Demisexuality
Khushi Arora of Humber College in Toronto interviews me for her piece about Demisexuality.
Read Arora’s full content below:
Demisexuality and Why the Label Matters
When public figure Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo came out as demisexual on an Instagram livestream in 2016, conservatives like Ben Shapiro snorted and tweeted how “being a member of the intersectional coalition is now so alluring that we’re making up terms like ‘demisexual’ so that people can join.” Reader, I squirmed.
Everyone (mostly everyone) craves healthy orgasms but the why, who, when, and where of it are complicated and often, pretty political. Societal norms have boxed our understanding of gender, desire, attraction, and even love for so long that it can be hard to discover ourselves while keeping those rigid lines at a distance. This is especially true for people who do or might identify as demisexual. While coming out as gay, bi, or pan is relatively easier to verbalize; doing so as a demisexual requires a whole paragraph and at least a three-minute Q&A.
So, what is demisexuality, basically?
Demisexuality is a sexual orientation—just like homosexuality, pansexuality, and bisexuality—wherein a person only feels sexually attracted to someone once they form an emotional bond with them. Unlike other sexual orientations which focus on ‘who’ a person is attracted to, demisexuality focuses on ‘when’ a person feels attracted to that who. The orientation falls under the larger umbrella of asexuality and, according to some people, overlaps with the not-so-arbitrary experiences of gray-asexuality as well.
Uhm, doesn’t everyone need some kind of emotional bond before having sex with another person?
Feeling sexual attraction and choosing to have sex are two different things; while one is out of our control, the other is very much a personal choice. An allosexual (non-asexual) might fall head over heels for someone at first sight and still choose to wait before jumping into bed with them, on either moral, religious, or other grounds. Similarly, a demisexual might not feel any sexual pull towards someone and still engage in a one-night-stand with them for various reasons. It’s all about what you feel, not what you do.
Wait, one-night-stand? I thought demisexuals are picky.
Some demisexuals are sex-positive, while some are sex-repulsed; some masturbate and some don’t. They can still experience a high libido (aka get super horny); they just don’t have a particular person to aim their sex drive at. This doesn’t mean they can’t engage in casual sex; they can, but the reasons they might choose to do so with someone would not be feeling sexual attraction for that person.
For sex blogger Emma Austin, casual sex is not at all incompatible with being a demisexual. “But without any sexual attraction, it’s just not worth it.” In her blog post ‘Can A Demisexual Have Lots Of Casual Sex?’, she writes “Sometimes, I did it (have casual sex) because I craved physical touch and affection. I wanted someone’s lips on mine. I wanted someone’s hands on my body. I wanted the kind of physical closeness I only got from having sex. Other times, it was because I was seventeen and distractingly horny.”
How do you even know when the attraction is sexual and when it is not?
Unlike most of its ‘sex-sells’ depictions in pop-culture, attraction is profoundly personal and multi-faceted. So the best way to know if the attraction you feel is sexual or not, is to understand its other manifestations. According to Shape contributor Amanda Chatel, the five different types of attractions are sexual, romantic, emotional, physical, and aesthetic.
For example: When you feel drawn towards someone—let’s say Keanu Reeves because everyone’s attracted to Keanu Reeves—what is it that primarily pulls you in? Is it your admiration for their cheekbones and the way they walk (aesthetic)? Or their philanthropic side and a desire to know them behind the camera (romantic/emotional)? A desire to hug them (physical)? Or did you just want to bone them after watching thirty minutes of Speed (sexual)? While you probably felt all of these things, if you trust your instinct, you’d be able to narrow it down to one or two dominating types of attractions.
Regardless of your sexual orientation, understanding these distinctions can help you reflect upon your approach to intimacy and friendship. Because many times—especially in the instant-gratification-seeking dating world of today—a lack of self-awareness can lead to people mistaking one form of attraction for the other, causing collateral damage. As Indigo Stray Conger, LMFT, CST-S, a certified sex therapist, elaborates, “Aesthetic attraction is what we see on a page and we’re like ‘Oh, that actor looks hot.’ And it’s the same thing when we see a picture of someone that oftentimes, what we pick as aesthetic attraction is likely to be more normative, whatever normative is. So whatever is in the zeitgeist for ‘attractive’—whether that’s symmetrical faces or, in our culture right now, it tends to be more mesomorphic bodies that have musculature but are relatively slim—we tend to pick things like that in pictures. But that doesn’t mean when we're with that person, we actually want to have sex with them or feel a physiological response” (I.S. Conger, interview, November 13, 2023).
But why do we need a whole label for demisexuals?
Because language is power.
When pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey came up with the Kinsey scale in 1948—the first scientific scale to suggest that human sexuality and sexual attraction are a continuum—he categorized people who “had no socio-sexual contacts or reaction” as an ambiguous ‘X’ and shoved them into oblivion.
Decades later, David Jay founded the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) in 2001 which led to Canadian user Sonofzeal coining the word ‘demisexual’ on the forum in 2006. Tinder followed by adding the word as a self-descriptor for sexual orientation in 2019, and the Oxford English Dictionary too embraced it in March 2022. Ever since, many queer activist communities including GLAAD and The Trevor Project, have celebrated the word and it has become a major topic in research papers, podcasts, and pop-culture. Alice Oseman’s Radio Silence, Chloe Gong’s Foul Lady Fortune, and Alison Cochrun’s The Charm Offensive feature characters who are openly demisexual and canon. Popular shows Bojack Horseman and Heartstopper too feature characters on the ace spectrum. The r/demisexuality subreddit now has around 87K members, and more than 17K posts are directed to #demisexuality on Instagram. These numbers backed up by a rich online history are proof that demisexuality is real and valid enough.
Now that you know what demisexuality means, its definition and usage are up to you. As David Jay told Teen Vogue, a word like demisexual is just “a tool. Not an inner truth, not a medical diagnosis. If it feels useful, use it. If it ever stops feeling useful, stop using it.” You can add the word to your bios, come out to your loved ones, or just keep it to yourselves as a reminder that you are more than just one end of the spectrum; that you are human, and exist beneath an umbrella which lets you love whoever you want, whenever you want, and in whichever way you want.
Bibliography
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