Demisexuality

[ThePriceOfSugar]

I hate using the nouveau term for this, but it is useful shorthand.

I am 24 and single, and I find I am just not sexually attracted to anyone if I don't have an emotional or intellectual connection to them. I have zero interest in sleeping with even very attractive people without that connection.

It's not that I am playing coy or only want to do it in the context of a serious relationship, but purely that I have no arousal or interest until I am close with someone or admire them.

I'm definitely not asexual and I've experienced this with both men and women, so I don't think it's an orientation thing.

Is this normal/ a thing lots of people (women) experience? Or am I hormonally unbalanced or something? I have never had a ONS, and to some degree feel I am missing out on some fun experiences.

AIBU?

I don't think this is unusual.

I'm not against giving it a name, but it's not equivalent to being gay/straight or even asexual. It's something a lot of people feel.

Blimey why is a label needed for that?
I (and loads of other women I know) have zero interest in what night stands. It's completely normal to prefer/need/want to get to know someone better and build a connection with them before having sex with them.

I think this is normal for human beings - we have that 'higher brain' for a reason, because we're not animals rutting in a field.

Our pornified culture needs to groom everyone into thinking that having sex like an animal, where you shag the first creature of the other sex which crosses your path, is normal. But it's just not. An anthropologist did a paper years ago going back to early man and calculating, given the numbers of people existing then, numbers in a typical tribe and the risk (ie death) of trying to get another tribe's women, and concluded that it was likely that cavemen also mated for life, contrary to the popular myth that they would be roaming about raping and pillaging.

The historic difference between men and women in terms of their attitude to sex is just because men existed in a more pornified culture than women did, because women needed to be kept from it to stay 'pure'. Nowadays though with the internet, the idea of purity has (probably rightly) died a death, and men and women are groomed equally from a young age.

Maybe "normal behavior" has been redefined. Amongst my friends and peers, it's normal to meet new people just for sex. Male and female, gay, straight, bi. "Dating" is sex along with a drink or going to a museum, or something

Try widening your social circle. Most people I know don't shag randoms (or keep it to themselves if they do). Most people I know look down on it tbh.

it's normal to meet new people just for sex.

@ThePriceOfSugar - It's always been normal to meet new people just for sex. How bizarre that you think this is new!

It's also normal for people to want a connection. Both are normal. Literally nothing to see here!

I’m surprised by this thread! I’m the same OP and I get the sense it is a bit different. When I go out with my girlfriends they will mention someone they think is ‘hot’ and I have to stop and think about it. I can’t just go to the pool and think ‘that’s persons attractive’. I literally find no one attractive unless I have an emotional connection with them.

Same for me @Elspethelf! I am not blind to aesthetic but there isn't attraction until I know the name of their childhood pet (I'm begging everyone not to take this comedic oversimplification literally, the dog's name is not a password to my pants)

Fidosexual?

This. There’s nothing wrong with ONS, there’s nothing wrong with needing a connection. We’re just all different & shouldn’t be judging people.

I’m somewhere in between. I’ve had ONS and had sex very soon after meeting people, but only when I’ve felt a connection with them. I can’t imagine waiting for weeks and weeks of dates and meet-ups to pass before shagging someone if you feel a spark!

I’ve also had slow-burn attractions, but not with prospective dates - acquaintances or colleagues that I’ve seen in a different light for some reason, after a heart-to-heart, or a good night out.

Maybe I’m omnisexual.

Is that what's really going on for all of them? Or could some be more like you, it's just that they don't talk about it?

Maybe that's it. Is this on hook up sites or are they all mixed in with dating sites now?

One of the most bonkers trends these days imo is this need to find a label for yourself based on who you like to sleep with.
Like men? Cool. Like women? Cool. Like both? Cool. Like a ONS? Cool. Need a deeper connection/relationship? Cool. Just be who you are and enjoy it.

As others have said, I don't think this requires a specific word, I think this is pretty normal for a huge amount of people, not to generalise but probably more women than men. I think it's pretty standard that more often than not women generally want to feel some kind of connection to someone before they feel sexually attracted to them.

Which I suppose feeds in to my (very ancient albeit I'm only 40) viewpoint that "the youth's" obsession with labels (yes, I mean non-binary etc, gender woo) is really just 'people have different personalities and tastes' - who the fuck knew?!

This. Maybe the OP / young people feel it's 'unusual' or special to only be sexually attracted to people they have a connection with because all the initial interaction is online. I would hazard that's completely normal for the vast majority of women, but if you've met the person in real life you just may or may not feel that 'magical connection' (AKA you fancy the pants off them) pretty quickly even (shock horror clutches pearls) on a ONS basis in the heat of a drunken sweaty nightclub/party/pub whatever.

God young people make things more complicated than they need to be.....

I met my now DH on Tinder, which at the time (I've no idea what the case is now) was considered a 'hookup' app, but that really wasn't my experience. Maybe it's changed but I feel like at the time you get out what you put in so to speak - if you were only looking for hookups that was sort of the vibe you put out and hence what you found; if you were looking for something else (dating, then sleep together once you've got to know each other a bit), somehow that was what you found. That was my experience anyway.

Bloody young people, looking for different perspectives from different demographics 😜

Isn't that just normal though? Attraction isn't just about looks for most of us

I was very partial to a ons in my youth. Sometimes the only 'connection' we would have was that it was nearing the end of the night and neither of us had yet pulled.

I'm a little worried by the idea that 'normal' seems to be coming with a slight sense that those of us who genuinely enjoyed the thrill of sex with a random person are abnormal (or brainwashed by the patriarchy).

And given the number of women who appear to hate sex with their husbands, I think more people should have sex early on, to see how compatible they actually are. I couldn't have married a man I wasn't fiercely sexually attracted to.

Sounds pretty healthy to me.

Its normal for me. Unless i felt deeply caring towards a man I wouldn't have sex with him. Others may be different and sleep with strangers they fancy. room for both kinds of women.

You could start something here 😂

Op, I’m afraid you’ve come to wrong place to ask about this.

I don’t know why, but MN have a real chip on their shoulder about asexuality / demisexuality, let alone labels.
And they really hate the concept of labels, even though they have themselves (straigh, wife, mother….etc)

Reddit has it’s own sub for demisexuality if you want to have an actual conversation about this, not just sneering down and mocking.

I think it's an interesting question because to me there is a real difference between saying "I never want to be sexually intimate with anyone until I know them well" vesus "I never have any sexual attraction to anyone until I know them well".

For me, there are cases where there's little or no sexual attraction (or I don't notice it) right away, but there's also not repulsion, and later on sexual attraction develops. But there are also cases (rarer) in which I feel sexual attraction right away. Even in those cases, I don't want to be sexually intimate with the person right away, as (1) I can't relax that much until I trust the person and (2) I prefer not to have had sex with awful people, and it takes a while to tell. I also have dreams in which I feel a very strong physical attraction (I can't say it's only sexual, but it's partly sexual) to a complete stranger, so much so that I think about it long after waking up, but that may not be significant.

I also think people are quite different in the degree to which they respond to looks, voice, posture, movement, smell, overall appearance, conversation/speech, associations or memory (e.g., if the person reminds you of someone, something, somewhere important to you) etc. If there's never a flash of something sexual immediately/very early on - I don't necessarily think it's abnormal or anything to worry about, but I think most people do have those flashes.