I had to click through to see what it meant, so:
“The term autochorissexual was coined by Anthony Bogaert and is derived from ‘autochoris’ which translates to ‘identity-less sexuality’. It is a subset of asexuality which is defined as: a disconnection between oneself and a sexual target/object of arousal; may involve sexual fantasies or arousal in response to erotica or pornography, but lacking any desire to be a participant in the sexual activities therein.
Autochorissexuals are known to:
*Get aroused by sexual content but not actually want to engage in any sexual activities
* Masturbate, but are neutral or repulsed by the idea of having sex with another person.
* Fantasize about sex, but envision people other than themselves, and/or view it in third person, as though they’re watching it on TV, rather than imagining it in first person, through their own eyes.
* Predominantly or entirely fantasize about fictional characters or celebrities, rather than people in real life they know.
* Identify as asexual and feel no sexual attraction to people, but enjoy masturbating, are aroused by sexually explicit content, and/or have sexual fantasies.
While this mostly occurs in asexual people, an analogous feeling may occur in aromantic people with romantic fantasies instead of sexual ones.”
I’m sure this is well-treaded territory that I’m just unfamiliar with, but (a) it seems so ironic to have a term that means “doesn’t identify with any terms.”
And (b) unless I’m mistaken, this is exactly, exactly what aces are talking about in the endless “no, asexual doesn’t mean you don’t want sex, aces can feel arousal and even have sex” “LMAO WHAT THEN IT’S JUST A FANCY TERM FOR BEING STRAIGHT” bullshit part of ace discourse.
Right? Like: there is a ton of confusion out there on all sides about what attraction vs arousal means.
I was convinced for ages that I could not be ace, because I might look at someone and feel arousal. Or remember something I’ve done with my partner and feel arousal. But it’s like… I might see someone I think is hot and feel aroused, but I’m not sexually attracted to them.
I don’t want to have sex with them. I’m not imagining having sex with them. I’m just seeing something and reacting to it. And I didn’t even start to think that through before, because I was just making a huge assumption and then moving on with my life.
Idk. It seems like this is incredibly common among aces who aren’t sex-repulsed; maybe even among those who are, I don’t know. It’s odd to me that we have this very specific term for it, as if it were a small subset rather than something we tend to argue is a common part of being ace.
The other thing it makes me think of, mind you, is that when exclusionists (of all types) complain about “endless MOGAI terms for things that don’t need labels” or whatever, one of the many things they’re missing is that it’s fucking beautiful to have all these POTENTIAL ADJECTIVES TO DESCRIBE OUR EXPERIENCES.
I’m used to this world they endorse, where you can be one thing, gay or bi or trans. And even though most trans people are bi or gay, you’ll notice that famous trans people are usually only described as trans, not also as having a sexual orientation. Because they already got a label, and you can only occupy one category in people’s minds!
And it is such a huge gift from all of us liminal communities, from ace and aro and nb and m-spec people, to be able to instead occupy multiple spaces.
There are lists and lists of a-spec labels, nb genders, etc, and it’s not “too many!” It’s because these are fucking adjectives that describe different aspects of these experiences!
Having multiple different terms doesn’t mean you can’t decide, or are just fucking around, or whatever.
It means that you get to actually know and describe your relationship to gender or sex or romantic love.
It means that you can actually say things like “I move between having no gender, and feeling at least some vague connection to this other gender, or this one, but the thing that is the most important to me is that I’m butch, which I don’t think is my gender but is an important aspect of how I present and experience gender in the world,” in less than a damn paragraph.
You could say twice as much. Three times as much. Easily. You could add in all sorts of info about how that interacts with your relationship to sex, how sex affects your experience of gender, how being autistic affects both of those, plus whether you get crushes and fall in love, why, and with whom, and what that has to do with either your gender or sexuality!
I just realized that, is all. I haven’t even begun to explore some of these words. I saw about a million people identify as agender aroace before I realized that that applied to me, just because I think of myself mostly just as genderqueer and femme (and only figured out the aroace part last year).
I feel like I should find lists of all these terms, post them, and start something where we each see how many of the terms fit us. With prizes for the shortest and longest, lol.
origamiaround
stormborns
gummygunk
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
