I'm Demisexual — Here's What That Means

I fall on the LGBTQIA spectrum. I fall under queer, technically bi, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. I identify as demisexual. According to Demisexuality.org, demisexuality is “a sexual orientation in which one feels sexual attraction only after forming an emotional connection.” Like all sexual orientations, demisexuality exists on a spectrum — it can vary widely in what it looks like. Some demisexual people may rarely experience sexual attraction, while others may experience it more frequently depending on the strength of their emotional connections. While demisexuality involves experiencing sexual attraction under certain conditions, asexuality typically involves experiencing little to no sexual attraction at all, regardless of emotional connection.

To me, it means I’m not into one-night stands. I’m not into celebrities. In fact, I’ve always only dated my best friends. My same sex attractions? They’ve all involved very close friends. I’m only turned on by people I have a serious emotional connection to.

Being A Young Demisexual Means…

I only feel sexual attraction to someone I experience an intense emotional connection with. Otherwise, I’m not into them. Remember in high school, when everyone had crushes on other people? I didn’t. I faked it. If I had a crush on anyone, I liked my BFF, another girl, but I didn’t know how to cope with that can of worms, so I ignored it.

When everyone obsessed over prom, I didn’t have a date. People asked me; I said no thanks.

When everyone obsessed over prom, I didn’t have a date. People asked me; I said no thanks. It baffled me. I skipped to go to a punk show. Guys would flirt with me, and my friends had to tell me about it later: “Did you know he was flirting with you?! Are you oblivious?!” If I flirted with anyone, I flirted with my best friends, who were all girls.

I didn’t understand that. I didn’t understand what bisexuality meant. So I didn’t date. This is pretty typical for a young demisexual, though everyone’s experience is different.

The Demisexual Sex Drive

Lots of demisexuals cross over with asexuals: they don’t want it. Sex baffles them: they want emotional connection so much that they don’t understand why people would bother with sex in the first place.

But there’s a huge range. I have a very high sex drive for a demisexual: I want it, and I want it a lot. I think this is because it’s easy for me to form intense connections with people very quickly — very, very intense connections. I almost married an ex in Vegas. My two best friends? My two last exes. I knew I would marry my husband within a month of meeting him. My same-sex attractions have all been to my best female friends.

Two of my exes were, by conventional standards, downright unattractive. Most of them were middling.

I had an intense emotional connection to my husband almost immediately. We fell in love quickly, and we fell in love hard. Years and kids later, we can still talk for hours. We spend a lot of long car drives… talking. We spend a lot of nights… talking. Dates don’t get old. My husband has a beard like Santa and a potbelly, and I can’t keep my hands off him.

In fact, a lot of my exes have never been what you’d call conventionally attractive. Two of them were… but we had two of the most intense emotional connections I’ve ever experienced with another human being, and their looks were truly secondary. Two of my exes were, by conventional standards, downright unattractive. Most of them were middling.

It didn’t matter to me. What mattered, instead, was that we had developed a serious emotional connection. Their looks were secondary. I found them intensely attractive because of that connection. And believe me: we had a lot of sex. This isn’t the case for every demisexual. Some just want to cuddle. Some don’t want to have sex at all. But I want to do both, and a lot.

When It Comes To Celebrities…

I really don’t care.

I don’t care about celebrities’ hotness because I care about connection.

No really, as a demisexual, I don’t care. I can admit that objectively, Timothee Chalamet is an attractive human being. But I don’t like, want to get him in bed. Ick. What would I even do with him? I’d rather sit down and talk to him about his career, because he seems really smart, and we could have a pretty intense conversation about his acting, especially his recent Dune role.

I don’t care about celebrities’ hotness because I care about connection. I’m not connected to people in Hollywood. So I feel nothing for them, no matter what they look like.

Cheating Isn’t An Option

I can’t conceive of cheating on my husband. There’s a logical explanation for that, when you think about it.

If I’m attracted to the intense emotional connection we share, why would I find anything else more attractive? It would take another — how many years have we been married now? — for me to develop that type of connection with someone else. I don’t have that kind of time, people.

When I go for attractiveness, I go for intensity of emotion.

The only people I could possibly cheat on him with? My exes, who I’m still BFFs with. However, they haven’t been through the same situations with me that my husband has, so we don’t have the same type of intense emotional bond. When I go for attractiveness, I go for intensity of emotion.

My husband wins every time. So why would I ever cheat? There literally is no point in cheating for a demisexual.

All Demisexuals Are Different

Demisexual is a label. If it works for you, it works. This is my own personal experience; demisexuals have a wide range of experiences, and if you think the label works for you, then you’re free to use it. Some people use the word queer to describe themselves; I use it because I’m bi, not because I’m a demisexual.

In the end, demisexual is a way to describe a type of sexuality. My experience may be different from another demisexual’s experience, and that’s OK. That doesn’t make either experience less valid or authentic or worthy of the name.

If the things I’ve described seem to fit you, do some research to see if you can find a word that may fit together some puzzle pieces you’ve always wondered about. You may find a new way of looking at yourself and the word that help you understand yourself more fully. When I discovered the term, it helped me a lot. I’d finally found a home, and a word, and I felt less alone.

Maybe you can feel less alone, too.