Love & Relationships

I’m Dating a Demisexual!

Kate Sloan

Have you ever heard of demisexuality?

It’s okay if you haven’t. I hadn’t either, until I read a post on a friend’s blog, a response to a woman who had recently come out to her mother as being demisexual (i.e. she doesn’t experience sexual attractions to people unless she already has a strong emotional bond with them).

The argument against this woman (which I do not necessarily agree with – I’m still not entirely sure) was twofold:

1. You should not use LGBT terminology like “coming out” to apply to an identity that is not nearly as oppressed or disadvantaged as LGBT identities are.

2. You should not regard demisexuality as a legitimate identity, because it’s just a way to slut-shame women who don’t need to be emotionally connected to someone to have sex with them.

Initially, as a queer and sex-loving woman, I thought, “Yeah! Stop appropriating our terms and making other folks feel shitty for enjoying loveless sex!”

And then my boyfriend told me he believed himself to be demisexual.

Obviously, this required me to re-examine my beliefs about this orientation. And I realized what I always end up realizing when I initially reject someone’s self-professed labels: We each get to choose how we identify, and it’s no one else’s place to dispute that.

The thing is, there are people who genuinely aren’t sexually interested in folks until they know them a lot better (or, to quote Ewan McGregor’s character in the movie Down With Love, “all the way better”). It’s not intended to slut-shame on any level; it’s not a case of sexual elitism or puritanical ethics; it’s just the way their brains work. And if they feel like they want to use terminology like “coming out” to describe their experiences, we should allow them to do so… provided they are willing to accept the fact that they are (assuming they’re also straight) inherently privileged and not oppressed to nearly the same degree that LGBT people are.

Look, no one’s going to call you a freak for wanting to wait until you know someone better to have sex with them – no one, at least, who isn’t either totally stupid or totally joking. No one’s going to try to strip you of your basic human rights for being sexually choosy. So yeah, it’s probably going to piss some people off if you try to group yourself in with other non-standard sexual identities like gay or asexual or even kinky. That’s something you basically have to be willing to deal with if you want to proudly identify as demisexual.

As for the practicalities of dating someone who’s demisexual, here’s what I can tell you:

1. When we’re out and about together – walking down the street, getting drinks at a bar, whatever – I will occasionally see people that I find attractive. People who, if I were single, I might flirt with. People who seem cute and fuckable to me. By contrast, this never happens to my boyfriend. Literally never. If I point out some girl and say, “Wow, look at that foxy lady,” my man might acknowledge that said woman is pretty or is wearing a nice outfit, but he will express ambivalence on the topic of whether or not she is sexy or whether he would “do” her. I find this a bit vexing.

2. Recently I told my boyfriend that I sometimes wished our relationship was closer to “monogamish” than monogamous – that I would feel happier within our relationship if I were able to kiss and flirt with other people on occasion. While he was okay with this, and readily agreed to this “rule change” in our relationship, he could not fathom feeling how I felt. He could not identify with my need for the excitement of pursuing, and being pursued by, other people. I tried to explain it to him, but he couldn’t really get his head around it.

3. He is much more interested in emotionally-based sex than I am. I’m not sure if this is because he’s demisexual, or just because he’s a gentle, sensitive kind of guy (or maybe they’re related?), but it’s very noticeable. Sometimes I joke that, in some ways, he’s “the girl” in parts of our sexual union, because if he had it his way, I think we would always have slow sex in missionary position. I, on the other hand, would be happy to have hard, fast, doggie-style sex almost every time. We both enjoy having sex both ways (and other ways too), but it’s clear that we each have our favorite way, and they differ.

I believe strongly that the universe delivered me exactly the kind of lover that I was yearning for in the months before I met him. My previous boyfriend had exhibited signs of possibly being very bad at monogamy, and so I felt an acute desire to be with someone who had eyes only for me. So of course, I ended up with a demisexual – someone who can be hit on by a random hot person and have no interest in them whatsoever. I find it amazing how this worked out.

This is a huge topic, one I have a lot of interest in and haven’t yet formulated strong opinions on. So I have to ask you, readers: What’s your take on demisexuality? Do you think it’s a legitimate identity? Are you at all offended by it? Do you know any demisexuals? Tell me all about it!

10 Sexy Things I Appreciate About My Boyfriend

Kate Sloan

1. He uses toys on me, enthusiastically and often. He is also totally thrilled that I review sex toys now, because we have all these fun new things to play with all the time. Some of my best orgasms ever have occurred while he was licking my clit and thrusting a toy inside me (a particular favorite for this purpose is the Lelo Mona). Seriously, the man knows his way around a dildo.

2. I told him once, long ago, that before inserting a toy into me, he should lube it up, either with actual lube or just by sticking it in his mouth for a few seconds. Ever since then, he’s typically begun each toy-play session by basically giving it a blowjob in front of me. He’s completely straight, but he knows it delights me to see him do this – not only because it’s hot, but because it reminds me how happy I am to have a sex-positive and open-minded boyfriend – so he does it every time.

3. He’s uncut. Fuck yes. I don’t mean to be insulting to dudes with circumcised cocks, and it’s just a matter of personal preference, but damn, do I love me some foreskin. It’s easy to operate, and smooth, and fun to play with. A++, would jerk again.

4. He fucking loves cunnilingus. Like, probably as much as I do. We met on OkCupid and I made sure to mark the “do you enjoy giving oral sex?” question as “very important” for my matches; I do not regret this decision. Receiving impassioned oral from a dedicated lover is one of life’s greatest pleasures, methinks.

5. Not only does he love cunnilingus, but he understands its importance in the grander scheme of sex. He understands that I need to be well-lubricated and turned on for intercourse to feel good. He understands that I need warm-up if I’m going to be able to masturbate to orgasm while he’s inside me. And he understands that good, enthusiastic oral can make me feel more loved and appreciated than almost anything else I can think of.

6. He’s adventurous. We’ve attempted some kink, a bit of roleplaying, a few silly positions. We’ve experimented with weird toys, for me and for him. We’ve laughed at our fumbles and moved on to have progressively better and better sex as time has gone on. Sex is like a game – you have to keep moving, you have to try new strategies and tricks to achieve your goals.

7. He knows how to use his cock. When we first met, he hadn’t had much experience with straight-up intercourse, and was nervous about his abilities – but over the year we’ve been having sex, he’s learned. Oh boy, has he learned. He can hit my G-spot with stunning accuracy, and often at high speeds. He seems to know the exact angle and pressure I need from him to help me get off during PIV. It’s extremely impressive and I don’t commend him enough for it.

8. He communicates. I mean, he’s dating me, so of course he does – but he does it well, and without complaint. When we have a problem, sexual, romantic, or otherwise, we discuss it until a solution is found and the issue dissipates. We’re both good at asking for what we want, even in the middle of the action. We don’t have to use coy metaphors and embarrassed phrasings – we just say it, whatever it is. Communication is the cure for bad sex, which is why ours is so damn good.

9. He doesn’t see penetration as the be-all and end-all of sex. We frequently have “intimate times” that involve using only our hands and mouths on each other, and neither of us views that as a downgrade of any kind. When I want to be fucked, I know he can deliver, but I greatly appreciate the fact that he values hand and mouth sex as much as I do – as much as everyone should.

10. He’s really fucking handsome. His face, hair, hands, mouth, arms, ass, and cock are totally enticing. And he smells how I imagine George Clooney would smell after a day at the beach. Is there anything sexier than a smart man who smells good? I doubt it.

Things I Learned From My Friend With Benefits

Kate Sloan

When I was fifteen years old, I came out as bisexual. A lot of shit went down – I came out on Facebook, I got hit on by random queer schoolmates who came out of the woodwork, I had my first girlfriend (NBD, we only dated for a month), I attended my first Pride Parade… but maybe the most interesting thing that happened was that my female friend fell in love with me.

She was actually in love with me before we really became friends. She watched from afar, using social media and secondhand gossip as her telescope – and then we started talking, and then we became close. And then, eventually, we began a sexual relationship that would last a year and a half.

I’m not going to lie to you: it was weird. She loved me; I had no feelings for her beyond a friendly fondness. She worshipped my body; I thought she was kinda cute. She put her heart and soul into making love to me; I enjoyed our regular fucks. There’s a lot about that relationship that makes me feel kind of shitty in retrospect, but all the same, I’m very glad it happened, because it taught me most of what I know about the practical applications of sex.

1. Communication is hard. I grew up listening to Sex is Fun and Open Source Sex, so I knew how important it is to communicate with your sexual partner… but I guess I never realized how embarrassing and vulnerable it can be, until I actually had to do it. Even knowing that my partner was deadset on me and wouldn’t leave no matter what I said or did, it was still difficult for me to form basic sentences like “Could you lick a little harder?” Now, I have a lot more respect and understanding for people who get nervous about asking for what they want. There’s still no excuse for not stepping up to that responsibility, but I get it: it’s tough.

2. I love cunnilingus. Really, I do. It’s perfect and beautiful. It’s intimate and hot. It’s smooth and wet and tangy. It can be about dominance or submission or neither or both. I used to watch cunnilingus porn exclusively, thinking maybe my obsession would get diluted a little when I started having Real-Life Sex, and it did, a bit, but not really.

3. Sexual equality doesn’t always appear equal. This girl, she loved giving head. She could literally orgasm just from going down on me. She was way more of a giver than a receiver – and as I’m more on the receiver side of the spectrum, this worked for us. But at the same time, our friends viewed our connection from the outside and worried that we weren’t practicing equality. I see why they would wonder about that, but what they didn’t understand was that sexual equality isn’t about making sure each person gets the exact same treatment – it means making sure that each person gets exactly the same amount of what they really want. And we had that.

4. I love my body. If there’s one thing that can quell adolescent body image problems, it’s an adamant lover. Having someone obsess over the parts of you that you hate the most is indescribably wonderful. I frequently suffered spells of emotion when my lady-lover would say things like, “Please don’t talk about losing weight. You’re perfect the way you are.” Sometimes I think I’d still be insecure today, if not for that fateful tryst.

5. Friends-with-benefits situations can work… if handled properly. We always talked about our feelings. We always confessed if we were feeling jealous or smothered or neglected. We always told each other “where we were at,” even when that was scary or potentially hurtful. And we made our decisions accordingly, like when to take a break from each other, when to spend more time together, who to tell about us and who to keep in the dark. As a result, we both felt heard and respected, even if that sometimes meant getting our feelings bruised a little. I think that’s why we lasted so long.

6. Lesbian sex is great. Yup, the rumours are true – girly bodies, brought together in sexual union, are hot. But the thing is, good sex is good sex, regardless of gender. I learned that later, when I dated a guy. If your partner is enthusiastic, communicative, adventurous, and kind, the sex will be good, no matter who has what anatomy.

I learned so much from my teenage FWB. How to talk about sex, how to negotiate boundaries, how to enjoy my body with someone else’s. So even though our relationship ended on a sour note, I wouldn’t take it back – it formed the basis of all the awesome sex I’m having nowadays and will have for the rest of my days.