Primary and Secondary Attraction
The distinction between primary and secondary attraction is another one of those things I found incredibly helpful back when I was first coming to terms with being aspec and which I still consider very useful when making sense of my experiences. Itās also one those concepts we do not discuss nearly often enough.
Familiar to demisexuals and demiromantics as the attraction they (mostly/usually) do not experience, primary attraction is what most people think about when it comes to attraction. Itās what all the romantic movies and books and songs are about. Itās the exciting energetic magnetic feeling pulling towards a person. Longing, desire, passionā¦ you know, all those words people use when talking about love. Itās the spark and the honeymoon period, itās every romantic comedy ever. Itās what our culture celebrates, what it finds desirable and worth talking about. (Iām talking mostly about romantic attraction here because I can find at least some words for that, when it comes to sexual attraction, my descriptions donāt go beyond āĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆā, but the concept of primary and secondary attraction can be applied to any form of attraction).
Secondary attraction is the kind we do not talk about as often. Itās attraction that develops over time out of trust and comfort. Itās the kind of attraction demisexuals and demiromantics usually do feel. It grows out of feeling an emotional or intellectual connection with someone. Itās the feeling of calm and comfort, of trust and of feeling safe being vulnerable around someone. Itās what comes after the honeymoon period for most people, itās what most successful long-term relationships are built on (you know, aside from communication and hard work). Itās the part of love that we donāt deem glamorous or exciting enough to make movies or sing songs about.
I do not experience any kind of sexual attraction (aside from āI trust this person enough that I wouldnāt feel incredibly uncomfortable doing naked things with them, maybe it could even be fun, who knows?ā) so figuring out I was asexual was relatively easy (years of confusion, self-loathing and feelings of brokenness). Coming to terms with being arospec however, was much more difficult. Finding the words to describe the kinds of attraction I do feel and what those mean to me was incredibly helpful. Even as a small child I dreamt of finding the one person having a fancy wedding and living happily ever after. Me being aromantic sounded ridiculous and impossible (not to mention scary and lonely). But the reality is, I never really dreamt of those passionate moments from the movies and the descriptions of love I read in most books didnāt ever ring true with me. Both as a child dreaming of my ideal future and an adult forced to face the realities of my identity and my feelings towards other people, it has always been the safety and calm and mutual trust that have defined the love Iāve desired. I donāt get attracted to people I do not know well enough and even then, I rarely experience crushes and get relatively quickly over them (even though they are bad enough to take over my entire existence for as long as Iām dealing with them). I do however experience secondary attraction which presents itself as a weird messy mix of platonic and romantic feelings.
The point is there are many ways to experience attraction. Maybe you experience both primary and secondary one, maybe only one of them, maybe the gender of the other person affects which one you experience. Maybe the distinction doesnāt capture your experience at all. Attraction is messy and difficult to navigate and trying to make sense of it can be scary, especially if youāre queer and your experiences do not reflect the dominant cultural narrative. But whatever your experience is and whatever part of it you value the most, you can still find a way to be you and to be happy. I hope we can keep talking about the queer ways we experience the world and providing each other with words that might help even the most lost of us to navigate our own messy and complicated experiences.
