Lithosexuality is a sexuality under the asexual umbrella. Someone who identifies as lithosexual may feel sexual attraction towards people, but will lose interest when the attraction is recipricated.
It is often seen as the opposite of reciprosexuality.
I just finished reading An Undesirable Relationship for the third time.
Thoughts (mainly on blonde’s lithosexuality cuz yeah oof she litho a.f. but like also a really toxic person and i feel like that’s gotta get split out).
(1) THIS MOMENT
So, like, when you’re into someone as a litho and you bring it up there’s this moment of fear where you’re like “please don’t want me please don’t want me” especially when you’ve figured out what’s happened before and don’t want to lose the feeling. And when they’re like “i like you too” it’s great from a romantic perspective but it’s all kind of tainted by having to deal with the sexual feeling turning to nothing or to disgust [how dare you want me? sort of vibe]. But sometimes they’re like “I’m sorry, you’re just a friend” or something and it’s THIS. It’s such a relief. Almost euphoria (my trans gals know the vibe, so you can at least imagine). And if the sexual stuff happens anyway? agjasldjfsd
(2) THE ABUSE IN THIS IS NOT LITHO
So this manga has both an abuse kink thing where brown abuses blonde consensually in a kink way, and an actual abuse thing where blonde is manipulating and abusing brown and by the end it’s obvious how much it’s really fucking with brown. That shit ain’t Litho. Which I know might seem a little empty coming from me since I do have a bit of an abuse kink (I’d rather be brown tho... sadism shit sorry). But that’s not really tied to my sexuality at all. Like, folk into kink know that sometimes a scene is just a scene. It’s fun, it feels great for everyone involved. It’s exciting. And there’s like no romantic of sexual shit involved in it at all. Like the sadistic longing is a distinct thing from the sexual or the romantic longing. Now in this manga the actual abuse is sort of tied to the litho bit -- I think blonde has realized that brown actually does love her and is trying to delude herself that she doesn’t to keep the vibe going (because omfg *wanting* someone feels so good), and she doesn’t have the experience or know how to handle the disgust properly and it comes out in abuse. That’s not litho, that’s blonde needing to get over herself and stop trying to control the world.
(3) SHAME >.<
So, like, omfg. This moment. Like, in my experience of being Litho (even before learning it was a thing and understanding it), the core thing that I had to / have to deal with is the bit I’ve been calling “flipping the litho”. The moment of disgust. When the longing, the yearning, the desire to feel and taste and everything is reciprocated with love. Because for me it’s SO MUCH SO when the romantic feeling gets reciprocated that the sexual feeling breaks. And these two pages just capture that. SO WELL. How instantaneous it is. How gross it feels. How it crawls up your spine and into your head.
And, like, I’ve never said that shit to anyone, but I’ve totally though it so many times. And it’s something that you have to manage, to migrate. Especially when you have a romantic attraction floating around in there, too. Because let’s be real the romantic attraction, the romantic feeling, that’s the stronger feeling. So much of a sexual attraction is a temporary, fleeting thing based on a momentary fusion of lust and aesthetic longing. So you have to handle the disgust moment well so that you don’t fuck up the romantic relationship, The platonic friendship that started things in my case (almost always) because of the demi bit. [yeah woo demilithosexual can I get a “wow you’re sexuality is so fucking toxic” in the chat? it’s no tho].
Blonde doesn’t do that well. Like, she’s legit abusive. And I kind of feel for her even tho I also don’t vibe with her anymore at this point. I mean, I’m 35 and single with a chain of ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends a mile long leading back to when I was 12, and with the exceptions of my first bf (who got beaten nearly to death by his dad for being gay and then his mom took him to california), my third bf (who was 20 years older than me and his wife made him break up with me because she, for obvious reasons, didn’t like him fucking a 14 year old), my ex-wife (I left her because she was actually abusive), and my ex-before-last (she just didn’t like me back and we agreed to be friends and, uhhh..... anyway yeah hi litho moood still ongoing here i’m so sorry), all my relationship failures have been my fault, and most of them can be tied back to me not handling the disgust moment well. Lisa dumping me because she thought I was too cold after the sexual attraction went away. Me literally just rolling my eyes and walking away from Paige after she admitted loving me in high school [ugh what a bitch I was]. Sam wanting to not hurt me when the disgust and being drunk off my ass were combining into a deep longing for him to just fucking choke me out on the bed and the subsequent argument and him just leaving me to cry in a puddle on the floor of my apartment. All moods. I hope I never got abusive, and I know I’ve never gotten, like, choke a bitch out until she takes it back abusive if I have. But yeah... mood and not mood.
(4) In Summary
tmfly so good at toxic relationships coming from realistic causes. I think people might not get the root of the toxicity of this relationship because litho people aren’t common so I don’t think most people really get it, so they might project onto the abuse kink or something, or worse conflate the abuse with the litho mood...
but this is a pretty good vibe of the more toxic part of being litho.
7/10 please don’t think all relationships with lithosexual people gotta be toxic tho ok? like Lisa and I went out for a year and a half after the disgust flipped. and like, I had a lot of good relationships that weren’t ended by my lithosexuality. Liike my ex-bf Cole who ultimately dumped me because he was gay and I’m a trans woman so, like, ya know? Sucks but understandable. Not into women, boyfriend turns out to be woman, etc. But my litho disgust flipped on early in that relationship and it still worked out mostly on, like, doing nerd shit together and having romantic moments. Just as an example.
OH RIGHT
ALSO LETS JUST TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE HOW FUCKING AMAZING TMFLY IS AT PANELS
LOOK AT THAT. She’s having an absolute fucking breakdown and I mean omfg tmfly catches it in her eyes. In her mouth. In the positioning of her in the frame. In the way the frame itself wobbles and breaks down as it goes from teh smooth frame with the diagonal cut to, just, completely unteathered to the cartesian plane and wobbling and ready to split and come apart scattering her and her emotions into the vast void of the page outside of the panel.
how the fuck to explain the vibe of being litho without seeming like the biggest creep?
like, I was laying in bed texting an aroace friend the other day about a fantasy where I want to push the gal I like onto the bed and just trail kisses down from her lips to her toes. and the friend was like “ok, but, like, if I weren’t in [different state] right now I’d be down for that, it sounds awesome” and like the idea of doing it to her felt *fine* because, like, she didn’t want me, she was just down for some fun
but i’d be terrified of asking the gal i like to let me do that because, like, if she said no i’d be depressed because i like her, but if she said yes there’d be, like, feelings and it would make the desire turn to disgust. like, “why do you want *me*? what’s wrong with you” sort of feeling.
so i end up just chatting with aroace friend about shit that feels good and then feeling bummed about the one i like.
but somehow that whole complex mess gets turned into “lithosexuals are rapists waiting to happen” as if that were anything but the *most* disgusting possible outcome omfg.
