Sexual attraction as felt by aros

[ndxodn]

On 11/16/2018 at 1:44 PM, the-probable-aro said:

I think I only really find people attractive when I'm already horny. I never get distracted because someone's attractive, but I will find certain people more attractive if I'm actively looking for a sexual partner? 

I read it and screamed in my mind "That's me!", but I don't relate to the rest of the post. This thread is so good and made me think about my sexlife in ways I didnt before.

In general I'm a person with high libido who loves sex and often can't seem to focus on anything else, but then when I have a long break, like a month, it just turns off? Also when I crave sex I want sex, no masturbation fixes it, I just need the interaction with another human.

So when it happens and I don't have a current fwb I'll look for dates on apps, I look for people who tick all of my boxes, or rather who aren't repulsing to me. And these things are mostly not body related. And then when I meet them I don't fantasize about fucking them as people, but about the act of having sex itself. I will talk with them, get to know their kinks and I get turned on by the idea of having sex with a person with those kinks, but don't connect it with whoever sits in front of me. I know it all seems dehumanizing, but I don't feel that way in the moment, I also get off on caring for the other person's needs in bed. With knowing that person and meeting them a few times they somehow merge into a real human when I add the platonic attraction and so fwb forms for me. When I fantasize about sexual things I use a gender neutral, faceless idea of a person in them or my current sexual partner's body in it (might be connected to me not being able to form an image of someone's face in my brain)

I also get turned on when I see someone's body, but I will just think about certain body part, it's never the genital area though.

And, to make things complicated, I seem to almost never be attracted to people I started with as platonic friends, but I can turn fwb into platonic friendship and back.

[RedOak]

So the most recent post on this thread was four years ago (damn) so the likelihood that anyone will see this is slim, but I figured there's people that have come before and there will be people to come after. Someone might be in the same boat as me and this might help them, so why not?

I'd like to preface this with the obligatory yet all the more important 'this **** is really complex and none of us know what we are doing, I don't mean to insult/harm anyone if I/anyone here does, our experiences and actions are our own and don't speak for others'. 

 

I've been calling myself aro/ace for about a year now and have spent that entire year wondering if that's right. Today I finally decided to watch a video on a-spec terms and decided to look into aesthetic attraction, since I found it a confusing spot to draw the line between it and sexual attraction (or something else?) based on my own experiences.

Those being: I definitely (read 99% sure) experience aesthetic attraction; it seems like most people do. Our commercial culture in the West is basically built around it (hell yeah if you don't experience it - stick it to the man). Even allosexual people seem to experience it pretty regularly, (one person, I won't find who, said something like '90% of allosexuals' thoughts of attraction are aesthetic, i.e. they aren't constantly horny and do not want to take every vaguely human shaped thing to bed'). The important thing though is that the other 10% are wanting to have sex with a person, and they probably imagine/fantasize about it happening.

I definitely do not* (the big caveat here is the point of the post). Most of my aesthetic attraction is based around certain clothing designs/fabrics/colors that accentuate the shape of one's body (essentially their curves). Sometimes (since I have a really annoyingly high libido right now) it 'feels' sexual? This is difficult to explain, but I think it is more to do with cognition rather than an actual feeling.

To explain: since the most 'aesthetically appealing' shapes are around areas associated with sex, I think my brain just goes 'oh no, you're not supposed to be thinking about that/looking there, it's creepy you asshole'. Thus I would honestly rather not look there. Even if there were no repercussions at all I certainly wouldn't stare at someone's bodyparts. The unfortunate thing though is, for me at least, I've found it either hard to force myself not to glance at something that looks cool, or I'm not trying hard enough to force myself not to.

Additionally I feel like even more of a creep when I (in my head, as if talking to myself) I justify it with gender envy - essentially: wow that looks so cool (removing the body from the person, and more just referring to the image/shape) I wish I had/looked like that. Which is the truth, but I doubt anyone would believe that, as most of these thoughts originate from me scrambling (in my head, as if talking to myself) to find some way to justify/explain why I was glancing/looking at someone in case they asked.

 

I would never and have never stared at someone (especially someone I don't know) and thought about doing anything with them. (And I rarely, if ever, get aroused when looking at someone.) However, I have either pictured myself as one of my friends and imagined myself as them masturbating or imagined someone else having sex with them (and I have nothing to do with it other than narrate omnisciently I guess?). This feels good, probably mainly because my friends look cool and I want to look like them (they are generally clothed when I imagine these, I guess it's just magic - I don't know, it's in my head; not even I know what goes on up there). 

 

A convenient conclusion paragraph/TL;DR:

My I'm pretty sure I'm still aro/ace though, since imagining myself, as myself (as opposed to as other people/watching other people), in any sexual or certain naked sensual scenarios genuinely gives me chills. I also love imagining myself in a close (probably closer to platonic) bond with someone, without needing to label it as anything and certainly without anything romantic (again, gives me chills - like, ew, you people actually touch lips???), but cuddling is cool, so it certainly falls under some kind of tertiary attraction.

 

 

To get back to the actual topic at hand: I didn't think/haven't really seen/experienced other people (allo/grayromantics) talking about aesthetic attraction in a romantic way. (Maybe we just consume different media.) Since I don't experience sexual attraction (I think; read above) I can't really help, but from what I can tell, sexual attraction is essentially based on spontaneous/aesthetic attraction, and based on other factors, a person imagines themselves having sex with that person. In allo/grayromantics, this is probably the romantic attraction you were talking about. In aro/grayromantics it's probably other factors that are more analytical and have more to do with the person themselves rather than what they could be/do for you both.

I either can't help on your other questions, or have already answered them. (I'll flip a coin.)

Edited Friday at 10:06 PM by RedOak