Explaining yourself when demi or gray

[noelandvoid]

Has anyone here who is had a hard time explaining just what you identify as and what it means for your love/sex life to other people?

I generally end up saying I'm "asexual with exceptions," which is a decent explanation but then people think that they can be my exception as if that is something that happens frequently. Kind of uncomfortable...

[sciatrix]

I'm neither demi or grey, but I have definitely intentionally oversimplified my orientation on occasion when coming out. Mostly that's been with respect to romantic orientation--it's so much easier just to not bring it up than it is to say something like "I specifically identify as aromantic, and I do this because I have no earthly idea what specifically the rest of you mean by romantic attraction but at the same time I have a definite tendency to form much closer and stronger relationships with women and suspect that if I were to end up in a long-term relationship it would be with another women." It's just... easier. And less likely to explode brains.

I think sometimes the really defined, nuanced identities that we come to as members of the asexual community can be really useful for identifying concepts to ourselves, but hard to share with others. Because they imply an understanding of a tradition of really analyzing just what sexual attraction is, and what romantic attraction is, and categorizing all these different types of feelings for one another--which I feel nonasexual people really don't quite do as much, as a whole?

(For you, would it help to include "very rare" as a modifying phrase to "exceptions?" Maybe that might make people less likely to take it as an invitation to convert you.)

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

I'm plain ol' ace, not gray or demi, but this is how I explained demisexuality in an LJ entry I made:

"Primary sexual attraction: sexual attraction based solely or almost solely on external attributes such as body type, appearance, and charisma
Secondary sexual attraction: sexual attraction that can be experienced if and only if the person feeling the attraction already has a very strong emotional bond with the object of attraction

Demisexuals do not experience primary sexual attraction. A demi won’t lock eyes with someone across the room and something in his/her/zir brain goes WHAM (as a character in Robin McKinley’s book Sunshine—kickass book by the way—put it). But demis are capable of secondary sexual attraction. Basically, somebody who is demi would begin a romantic relationship with someone to whom they are romantically attracted but not sexually attracted. At some point, the demi and his/her/zir partner become emotionally close enough that the demi feels that said partner is sexually attractive; this sexual attraction often has little to do with the partner’s physical characteristics, but rather a desire to express emotional closeness with physical intimacy. Also, secondary sexual attraction is NOT the same as feeling sexually attracted to a person at first but not being willing to sleep with them until later in the relationship/when the “time is right” etc."

This is pretty similar to how I explain it verbally.

[siggy]

I have to do this all the time because I openly identify as gay and asexual. I guess the strategy I use most often is to simply say that I'm between gay and asexual (I avoid use of "gray-A" outside the community). I leave the rest of the details out and hope for the best.

When people push further, I explain that what we think of as attraction is a collection of different phenomena. Many asexuals only experience some of these phenomena (romantic asexuals being a major example). Personally, I experience a kind of attraction that is very slow and weak, but there are many other ways to be "between" sexual and asexual.

I don't know how well this explanation works, but it's the one I've settled on. Some considerations:

-I don't feel a need to represent Gray-A's as a group. Instead, I just represent asexuals, asexual diversity, and myself.
-I avoid in-community terms most of the time; to some people they just sound excessive.
-I'm open to partnered sexual relationships, but don't experience enough immediate attraction to initiate one. Therefore, in my explanations, I have a personal interest in appearing "available". The great irony is that this is the opposite of what many other asexuals want.
-I leave out a lot of details because, frankly, I am unsure of them.

As for demisexuality... I solve this problem by not explaining demisexuality if I can help it. It isn't sufficiently well-defined.

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

Nov 6, 2010 11:32:46 GMT -5 siggy said:

As for demisexuality... I solve this problem by not explaining demisexuality if I can help it. It isn't sufficiently well-defined.

Um. I would have to disagree with this. I think the model of primary versus secondary attraction does a fine job defining asexuality.

[siggy]

That's funny, because I actually think that's one of the least clear definitions of demisexuality. I really dislike the entire Rabger's model, in fact.

But lest I get off topic, let me bring this back to explaining demisexuality. My experience is that demisexuality is a very "attractive" label. That is, a large number of people feel like it describes themselves.

Sometimes that's a good thing. We all have an experience that we can share!

But a lot of people are more cynical than that. They question the validity of a word so broad that it seems to include them. They've never felt marginalized or alienated from society, and certainly never felt the need to distinguish themselves from everyone else on such a trivial thing. So, sure, you're demisexual. But what's the point of identifying as such? Insert cynical rant about labels here.

If you ever hope to counter such reactions, you need to think clearly about the definition. What is demisexuality, and what isn't demisexuality? Of course, it's a matter of degree, right? But what exactly does it mean to have a greater or lesser degree of demisexuality?

And yeah, we can come up with a clearer definition of demisexuality alright. But explaining it? I hardly ever explain Gray-A, and demi is even further beyond that. This is asexuality 102, and it's worthless when everyone is failing asexuality 101. Hell, some people I encounter don't even understand gay 101, they're so hopeless!

[sciatrix]

I actually thought that anyone who didn't experience primary sexual attraction according to Rabger's model was asexual, and that secondary sexual attraction seems like... well, not sexual attraction at all because it's predicated on doing something nice for a person one cares about, not about wanting something for yourself. It's too behavioral. I find Rabger's model useful for helping me define sexual attraction and not much else.

I tend to see demisexuality explained as "If It's You, It's Okay," which is... actually not all that helpful when it comes to clarifying one's sexual orientation. And it falls into a bunch of weird social pitfalls. It seems to be pretty common for people to say "well, all women are demisexual!" for one thing,.

[siggy]

Actually, in Rabger's model, asexuality is defined by primary sexual desire. For some reason that was changed on the wiki some months ago. This is not helping my cynicism about the model!

I was talking to some aces earlier, and one of them made the point that we too often think that a successful relationship is all about finding the right person. Really, a successful relationship is something you have to work at.

I think this should be applied to demisexuality. Many people take demisexual to mean that it's asexual, except for one special person. But what it really means is that the demisexual has to work on a relationship for a long time before they're sexually attracted to their partner. I like this definition because it allows for degrees of demisexuality, with some people needing to work harder than others.

[sciatrix]

...d'oh, you're right about that. I haven't actually looked at Rabger's model for a while, and I confused the terms, because I tend to use zir "primary sexual desire" as my definition of "sexual attraction."

Honestly, I think grey-A as a term is a bit... less prone to being misinterpreted? than demisexuality is. I'm not quite sure why that is, though.

And yes about the "right person" thing, and people forgetting relationships involve work--my experience doesn't extend to romantic relationships, but I've found that my friendships often require a bit of talking about things like respecting boundaries and that sort of thing. I think that the "once you find the right person, it's all gravy!" attitude is also heavily reinforced by the stories we tell about relationships and particularly romantic relationships--you can find lots and lots of stories about people falling in love, but very few discussing pre-existing relationships. Maybe it's just the New Relationship Energy thing.

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

Nov 25, 2010 12:51:03 GMT -5 siggy said:

Actually, in Rabger's model, asexuality is defined by primary sexual desire. For some reason that was changed on the wiki some months ago. This is not helping my cynicism about the model!

I assumed it was changed because it was a typo and the idea was always that asexuality was defined by sexual attraction, not "primary sexual desire," as when talking about Rabger's model on AVEN, people said "attraction." I also tend to define "sexual attraction" using Rabger's "primary sexual attraction."

I must say, though, that the idea that demisexuals have to work on a relationship for a long time before they're sexually attracted to their partner makes a lot of sense to me. "If It's You It's Okay" works too, but Sciatrix, you're right that that starts using behavior too much, and as an asexual in a sexual relationship, I feel reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally squodgy about defining any sexual orientation using behavior. I think "asexual with exceptions" tends to work better for gray-A than demi...eh, I think "demisexuals have to work on a relationship for a long time before they're sexually attracted to their partner" and "somebody who is demi would begin a romantic relationship with someone to whom they are romantically attracted but not sexually attracted; at some point, the demi and his/her/zir partner become emotionally close enough that the demi feels that said partner is sexually attractive; this sexual attraction often has little to do with the partner’s physical characteristics, but rather a desire to express emotional closeness with physical intimacy" work, but the first one is more succinct.

I still use Rabger's model...but I'm aware not the whole asexual community agrees with it. It just jives really well with the way my brain works, I guess, especially primary vs. secondary desire; I feel secondary sexual desire for my partner, but not primary.

[sciatrix]

Nov 25, 2010 23:09:13 GMT -5 you*hear*but*do*you*listen said:

Nov 25, 2010 12:51:03 GMT -5 siggy said:

Actually, in Rabger's model, asexuality is defined by primary sexual desire. For some reason that was changed on the wiki some months ago. This is not helping my cynicism about the model!

I assumed it was changed because it was a typo and the idea was always that asexuality was defined by sexual attraction, not "primary sexual desire."

As I remember Rabger's model, it actually attempted to throw the question of sexual attraction out entirely and use an entirely different definition of asexuality.

It may have been changed to fit into the more dominant definition of asexuality being a lack of sexual attraction, but the original wording was intentional, if I remember it right.

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

Nov 25, 2010 23:18:37 GMT -5 sciatrix said:

Nov 25, 2010 23:09:13 GMT -5 you*hear*but*do*you*listen said:

I assumed it was changed because it was a typo and the idea was always that asexuality was defined by sexual attraction, not "primary sexual desire."

As I remember Rabger's model, it actually attempted to throw the question of sexual attraction out entirely and use an entirely different definition of asexuality.

It may have been changed to fit into the more dominant definition of asexuality being a lack of sexual attraction, but the original wording was intentional, if I remember it right.

Eurgh. Well, I don't agree with asexuality being defined by desire as opposed to attraction. According to the model now, primary sexual desire is the desire to engage in sex for personal pleasure, which theoretically could be a more generalized feeling, while sexual attraction requires an object of attraction. I also feel like primary sexual attraction --> primary sexual desire for the object of attraction. But like I said, Rabger's model makes a lot of sense to me.

[siggy]

Well, Rabger's model as described on the wiki only vaguely resembles Rabger's original proposal anyway. It's hard for me to say that this is a "corruption" of the original model, because I had no respect for it in the first place. I did file a complaint with the wiki team about the desire/attraction change though.

Okay, how many different definitions of demisexual have we come up with by now? Do you see now why I said it wasn't sufficiently well-defined? I don't think it's appropriate to have a full discussion of definitions with an outside audience. And if I just stick to one definition, I worry that they'll eventually meet a demisexual who does not use my definition.

[sciatrix]

A whole lot? I'm actually almost permanently confused by "demisexual," actually, because if we're just using "someone who experiences Rabger's secondary sexual desire" that's... an asexual who is sexually active, not a grey-A, and I thought demisexuality was meant to be a subcategory of grey-A. But I like the sexual attraction thing partly because to me, secondary sexual desire is not attraction, and in fact a situation like that illustrates one of the many situations in which someone might have sex without actually being attracted to someone.

(I think a lot of people miss that attraction is not actually necessary to sex, even consensual sex, and that's part of where you get all these obnoxious definitions of asexuality that require celibacy to claim the identity. I have so much ranting to do about that, though, that I won't do it here.)

If it's someone who requires extreme emotional closeness to feel sexual attraction, that's something else again. But that definition is extraordinarily prone to being misinterpreted for a whole host of weird cultural issues, especially as applied to women, and honestly I think it's so misinterpretable that it's not a very useful term as it currently stands. It's one thing to create a term for a concept that doesn't exist yet and have to explain it to outsiders. It's another thing entirely to create a term that automatically trips loose a whole host of heavily cultural misconceptions about what sexual attraction and romantic attraction are and how they're connected and thereby confuses your listener before you even get done explaining. So I have problems with that common explanation as well, because it's so difficult to communicate.

I'm not demisexual or grey-A though, again, so I'm kind of conflicted on the term because I don't want to be invalidating someone else's identity.

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

Nov 26, 2010 11:28:31 GMT -5 sciatrix said:

A whole lot? I'm actually almost permanently confused by "demisexual," actually, because if we're just using "someone who experiences Rabger's secondary sexual desire" that's... an asexual who is sexually active, not a grey-A, and I thought demisexuality was meant to be a subcategory of grey-A.

Whoa whoa WHOA, doesn't the wiki say that a demi experiences secondary sexual ATTRACTION, not DESIRE? Because I experience secondary sexual desire--the desire to have sex for the partner's sake--and I sure as hell don't identify as demi.

Also, yeah, there is a huge risk of people saying "Doesn't that just describe all women?" when talking about demisexuality. I wrote an LJ entry bitching about that misconception. amoeboid-motion.livejournal.com/3845.html But I still talk about demisexuality when giving asexuality talks because I personally know some demis and I would hate to do anything like invalidating their identity by saying I don't "agree" with demisexuality. I try to describe it using Rabger's model or with the way I described it on my LJ. I think there's a wide range of experiences of attraction within demisexuality and that contributes to the variation in definitions. I hope that at one point demisexuality gets a better explanation, though.