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I asked if it made any difference if I should cross the line
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.)
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.)
no subject
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.
no subject
It would absolutely fit as a majestic and curvy seated figure on a shirt! I hang around, they show up, folks get petted. Back in the late 20th I was baffled, but I catch up.
then what's the definition of "sexual" rather than any ace-spectrum alternatives? Nice boots or go home? It feels incredibly restrictive to me.
It is, more's the pity; there has to be something so much more complex and inclusive and varied to "sexual" or we're not humans, IMO. (Also, to be shallow on the point, I have no interest in the outwardly very nicest boots if they can't keep up with my metaphorical chess!)
And should we move the discussion into a wider or more academic space all that'd happen is a cis white dude with tenure would run away with the conversation. But then we could eat him, so.
(...we could, yes, eat him?)
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I agree with your opinion. I bet we are not alone in it, either.
(...we could, yes, eat him?)
We can always eat him. There are some imperatives that transcend all differences of orientation.
no subject
(It is a shame there isn’t a word for “irresistible to unicorns and all who shun the seat-parts of furniture; hopelessly inclined to go dippy for those unencumbered by gender no matter what the tin said two years ago;” it must happen to other people.)