A Queer, Asexual's Sexual Fantasising?

WARNING: this blog-post deals with sexual matters. If the reader might be offended, do not proceed.

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My own sexual route

It took me longer than most to learn that I am a sexual being. I was late to masturbation; but once discovered, I loved the sense of vitality it invoked in me. Although I can go months without the need to self-pleasure. For most of my life I have been and am asexual. However, if I connect strongly with an individual I can be sexually turned on by them. This makes me a demisexual, a term only coined at the beginning of the twenty-first century. [For more on demisexuality see my blog-post here.]

Whilst I occasionally dipped into affinities with a sexual aspect, I did not actually fantasise about having sex until 1992 when I was twenty-eight. I went to university as a mature student. I met lots of interesting individuals, males and females, one of whom was a young lady to whom I felt a great attraction. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself fantasising about having sexual intercourse with her. This was my very first fantasy of having sex with someone.

There was a five year gap before I again enjoyed sexual fantasies, in 1997. This time it was fellatio with a man I had come to love. He averred that the feeling was reciprocated, but I do not believe he was capable of loving anyone, even himself. The relationship went nowhere and the fantasies quickly stopped.

My next sexual fantasies started a couple of years later in 1999. This time I had separate dreams of a man and a woman. My fantasies had me fucking the man, something I had not contemplated previously. My dreams with the woman had her fucking me with a strap-on and light BDSM, the first time I had fantasised about myself being the recipient of anal-intercourse. I sporadically enjoyed these lusty imaginings with one or the other of the two into 2001.

In 2001, I met a man who became my boyfriend, lover and then partner over several years. The sexual fantasies ceased; presumably as I had no need of them. The relationship ended in 2012.

I did not again experience any sexual fantasies until 2024 with the chap I was dating at the time. Once the affinity ended, so did the fantasies.

Before and between these sexual fantasies I had relationships with a sexual aspect. However, I have no idea as to why some affinities stimulated fantasies whilst others did not. Perhaps I was longing for more from a specific person than I in fact received. Perhaps I was longing for more from myself. When I am with someone I enjoy the sex we share in the moment. I cannot deny that for a short time afterwards I crave more sex with the person; but this yearning rapidly dissipates. But the desire does not transmute into fantasy.

Magazine articles and other media imply that men and women are constantly fantasising about having sex. If they are correct, then it may be my innate asexuality that is responsible for my lack of sexual fantasy.

Asexuality

[Histogram of minority sexualities listed in the England & Wales 2021 Census.]

I ought to point out that asexuality is considered to be a spectrum. Some individuals never have any kind of sexual attraction to anyone. Some folk may fantasise about engaging in sex, but have no desire to ever actually have sex with anyone. Some asexuals masturbate; others do not. There is, as one can perceive, no dichotomy.

Whilst asexuality has been known about since at least 1790, for which the Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.) can attest, there has been little research into the subject. It is estimated that one percent of the Western population is asexual. The highly-qualified statistics for the 2021 England & Wales Census suggest a figure of 0.6%, but asexuality is considered to have been under-reported.

Never have I been able to force a sexual fantasy, they simply suddenly make an appearance in my reveries.

These days having sexual fantasies is considered normal (except where such lead to obsessions, compulsions and behaviours that have a negative impact). So, if experiencing sexual fantasies is healthy is not having them unhealthy? Again, it depends on the circumstances. If a lack of same causes distress then obviously it is problematic. However, if there are no issues, then a lack of sexual fantasising is quite healthy. And, to be sure, asexuals often do not experience sexual fantasies.

Queerness

As a youth I was often supposedly insulted by bullies with the term queer. Actually I was and am queer, in the sense of being atypical. In the late 1980s gay men began to reclaim the term and into the 1990s Queer Theory was developed. Since then I have appropriated the term queer to describe myself in a positive sense rather than the pejorative sense my former bullies implied.

I am queer in the sense of being unique, and I do not mind that at all. I am queer in the way I experience sexual fantasies. And I am happy to accept my sexuality or lack thereof. I only ever experience sexual fantasies when I have a strong emotional attraction leading to a sexual attraction with another, i.e. during periods when I am demisexual. For the majority of the time I am asexual and do not experience sexual fantasies. And there's nothing abnormal or unhealthy about that.

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NB I am not a trained medical professional. If the reader has any qualms, then please seek advice from an appropriately trained source.

Demisexuality: what is a Demisexual?

The following article discusses sex and sexuality in a frank manner. If the topic might offend, please do NOT read any further!

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In the late 1970’s, when I was in my early- to mid-teens, one afternoon I was walking from school with my best chum H, when out of nowhere he suddenly enquired whether I was homosexual. I went to an all-boys school and, because I did not conform to the dominant, and chauvinistic, game-playing, violent masculinity of the era, it was assumed by most that I was gay. I answered (at the time) quite honestly that I was not. What I did not add was that at that time I was basically asexual. Avid readers of my blog will know that I was late to masturbation. For me it was a personal, sensual exploration of my body and what made it feel energised, vibrant and vivid. At no point did I consider fantasising about sex or interacting with others, male or female.

Labels

Over the years I have been asexual, bisexual (girlf & boyf at same time), heterosexual and homosexual. To be honest, the vast majority of my life, including currently, I have been asexual. In the 1970s asexuality was not taught under the sex education curriculum; mind you, nothing other than heterosexuality was. Queer Theory was a revelation back in my university days in the 1990s. Thereafter I used the term queer. I still do so. A few years back I discovered the terms ‘demisexual’ and ‘demisexuality’. They were a g_dsend: this was and is the label under which I feel most at home.

Where did the term originate?

According to an item in The Guardian newspaper in 2019:

Demisexuality was first coined in an online forum in 2006 by a member of Asexual Visibility and Education Network (Aven), a website designed in 2001 to provide a resource on all things asexual – asexuality being the description for a person who does not experience sexual attraction at all.

…It is defined as an attraction model: “primary sexual attraction is an instant attraction to people based on instantly available information such as their appearance or smell, which may or may not lead to arousal or sexual desire. Secondary sexual attraction is considered to be an attraction that develops over time based on a person’s relationship, an emotional connection with another person… Most sexuals in romantic relationships feel both primary and secondary sexual desire. The term demisexual, under this model, tends to refer to people who experience secondary sexual attraction but not primary sexual attraction.”

This article also includes another account of demisexuality, different to my own, this time a ‘heterosexual demisexual’.

Definition

So what is demisexuality? Here’s what Wikipedia says - under an article on asexuality or Grey/Gray Sexuality:

[Image description: The demisexual flag, in which the black chevron represents asexuality, gray represents gray asexuality and demisexuality, white represents sexuality, and purple represents community]

A demisexual person does not experience sexual attraction until they have formed a strong emotional connection with a prospective partner. The definition of "emotional bond" varies from person to person. Demisexuals can have any romantic orientation. People in the asexual spectrum communities often switch labels throughout their lives, and fluidity in orientation and identity is a common attitude.

Demisexuality, as a component of the asexuality spectrum, is included in queer activist communities such as GLAAD and The Trevor Project, and itself has finer divisions.

Demisexuality is a common theme (or trope) in romantic novels which has been termed 'compulsory demisexuality'. Within fictitious prose, the paradigm of sex being only truly pleasurable when the partners are in love is a trait stereotypically more commonly associated with female characters. The intimacy of the connection also allows for an exclusivity to take place.

Treatment

It’s not very much is it. Indeed, demisexuals are very often missed out of LGBTIQA+ groupings, because we end up subsumed, as on Wikipedia, into the asexual category. I have attempted to purchase the demisexual-flag at a number of venues and events over the past few years, but thus far to no avail. 

Instagram & Facebook, whilst turning many queer terminologies into mini-rainbows during the month of June, so-called Pride Month, never gives demisexual nor demisexuality the multi-coloured treatment; they remain black/grey/white and blending into the background.

I am open about my label and use the term on my dating/friendship apps, but I rarely come across others so bold. Indeed, more often than not, I receive comments along the lines, “Oh, what’s one of those?” and similar. I keep the Wikipedia item favourited for ease of quick reference and I pass it on, educating the queer communities person by person!

My demisexuality

For me, I do not have to have a “strong emotional connection”, but I do have to like the person. Indeed, I have to fully relate to the person I am with. There has to be a rapport. It is their personhood that attracts me, not their genitalia. I do like what is in folk’s pants at the point where I am comfortable in engaging in sexual activity. I have had sex with folk with whom I have felt romantic yearnings, but similarly I have had sex with folk for whom I felt no romantic attachment, just a simple but more often than not intense if ephemeral like. I am as happy looking for a partner as I am a friend-with-benefits (FWB).

To be brutally honest, I have rarely experienced sex with any partner where I have felt that the Earth moved in respect to how my body reäcts sexually. Nevertheless, I love to ensure that my partner is enjoying the sex. I love the touching and the close physical contact. I end up sated emotionally, spiritually and physically.

It is highly possible that sexual assaults and rapes in my formative years, at school and into adult life have scarred me in some way. I do not know. These kinds of traumatic experiences are often cited as the reason behind asexuality. However, as I understand it (correct me if I have it wrong) only about 1% of Brits are considered asexual per the little research that has been done. This one-percent figure is way below the number of folk who have been sexually abused or raped as children or teenagers. So I might shrug off the alleged correlation.

Demisexual taxonomy

It should be noted that from my personal preferences one cannot extract any kind of universal demisexuality. There are variations as there are within most sexual concepts.

A bisexual can be someone who alternates male then female monogamous affinities. Or a bisexual can have separate male and female partners during the same time-frame. Or a bisexual can have a relationship with a man and a woman at the same time, all three in a triad. And so on.

Similarly, there are bisexual demisexuals, heterosexual demisexuals, homosexual demisexuals; there are romantic demisexuals, aromantic demisexuals. And so on. I am not interested in sex at all at the moment with anyone, so that would make me currently asexual demisexual. However, for myself I use the term ‘queer demisexual’ as that about covers it all.

It is not really confusing. If education systems, media, etc. had not boorishly adhered to the heterosexual binary and other dichotomies for that matter, folk would be better prepared for the real world, rather than an idealised one. Sexuality is not black or white, right or wrong (as long as there is consent).

My future demisexuality

Demisexuality is also not immutable. As stated earlier in this blog-post, I have been all sorts of sexualities during my adult life. For all I know, affairs may alter again in the future. I am a naturally curious person and I also welcome change. I have reached a point in my life that I feel comfortable in saying yes or no to something, depending whether it is something I genuinely wish to pursue.

Further reading?

Whilst checking facts and sources for this blog-post, I came across a very clear and concise article on verywellmind.com (part of the DotDash group) entitled “What is a demisexual?”. It is worth a read.

Queries

I am not medically qualified, so if one has concerns about sex/sexuality do consult with a professional, appropriately-qualified medic.

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Once again many apologies for the appearance of this blog-post. I have made several attempts at deleting and reposting with various tweaks. This is the best I could manage. TY Blogger!

Sexual Naïvity At Fifteen

[Image description: a seated, strapping man in work-attire, named as Adam Fussell;

no photo credit nor © stated;

found at http://larsfredriksvedberg.tumblr.com/post/141769279326/adamfussell]

I have no idea who this handsome chap is, despite him being named as Adam Fussell. However, the image has made me recall a close-encounter in an Austrian country village's festival Bierhalle (beerhall).

It was 1980, I was fifteen - but looked older, seventeen or eighteen, due to facial features - and I was on my first-ever excursion outside of England, on a school-trip to Vienna and then Göstling-an-der-Ybbs for a few days in each. At said point I had fair communication in German, but still not fließend (fluent). I was bookish & arty & creative & dramatic and hated sports. At the all-boys school I attended, some labelled me a poof or gay; but I had no real idea what they meant. I liked boys as much as I liked girls, but in a completely asexual sense. Only the previous year, whilst queuing for class in the technical block, had fellow classmates P.J. and A.M. sufficiently described the mechanics of masturbation for me to work out what to do myself. So, the reader hopefully has a picture of a sexually naïf chap who appeared older than his actual age.

The tradition in a Bierhalle is for newcomers to fill up the spaces at already taken tables before taking an empty table. My fellow school-mates & I occupied most of two tables, but there was an empty place beside me. I had already attained my maximum adult height of 172 cm. (In the 1990s onwards, after years of yoga, I was and am now 174 cm due to better posture.) So when I say this huge fellow came over and sat beside me, one can gather he had something of the giant in him. He even towered over Jewy, the biggest lad in our group. He was clad in traditional Lederhosen, work-boots and a white cotton shirt opened at the neck. Hatless, one could see his blond straight hair was already thinning, poor chap. But he had friendly, blue, coruscating orbs. Everything about him appeared on the very large side, from feet to hands to head. His skin was fair but had the healthy complexion of one who labours outdoors. His nose, his nape and at least the visible "v" of his upper chest were all tanned where his hat had not offered shade.

I practised my German small-talk; but I cannot now recall his name let alone what we chatted about. We all dined on Wurst & Semmeln (sausage & bread-rolls) or fresh chicken, I drank Wein (wine) along with some other companions whilst others quaffed the offered Bier (beer). The local lad supped from his Bierkrug or Maß (tankard), at a much faster pace than any of us. His complexion became more and more roseate and eventually inclining to crimson.

Obviously from time to time one takes a visit to do one's ablutions and the Austrian chap decided to pursue me. Only I had no idea at the time that he was doing so. His flashing of his member was in hindsight an obvious come-on; but innocent of sexual mores I mistook it, as he had seen mine whilst I was urinating, as a quid pro quo - I'll show you mine because I've seen yours - and excused it as drunken lack of co-ordination and decorum.

Still later, as some of my peers liked a smoke, we went outside - away from the prying eyes of our teachers - for some fresh air. As my fellows were returning to their beverages, the local youth appeared beside me and all good-naturedly engaged me in chit-chat. He was attempting to get me to go off with him - thank the Maker I did not understand the ramifications of this! However, he had become quite physical and had me in a locked embrace (hug hold), in which I felt decidedly uncomfortable. At the time, I hated being touched by anyone - so the reader can imagine how appalled I was to be hugged by a stranger!

Despite my protestations, he refused to release me. To my enduring gratitude at least three of my classmates including S.D. and G.J. (and I think A.Y.?) came to my rescue. They certainly untangled me from his limbs and ensured I was protected henceforth. I think, I know, that was one of the very few times in my life I ever felt truly protected. (I had an awful home life, so there was certainly no protection there.) To this day, I still view Jewy as a bit of a hero. 

[NB. Names have been disguised to avoid causing any embarrassment.]

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[The interior of a Bierhalle in Munich]

A Crush, a Bromance, a Friendship Ends - A Sexual Peregrination Begins

Thirty years ago this September gone I had my last in-depth conversation with one of my best friends from my school-days. To save his blushes, I shall name him AF. In the previous August AF had declared to one of my friends that he and I loved each other. I was rather stunned to hear such a declaration: seventeen year old lads in the rabidly homophobic early nineteen-eighties did not tend to go round making such avowals. AF had left the education system at sixteen to pursue an apprenticeship, so there was no possibility of him being ribbed (or worse) in the school-yard. The other friend was from outside the area so unlikely to broadcast an exposé. I was touched and, in the giddiness of the revelation, automatically agreed with the sentiment and averred that I reciprocated.

In those days I was not really aware of my own sexual proclivities as such and for much of my life have led a hermetic asexual life-style (for reasons I may one day blog). In the eighties there was no ready access to pornography or explicit queer literature. I would not have known what to do sexually with my friend in any case. There were certainly stirrings in my loins which I did not understand; but no erections, no masturbatory fantasies. I experienced wet-dreams for years before some school lads explained the mechanics of masturbation in sufficient detail that I could work out what to do. It certainly prevented the nocturnal emissions. However the onanistic pleasure was a physical, sensual thrill from turning myself on and making my body feel so vital. It had not occurred to me to fantasise about masturbating someone else, let alone sexual intercourse. The school-boy term for anal intercourse was ‘bumming’; but I thought this just meant bouncing on another’s bum (buttocks)! Ah, wrong end of the stick as usual due to my dogged naïveté...

Up to that point I had spent countless hours with AF: holding his hand whilst sitting beside him; linking arms whilst walking out and about; placing arms around each other’s shoulders leaning into each other whilst chatting with others; huddling under an umbrella in the rain; holding on to one or other of his calves or stroking them whilst sitting at his feet; tickling one another; playing rough & tumble; hugging one another (I am now a hugger, but my younger self generally did not like such close physical contact). It was the most physical, by which I mean tactile, affinity I had experienced up to that point. Middle-class families in the seventies and eighties did not really do the touchy-feely shift that came with the more nurturing nineties. There was no kissing on my part as I considered it an expression of feeling love and I was not intellectually certain that what I felt was love. AF would occasionally give me a chaste peck on the cheek. Remember this was before the continental vogue for cheek-kissing spread (resurgently) to England!

It was a crush; in modern parlance, a bromance.

So back to thirty years ago. For my birthday he presented me with a box of chocs and a greetings-card. We chatted for ages in his car. For the life of me I cannot recall what we discussed; though I have attempted to plumb the depths of my mind for a clue as to what was about to occur. Within a month AF completely stopped talking to me and refused point blank to elucidate his reasons therefor. Within three months we had ceased altogether from seeing each other. I was emotionally devastated. Some three years later I received a short, formal note advising that he wanted nothing further to do with myself: this after a wordless meeting on a ‘bus. And that was that. Eventually he emigrated.

For years I had seldom thought of AF, but when I started to use social media I, like many others, looked for lots of folk from various stages in my past. I discovered AF is on Facebook as he was listed as a friend of a mutual school chum. I sent AF a brief message to see if he would like to be Facebook friends, but that no umbrage would be taken if he did not. Answer came there none. And no exception was taken. I was not in the least upset - or so I thought.

Occasionally I think of him, usually on or around his birthday which co-incidently is the same as for two other friends of mine.

In 2010 I woke up sweating from a discombobulating vivid dream (in part due to medication I was taking at the time!). As is my wont, I turned on the laptop to record some notes and ended up scribing the following poem:

27

walking out

waiting outside

there

for us

for me

for you

who knows

what goes thro’ your mind

I see you stare

and my heart trips

then rips again

were you waiting or

was it just co-incidence

why come back

what for

after all these years

and my heart bleeds again

stabbed by that youthful love

I feel you close

scent of lost innocence

once forgotten

fresh out of the unstoppered vial

the one with your name on

my breathing quickens

shallowed inhalation

my chest constricts

recalling your memory

hallowed sentiment

impromptu assignation

I take you in

you’ve put on weight

skin’s less wan

lentiginous still

tho’ submerged in tan

I hear your voice

and melt inside

like that foolish youth

naïf child-man

no more blotches of eczema

I smell your creamy

spicy skin

remembering

how you let me in

your touch

calloused palms

warm, pliant flesh

errant life-line

firm grip

even when you left

why have you come

your wife and kids at home

my partner next to me

one for old-time’s sake

or fresh fantasy

you’re a moment

embroiled in time

still torturing me

spectre of a painful past

suppurating

an unburst boil

summer’s here

I thirst for release

but what do I know

can I divine your intent

lost in the hedgerow

bending behind shushing grain

the susurrus’ sirenic strain

stroking a wheaten tress

in unspoiled soil

hopelessly content

on the bed

lie down next to me

you said

caressing my hip

again

stealing away

in the vintage banger

we drive fast

past you

you silently stare

surrounded by

abounding fecundity

heart-rate pounding

you’re just reverie

dulled glass

splintered

weeping

foul

I cry

your reality

elsewhere

happy

wake up

bugger me

only in dreams

to see

Whilst I rarely consciously think of AF, he obviously is still inhabiting the dark recesses in the underworld of my sub-conscious!

Europeans over several centuries have often commented on British, and particularly English, boys' and young men’s romantic affinities with one another. Perhaps friends or family had made some snide remark to AF. Perhaps he had become self-aware and/or self-conscious of a relationship that could have gone nowhere. Perhaps he had become bored of it. Perhaps I had upset him unwittingly. At first I attempted to work out what if anything I had done wrong. Maybe though, the bond that had made us close for a while had just faded. The friendship had simply completed its course.

[Image description: the author with his current best (male) friend in a side-on embrace.]

On those rare occasions (roughly one per decade) when I have terminated a friendship, I have given an explanation (this is the lesson I learned from my friendship with AF): unwillingness to be open where repeated discussion got us nowhere; breach of trust after breaking promises made to me; sexual infidelity amongst my group of friends; inability to come out of the closet for himself let alone me; lack of shared values. I have never taken the decison lightly and invariably have attempted to sort out matters to mutual satisfaction in the first instance. However, for the most part, I consider myself loyal to my friends and love each of them in a Platonic sense and hold them in great affection.

I find it comforting to think of past friendships (with men or women) as being complete. Not everything must endure for ever. Besides, if some relationships had not ceased, I should never have made new pals and experienced so many subsequent pleasures. Anaïs Nin* said something along the lines of each new friend brings out a different facet of our self. My aim every year is to make at least one new friend. Thankfully, I seem to have left crushes in my past. Note should be taken, however, that the word ‘friend’ comes from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to love’. Irony perhaps!

* "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."