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 learned 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!
Wow!
This is so true for me, no wonder I cannot get into ” one night stand” I believe in ” just friends” first to see if there’s any emotional/mental attraction before choosing to love.
I thought I was just abnormal.
Good to learn new things .
Good article.
I have been this way my entire life but only recently discovered that this was a real thing and a certain type of sexual orientation. It has has often alienated me when I could not relate to others when they would talk about the physical characteristics of strangers or even people on tv whom they would never meet and call them “attractive”. I cannot wrap my head around caring about or noticing the appearance of a stranger and classifying it as…anything.
Unlike some demisexuals, I don’t even have an aesthetic appreciation of other people’s appearances. I do for architecture, animals, nature, etc., but not people. Everyone is a blank slate of equal blandness until I fall in love with them – after that bond has developed – then they and only they are the most beautiful thing in the world to me. That said when I love, In love deeply, and am very sexually attracted to and active with my chosen partner. That’s never a problem.
As one could imagine, it makes it hard for me to be in a relationship with most people, because if they mention finding someone else attractive, good-looking, etc., I lose interest and exit the relationship. It feels like a betrayal, because to me, it’s not possible to think that way without being actually interested in the person. Therefore, I assume they are interested in others, and I’m not what or who they really want. Why waste my time on someone that isn’t as loyal to me as I am to them? I have only had a handful of relationships, all of them with others like me. It’s quite difficult as I can’t just “settle” for anyone who makes themselves available, but in a way, I’m relieved to be the way I am. It saves me the trouble of being superficially attracted to someone only to find them dull, unintelligent , and disappointing later, and then have to bow out. I have been lucky in the sense that my relationships have all been deep and meaningful, and based on a true bond. It’s just that my pool of workable choices in mates is way smaller than what most others have to work with. Ah well…it it what it is.
So I recently found out I’m bi and also demi after being straight all my life. How do I come out to my mom, and my boyfriend?
I think it’s important to note that sometimes physical stuff does matter. Like- nobody is attracted to a bad smell even if they love you deeply, and not all demisexuals end up being able to be attracted to either gender of people like myself. And no ammount of emotional bonds are going to make me attracted to someone who cannot match me. So even if I wasn’t with the love of my life of x ammounts of years that kid can hit on me all he wants and the only thing it is going to do is annoy me that teen down the street is hitting on me and hasn’t gotten the hint. We are, I noticed, more likely to ignore certain physical characteristics some might consider not traditionally attractive but I think that has more to do with the focus of our attraction. We can still be pressured or forced into things we don’t want and I ran into that earlier in life as well. My ex-husband, for instance, I never felt attracted to and he had convinced me that was a problem with me. Friends said ‘you might be asexual’ but then I’d had people I was attracted to before so I knew that to be untrue.
There were plenty of times I simply decided that being attracted to a friend was something they just didn’t need to know because, going over it rationally, it would just destroy our friendship and that held more value to me. I think that is the murkiest part abou it. When I was younger I had no idea that was even unusual. I just had no desire to have casual sex of any kind and had friends I was attracted to but didn’t act on it because I knew them well enough to know it wouldn’t be returned and that just wasn’t worth it.
My partner of 8 years was actually my best friend for some time before we ended up together at a really bleak point in my life where they were also one of the few who weathered that storm as well.
I think there is a hyper-focus on parts of being demisexual that get romanticized while other aspects get ignored. I am unsure if the level of ‘awareness’ that goes on is a good or a bad thing because there is plenty of misinformation that comes with such things as well. Usually from kids pretending to be something they are not because it is easy to idealize it.
Certainly it can make some things a little troublesome or even annoying for us at times but if your not someone messed up enough to think people have to feel the same way about you in return and can deal with the annoyance… its not too difficult to deal with. At least I don’t think so.
Certainly, finding out gender didn’t matter for me back in the day, was not something my relatives took well(and indeed they like to forget about it and think it was a phase or something- it wasn’t). Things made more sense I guess… but I never had the burning desire to figure it out in the first place. I am who I am and knew what I wanted and I wanted someone who knew what they wanted too. So… this concept some people have where you sleep with everyone your attracted to… I never understood that either. If expressing that attraction could harm what we had already… why would I? And don’t even get me started on the whole cheating thing. The very thought makes me want to barf.
For me there are no double standards either. You don’t want a woman that has slept with everyone on the block? I never wanted a guy who had either and never told a best friend back in high school I crushed on him specifically in part because that is exactly what he was like. I wanted it to have at least some significance to my partner and not just mean nothing to them to do or share with me too.
You don’t leave any of the other complexities of relationships or getting there behind. You just add a little.
OK I do identify with Demi sexuality but I’m curious of is there a spectrum one that is still Demi but slightly more towards sexual
Thank you for writing this article. And here I thought I was frigid!! I am a 62 year old woman who has been divorced over 35 years. My longest relationship post-divorce lasted almost 4 years and began on the heels of my father’s, my hero’s passing in 2005. I loved every essence of that man but then he cheated. It was an act I couldn’t get over, and so I broke up with him. That was 11 years ago. I’ve often said that something has died in me rendering me incapable of falling in love; being in a long term relationship for I have no desire to hook up with anyone, get involved with or egad! marry anybody just because society deems it so or because everyone around me is. I have never cheated and the thought of one night stands or casual sex disturbs me. Most of my friends are male and admittedly, I have been attracted to some of them, especially the ones who could challenge me mentally in conversation or those I could learn something from, but still can’t imagine myself having sex with them lest I ruin the friendship and the intellectual titillation. So, I guess I’m a sapio-demisexual person and at this point have made peace with it.
Thank you so much for writing your article on demisexuality.
I recently stumbled across the term on a social media app I use, and was curious about what it ment. When I looked into it further, and read your article, I was surprised at how much it explained myself. I had never considered myself lgbt, but I do now.
It is a massive relief to know that something isn’t just wrong with me, and it would also explain other aspects of my life. Thank you so much for helping me come to this conclusion, and to answer so many questions about myself.
Interesting article, but this selftest is misleading, I got the result “demisexual” just because of my paraphilias, I`m not demisexual, just not normal. Maybe the test should be more specific by outruling other possibilities for similar answers/symptoms.
Basically this isn’t new. Some people have always been more mentally stimulated than physically like me. I can go to a strip club and see a man admire his beautiful body but I don’t feel sexually aroused. Women for example usually need more mental warm up to get turned on then men. That’s always been the case. It’s all about our hormones. But yes some men now that they don’t have to use their testosterone as much to hunt and provide, some do like mental stimulation as well but men can see a naked woman dancing sexual and get a boner more easier than women, but not all work that way. This is all about majorities of course their are always exceptions based on how we socialize, maybe how your taught in church etc. what you see growing up. Like I’m not a fan of masturbation as it makes me craze human connection even more. So sorry to hear so many people are suffering or feeling strange or confused about this. It is crazy. Remember for thousands of years marriage was arranged not based on attractions or love. we have to figure out how to openly discuss in families or have a separate course you can take but I don’t think we need all these titles it’s exhausting. I was researching what the heck is Asexual and found most just don’t crave human sex. But if you masturbate that to me isn’t asexual. Which lead me here. Porn and internet is ruining human connection. Eventually people won’t mate just have babies in a bag with an ID that tells you who you can mate with if you desire to prevent incest. We already have problems with artificial insemination not being tracked. But what a lonely society. Couples can be more financially successful as well as it creates a balance in the home if it’s a good relationship. I was divorced and single for long time with a child but recognize things could have been much better had I had a reliable partner long term. Like when you age, who will be their for you? Make sure there are no other mental barriers tho as to why you struggle and then just be social. Once you know what you like the feeling will happen automatically. We don’t want a bunch of single people, childless people in old age or everyone gonna need long term care insurance.
Omg my roommate is exactly like that screams on the on the other side of the door and forces you to listen and talks to herself on purpose I think or hope. She cannot stop talking about herself or work blah blah blah blah. You got a second to say something before the conversation is back to her.
the most difficult is to live in a hypersexualized society .
before knowing I am demisexual, I thought people were crazy and superficial.
I didn’t understand how possible to have sexual aroussal towards strangers, without seduction, or only because of pictures of them on a dating app. and I was in depression because assaulted by sexual allusions or attouchements at every interaction, every messages, of people I did not know yet. it was exhausting. I also never understand pornography because you don’t desire someone but piece of bodies. now I understand that I’m just different and I have to find people like me.
I could have written this. Thank you for helping me to realize that I am not the only person on earth who feels with way and has absolutely no ability to identify with the hypersexual and superficial world we live in. I have been told by so called “normal people” that I am the only person on earth who thinks this way. If that’s not enough to make someone depressed and isolated, I don’t know what is.
If only I had come across this very informative information years ago! I have never felt like I was the “normal” male. I was never the type that had multiple sexual partners. I could never quite grasp the concept of a quick “one night stand” either.
I need to feel that “connectivity” with a person before I ever allow myself to get to close to him/her.
And all these years I thought I was the odd man out…… Thanks for this enlightening article.
This is all new to me because I never known I am a Demisexual. All my life I felt left out and I thought I was crazy for not being attractive to anyone or love anyone because I never felt connected to anyone.
This article was extremely useful! Thank you for writing it. It answered a very confusing question about myself in relation to my primary sexual orientation. Again, thank you for writing it.
That describes me so perfectly n is nice to know there a label to how I feel but in today’s world how to deal wit such