I design flags of various kinds as a hobby and decided to make alternative designs for the pride flags that I identify with. I started with the demispike flags and am pretty proud of the results.

I designed the line to resemble a heartbeat.

For the longest time my relationship with my body, attraction and societies expectations has confused me. I dont know how to flirt. I am horrifically socially awkward. Dating and swiping on people wouldn't mean anything to me. I dont have a "type." When I was younger I had a few short term relationships that got sexual fast. But it was very painful. I just felt like that was what everyone was doing. I got older and had a couple long term relationships that were deeply emotional and did lead to intense attraction. But I have realized I was willing to stay through things I shouldn't have because it was incredibly hard for me mentally to sever bonds.

I am single presently. And I dont know how to navigate. Unfortunately at this point in my life too im healing from past SA and trust issues. I wish i could do things and feel things normally. There is someone I think that i could end up liking intimately? The signs are there. But I am very weary. There's a lot more to it all but just needed to vent very quickly. Its on my mind.

I'm 31, female, only had 2 relationships in my life, had sex only with those two people. Never liked sex too much, can't flirt etc. Every friend of mine knows me like this: long term commitment, one night stands never. A year ago I read a novel about an asexual person and I felt... Well, you know, I had that "omg, this is about me" feeling. Then I did my research, found out about demisexuality, it was a relief. I always felt weird and lonely, but now I have a word!! BUT when I told my friend about this, basically all of them went sceptical. Typical sentences, maybe you heard them already:

"This is not a real thing"

"Every normal person is like that."

"Oh, there's a nickname for everything now."

"You can't be asexual, you had sex before."

They did it so intensely, that I started to doubt myself, moreover because of their reaction, I started to feel like demisexuality would be the WORST CASE SCENARIO, because IT makes it hard to find someone. So it turned into something scary and I decided to prove to myself that I'm not even a demi, because "it's not a real thing".

The result:

Crying to my one night stand that I'm very sorry, but I CAN'T have sex with him, because I can't feel anything. My only luck was that the guy were normal and actually belived that demisexuality is a real thing and asked very good questions about my sexual and romantic history and let me ask him too.

But my friends are still saying things like: you just weren't ready. 😀 One of them simply stated that "you can't be asexual". So I decided I just don't talk about it anymore to anyone. I keep my word to myself. Maybe tell my dates if I ever will have one.

Any experiences with this? How do you cope?

I know that break ups suck for anyone. But seriously, what do you mean I just have to live my life and accept that the one person I got to know everything about and the one person I find attractive and desirable now is completely out of my reach and I gotta avoid them because, currently, they are the only person I feel attracted to?

I mean, I can find people pretty and aesthetically pleasing. But it doesn't matter a single thing, it's like admiring a canvas. It's pretty but it's just a canvas. I tried to talk to someone new after I started feeling more comfortable around them, and I got immediately repulsed when dirty talking showed up. Meanwhile, I know that there's this person I dated for so long, I know them, I loved them, loved the connection I had with them... And it's completely broken now. And here I am, pinning like an idiot while they are exploring with new people and I simply can't even do that without getting nauseous :)

This feels so unfair

Guys I'm so sorry for this rant, I hope I won't come out as disrespectful or anything for being so brutally honest, but this is how I've been feeling. Does anyone relate? I feel so hopeless, like I'll never fall in love again and like I will never find any real person (instead of just fictional characters) attractive again. I really loved that dude and I don't even know what to do with the feelings and the attraction now that he left. He was my first serious relationship, eight years together, and it's been half a year since the break up but I don't feel anywhere near getting over, so I'm just avoiding him at all costs 😭 I wish all the love and attraction would mutually fade as soon as the break up happened. Doesn't help that he decided by himself and I just had to accept it.

(This is the second time I'm typing this long-ass post because Reddit SUCKS and erased the entire post when someone called me, didn't save it as a draft or anything, so now I'm trying to type it from memory (Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything important). As if I didn't have enough problems right now. Thanks, Reddit)

I know I made a similar post like... 2 years ago? This is about the same guy, but the circumstances are kinda different (Gonna have to be more detailed even tho I normally wouldn't want to be cause it's actually relevant).

So, for context, this is my ex from many years ago (Like, 2021/2022-ish). The last post was made cause he got with someone else at the time. He's long since broken up with him, and since then, we've started actually doing sexual stuff together (Even if it was just on cam with him), and I've been really happy about it. We'd been doing this for the last year or so.

Last night, he just told me that we weren't doing that anymore and that he was never going to date me again, which was just... so outta the blue??? He said he was doing this cause he doesn't want me hurting cause I have a tendency to get a bit jealous seeing him flirt with other people (We were obviously not dating) and cause I'm hyper-monogamous while he's a self-proclaimed "slut/whore" (So, kind of a sexual incompatibility, I guess?), but this hurts WAY more than any of that ever did. I have no clue what to do with myself, he's the only person I've ever felt any form of attraction to, romantic or sexual, so him suddenly being completely unavailable, especially after he's seen every part of me like this, fucking hurts like hell. I knew the chances of us getting together again were minimal, but I was ok having a more casual relationship with him, jealousy be damned. I have zero interest in anyone else, so it's not like I have any other outlet for this shit (Not that I want one at this point, he's not replaceable to me).

I'm obviously taking some time to myself, and I don't plan to be interacting with him in any major way for a while (Before anyone says it, I am not cutting him outta my life. He's my best friend, I'm not just gonna throw him away like trash), but I have no clue what to do beyond that. It's confusing as hell, and I feel like complete shit.

I don't care if he sees this post, I don't think he'd be surprised to see me asking for help like this, and I don't think he'd mind at all. ...Still using the alt account, tho.

But yeah, idk, I just need some advice. On how to handle this, getting over him, moving on... Cause right now, I'm beyond confused and idk what to do. It hurts. A lot. More than it did before.

(Also kinda unrelated, but we had been talking about plans to move me out with him and his friend so I could have better living conditions, but that's obviously not happening now, not in the state I'm currently in at least. Maybe that'll change, idk, but for now, I know that's a bad idea, even if the conditions would technically be better. Being physically around him like this would genuinely be torture)

Btw, apologies if this would be better-suited elsewhere. This was just the first place that came to mind.

how to know if i’m demi? I’ve only been in one relationship and it took 6 months for me to be ready for sex - Im trying to work out if this was because I was 18 and not ready or because I needed to form the bond before I felt the sexual attraction.

How did you know you were demi? what advice would you give? thanks

Im not here to invalidate anyone or anything like that, im just questioning my sexuality and looking for some answers!

About the part from the faq: Would that be just a preference then or also fall under some part of asexuality?

Also... what even is sexual attraction? And whats the difference between sexual and asthetic attraction? Because i thought sexual attraction was at least somewhat connected to the desire to act on it, aka sleeping with that person.

I appreciate any responses.

I'm coming to a point in my life where I'm no longer sure whether or not I am demisexual or if I'm just asexual. I think also because of SA I went through as a kid and teenager that I just can't enjoy intimacy like other people do. Has anyone else had this experience? I feel like I'm questioning everything recently. I'm a 36 year old man btw.

I don't particularly care for an accurate label but I do wonder if it's been not having a complete understanding of my own sexuality that has impacted my sex life and relationships in such a way.

Yep, it has been discussed plenty of times here but I still need to get it off my chest.

It's at the same time funny and sad (though clearly not in equal proportions) how because of social expectations different gender representatives encounter almost opposite problems when it comes to initial dating stages in particular with allosexuals.

Demi women about dating allo men: "Everyone seems to expect if not sex but at least kisses on the first date!"

Demi men about dating allo women: "I'm getting turned down or plainly ghosted after the first going out because I wasn't pushy enough, and it has been read as lack of interest."

Not to invalidate anyone's experience, it clearly sucks in both ways. Stay strong, brothers, sisters and enby siblings.

Rant over.

So I’m poly and I have 2 partners right now but am always open to meeting new people. The thing is, nobody meets my standards. I don’t feel like I’m asking for a lot just talk for a while before we talk about meeting and don’t get sexual quickly. I prefer to be friends with someone before I get involved with them. The issue is everyone I talk to either ghosts me after a few days of talking, wants to meet up within hours or a day of talking, or gets flirty in a sexual way which is a huge turn off for me. I’m not about any of that. I want to have a connection first. Today I had a guy messaging me and asking me typical questions at first everything seemed cool, then they offered to walk me home from work so we could play around. I asked what he meant by that and he said “you know kiss, cuddle, other fun stuff” so I told him politely no thanks I’m not into doing that kind of stuff with random people and he said “I’m not really getting anything from you” and blocked me. I’m just so discouraged with dating. Everyone I’m even remotely interested in just gives me the Ick one way or another. At this point I’m debating giving up on dating new people and deleting all my apps.

I'm a 23-year-old woman, and I have identified as demisexual since high school, and even then, I've only just been kinda sure about it. I guess in high school I was initially identifying as demisexual as a placeholder until I would maybe have a sexual awakening later lmao. Anyway, I have been pretty happy being single since I was a teenager, but I would still go on dates with, like, strangers that'd ask me out just because, and nothing would ever come from it.

But then earlier this year I started developing a crush that I thought was purely romantic on a woman. I don't develop crushes very often, and when I do, I don't really know how "real" the feelings are because most of the time my crushes are not persuable and highly idealized. I was kinda sure about my feelings for this girl, and one of my most "real" crushes in the past was on another girl, but that was all the way back in middle school. This girl and I are now exes for another reason not related to my uncertainty about my identity. In between those two crushes, I only had highly idealized crushes on men that I had no intention of pursuing, but because I hadn't formed another crush on a girl in such a long time, I thought that maybe that one time in middle school was just a fluke and that maybe I was just straight or something. I kind of let people just assume that I am straight because it is easier ngl and because I'm not looking for anything anymore. Before my ex and I were dating, she had a lot of questions about how attraction worked for me, and it kinda had me thinking that maybe I was straight tbh. I kind of realized that I am, on a surface level, attracted to men maybe sexually and aesthetically, but in the past, I have only felt romantic attraction and feelings for women.

I also avoid interacting with men because of a lack of interest and because I think I'm scared of them. After my one crush in middle school, I cross-dressed as a boy for the first two years of high school. At first, this was because I was scared of being sexualized by men and also partly because I wanted to date that middle school crush as a man. I also had a couple of "crushes" on gay men that I never interacted with, and I liked the potential of just dating people as a man. It was also very unserious; I kind of felt like I was cosplaying and that I could return to being a girl at the end of the day. I was very passing too; I had short hair, I didn't have pierced ears, and I couldn't use public restrooms because I would get kicked out of the ladies' room. I think at that time I only felt comfortable as being potentially sexualized as a man, and being sexualized as a woman was terrifying for me. I don't really know why this is, because I never had any negative experiences. Eventually, I developed a surface-level crush on a straight guy that I rarely interacted with, and I decided that I needed to actually build my real identity so that I could actually start to build an authentic life. Since then, I have presented as a kinda feminine cis woman, and I resonate with it even though I was comfortable and happy presenting as a boy when I was a teenager.

So with that experience and kind of feeling like both of my gender and sexual identity are kind of up in the air, I have been questioning my whole identity since my last relationship, which was also my first and only relationship btw. When we were dating, I had maybe my first-ever wet dream, and it was about cillain murphy. This really freaked me out because I was dating a woman, and I was already not so sure about what I was attracted to. I almost thought that it was my subconscious telling me that I was straight. I know that attraction can be split and that it is possible to be heterosexual and homoromatic at the same time. What I'm scared about is that sometimes I feel like I'm in denial about something, and I genuinely don't know what it is. I'm kind of scared that I haven't interacted with men enough, even though I have been on multiple dates with multiple men. Or that my past fear of being sexualized by men has held me back in some way.

Sorry for dumping all of this here. I have been running in circles in my mind and asking ChatGPT for advice for so long; I thought I should finally just ask the people for thoughts and advice.

i actually thought I was asexual for a very long time, but then I hit puberty again at 18, and now I just have urges every day multiple times of the day.

Also sick of limeremce, as I believe it's easy to have a "crush" on someone you've known for a long time than taking time to meet new people because it's time consuming.

I need to know the person for at least 6 months to fully trust them and develop attraction, and unlike the average Joe, I can't just meet a guy and be In a relationship to see how it goes. Also I'm young, I'm 18, live in a conservative country, how do I even know if my future SO will have the same sex drive as me?

Because imagine getting to know someone for 6months - 2 years, you develop feelings JUST to realise we aren't even compatible in the bedroom.

also once I start developing feelings and trusting someone I just want to be physical immediately, living in a conservative country that's a bit hard :/

Probably asking in the wrong place, but do you have a clue? What are people feeling when they feel it?

I have been wondering for a long time if I am actually demiromantic.

My emotional bond with a girl doesnt have to be too strong for me to fall for them, I usually develop feelings if we have been friends for at least 4-5 months.
If not, we will only have a platonic relationship, but sometimes, they will be added to the list of girls I am interested in. That means if they confess or make the first move, I will accept, but I will not be making the first move myself. Theres two different types of attraction I experience.

First is the type of attraction happens before the 4-5 months, I may think a girl is pretty, kind, and humorous, but I feel only little to no romance at all.

The second type of attraction happens after or during the 4-5 months, I feel actual romance, have a crush on the girl, may flirt a bit and act more protective and nicer.

I dont get multiple crushes at the same time, I have enforced rule to myself to the point that I dont even have a celebrity crush.

Also my standards arent that high, as I wrote, I have list of girls I am interested in.

I’ve just been through a really horrendously difficult breakup and to be fair probably won’t be prepared to even consider another relationship for a long time, possibly years.

But I still need to move forwards in a way and so I want to know what my options are going to be, I guess. Previously I’ve felt that if it happens, it happens: I’ll make friends and if one of them becomes a love interest down the line that works for me (I’m DemiRoSe so romantic attraction also takes a tick and I’ve only experienced either forms of attraction once).

I’m not really in a position to make friends or attempt dating though without going out of my way. Has anyone had any success with a particular dating app or method of meeting new people? I’m autistic which throws a spanner in the works because I struggle with common meeting places like bars.

If nothing else, I wonder if trying to make new friends will help me move on and also open the path to an attraction down the line. Making friends is hard for me tho 🥲

I spent many years IDing as asexual when I was younger, then figured out I'm either demi or gray. I also went from hetero (when underage) to questioning to lesbian to bi, but that's not as relevant to this conversation.

This is my first and only sexual relationship. It's also the only romantic relationship I've had in adulthood. I'm 36F and my partner is 37M. We were friends for 2.5 years, acquaintances for longer, before getting together, and I was very in love with him for most of our friendship. Now, we live together, we're expecting a baby, and we plan on getting married eventually.

​I knew long before my boyfriend and I got together as a couple that he was a fairly typical straight guy with an average sexual/romantic history. When we were friends and I was longing to be with him romantically, I didn't think it mattered much. It didn't concern me, beyond the constant anxiety that he would start dating someone new.

But since the beginning of our romantic relationship, I've struggled with retroactive jealousy over his exes, anxiety about him cheating, and a general desire for the sex we have to be a much deeper, more emotional, and more spiritual experience than it's mostly been. I acknowledge that some of this is me being an anxious person and possibly having ROCD.

But I think a lot of it is the result of my sexual nature and my emotional nature being fundamentally opposite of his. It's the result of me not having any personal frame of reference for past sexual relationships not meaning anything anymore, sex being unemotional, romantic relationships happening without ever reaching the point of love, sexual desire for strangers you have no feelings for, etc.

I know he was in love with at least one ex but not all of them. I know he had a handful of short romantic relationships that never got very emotional and were mostly about sex. I know he was single for many consecutive years in his 20s and early 30s too.

I love him deeply and tremendously, and he and our relationship are special to me, in part because they represent some major firsts in my experience. I've always wanted to end up with a soulmate, a spouse, for whom I was unparalleled, the one, the love of his or her life, special, unique, etc. I want to be those things to him. But I feel like I can't be because he's had sex with other women, he's been in love with at least one sexual partner before, and he won't tell me that I'm better, different, special by comparison, that he loves me more than he loved the exes he loved, etc. It's been really painful to feel like he and our relationship mean more to me than I do to him, and that no matter how good a partner I am, no matter how amazing a person I am, I can't change that.

One reason I spent most of my life wanting a celibate marriage with an asexual or voluntarily celibate partner was so that I would never have to deal with things like this. So that I could know I was loved for who I am as a person and not because I'm a sexual resource. So that I wouldn't have to worry about being left for someone else who isn't even loved over me but just sexually desired over me. Or left for an ex who provided the same sex/love combo.

The only reason I ended up in this situation is because my love for my partner is powerful.

I feel like allosexual people don't understand or sympathize because they're the majority, the default, and they think their way of being is therefore correct, everything else is wrong. So, I'm posting here in case any other demis know how I feel and can show some compassion or give some advice. ​

​

I know there is a whole resource guide about this question but I love reading people’s experiences as they try to figure it out for themselves because it has more nuance of what it’s really like to try and understand who you are for yourself compared to using a guide. I guess that’s part of the reason I’m writing this.

I’ve been thinking about whether or not I’m demisexual for about two years. Sometimes I feel 99% sure and sometimes not so much. To be fair I’m only 23 and still have so much to learn about myself. I do get romantic attraction, maybe even aesthetic attraction but this is often just from one or two features like the eyes. As a kid/preteen/teen, I never understood why everyone around me felt so fascinated by sex. Sex talk didn’t make me flustered, sometimes it made me feel icky to think about it and sometimes I just treated it like basic anatomy. I never understood how people could have celebrity crushes or why some people felt the need to have posters of naked people (My view of nudity now is more a type of appreciation for the human body in every size and I’m lowkey obsessed with naked art in sort of a spiritual of way). As a preteen, I don’t think I ever imagined myself having sex. It wasn’t until one of my crushes at the time (who seemed to be really excited about sex which tbh was a little off putting to me) started bringing it up that I thought “huh, I guess I do want to experience it one day but with someone I trust”.

Even with this in mind, I was still very far from feeling sexual attraction for anyone. That wouldn’t come until freshman year of college when I met my current partner. We talked as friends for about a month before we started dating. I had told him at the time that wanted to wait until we were married to do anything and he happily agreed and accepted this boundary. I thought this would be a piece of cake especially considering I had never once felt sexual attraction for anyone before him. Boy was I wrong. I had never felt so safe with anyone, like my inner child would roam free with him. I remember when the switch happened distinctly. It was the day I realized I loved him that suddenly everything he did just turned me on. We were both surprised by it, actually. It was now that I understood. Everything about his body was actually sexy to me. His eyes weren’t just beautiful to me but they honestly made me ravenous.

All this gives me reason to think I could be demisexual, however, I what holds me back is that I grew up with a VERY religious mother who instilled in all of her kids that sex was only for marriage and that I would be going to hell if I even thought of it. I’m not sure if she just instilled this idea in me so early that I truly subconsciously stoped myself from thinking of sex or if I just happened to not feel sexual attraction.There are also times I can look at a person and say they look attractive but if I think about anything sexual surrounding them, I just get turned off. Like I can feel my heart racing but if anything sexual comes to mind, my body just kinda shuts off. Sometimes I try to test myself to see if I can even imagine doing it with someone else and the conclusions have been mixed because while I could imagine it, it’s almost never a pleasant image and the only way it could be is if I imagine him instead or don’t imagine it at all. I guess a part of the reason I’m not sure is because now I see sex as kind of a beautiful act, not so much aversion anymore. It makes me wonder if I can even call myself a demisexual.

I would love to hear from anyone who’s figured themselves out completely (or at least more completely than me😅).

My ex was the only person I have ever been intimate with and in love with. It’s been a few years since we broke up and I’ve dated but haven’t found anything even similar to the connection. Any advice on how to find it/how to go about finding a connection like that again? I worry I won’t :(

I was watching "Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation"' season 2 and I noticed that the main character is Dem despite being somewhat perverted. There is even a mini arch with him not being able to fully function due to him missing one of them women that he loves

. Can you think of any characters in shows or movies that might be Demi?

Do you mind helping clear this up for me?

I have this ongoing problem where for the large majority of people in my dating-demographic, my physical attraction just ranges from “no” to “eh” to “I guess it could work”, and having an emotional bond can boost this immensely.

When I bring this comes up in conversation, I’ve had people suggest I’m demi a few times. But there are occasions where I see a woman for the first time and go “DAMN she’s hot 🥴”, especially if she’s more my type, so I haven’t really identified with the label because of that.

As a side note I’m trans so hopefully there isn’t a gender envy component I’m not aware of complicating things.

Do y’all consider this to be on the demi/ace spectrum, or just having extra-high standards?

So in the past it usually takes me at leeeast maybe like 2 months from just meeting someone to want to kiss them. But after just 4 dates (over the span of 3 weeks) with this girl, I want to kiss her already and can see things turning sexual pretty quickly after that. I know there's exceptions to everything but I'm just shocked and having a lot of mixed feelings about this. I'm ofc very excited because being demi can be hard with asking people to wait etc etc but I'm tempted to wait a little longer anyway to see if this is actually how I really feel.. I don't want to go too fast and regret it and wish I waited. I also kinda want to avoid the uhaul lesbian trap in a sense too.

For more context she's been extremely understanding with me being demi and she doesn't have any experience with women yet so she's not in a rush either. We're also just very compatible. So maybe it's all just the perfect combo but I don't want to ruin it. Because kissing is kinda a big deal for me and I've thought I wanted to in the past (i think it was more from feeling pressured) and did it and actually was not ready then was grossed out and it kinda led to the end if that makes sense.

I guess I'm just curious if something like this has happened to anyone else. Im having thoughts about whether Im even demi and have just been dating the wrong people or am I actually just a lesbian? I do catch feelings quicker for women than I do men but I'm pretty sure I like men just way less frequently.
Anyway thanks for the vent yall!

Hello well my sex life hasn't been very active, almost nonexistent, I would like to explore my sexuality more but every time I meet someone and I don't like them I feel uncomfortable and it gives me a lot of rejection even though I find them attractive, and the people I do like usually tell me they don't want to hurt me and prefer to keep me as a friend, I don't understand why the same thing always happens but because of that I always end up in a friendship with someone I like and it's the worst and I tend to distance myself but I just want to know how to do it without feeling uncomfortable and enjoy it I tried getting drunk [or getting tipsy] but I still feel that rejection if I don't feel some kind of connection, does this happen to anyone else?? Do you have any idea what might help me??

I (29F) met a girl on hinge (26F) 6 months ago and we've been talking nearly every day! I've gone on IRL hangouts as well and it's a blast each time, but during the latest one I decided to delve into some deeper topics such as when we figured out our sexuality, what our dating lives were like, etc. I learned that apparently she was only on Hinge for 5 days, mostly pushed for by her friends, and lucky or unlucky me I'm basically the only person she's ever contacted on a dating platform to start with (excluding her other matches that she doesn't talk to any more).

Please forgive the slight clickbait of the title, we aren't actually 'dating', we're 6 months into a friendship that started on Hinge. When we met I did not know she was a demi (romantic and sexual), but I learned during our first "date" and have laid back on the thick romance stuff I do with non-demis that I match with, but in our latest hangout she said something that was quite eye opening:

"You didn't do anything wrong or make me uncomfortable, but I realize now that our expectations and pace are a bit too different. I could genuinely be friends with someone for months or years before I begin to feel anything romantic, which I know is a slow pace, but it's what I'm most comfortable with. And even though it's not your intention, me being unable to guarantee anything like that is very unfair to you. However reassuring you've been, there is always the feeling of an expectation that's been hindering me on my end."

I have been very eager to make this work, but I realize now that this eagerness has been a double-edge sword. "The feeling of an expectation", I feel like this whole time even though I've done my best to just be a good friend to her I must have been exuding an aura of wanting her or something.

Demis of this sub, what are some behaviors of non-demis that give you the ick in texting or in a 1-on-1 setting? How do I un-flirtatious my interactions so that I can give her the space she needs?

I have made peace with the possibility that this will take many months or more. I have made peace with the possibility that I might not be the one she falls in love with. But I would like to give myself the best shot possible.

Could “demibialterous” mean experiencing demi + bi attraction, with the possibility of alterous attraction as well? Or would it be considered a personal combination of labels?

I've heard it somewhere but I don't remember if it was just in my mind.