So I have two analogies for how I, an asexual, explain aesthetic attraction versus physical/sexual attraction, and how I experience the former but not the latter. This post got a bit long so I have put everything under a “read more.”
The first is that I look at people the same way I look at art. I may call a sculpture or a painting beautiful, but at no point do I want to fuck a Monet. I dislike this analogy, however, as most art is of naked people, which means that some people who experience sexual attraction DO in fact want to fuck whoever is represented in the art, whether it be Aphrodite or David or even a fully clothed person like the Mona Lisa. And yet, this analogy is the closest to expressing how I look at people. I admire the way the parts of their face come together to form their physical identity, the way the lines of their fingers curve and move with the flat of their hands. I even admire the shape of their musculature or lack thereof, including in parts of their bodies that are usually sexualized. There is no sexual inclination in this admiration, merely a study akin to art. People are beautiful; they are their own masterpieces in one way or another.
The second analogy is that I look at people the same way I look at nature. I may call a tree or a flower beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I want to fuck them. However, I recognize that there are many cis men out there that would love to stick their penises in certain flowers, so I am not the biggest fan of this analogy. And even then, nature, like people, is full of imperfections—a broken branch, a flattened flower head, even a tree completely tipped over. I admire nature’s resilience, the determination to live despite the circumstances. Flowers sprouting through cracks in the pavement. Trees continuing to grow despite being knocked over or turned upside down. People are like this, too, as they carry on with their lives despite the horrible things they go through and experience. Adversity, disability, trauma, doesn’t stop everyone from smiling, from living. That is beautiful and admirable, too.
I have found, however, a third analogy, one that is perhaps less poetic than the first two but much more succinctly gets across the message I am trying to convey to someone who doesn’t know me well or who doesn’t understand much about the intricacies and nuances of sexuality and attraction. This analogy is as follows:
We are at a restaurant and we are looking over the menu. Many things on the menu look or sound very good. You may find something on the menu you like and order it to eat, but despite things looking very nice, I ultimately do not order anything as I am fully sated and feel no desire to eat, merely share in your company.
This analogy is actually a lot more encompassing of many aspects of attraction now that I think about it more in-depth. Perhaps nothing on the menu looks good to you because we’re at the wrong restaurant, or perhaps you order something you usually like but this particular restaurant serves it in a way you dislike. Maybe they use cream in their alfredo sauce instead of only creamy melted cheese. Perhaps you don’t like Italian food, so nothing here looks good. Perhaps you have to go to the restaurant many times and read over the menu many times before you feel the desire to order something, and maybe you will only ever order once. Maybe we try a different restaurant—Thai instead of Italian, or French instead of Peruvian, etc—and you find something, maybe even more than one something—you wish to order. Maybe you realize you don’t like lunch and dinner fare, only breakfast, or you only like a specific variation on this one dish, but not the original version. No matter what, however, I will never wish to order from the menu, because I am fully sated and do not feel the desire to consume. I will still go to the restaurant, and I will still read the menu, but I will not order. On occasion, I may even be tempted to order, or feel a bit hungry, but I never actually want to eat, and thus I never order anything. Sometimes the idea of eating is so physically repulsive to me I can’t even entertain the thought of someone else eating food at a restaurant, let alone myself doing it, and other times I am fine with it. At no point do I want anyone to stop going to the restaurant just because I don’t want to eat; that would be silly. I simply will not go to the restaurant on those days where the thought of eating makes my stomach turn. Let everyone have their fun without me. Sometimes I’d like to hear how yummy that dish was, or may even pretend I know how it tastes based on how I have heard or seen in the past and then write about it, but I have no desire to actually experience it myself.
I’m not sure where I was going with this post, but I hope it helps someone the way it has me. It’s nice to be able to put into words how I experience attraction, appreciation, etc. I feel like each one is important to the full understanding of my respect for and appreciation of but not quite attraction to people, and how I feel about others experiencing what I do not.
(The menu analogy came to mind because I was thinking about that post about someone going on an outing with a nun and remarking about how attractive someone was, and the nun surprised them by agreeing, then, when faced with shock, said something to the effect of, “I can look at the menu, but not order.” I suppose the menu analogy could also be reminiscent of the wine analogy from Schitts Creek, where David tells Stevie about how he, as a pansexual, likes red and white and even rosé, but that he likes the wine not the label. That analogy is also incredibly useful for pans and bis, but it doesn’t suit asexuals very well as there is less room to give the nuance of lack of sexual attraction. That, and I don’t like wine anyway so it would be a bad analogy for me to use or attempt to interpret personally.)
Thinking about it now as I’m trying to wrap up, I think the menu analogy would be the one that can be best adapted to explain romantic attraction as well. Just because I do not wish to EAT does not mean I do not wish to ORDER necessarily. I may want to smell the food and be satisfied that way. So it is less that I feel no inclination to ORDER, merely that I feel no inclination to EAT what I MAY order. And as a biromantic person, there is a wide variety of foods I may choose to order but not consume.
