Is it sexual attraction or love?
Hi all! So I’ve been reading Ace by Angela Chen and it’s been incredibly eye opening. I’ve assumed for a few years that I was demisexual but never thought about it too deeply. But as I’ve been reading the book, I’ve been thinking about my past relationships and when that “shift” happened where I finally felt a desire to be physically intimate with my partner. The only problem is, I can’t tell if it was sexual attraction or just overwhelming love.
What I mean by a desire to be intimate with them is, I see sex as a way to show love for my partner. I don’t feel a desire for their body or sex in general, but I love making my partner feel loved and them making me feel desired is awesome. Sex feels great, but this “desire” I feel could easily be satisfied with cuddling or just looking into each other’s eyes for a prolonged period of time. It’s just that when I get heart eyes, my former partners initiated sex, so in those situations I was like “hell yeah, let me make you feel loved.” I’ve never felt that “carnal” urge people talk about. I get this overwhelming desire to express my love for my partner, but I don’t feel it physically. I want to kiss them, touch them, hold them, but not for me. That doesn’t satisfy me, it’s just the best way I know they will understand how I feel. It’s more like a mental calculation of what would make my partner happy. And the way they interpret it is that I want sex, so I oblige because I want them to feel good, but if it never led to sex I’d be perfectly happy.
So I guess my question is, how do you know when an intense feeling of love becomes a sexual attraction? I’m sorry if all that sounded like rambling, I just don’t know what sexual attraction feels like because I experience it so infrequently, if at all. So maybe I’ve actually felt it and just confused it with something else, or never felt it and confused it with love.
(I know love and sexual attraction can go hand in hand, but I get the same feeling with my friends. That feeling of “I love you so much and I don’t know how else you can understand that unless I smother you in a hug. I don’t want the hug, but you won’t understand how much I love you unless I hug you with all of my might)