#gray-asexuality

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Nope! They aren’t the same.

Gray-asexual / Grey-asexual (and gray-aromantic / grey-aromantic) are a bit of a broad umbrella designation within asexuality.

They can include demisexuality/demi-aro, but that’s up to the demisexual if they want to be included under that umbrella. The ‘demi’ implies that no matter what, folks will not experience sexual attraction (demisexuality) or romantic attraction (demiromantic) unless they’ve known someone for some time, and  generally trust them, see them as someone safe, and usually as a friend. This sometimes takes a really long time, and can complicate relationships forming because often a friendship has been firmly established at that point.

Gray-asexuality and gray-romantic can also include:

* People who do not normally experience sexual attraction or romantic attraction, but experience it sometimes.

* People who experience sexual attraction, but have a low sex drive, to the point where sex generally doesn’t inform part of their relationships (ditto romantic attraction and romantic drive).

* May experience sexual or romantic attraction and even drive, but generally never enough to act on them.

* People who definitely enjoy sex or romance, but don’t want their relationships ever based on having sex.or romance.

* People who can enjoy sex or romance, but only under such limited circumstances as to not be reliable in a way that would inform a more fixed sexual or romantic orientation.

And in all of the above, a person need never be demisexual or demiromantic at all. So you can see that gray-ace and gray-ro is an umbrella covering several areas where a person just...isn’t quite sure where to put themselves, or needs a designation that better fits their fluidity or basically needs an ‘ish’ factor because they experienced romantic attraction once in their life 40 years ago and never again, and so know they can feel it, but definitely not enough to consider themselves an allo or romantic person.

Not all demis feel they are ‘gray’ - some feel firmly enough demi that they wouldn’t consider themselves to be gray at all, while still being on the ace-spectrum. And many grays are not remotely demi, and the term doesn’t apply to them. For example, I don’t consider myself demiromantic or demisexual for the most part, but I am gray-asexual and gray-romantic. If a person talks about demisexuality, I’ll assume they’re not including me in their discussion, lol.

I’ve noticed that a lot of them criticize gray-asexuality and demisexuality because they think “it’s normal not wanting to fuck someone you don’t know”, and “sex without love is only possession”, “wait before having sex with strangers”.

Demisexuality is defined as “feeling sexual attraction only after a deep emotional bond is formed”, “feeling only secondary sexual attraction (to personality, common interests), but not primary sexual attraction (to physical features)”.

Radfems/TERFs say they are not attracted to gender identities, but to physical features only. They define “lesbians” as AFABs attracted to other AFABs, or to people who have boobs, narrow jaws, few or no body hair, wide hips and vaginas. (In the second case, they could be sexually attracted to a trans woman, though).

Feeling attraction to physical features is the opposite of gray-asexuality/demisexuality. Demisexuals don’t experience it. Radfems say that porn can’t work if you are attracted to gender identities, because they believe porn works. Well, porn actually works, but demisexuals don’t feel sexual attraction to people they see in porn.

Demisexuals are sexually attracted to people after knowing their personality, interests, and gender identity, while radfems do not. They strongly believe that they are attracted to other people’s physical features, and not to their personalities and gender identities (for radfems/TERFs, personalities == genders).

There is nothing wrong in feeling sexual attraction to strangers and in having a kink for vaginas. On the other hand, loving a trans man and still identifying as “lesbian” because he’s AFAB is “weird and exclusionary”. Not because female homosexuality is exclusionary, but because he’s a man and misgendering him is (hateful) exclusionary and terf-y. And there is something wrong in erasing gray-asexuals experiences by saying “you are normal, stop being a special snowflake” while they think it’s normal being sexually attracted to strangers physical features.

Hey there,

There is an identity called gray asexuality, which means that there is a “gray” area between asexuality and sexuality. So basically, what this identity suggests is that sexual attraction happens, but it’s mostly rare, but it happens, under certain circumstances. But there are also other meanings to gray asexuality – it is mostly designed for those that feel the term ‘asexual’ doesn’t fit 100% – refer to the resource below)

This seems to match up with what you are describing: being sexual with a partner, you would be comfortable with, but you still feel that if you didn’t have a sexual experience throughout your life, you would be okay with that also. 

In terms of the dysphoria you experience, I am not sure if there is another term that is more fitting but I hope this helps. 

Also, read more here - it’s an excellent resource! It’s goes into further detail about gray asexuality. 

Things You Should Know About Asexuality

Here’s a little video I made for Asexual Awareness Week.  Feel free to share it with your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, local corvids, and anyone else who should know a few things about asexuality!