Aro Sexual Orientation

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

At least from my own experience, there have been times where it feels like my sexual attraction from my sexuality has tried to bleed into my aromanticism, in the fact that sometimes I would confuse myself in how I'm not experiencing romantic attraction, but am freely experiencing sexual attraction.

I think some of this could be the belief some allos have - that because I'm allosexual then I "must be" alloromantic working its way into my head. Or maybe my neurodivergencey also has something to do with it, a little, in mainly the forgetfulness/confusion I end up experiencing. But either way, that's the correlation I experience with my sexuality and aromanticism, attraction-wise.

Also what other allo aros have said about self-acceptance or realizing you're not the norm. It took me a long while to actually piece together my dwindling emotional/nearly romantic attraction over the years, to my being aromantic, and even longer to not feel like that me realizing I'm aro is not a bad thing, than it did with people who I knew to be aroace, not to say they didn't go through that either though. One time, which I think was the first time I ever questioned my romantic orientation, was when I got confused about my dwindling emotional attraction to others and even asked a friend who's aroace if that was weird, and they told me that they never had a crush ever and so to them that was normal, but I was still left confused 😅 (not to assume that anything is easier for aroaces, but granted my friend had already figured themselves out and I wasn't exactly aware of people being only aromantic and not havin' to also be asexual)

Edited May 29, 2023 by The Newest Fabled Creature
added more sentences/explanations

[HelloThere]

11 minutes ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

At least from my own experience, there have been times where it feels like my sexual attraction from my sexuality has tried to bleed into my aromanticism, in the fact that sometimes I would confuse myself in how I'm not experiencing romantic attraction, but am freely experiencing sexual attraction.

I think some of this could be the belief that some allos have - that because I'm allosexual then I "must be" alloromantic. Or maybe my neurodivergencey also something to do with it a little, in mainly the forgetfulness/confusion I end up experiencing. But either way, that's the correlation I experience with my sexuality and aromanticism.

Also what other allo aros have said about self-acceptance or realizing you're not the norm. It took me a long while to actually piece together my dwindling emotional/nearly romantic attraction over the years, to my being aromantic, and even longer to not feel like that me realizing I'm aro is not a bad thing, than it did with people who I knew to be aroace. One time I questioned my dwindling emotional attraction to others and even asked a friend who's aroace if that was weird, and they told me that they never had a crush ever and so to them that was normal, but I was still left confused 😅

Oof, it’s annoying when one aspect of yourself sorta crosses over into a questioning aspect of yourself. It’s kinda weird to me, it’s happened occasionally because the the fact that I felt libido kept me from realizing that one could still be asexual like that for a while. XD

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

5 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

Oof, it’s annoying when one aspect of yourself sorta crosses over into a questioning aspect of yourself. It’s kinda weird to me, it’s happened occasionally because the the fact that I felt libido kept me from realizing that one could still be asexual like that for a while. XD

Yeah it can be kind of tricky, and nuances in experiences of either a-spectrum and can just lead to more questions sometimes XD

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:42 PM, Karst said:

I'm aro/ace, and I figured out the "ace" part before the "aro" part.  It might just have been that the queer pride group at my university had some detailed resources on asexuality.  I've had a couple of crushes in my life, but I've never really felt the desire to have a long-term romantic relationship.  Maybe having one or two fleeting infatuations kept me from realizing that I'm not all that interested in dating or marriage.

For me, being both ace and aro simplifies my life in some ways, but it also sometimes makes me feel that I'm missing out on a vast range of human experiences.  I'm spared from the bad parts of sexual and romantic realtionships, but I'll never experience the good parts.

I relate to this. Though I'm aroallo, and once I started accepting that, I did feel free in not having to be "destined" for a romantic relationship where I'd be unhappy, but then - I wouldn't experience the good parts of what those relationships hold. I don't necessarily grieve the fact that I can't have those relationships, but I do sometimes wish I could want them, the actual relationship, than just the idea of said relationship.

[Raininspring]

I feel more strongly connected to my aro side than my ace side. Now juggling multiple aroace books I am reading through, i learned the difference between sexual attraction and libido which aren't the same thing.

I remember being a very confused preteen who all of a sudden started experiencing an almost uncontrollable urge at times with a desire for sex due to raging hormones but not actually being sexually attracted to anyone in particular. I definitely do recall being mildly curious and often looking at both guys and girls. For boys, I would look at them for aesthetic purposes but being that I grew up with exposure to only heteronormative norms, I would fantasize about being with a guy to live out in my mind what I thought I was supposed to obsess and pine after. For girls, I would ponder what it was both to be them and be with them, as friends or rivals or an exploration of something more or inbetween.

It is different now that I am an adult. The most allo I feel is during my ovulation cycle when i can tell from the changes in my body that my hormones are preparing me to be more interested in sex in the hopes of getting pregnant (bleck!). Nowadays the urge is easier to ignore knowing it is only a bodily response that will stop after a few days and quite honestly, I feel tired  from just thinking about going through the motions of actual sex in order to scratch the itch. 

Circling back to the topic of sexual orientation, the lack of sexual attraction versus abundance of libido I experience makes me question if it is actually possible for me to feel "true" sexual attraction without libido usurping its place first.

This is further complicated by my alterous romantic attraction to some people, where i feel what seems like a combination of some platonic but also some romantic attraction and/or experiencing feelings of somewhere inbetween the two attractions towards a person. And the weird thing is I feel attracted to the person, not the gender. For example, I recently noticed I have alterous attraction towards a trans female coworker. This attraction seemed to be happening for a while in small increments without me fully consciously aware of it. While I know the person is trans, I don't get the sense within myself that the person's gender influenced my attraction, in the sense I feel like I like the person and not their gender. Now the question is if I feel actual sexual attraction to this person, or do I THINK I am meant to because the culture I grew up with keeps insisting sexual and romantic attraction are inevitably supposed to be paired together...? 

Edited February 15 by Raininspring

[Guest]

Sexual and romantic orientation are separate but we have to differentiate this, sometimes it literally affects other people.