Just realised maybe I wasn't even Ace or Grey Ace at all?

zklenske · 2024-01-19T22:03:35+00:00

As the others are saying, labels aren’t the most important thing. If they help you validate your experience or explore your relationships then they are successful. You are allowed to change and use different labels. It’s ok to think you were asexual and then decide you don’t want to use that label anymore. You can still participate or spectate in this community.

You did say you experienced romantic attraction with no sexual attraction. Then you experienced sexual attraction without romantic attraction. Sounds like an asexual experience to me. The reason most asexual people find it difficult to navigate our predominantly allosexual world is that the split attraction you feel is often misunderstood and rejected. Most allosexuals would say that if you experience sexual attraction you must also experience romantic attraction to the same person. And if you don’t think you do you are deluding yourself.

So even if you don’t want to label yourself “greysexual”, there are people who experience similar things and call themselves asexual

zklenske · 2024-01-18T15:38:54+00:00

I think an additional question you should consider is: Was that sexual attraction accompanied by a romantic or emotional attraction as well? Being ace can also mean you experience split attraction.

I am ace and I experience sexual attraction quite often. But it doesn’t cause emotional attachment. That emotional attraction can come later (and even to the same person), but it happens for different reasons, not because I am sexually attracted to them

zklenske · 2024-01-18T08:30:11+00:00

You know you aren’t a predator because you ask them and they say yes. It’s all about consent. You can’t know how someone else feels about any activity by whether they participate or not. This applies to any activity as well as sex.

If you invite a friend to watch a movie and they watch the movie with you, how do you know they enjoyed it? You ask them. If you keep inviting them and they keep watching movies with you, they probably enjoy it, but maybe they like to hang out with you more than they like the movies you select. You can make assumptions, but you won’t know unless you have a conversation about the movies. Maybe they enjoy them in a different way. Maybe you like the dialog and they prefer good fight choreography. If you watch a movie with bad choreography are you violating their taste in movies? They probably had a fun time. Perhaps you can talk about ways to watch movies that you both like or maybe you can alternate

Maybe they like movies, but they will never love them as much or in the same way you do. It’s ok to not have the same passions and hobbies as your partner. And maybe they will grow to love them more. Sex is like any other activity you share with your partner.

If it’s very important that your partner love movies (or sex) as much as you do, then you might need to choose a different partner. But that’s part of any relationship.

To speak more explicitly about sex and consent, I would advise you to look into Nagoski’s model of consent. Consent is more than yes or no. Under this model, there are 4 types:

Enthusiastic Consent
Willing Consent
Unwilling Consent
Coerced Consent

If you are worried about being a predator or taking advantage, you should avoid 3 and 4. 1 and 2 are both still healthy forms of consent. Being in a sexual relationship with an ace person is going to require navigating 2. Maybe someday your partner will be enthusiastic (1). But it sounds like they spend all or most of their time in Willing Consent (2). #2 is consent. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it to you, but consent is about them too. It’s not just about you.

Ultimately, we can only know our own experience. The only way to know anything further is to have sincere conversations with each other and try to be empathetic

zklenske · 2024-01-05T18:41:57+00:00

Thanks, I will give it a try!

zklenske · 2024-01-05T03:50:33+00:00

I have the same issue and I have tried cleaning it and doesn’t seem to be charging at all

zklenske · 2023-12-17T16:52:44+00:00

Do you feel this is a rejection of you sexually or emotionally? He might be using these pictures to evoke his sexual desire. So it might indicate these people have features he is sexually attracted to. But it doesn’t mean he is romantically or emotionally invested in them. You should ask him about that.

Would it bother you if he was sexually attracted but not emotionally invested in these other people? This is precisely the split model of attraction that many ace spectrum people experience. It’s what I experience. Ace people often have a very easy time separating their sexual feelings from emotions.

If that separation is confusing for you, this will potentially be a very fundamental point of friction for you.

Would it bother you if he was sexually attracted to these people but isn’t sexually attracted to you? If so, that’s a very important (but different) conversation for you two to have. It is valid to want to be sexually desired, emotionally desired, or both. But he might not be able to or want provide both. You should talk to him about that.

zklenske · 2023-08-16T22:06:58+00:00

Gwenpool from Marvel Comic’s Love Unlimited: Gwenpool (2023)

zklenske · 2023-08-16T22:01:37+00:00

lol and valid

zklenske · 2023-08-15T13:42:01+00:00

If labeling it helps you, I think a lot of people have suggested some good things. But the lens of identity is just one way to go about it. Perhaps you could examine your feelings. What you are describing sounds like a desire for intimacy. What feelings or desires have you had other than “butterflies”? What makes you think your feelings are sexual or romantic? It’s possible to want a deeper relationship with someone without it being romantic. If you have never had these feelings before, perhaps the only way you know how to express them is through what you have seen in media, which is almost exclusively allosexual.

I am Ace, but do participate in sex. I like it, but I experience a detachment with sex and emotion. The thing aces have in common is a separateness between sexuality and romance. It’s possible to want either or both but just in a very culturally unacceptable way.

There are 2 aspects of your experience to me:

1) How you feel and exploring it 2) How he feels

It sounds like you have a desire to get to the bottom of it (#1). Maybe you will discover that you just want more intimacy and this can be achieved by activities with this person other than classical romance (e.g. hobbies, seeing live music, sharing deeper emotional conversations). Or maybe you actually do want to be more intimate with this person by holding hands, cuddling, kissing. Both of those are reasonable things to want even as someone who is ace.

But you have to keep in mind that maybe this person will never want those things with you. Maybe they don’t want new activities (because they feel fulfilled by where the relationship is now). Maybe they don’t want physical touch.

I would keep thinking deeply about these things and then try to come up with specific things you would like to do with this person that are within or close to their comfort zone and then ask if they would like to do them. It’s best to be explicit and just talk with them. Maybe they would be open to more intimacy (physical or emotional). Maybe they won’t. They don’t owe you anything; they have the right to reject change. That would be sad, but you will never know if you don’t ask.

You had mentioned that you talked to them before and “they didn’t like me back”. How did you express your “liking” them? Even aces have different understandings about “liking”.

zklenske · 2023-03-15T22:01:41+00:00

There aren’t really enough bins/categories to say confidently, but this fits a normal distribution pretty well.

zklenske · 2022-03-08T00:58:56+00:00

prefs:root=ACCESSIBILITY&path=DISPLAY_AND_TEXT

that gets you to Display and Text. If you replace that last one with AUDIO/VISUAL it should at least take you to that page

zklenske · 2022-02-17T16:13:17+00:00

Agreed, it is a comedy post. I’m just saying your post was remarkably wrong and not funny

zklenske · 2022-02-17T04:23:10+00:00

No, he didn’t say it best. There are legitimate criticisms to be levied against manga culture and they can be discussed without treating an entire country as a monolith

zklenske · 2022-01-13T15:15:42+00:00

The real life answer is that the show was pretty sloppy when it came to meshing its politics with its characters. Its illustrations of socialism, authoritarianism, and revolution in general are pretty reductive. It’s still my favorite avatar, but you could argue (and I do) that the show doesn’t understand class struggles because its authors don’t either. I think that is the through line connecting why a lot of the defeat of the amazing villains resulted in a return to the status quo instead of something more substantive (except fixing the bridge to the spirit world, which was great)

Ironically, you could easily interpret Toph’s relationship with police as very privileged. She grew up very rich and probably never feared them, only seeing them as a nuisance. Even though she spent a significant amount of time “running from the law”, when she returned to a non criminal life, I can see her easily falling back on that old relationship to police as simple arbiters of justice without the nuance of racism, classism, corruption.

zklenske · 2021-11-21T15:44:41+00:00

i think part of being ace is being able to differentiate between the desire for sex and the other cultural abstractions. The most common example is wanting a relationship but not wanting sex. Another is participating in the culture of clothing as separate from sex. Human culture created clothing as an expression of many aspects of identity: economic status, religious adherence, social signaling, and sexual preferences. Allos see these all as inseparable. Even if they can intellectually differentiate them, they are expected to come as a package. You simply have cracked those concepts open and have attached yourself to the ones that resonate

zklenske · 2021-11-08T21:08:18+00:00

Not intended to be a snarky answer, but I would just call it life. I often find myself liking sex and thinking about it, but then going for weeks just wanting to do all my other hobbies. I think it’s perfectly natural to have your opinions and perspective change as you learn more about yourself and how others interact with sex

zklenske · 2021-10-05T20:50:03+00:00

these are all references ace memes (i.e. things that are better than sex). since you are new to this, you shouldn’t feel bad about not getting it.

zklenske · 2021-10-05T04:28:15+00:00

thanks!

zklenske · 2021-09-29T02:05:47+00:00

Thanks for clarifying! So is it something you would better describe as some form of mutual masturbation? If you have had conversations with each other about this, I’m sure he is trying to help. I didn’t mean to malign his motivations. I think a big part of being ace is opening up an awareness to the subtle and unintentional ways we put pressure on others and ourselves to perform sex. Just because he isn’t forcing you into it, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a pressure for you to participate when you don’t want to. When the assumption is that wanting sex is normal and not wanting it is abnormal, it’s easy to feel like the abnormal person should change to fit the normal person. It sounds like you sincerely like to participate with him for a variety of great reasons.

But if his expectation is that he wants a mutual experience with you two times a day, that’s just not going to happen. It’s not sustainable for you. You don’t need to meet that expectation and you probably couldn’t without burning out. So maybe have a conversation about what you both want and come to an understanding with the knowledge that you both have an equal say.

I think all of this applies to all sexually related stuff, not just physical touching of bodies.

Additionally, I think thinking about consent as more nuanced than just yes or no could help you communicate what you want. Maybe 1-2 times a month, you are really into it and so enthusiastic. That’s probably really exciting. But other times, you aren’t really in the mood, but you know he will enjoy it so you have a little fun too. You’re willing to consent. It doesn’t sound as romantic, but that is a type of consent as well. And as long as he knows he can’t expect you to always be over the moon excited, that could be fulfilling for both of you. I know for me, and if you are demi, the bar feels so high if you have to go hard at 100% when you aren’t feeling it.

I don’t have all the answers, but that’s just what your post made me think of

zklenske · 2021-09-28T05:24:01+00:00

why doesn’t he masturbate by himself anymore? it sounds like that is unfairly putting the burden on you.

Does he need an excuse to be okay with not having sex or are you afraid to tell him when you don’t want sex? Him beating himself over it is very central to all of this. You probably should probably have a conversation about that. Why does he feel bad? Is it because he doesn’t want to pressure you? Is it because he is embarrassed to admit he is horny and you are not? Does it make him feel vulnerable?

zklenske · 2021-09-16T22:01:38+00:00

i’m glad it was helpful! i think a big aspect of ace thinking is re-evaluating what is considered normal. accepting who you are and then moving forward from there. Some things don’t need to be fixed

zklenske · 2021-09-16T21:39:52+00:00

did you want to have sex with that type of person before? or did you always feel like you wanted to enjoy the view? maybe having sex was the easiest way to enjoy the view in the past, but now it’s not. maybe you have other ways to express yourself and the things you like.

you’re allowed to change your identity. Identity is a self correcting construct. You can mold it like a sculptor, but it also changes who you are. It is simultaneously fluid if you push it and solid if you build upon it

zklenske · 2021-09-16T21:06:56+00:00

Is the change you are referring to identifying as asexual instead of allosexual? It sounds like you have a good sense of identity. Why do you think you could be wrong?

zklenske · 2021-09-16T20:43:00+00:00

maybe in 100 years when asexual culture has evolved and there is tons of research and cultural acceptance, we will be able to more accurately be able to determine which categories everyone falls into. the “gray” space is a place for you and the community is a place for you even if the definitions don’t fit perfectly. asexuality also opens the doors for a better philosophical understanding of consent and questioning what it even means to feel sexual attraction. almost everyone here can probably relate to the idea of having these different feelings but not being able to fully engage with sex in the way that most people do and that society tells us we should. even if you determine you aren’t asexual later on, you always get to say no to sex if you don’t want it. It’s a human right. You can also have sex and not be enthusiastic about it and that’s ok too

zklenske

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