Imagine it. You are sitting across from the person that you are on a date with in a nice fancy restaurant. You meet them through friends and after some time of getting to know them and spending time with them for several weeks, you start to form a close bond and connection with them.
Now does this whole situation sound familiar? This may sound like the normal process of being attracted to someone, and you are right. The only interesting thing is, is that this common process has a name that not everybody has heard of — and that is demisexuality.
So … What is Demisexuality?
According to Healthline, demisexuality is a type of sexual attraction that is emitted when a person is sexually attracted to someone that they have formed a close bond with.
To break it down into easier terms, the prefix “demi-” means half or partly, which means in terms of sexual attraction they meet a middle ground between being sexual and asexual.
When a person is demisexual it does not correlate to the sexual orientation of a person. A person can be straight, gay, bisexual or pansexual and can still be demisexual.
How Demisexuality Works
Demisexual people don’t just feel attraction to just anybody, they experience attraction to certain types of people.
These people are people with whom they have formed close bonds. These bonds don’t need to be romantic, actually, most of them start off as platonic friendships and then form into something after a few weeks or even months.
One important aspect of demisexual people is that feeling sexual attraction to a person isn’t about deciding whether they want to have sex. It’s about the ability to feel sexual attraction to specific people. They do not date someone for a long time and then decide to have sex with them.
Signs of Demisexuality
With that being said, demisexuality is more common in society than most people think. According to BestLifeOnline, here are some signs that you or people you know may be demisexual:
- You aren’t a big fan of physical touch
- Emotional bonds are extremely important to you
- You enjoy sex but under specific circumstances
- You are often dubbed a “prude”
- You long for a relationship, but not necessarily physical touch
- You don’t understand the “hookup culture”
- You don’t feel the need to act on your arousal
- You are sexually self-sufficient
- For you, sex is about connecting
- You don’t understand flirting
- When you do date, you tend to date your friends
At the end of the day, it does not matter what society or any individual thinks of how you experience attraction to anyone.
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