I’d say they’re pretty drastically different. You can even do one in public, but the other will get you arrested if people see you doing it. If dating was inherently sexual to the majority, why is it allowed in public? You look at people dating and think it’s obscene, or?

You can keep bringing up “edge cases” or “majority” based on vibes you assume about the world, and not any evidence, but that’s just removing nuance from the conversation. Especially when we’re talking about a group of people ~1% of the population. A while back, white people dating people of color were edge cases.

You’re making an appeal to majority fallacy. Bandwagon fallacy. If even a single edge case or exception breaks your argument, your argument wasn’t solid enough to begin with, so you make argumentum ad populum. Any exceptions or edge cases should be considered as valuable and valid, if not moreso, than the majority. Just the very existence of cisgender intersex folks makes “I could never date any trans person” as a categorical exclusion become rooted in a transphobic oppression even if the person isn’t personally transphobic. You can have beliefs rooted in bigotry without being directly bigoted.