I asked if it made any difference if I should cross the line

[sovay]

Formulated in a friend's comments, transplanted here with minor emendations so that I remember it:

Since I continue not just to dislike but feel actively alienated by the term "demisexual" even though conceptually it is the closest of the extant labels to the mode in which my attraction to other people operates (all physical interest in a person follows from emotional and intellectual interest in them: I have never had a sexual partner who was not a friend first and I don't even seem to develop crushes on people I do not know; I suspect it of being linked on some level to the part where my interest in people's bodies does not take their sex or gender as a relevant consideration), it appears that my personal fix-it is "philosexual," because the connotations of Greek φίλος "beloved" do not confine to a particular kind of love. The professor from whom I learned Greek always translated φίλοι as one's "near and dear," encompassing family, lovers, friends. "Philosexual" would accurately convey for me the sense of "hot for the one you love" which is totally lacking from the construction of "demisexual," where the focus is on the half-quality of the sexuality over the experience of its activation. Now I just have to hope this term was not previously coined by some deeply skeevy human being and that's why it never caught on.

(My alienation and welcome to it: speaking personally, I don't feel I do sexuality by halves, and sociologically I have a lot of problems with the idea that a person only counts as a fully sexual being if they want to climb strangers like Kangchenjunga. I understand the value of the term by the number of people who use it as a self-identifier, but the idea that I should consider the manner in which I acquire my partners a significant part of my sexual identity remains, honestly, peculiar to me.)

Comments

[selkie]

At some level all sexual identity is peculiar (no word for my attraction spectrum, just a long-proven record of being the maiden in the clearing with the golden bridle for a bunch of gender unicorns, which sounds slightly sinister but it’s 5 am [edit I have analyzed this and I will see myself out]), but at least you’ve given articulate thought to it and you had the Greek font pack installed. Those are significant advantages.

Post-coffee edit: climb what like what?

[sovay]

no word for my attraction spectrum, just a long-proven record of being the maiden in the clearing with the golden bridle for a bunch of gender unicorns

This is a magnificent desciption and I wish we could get Tab Kimpton to illustrate it.

but at least you’ve given articulate thought to it and you had the Greek font pack installed. Those are significant advantages.

Thank you. It is still, as Housman complained in The Invention of Love, half Greek and half Latin, but it describes the actual operation of attraction, which seems like the important part in these kinds of taxonomy!

Post-coffee edit: climb what like what?

I know that the term "demisexual" was coined by someone who did feel that the emotional prerequisite for physical attraction put them halfway between sexuality and asexuality, but if just for the sake of argument we accept that as really the case, then what's the definition of "sexual" rather than any ace-spectrum alternatives? Nice boots or go home? It feels incredibly restrictive to me.

[cmcmck]

These terms are a real issue for sure.

While the term 'transsexual' fits the issues I needed to deal with as well as any, it suggests a sexual orientation over much, which it isn't.

I find that 'straight woman' works quite well'

And then, for all of us, there's 'me'. :o)

[sovay]

And then, for all of us, there's 'me'.

It is very valuable to be able to say simply that you are yourself.

[anna_wing]

sociologically I have a lot of problems with the idea that a person only counts as a fully sexual being if they want to climb strangers like Kangchenjunga.

Indeed! Anyway, is it really necessary to have a category? What business is it of anyone else's except yours and the other participating parties?

Would "philosexual" be also interpretable as "liking sex"?

[sovay]

Anyway, is it really necessary to have a category? What business is it of anyone else's except yours and the other participating parties?

It matters to a lot of people to be able to name themselves in a way that others recognize, or even just to have names for themselves. I am not an especially category-oriented person myself. I have traditionally said that I am interested in people—which feels like the most accurate description in any case—and then explained further as needed. But it bothers me that there is a word for this aspect of my life, and the word, from my perspective, is wrong.

Would "philosexual" be also interpretable as "liking sex"?

I don't think so, since the construction for "one who likes [x]" is generally the other way around, employing the suffix -phile rather than the prefix philo-—bibliophile, audiophile, ailurophile, etc. Philosophy and philately are real words, though, so I see why you ask.

[mrissa]

I feel like if we ever live in a truly civilized culture, we'll find even wider variation than we do now in what elements of "the same" identity are important to different people. There are currently white people in the US who have honestly no idea where their ancestors came from as well as white people who are deeply culturally invested in their ethnic origins, and everything in between--because all the options are basically safe at this point, for the vast majority of white people in the US. I hope that at some point we can be in the same place with relational structures: that some people will have "I acquire my partners this way and this is how many and what terms" as major pieces of personal identity and some may not even be able to tell you how they're put together that way because it's just not something they've been forced to make important. And everything in between.

[sovay]

I hope that at some point we can be in the same place with relational structures: that some people will have "I acquire my partners this way and this is how many and what terms" as major pieces of personal identity and some may not even be able to tell you how they're put together that way because it's just not something they've been forced to make important. And everything in between.

I hope so, too. I would like things to be that unmarked.

[asakiyume]

YES

[lauradi7dw]

>>a person only counts as a fully sexual being if they want to climb strangers like Kangchenjunga<<

I tend to go off on tangents and be fairly literal in many cases. I know what you mean, but was a bit taken aback at the idea of sexy times involving crampons and belaying, or whatever one would use for mountain climbing.

[sovay]

I know what you mean, but was a bit taken aback at the idea of sexy times involving crampons and belaying, or whatever one would use for mountain climbing.

I am confident it works for someone!

[sartorias]

Interesting one. I've never found the right one yet that fits me, though philosexual might come the closest?. (And mostly stopped discussing it a few years back when I began to notice that younger folk seemed to be skeeved by the idea of old people falling in love/being sexual)

I will say this, I hadn't even hit puberty yet when I realized I was a total outlier--I felt very intense love for individuals irregardless of gender--and so had to go covert.

[sovay]

Interesting one. I've never found the right one yet that fits me, though philosexual might come the closest?

Feel free to adopt if it's of value, and not if not!

(And mostly stopped discussing it a few years back when I began to notice that younger folk seemed to be skeeved by the idea of old people falling in love/being sexual)

I am sorry. That is younger folk being jerks.

I will say this, I hadn't even hit puberty yet when I realized I was a total outlier--I felt very intense love for individuals irregardless of gender--and so had to go covert.

Understood. I can tell it is an important part of myself because long before I had even experienced physical attraction to another person, the idea of it being gender-determined made no sense to me.

[minoanmiss]

Oh interesting! I had always been a bit weirded by 'demisexual' but figured since it wasn't my label it wasn't my business. (I do occasionally see strangers I want to climb like the proverbial tree, but the idea that that is proof of anything really doesn't follow, yeah.) I think you've adeptly explained not only what works for you but my own half formed thoughts to me.

[sovay]

I had always been a bit weirded by 'demisexual' but figured since it wasn't my label it wasn't my business.

I appreciate the tact and feel that people are always allowed to have opinions—it's impossible to expect them not to. The salient fact is that I suspect you are not the sort of person who believes that your outside opinions count more than in-group experiences, which is where things tend to go wrong.

I think you've adeptly explained not only what works for you but my own half formed thoughts to me.

I am very glad to have been able to do that!

[liv]

Thank you, this rings true for me. I also have no sexual interest in strangers and don't really get 'crushes'. And I also don't like the word 'demisexual' because I don't feel like my attraction is worth half someone else's. I'm much more drawn to philosexual, thank you for that, though I think there is potential confusion with words using -philic or -phile as a suffix.

[sovay]

I'm much more drawn to philosexual, thank you for that, though I think there is potential confusion with words using -philic or -phile as a suffix.

You're welcome! I agree there's room for confusion, but since we're already there with "demisexual," I might as well throw this hat into the ring.

[ashlyme]

Thanks - I'll use "philosexual" for myself in future.

(This is not the time or place to start ranting about that horrible term "sapiosexual" and the people who use it.)

[sovay]

Thanks - I'll use "philosexual" for myself in future.

You're welcome! I'm so glad it's useful to you.

(This is not the time or place to start ranting about that horrible term "sapiosexual" and the people who use it.)

Is that a fancy way of saying "I only date people I deem sufficiently intelligent by my standards, which luckily for everyone else serves as a signal that I am in fact an insufferable twat"?

[gwynnega]

which is totally lacking from the construction of "demisexual," where the focus is on the half-quality of the sexuality over the experience of its activation

Yes, I've never understood the "half" connotation of "demisexual," which seems to imply it's less than other kinds of sexuality.

[sovay]

Yes, I've never understood the "half" connotation of "demisexual," which seems to imply it's less than other kinds of sexuality.

I suspect that once any word was coined to describe the experience currently filed under demisexuality, it was so useful for many people to finally have a label as opposed to having to give the emotional attachment spiel every time it was relevant, it caught on whether it was the best-suited for the task or not. It makes people feel seen; it makes them not feel nameless. I have a much more comfortable relationship with namelessness, so I had a linguistic-philosophical argument with it instead.

[buttonsbeadslace]

It is pretty strange that "demisexual", which sounds like it should mean a really general "sexual but only sort of / sometimes", ended up meaning this one specific type of experience. I call myself gray-asexual and I feel like I always have to explain that I don't mean demi, because it seems to be a better-known term, but it would almost make more sense if "demi" meant what gray-ace currently means.

[sovay]

I call myself gray-asexual and I feel like I always have to explain that I don't mean demi, because it seems to be a better-known term, but it would almost make more sense if "demi" meant what gray-ace currently means.

I think so, too. Right now the word and the concept are at odds with one another. (And the thing where the better-known term sucks all the oxygen out of the room whether it's the right one or not is so aggravating and I am sorry that you keep having to deal with it!)

[sara]

Yes, I find it bizarre to think about being intimate with strangers but also bizarre to think of myself as somehow "less than sexual".

I have at times used the term "ecumenical" to describe my orientation but people seem to think I'm suggesting some sort of cassock link with that, which is not necessarily the case. I mean, if I got to know the right priest sure, but more generally no.

Yes all this makes online dating exactly no fun at all because I really don't care about any of these people. How could I.

[sovay]

Yes, I find it bizarre to think about being intimate with strangers but also bizarre to think of myself as somehow "less than sexual".

I really think the definitions here are just borked. "Demisexuality" would have worked so much better as the umbrella term for the space currently occupied by gray-A and I wouldn't have put the experience now described as demisexuality on the asexual spectrum to begin with. I don't know if it's possible to change this vocabulary, but I seem to be invested in trying.

I mean, if I got to know the right priest sure, but more generally no.

I just wish you to know that I admire this line.

Yes all this makes online dating exactly no fun at all because I really don't care about any of these people. How could I.

I would find it surreal. I have never been able to advise friends on how to date because my entire dating model has been nonexistent. I make friends and sometimes they turn into partners. That's all I've got.

[castiron]

sociologically I have a lot of problems with the idea that a person only counts as a fully sexual being if they want to climb strangers like Kangchenjunga

Yes. There are people who've set off my hormones from the first moment I saw them, and there are people who I had to get to know before I started thinking "yeah, given the opportunity I would absolutely have sex with this person". I don't see one path to attraction as inherently less sexual than the other.

[sovay]

I don't see one path to attraction as inherently less sexual than the other.

Thank you very much for this data point, since it seemed impossible to me that people should be wired only for one mode or the other.

[asakiyume]

It's good to find terms you're comfortable with: accepting a descriptor that feels wrong is way, way worse than wearing bad-fitting clothes.

[sovay]

It's good to find terms you're comfortable with: accepting a descriptor that feels wrong is way, way worse than wearing bad-fitting clothes.

In the interests of honesty, I don't know if I will use "philosexual" for myself. I just know that if it were applied to me by someone else, it wouldn't feel so violently wrong.

[silveradept]

Thank you for the term and the discussion around it. I feel like philosexual and erosexual might make for useful endpoints on a spectrum that described how much someone needs to get to know or form an emotional attachment to someone before they're willing to have sex with them. (I don't want to be reductive, but I feel like there's value in being able to express emotional, sexual, gender, all of these things using sliders and gradations. If only to try and get a dating app to match you with someone compatible.)

[sovay]

Thank you for the term and the discussion around it.

You're welcome. Feel free to use or share as much as feels helpful to you.

Is "erosexual" your coinage? I haven't encountered it before—I take it the aspect of desire is the relevant distinction?

I don't want to be reductive, but I feel like there's value in being able to express emotional, sexual, gender, all of these things using sliders and gradations. If only to try and get a dating app to match you with someone compatible.)

Understood. I am not an especially slider-oriented person (for example, it has taken anywhere from three months for six years for physical interest to become a factor in friendships of mine: I don't think I could assign a number to that), but I recognize the value to other people.