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).
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 week 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.