demisexuality can be so hard to explain because itās misconstrued as you just wanting to trust the other person before you have sex with them. and I get why the misconception happens. But demisexuality differs in that there isnāt sexual attraction at all before that bond forms.
I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who arenāt experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because weāre taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.
And when youāre learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction arenāt necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.
But āI trust you enough to have sex with youā isnāt the same as āIām not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason Iām sexually attracted to you now after weāve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust weāve been able to formā.
Itās easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if youāre unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But itās important to acknowledge the difference between āno sex until I trust youā and āno sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even thenā.
Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. Itās part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. Itās part of why the definition for asexuality includes ālittle to no sexual attractionā. Itās a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.
While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.
I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, itās noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.
Remember, not everyone is demisexual. Thereās a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.
But if you read what demisexuality is and think āeveryone is like thatā or āthatās just being a womanā, you either 1) are demisexual 2) donāt understand what it is or 3) both. And itās okay to not know. Just as long as youāre willing to try to learn.
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