PolyQueer Theory

- someone who will tell you when they won’t be responding for a while

- someone who will let you know how they feel from the beginning

- someone who you can sit in comfortable silence with

- someone who will make time for you

- someone who isn’t attracted to anyone else when they’re with you

- someone who does little acts of service for you without being asked to

- someone who will resolve issues with you, fighting for you and not against you

- someone who will stick up for you whether you’re in the room or not

- someone who looks at you like you’re their whole world

- plus so much more

I’m in my mid-thirties and I have never had sex. I’ve thought about it and could have had one or two opportunities if I put in more effort, but I always decided against it because I just wasn’t into it at the time.

I can safely say that I do not feel I have missed out on anything. I was perfectly capable, by myself, of learning about my own body and boundaries without anyone else there to muddy the waters. The immense pressure that was there in my teens/twenties to Have Sex Just Do It is basically gone. I’m vibing. I’ve got my routine by myself in bed that I enjoy, and that’s enough for me.

And in the unlikely event that I ever decide to have sex with someone in the future, I don’t feel at all like I’m lacking some essential Knowledge or Skill that would “make it good” for someone else. I fully expect to ask my partner out loud what they like and to receive an answer clearly communicated and to relax and have fun. And if it’s a disappointing experience, I’m fine with that too. It is what it is.

I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who aren’t experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because we’re taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.

And when you’re learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction aren’t necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.

But “I trust you enough to have sex with you” isn’t the same as “I’m not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason I’m sexually attracted to you now after we’ve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust we’ve been able to form”.

It’s easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if you’re unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But it’s important to acknowledge the difference between “no sex until I trust you” and “no sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even then”.

Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. It’s part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. It’s part of why the definition for asexuality includes “little to no sexual attraction”. It’s a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.

While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.

I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, it’s noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.

Remember, not everyone is demisexual. There’s a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.

For romantic relationships we have:

Casual dating, where you're expected to be getting to know one another and it's understood that the relationship could end at any time.

Formal dating/"Going steady", where you've acknowledge that you have a bond that you are interested in pursuing and you want to spend significant time with one another.

Engagement, where you're actively working to enmesh your lives completely, and are expected to be interested in one another as people and supportive to one another through serious difficulties.

Marriage/partnering, where you have formally intertwined your lives and have an expectation that this will be a permanent, continuous relationship based on mutual interest and mutual caretaking.

And every time you want to "go up a level" in a romantic relationship, the expectation is that you actively ask the other person, and get their consent. There is (ideally) no confusion about what the other person expects from you in terms of commitment and intensity of your relationship.

Friendships don't have that.

Which means that instead of a consent-based checkpoint for going up "levels" of friendship, you just have to try to figure out where you stand based on vibes. And there's no way to tell if there's a mismatch of expectation until someone makes a mis-step.

And there's no socially appropriate/expected way to navigate friendship rejection either.

It's totally normal in a romantic relationship to say "I'm not interested in/ready for that kind of commitment" but when you have to handle a friendship the same way, the person being rejected is often scandalized because they had no clue you had a mismatch, and they have no socially appropriate way of expressing the grief of a friendship rejection.

We literally do not have enough friendships. Our culture's obsession with romance over friendship is shockingly new (1850's on) and it is having a serious impact on our health across the board, specifically men. This problem has become sharply exacerbated in the last 20 years.

We need more friendships. We need more friendship in media. "But what if they kissed?" What if they didn't, and the love that was there mattered anyway??? Take my hand. Imagine this with me. A relationship unbound by law or expectation. People who choose one another again and again. To stay in each other's lives when there are no societal tethers holding them together.

There are no ontologically evil people

People generally want to believe they are doing good

Under enough stress, anyone will act irrationally

Hi anon!

Of course. What I mean is that feelings and actions are two different things.

For example, imagine your friend cancels plans because they got sick. You might feel disappointed, hurt, lonely, or even abandoned. Those feelings are real and valid. You don't need to apologize for having them.

However, if you lash out at your friend, guilt trip them, or send a series of angry messages, those behaviours may deserve an apology even though your feelings were genuine.

I'd also like to look at a different example because sometimes the other person actually did do something wrong.

Imagine your partner lies to you. Feeling hurt, angry, betrayed, or devastated makes sense. In this situation, there is a real problem that needs to be addressed.

But if you respond by screaming, calling them names, threatening them, or trying to hurt them back, those actions may still deserve an apology.

The important thing to remember is that apologizing for your reaction is not the same thing as apologizing for your feelings. Your feelings were still real, and especially in this case, they still deserve being addressed.

Sometimes both things can be true at once. Your partner may need to take accountability for lying. You may need to take accountability for how you reacted. One person's accountability does not erase the other's.

I think a lot of people accidentally turn accountability into an all-or-nothing situation where whoever behaved worse in the moment becomes "the problem." (And honestly, it's a matter of perspective. Both people may think the other behaved worse but the reality is both behaviours should be addressed.) Relationships are much more complicated than that.

You can have a valid reason for being hurt and still owe someone an apology for how you handled that hurt. You can also apologize for your behaviour without dismissing your feelings.