![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
no subject
That is fascinating to me: it is my general experience that my physical interest in people fades if we drift apart (although at least once that was not true at all, which was apparently entertaining for onlookers), but I have never just had it stop without inciting incident, e.g., I am no longer physically attracted to the ex-partner who stalked me.
In my case it seemed to be more of a random hormonal event that had little to do with what I think of as the real me. Like getting unduly cross with people who haven't done anything wrong when you feel rotten yourself.
And so maybe not all that much to do with the people themselves, either.
no subject
In those cases, I try to avoid mentioning it, because it tends to fizzle out as I get to know them and they turn out to be unsuited as a partner to me. Sometimes they're perfectly lovely people! Just not people I could have that kind of relationship with.