Demisexuality and Questioning my Sexual Identity in my 20s
The other day my partner said, “who cares what anyone is? I could be a fucking demisexual, and it shouldn’t matter.” Appreciating the energy, I asked, “What’s a demisexual?” and neither of us could define it. Turning to the trusty Google search, not only did I get my answer, I began to question my own sexual identity. At the age of 25, it feels incredibly foreign to do; nonetheless, sometimes things change, or rather for me fall into to place. Let’s talk about Demisexuality.
What is Demisexuality?
Demisexuality is a sexual orientation to describe a person who feels no sexual attraction before an emotional connection. A demisexual person can be of any sexual orientation (gay, bisexual, straight).
Demisexuality falls on the spectrum between asexual and allosexual, which just indicates a demisexual’s person’s sex drive may be lower than average though it doesn’t have to be. For example, a demisexual person can be completely uninterested in sex, and then when they form a connection with someone, bam! Now they want to have sex with them all the time!
Learn more about Demisexuality at Demisexuality.org.
Questioning my Sexuality
As a young tween, I used to say things like “I date for personalities,” and as I got older, I questioned the reasons behind one-night stands; not out of judgment, but out of curiosity; I truly didn’t understand the appeal of sex with a stranger. My peers would gather around and gush over the next celebrity heartthrob, all while I sat feeling unrelatable and abnormal. Everyone around me thought I was a sexual being, and I felt obscure for not sharing that similarity.
During my adolescence, I frequently pondered the idea of being asexual. I constantly talked myself out of identifying with it, because at times, I did enjoy the idea of sex, and if I enjoyed that, I can’t be asexual, right? Wrong. Then I thought, while I already identified with bisexual and I can’t be both. Wrong again.
I knew so little about sexuality then, and I wish I knew a lot more because if I could go back and say, “Hey, guess what, you may also be a demisexual. ” I would have had a better time.
It feels surreal to find a term only now that perfectly describes me, yet at the same time, it’s also frustrating. Frustrating because I was going about dating and sex the wrong way for a long time.
I was searching for a spark of sexual attraction, the one that everyone around me seemed to have and I couldn’t find. I found people attractive and thought that’s all it takes to have sex, right? Oh, how wrong I was again.
Now I realize for me to want sex, it has to be more than a physical attraction because just the physical doesn’t do it for me.
Ergo my engine won’t start if I don’t at least feel like I know the driver.
Looking back, it makes a lot of sense. Anytime I did find someone even remotely attractive in that way, they were my friend or a celebrity that played a particularly engaging character. Recently, I recalled a conversation I had with my partner where I directly said, “I don’t know what it is about the character; I just want to fuck their personality.” And for me, that’s how a lot of my life went.
Before researching demisexuality, my life was just a series of unexplainable sexual experiences; some were good, and most were bad. Arousal was limited, and I didn’t understand why. Turns out it’s because I’m probably a demisexual, someone who needs a connection to want sex.
