too-much-erin:

In honor of pride month, and because I feel like people rarely talk about demisexuality, but it’s literally the only thing that has ever made sense about my sexuality ever… I present my list of little Demi things. Obviously everyone’s experiences are difference, and the grey scale is a spectrum just like everything else, but these have all been very true for me.

1. Looking back at pictures of your exes, who you genuinely were attracted to when you were dating them, and finding them anywhere from “meh” to actually repulsive to look at.
2. Joking around about something a guy said or did, and having a friend or coworker ask “yeah, but was he cute?” and actually having to stop and think about it. Usually you don’t even remember what they actually looked like, or couldn’t begin to decide if they were cute or not.
3. You look to gauge other people’s reactions when trying to decide if someone is cute.
4. Being confused by one of the few people who actually makes you feel a little weak at the knees whenever you’re around them, and then remembering that it’s not just that you like touching their bicep, but also they are one of the most genuine, kind and caring people you’ve ever met, which is why that fleeting physical attraction has hung around.
5. Having a romantic interest say they want to kiss you and you’re like… “eh, I could take it or leave it.”
6. Later, after you’ve shared your heart to them or vice versa, you can’t stop thinking about kissing them.
7. Your sexual fantasies never involve knowing who or what the other person looked like. (The exception is when you’re in an emotionally intimate relationship).
8. When you feel emotionally distant or disconnected, you feel completely removed from and unaffected by physical intimacy.
9. Alternatively, sometimes when someone has moved you so deeply emotionally, the only way you know how to or want to respond is with physical intimacy.
10. When you develop a crush, it’s not about how they look, but about how they make you feel, and the quality of their character. It’s hard to let go of a crush when they continue to be such a good person.
11. Crushes are not about physical or sexual attraction and desire, but about wanting to know and be closer to a person emotionally and share life with them.
12. The moment you realize something that is unattractive to you in their character, any crush you had dissolves.
13. Being or thinking about being physically intimate with someone who you don’t have an emotional connection with ranges from feeling like nothing to being profoundly uncomfortable or repulsive.
14. Sometimes physical intimacy can leave you completely unaffected, perhaps wondering when it will be over. Other times, with the same person, your whole body can feel like you’re on fire during physically intimate moments. You may realize it ebbs and flows with your mood or how emotionally close you’ve been recently.
15. Feeling incredibly anxious when someone asks you if you thought someone you just went on a first date with was cute. (How am I supposed to know that yet???)
16. Most of your friends have a physical type, but you’ve never related to that.
17. Later realizing you do have an emotional type.
18. You usually don’t develop intense crushes or attractions to a specific character on a TV show or in a movie, but you realize you do develop intense investment in pairings that you see deep emotional bonds between.
19. If you do have a crush on a fictional character, it’s because of who they are, what they’ve been through, how they act.
20. You’ve asked multiple friends to explain what instant sexual attraction feels like. You still don’t understand it.
21. Looking at porn ranges from being completely unaffected, curious in a “how does this even work?” way, or feeling repulsed. It does not turn you on.
22. Reading smut based on characters you have deep feelings about, romance novels, etc. however, makes you feel a LOT of things.
23. Thinking about sex abstractly can feel confusing or repulsive, but when in an intimate relationship, you find yourself desiring physical intimacy.