual in that they experience secondary attraction, which comes as a result of first establishing a deep degree of connection.
As one demisexual put it, the demisexual is:
a person who does not experience sexual attraction based on physical characteristics, but may develop sexual attractions based on an emotional or mental connection.
Olivia Davis, another demisexual also commented that:
demisexuality is about desire and arousal, not just sex and who you do it with. It’s not merely that I’m only interested in having sex with people that I love, it’s also that I feel a complete absence of desire or sexual feelings toward everyone else. Ever. What makes me demisexual is that absence.
The demisexual may also find that forming romantic or sexual relationships can be confusing, difficult and exasperating. This is because they often come across as being just “friends” at first, but can later move on to feelings of intense sexual attraction. As demisexual Olivia Davis goes on to explain:
being demisexual amongst people … can be tricky. It can be hard to figure out exactly what and where your differences are and how to deal with them as they arise.
What Is Your Sexuality?
OK, I know it’s a bit of a personal question, but if after reading this article you’ve discovered that demisexuality describes you perfectly, I’d love to hear your stories below in the comments section! Also, you can take our Demisexual Test!
Finally realised why as a 54yo gay bloke I’m still single and find gay dating sites extreamly difficult and a waste of time! Same with the gay scene; I tend to stick out like a sore thumb and go home alone at the end of the evening. Maybe now that I know the real reason I can try a different approach
Wow, I get it now.
Hi I’m Linden. I recently discovered that I am demisexual. I’m seeing somebody for the first time in my life and we kiss and fool around when we meet. I want to know if any other demisexuals also experience feelings of sadness when in love. I cry when I kiss my lover because I like seeing her being happy while kissing me but at the same time I do not feel sexual attraction/desire for her. In other words, I kiss her because she wants to kiss me and it kind of makes me feel sad and guilty. I wish to feel the same sexual attraction for her but I just can’t…
I am 30 and have 2 kids. I have had sex because its what I thought I had
to do in a relationship. My kids are 4 and 6. They are 1/2 siblings and
I’m not married nor am I with their fathers. (one passed away, the
other is in our son’s life). I always thought
something was wrong with me. Never even heard of asexual until very
recently. Today I learned about Demisexual.
I want a meaningful
relationship with a man, but I don’t care about having sex. As I said, I
did have sex to hide and to try to get myself to be “normal”. LOL I
often will tell my sisters that I think a guy is “good looking” after I
get to know him a little and discover he has a good personality and I
would
get the “Um, are you ok?” Look because the guy isn’t “good looking,
hot, cute, etc” to anyone else. Maybe even kinda “ugly, dorky, not
‘handsome” or whatever to others.
I’m glad I am not broken or
alone. I am a bit scared because I don’t know what will happen if I try
talking to anyone. Or if I get into a relationship how do I tell the
guy? I know my sisters will always love and except me and they will try
to understand. Anyone have any advise? I just know me. If I really like a
guy, it’ll be after I’ve gotten to know him. Maybe even after I start
falling for him. I already have very low self esteem. What if this
bothers him? I do like a close family friend. Known him and his family
all my life and he and his family have known us for his whole life. I’d
rather keep him as a friend than lose him. What if he doesn’t like me?
(God, I sound like a teenager…I’m sorry about that). I’ve liked him
for at least 4 or 5 years. I don’t see him often anymore, but when I do,
I can’t get him out of my head. I often think “I’ll just ignore my
feelings”… I can’t. Every time I see him, we talk, then I fall more
for him. I feel like the world is messing with me and I some kind of
cosmic joke.
Anyone else go through this?
Hey! I’m so happy to have found this page – this article overwhelmed me!!! I never heard of “demisexual” and I really think this describes an unknown part of me very well…
I made the test and I had 77%…
I’m 26 and i had 4 relationships so far – my first at the age of 15 and the last almost 6 years ago. I had a lot crushes too – for fictional characters when I was in my teens and also for actors meaning older guys but I never felt sexually attracted to them. I liked the characters they impersionate or I imagined a strong bond of friendship or love interest… It was always normal to me I never questioned it. When I started to have first intime experiences I enjoyed it too but only if I liked that boy and when feelings changed it stopped to be joyful… Having one night stands seems to be out of question. I rarely felt sexual attraction like “I’m so horny now I need to change that”. I thought I was shy or just afraid. Friends told me that girls wanna have fun and life’s too short and blaa blaaa. I started to doubt my own sexuality. Were they true? I’m young and gaining experiences will definitely boost my self esteem. It’ll be fun they said. 5 years ago I had my one and only one night stand because I was drunk and because I believed I have to try… it was boring and senseless. One year later I met a new colleague who I first felt sexually attracted to!!! But Having sexual intercourse with him without knowing him made me feel afraid and nervous so I tried to get in touch with him, to go out with him while friends were around and to get to know him better. It didn’t work out because we were colleagues. Anyway, the moment when I truely believed that something must be wrong with me was when I had a deep talk with a former close friend who made me believe that I may be asexual or even lesbian… Because I don’t feel sexual attraction the same or as often as she did. I thought something was wrong with me. So I went to therapy. It was the same year I somehow started my journey of self discovery and acceptance of myself. My therapist helped me a lot to find out who and how I am and that I trusted the wrong people and that I should start trust myself again. Sex wasn’t the main topic after all but I guess it was allright because there were lots of other stuff that needed soul work and acceptance.
In the end I started to find out a lot new things about myself. I’m an introvert and I love life and being by myself. My happiness isn’t depended on another person but only on myself… I like sex but only if I feel a strong bond to the person and if I stay single for another while it’s ok because I want true and deep feelings. So everything is completely right with me… it’s just different and that’s perfectly fine. Thank you everybody for sharing your story and especially thanks to Luna for this article. I guess i’m sort of demisexual and that’s totally fine :-)
I never heard the term until a facebook friend told me about it after asking if I was Demisexual. At the time O thought I was just Asexual and went with that. Gender never bothered me and the such and I mainly just watched Pron to laugh at cause some can just be fake and humerous. Other than that I just never bothered with it. When people would ask me what I was I would answer Asexual because that what I thought I was and even then I would get hell from people I dated who kept tying to see if I was actually what I said I was and just being rude. I even lost a girlfriend because she wanted sex and I didnt and plenty of people agreed that just three days in was way to fucking early. And she still didnt listen and a boyfriend I had kept pushing it on the second month. But after that I know I thought more about it and just, yeah. I wouldnt have sex unless I really connected with a person, but so far, nobody would give me the time.
So, I know this article came out quite a while ago but I still thought I’d share my story. So, I’m 18 and have never had sex nor have I been kissed. I don’t even know if I’m straight, lesbian or bi. It’s only now i realize that I never felt sexually attracted to a stranger or anyone for that matter but I don’t know if I’m asexual or demisexual. I do find people asthetically attractive but I never really fantasize about having sex but more about kissing someone and kuddling and sharing my life with them. The thing I crave isn’t sex but a relationship but I don’t know if I would want to have sex if I loved someone which I never have. When I’ve had a crush it was always because I thought they had an amazing character but not because I found them sexually attractive.I’m really confused…
I have really only been in one “serious” relationship and it was complicated. As some others have said, I have found guys attractive, occasionally, before but I have always said that I’m an “admire from afar” kinda girl. I didn’t date in high school at all and the formal dances I went to (2 in total), one was with one of my gays, and the other was with my cousin. I never even kissed (or desired to kiss) anyone until after I was 21. My first kiss was from some random guy at the bar who basically just did it without asking.
When guys blatantly flirt with me it makes me very uncomfortable. I actually had to leave a party, at my house, because there was a guy who wanted to hit in me and it weirded me out.
I don’t know much about the ace spectrum but it seems to me that this very well may be where I actually fit in. Just thinking about past relationships with friends (+), after hanging out with him almost constantly, I once fell in love with my gay best friend.
The one boyfriend I’ve had: we hung out and talked for a couple months before we realized that we were “dating” and even though he lived with me for a while, I had zero desire for anything sexual (regarding my body anyway).
A guy I had talked to online a bunch, who worked at the same mall as me, we hung out a few times but after having a movie night one night he went in to kiss me and I couldn’t hang, I just wished him a good night and went home.
The one time I actually had sex with my boyfriend I literally felt nothing. I’m wanting to look into demisexuality more but I really feel that these are my people :)
Hi,
Since everyone seems to be starting with introduction so will I. I’m 25, I’ve had three relationships, two with guys and one with girl, and one that’s kinda going on right now. I have recently been thinking about my sexuality a lot and it has been very confusing for me. Sex has never been a big issue for me and I’ve gone years without. I find really difficult to find a person I’d like to have sex with. Usually just the thought of having sex with someone gives me the creeps. It’s confusing because I still feel the desire to have sex, though I just feel like I might never meet the person with whom it would work.
I started dating this girl few months ago and I like her. Though after the initial crush it’s been kinda lame and I don’t feel much connection to her. We’ve had sex couple of times but it’s, at least for me, mostly been pretty boring and I’ve got nothing out of it. She confronted me about it and asked me if I was sure I wasn’t asexual. I told her I wasn’t sure. I hope I’m not, because I would like to have satisfactory sex someday. I just think it might need a bit deeper emotional connection. I think our relationship isn’t going anywhere because clearly I can’t give her what she wants and to be honest it feels really depressing and doesn’t do any good to self confidence.
I hope that I get to talk about this with a therapist someday because I don’t like feeling like there is something wrong with me because I’m not as enthusiastic with sex as most people seem to be.
But yeah, your reading your comments makes me feel a little bit better and gives me a little bit hope, so thanks for that. :) Courage!