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Is your sexual or romantic orientation a bigger part of your identity?


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Which is a bigger part of your identity?  

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On 05/12/2017 at 6:40 AM, aro_elise said:

1. on a scale of sexuality (from a- to allo-) i'm about average, maybe a bit lower, whereas on the same scale of romanticism, i'm a 0.  aggressively aromantic, if you will

 

I dunno though, I've wondered, how can you even quantify the strength of your sex-drive relative to other people's, given that it's only your own that you actually experience? (I don't inhabit somebody else's body, so I don't know how their experience of sexual attraction feels; similarly for the experience of pain) My intrinsic/baseline sex-drive could be weak, average, or strong relative to other guys - I have literally no idea! I just choose not to act on it -_-. Wheras they do (and maybe stronger tends to incapacitate rather than enable anyway - how would we know?)

 

I agree I'm probably close to 0 on the romantic side though . That seems easier to quantify somehow, but I'm not sure why it should be any easier than sex-drive would be? :S (maybe because it's more obviously coded in terms of the external behaviours that overtly express it? Or because overt displays of romantic attraction are seen as more socially palatable than the corresponding sexual ones? So the former is more a shared external experience, wheras the latter is more of an individual, internalised experience? I dunno, it's all so confusing! xD)

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2 hours ago, NullVector said:

I dunno though, I've wondered, how can you even quantify the strength of your sex-drive relative to other people's, given that it's only your own that you actually experience? (I don't inhabit somebody else's body, so I don't know how their experience of sexual attraction feels; similarly for the experience of pain) My intrinsic/baseline sex-drive could be weak, average, or strong relative to other guys - I have literally no idea! I just choose not to act on it -_-.

Yes, it's very difficult.

  1. I've never had problems with lack of sex drive, but I also simply do not feel sexual frustration.
  2. My willingness to jump through hoops for sex is low.
  3. I'm not choosy. To the point that I'm not even so sure about the “hetero” part anymore (I mean those guys at “Spartacus”, lol)…

On the romantic side I'm just a total and absolute 0. And that's progress (negative score before??). xD Though a romantic relationship isn't something that would work for me except with an extraordinarily patient and accepting partner, I'm not weird in an FWB context. Yeah!

3 hours ago, NullVector said:

Wheras they do (and maybe stronger tends to incapacitate rather than enable anyway - how would we know?)

I really doubt that, because [here should be some argument… but honestly it's just intuition].

 

TMI… my raw libido (i.e. the “functional part”, number of orgasms etc.) is quite “healthy”, but sex is very likely a good deal more “depersonalized” for me than for the average person. Still partnered sex is a really great experience, no doubt about that! But it seems when the powers that be made me aromantic, they just broke something away from the sex part, too. In general, if I read about the sex life of somebody with schizoid personality disorder, I can find some similarities.

 

It's very complex and I don't know who is interested in the subtleties of my “condition” anyway… xD

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i'm just going by what i understand based on how people talk about it.  when defining sexuality, as with romanticism, the only factor should be attraction.  i'm sure plenty of asexuals have a higher sex drive or more sexual activity than me, for instance.  that doesn't change either of our respective orientations.  i am very particular when it comes to sexual attraction, but it can be quite strong.  and as my friends like to troll me, i'm more fujoshi than anything.  (basically, one hot guy=good; two or more...together=best thing ever.)  so i guess i'm not a typical heterosexual, not least because most of them are heteroromantic, but i do remember watching 'blue is the warmest color' and having to look away during the sex scenes (between two girls), at which my friend remarked "you're so straight, i love it!"  i would have reacted similarly to an m/f scene.  anyway, there's no question that i'm the definition of aromantic.

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I always think of the different labels when people mention a thing like scale of sexuality (from a- to allo-) 

So demi is somewhere towards the middle, gray is towards the a-, WTF/Quoi is a bit towards the allo-  

I know you mean it in terms of strength/frequency rather than the 'how' experience of the labels, but I just can't transform my ideas of the spectrum references. 

 

25 minutes ago, aro_elise said:

'blue is the warmest color' and having to look away during the sex scenes (between two girls)

Thanks for the warning. I shall remember never to watch this movie. 

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  • 2 months later...

I'm aroace and I've always felt that being aromantic is more important to me, possibly because it affects my daily life more.  Like, being asexual is important but it doesn't affect specifically affect me; it would come up more if I were in a romantic relationship, but I'm not.  Being aromantic ties into my life more, it affects my plans for the future, and I'm constantly reminded of it by our amatonormative society.  While outwardly I may seem more ace because I like the ACEthetic, internally being aromantic is what I feel deep in the core of who I am.

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I really don't know. That's a great question. I'm really confused as to what to answer. I don't that much identify as being heterosexual. That's not something that I care that much for but sexuality as an all is a really really huge part of me and who I am. I've always feel abnormally interest by sex and sexuality since I've been a child. I guess it makes sense now because knowing how many attractions there is, sexual attraction is actually the only other one I have with platonic. (I don't have aesthetic attraction at all for example as for romantic attraction) Aromanticism on the other end is really important to me because it actually make my sexuality be more valid (I don't feel like it's weird that sex is so much more important that romance to me anymore because duuh) so it's complicated especially because I know they're not equally as important either. It really depends on the aspect like...in my life my sexual orientation is gonna be the stronger part because it's there. Aromanticism is a lack of something so it can't really control my life or influence my decisions, or even motivate me to do things. But for me...like I myself identify way more as being aromantic than being heterosexual. Because I feel like my being could actually be okay not being in sexual relationships for a while but it is in now way okay forcing itself to be in a romantic relationship or even do romantics things (to gain a sexual relationship). It's not equal because in both those aspects one is clearly overpowering the other but both of these aspects are equally important. So I guess if the question really is about identity it would be romantic attraction. 

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yeah my aro identity feels like it has a much bigger affect on my like than my ace one. I guess since I'll never date, the fact I don't feel sexual attraction doesn't really matter? Plus the asexual community feels to me like it caters primarily to alloromantic asexuals so I feel excluded there and more welcome in the aro community.

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