Comment on I hope i don't get downvoted for this

• chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  There’s a spectrum of Ace. I got one am a heteroromantic ace, and I’m a dude. So I am attracted to women romantically, but don’t want to sleep with them.

  It’s a very frustrating combination that makes dating difficult.

  source

  • TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    So very true. People always think there’s something wrong with you.

    If you dont mind me asking, is it all sex or specific kinds?

    Ive found this is also me to a degree. Enjoy performing things for the partner, but anything done to me does nothing including PiV.

    Difficult to find discourse involving this so Apologies if this is prying lmao

    source

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Cuddling and massages are pretty much where it ends with me. I was in a relationship for a while, but it didn’t work out timing-wiss with careers and locations. We still keep in touch and hang out a few times a year though.

      Nice thing about an Ace breakup is there’s less sexual baggage attached to becoming friends again.

      source
    • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I find the wide variety of ace experiences super interesting. For my part, I’m bi and also demisexual (and I have been working hard at practicing not ace-erasing myself).

      An example of the interesting variety I mean is how libido and attraction aren’t necessarily coupled, and also that even besides those factors, there’s a spectrum of ace attitudes towards sex. I had a friend who had a high libido, but was also quite sex-repulsed. That is to say that she masturbated plenty, but had no inclination towards sex. This caused some tension when she entered into a romantic relationship with an allosexual woman who had some difficulty understanding an ace person being both sex repulsed and high libido (though tbf, my friend was learning how to navigate the line between enjoyable cuddles and unpleasantly sexual stuff. She also tried to fit into the model of aceness similar to what you describe, but she found that her discomfort with sex was such that it made her feel less close to her partner (in contrast to how our sex-ambivalent ace friends had described their experiences).

      source
• carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  personally, it’s kinda hard to say? i have felt romantic attraction exactly once in my life, so i know i’m not fully aromantic, but also it’s only happened once so i’m probably on the aro spectrum somewhere

  but yes, there are many people who are asexual but who still feel romantic attraction to others

  (and of course, not all attraction is sexual or romantic, there is also aesthetic attraction for example (literally just when you find people pretty), which i do feel, my meme was pretty reductive all things considered, but then again it’s just a meme)

  source

  • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    So I know with a rather high degree of certainty I’m ace, but I continue to have trouble untangling aromanticism from my aversion to people and mild paranoia.

    source
• Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Not OP, but typically asexual is perceived as not having any sexual attraction/having minimal sexual attraction to anyone, regardless of gender. It’s like the opposite of pansexual (attraction to anyone regardless of gender).

  Everything is a spectrum of course, which is why people talk about the graysexual area, where you have some attraction but there’s extra things that make it not the “typical” experience of allosexuals (those who experience sexual attraction). Things like Demisexual (attraction only after having a close bond), Aegosexual (having sexual arousal and fantasies, but you don’t think of yourself in those fantasies), etc. These are all microlables to help people narrow down how they feel.

  So if you have a distinct and noticeable sexual attraction to one gender, you probably are allosexual (straight, lesbian, gay, etc.). Note, however, that romantic ≠ sexual, and you can be asexual but only date men, or be asexual and date both men and women.

  source