A couple of points I'm still mulling over

[kaberett]

... clarified by engagement with Captain Awkward #807: he who is selfish in bed should probably sleep alone from now on.

1. There is a distinction, and I am increasingly inclined to think it's a valuable one, between touching someone primarily because you'll enjoy it (with them enjoying it being a secondary or irrelevant consideration) and touching someone primarily because you want them to enjoy it. The former is a kind of objectification I'm okay with under some very specifically negotiated circumstances, but outside the context of said negotiations I am incredibly averse to it regardless of which way round it's happening.
   
2. There is a distinction, and I am again increasingly inclined to think it's a valuable one, between on the one hand wanting to have sex with someone and on the other wanting them to want to have sex with you. (This is partially motivated by one specific comment, which I think I should perhaps not actually try composing a response to.)

Comments

[recessional]

There is a distinction, and I am again increasingly inclined to think it's a valuable one, between on the one hand wanting to have sex with someone and on the other wanting them to want to have sex with you.

Oh, it's a huge one. And is in many ways the emotional problem at the crux and heart of incompatible sex-drives/sexual-asexual interactions.

Because there's a big emotional difference between "I am willing to have sex with you" and "I really WANT to have sex with you". And for some people it's not a relevant one, and for some people (*coughcough certain current protagonists, coughcough*)(well, also me) it is literally the most important issue ever.

And no: if the other person has not yet approached understanding that difference on their own, responding in a useful way is the kind of work that one should get paid 99$/hr at least for, or the equivalent value of emotional investment in that person's life.

[kaberett]

Yeah, I think I just don't... understand... how it could possibly not be relevant? In an emotional sense. I mean, obviously I know that they do experience it as irrelevant, but I seriously don't get how it can be unimportant and that not be... horrifyingly unhealthy (based on my own experiences etc etc etc). IT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE I'M AUTISTIC, or something.

-- and yeah snort if ONLY I could get paid that much for having Worked Some Of This Shit Out without needing to, like, perform being less disabled consistently, but then I imagine you know this feel :-p

[recessional]

As far as I can tell: because they don't have self-worth caught up in being sexually desirable. (I mean there are lots of UN-healthy ways too, but that's the "this is not actually a problem" way).

It's something I've mostly come across in cis men - not all of them, by ANY means, but where I come across it it's in them. For them, their partner being willing to have sex with them without active desire on their part is sort of like a partner being willing to go hiking with them or go to the theatre with them or participate in dance classes with them: the activity and experience may actually be quite important, for one reason or another, but as long as partner is in fact perfectly happy to participate in $activity with them (hiking, theatre, dance, charity organization, etc), it doesn't bother them that, were they to drop their interest in $activity, partner would not at all be bothered.

As far as I've observed, it's reeeeeally hard for anyone raised as a woman, period (regardless of actual gender etc - it's the socialization here that's important) OR who has then taken on "woman" as a subject position to get there, because "being desired and desirable" is SUCH A HUGE FUCKING CONTEXT OF WORTH. There are also lots of sub/mini-cultures where that point of worth hits guys just as hard, and I've found it also tends to hit guys hard who have Other Complications of Identity (ie are disabled or trans or so on) which would shove them into a noted category of "nobody could possibly desire you".

(I'm sure there are some people raised as and or living as women out there that have managed that mental place, I just don't think there are very many, and I haven't met them yet.)

So yeah. Basically there are some people that have managed to be in the right place not to have "am I sexually desirable" hit as an issue of self-worth and insecurity, period, and can as a result be perfectly happy with a partner who is neutral on the question of having sex with them in and of itself.

. . . actually come to think of it Natasha might actually get there from the opposite direction - not from it not being an issue, but from the simple fact that it is SO UTTERLY SELF-EVIDENT that she is fundamentally desirable that with the right person (someone with whom it is a true neutral or whose reasons for not being motivated towards sex are truly not at all about the identity of their partner) she could also be indifferent to it.

. . . so actually probably some of it is because you are autistic because we are TOTALLY on the list of "people who get taught we are inherently undesirable because $reasons and also by implication that this is a horrible flaw in us and only those who are desirable have worth"! Just, you know. It's a roundabout.


Hahaha yeah in terms of getting paid. Except then I'd get way too anxious about BUT WHAT IF I AM LIFE-COACHING WRONG HOW DARE I ASK MONIES FOR THIS!

. . . I only pretend to be mentally ill and neuroatypical for all the fun side benefits. :|

[shanaqui]

It is very weird reading discussions like this as an ace person. I'm never going to be able to give my partner the experience of me wanting her. It's just... realistically... never likely to happen and it certainly won't be consistent if it does. It makes me feel... selfish or something, that I want her to myself and can't offer that aspect. Gah.

in which I ramble

[kaberett]

*shrug?*

By which I mean -- I don't want to have sex with some of my partners, so we don't. I do want to have sex with some of my partners who don't want to have sex with me. From my perspective, wanting someone to want to have sex with me if they don't is -- pretty much: right, okay, that is the thing I need to know; it's honestly to me no more of a big deal than knowing they don't want to play Scrabble with me, or don't want to make music with me: those are all, for me, shorthands for or shortcuts to intimacy. But the thing is, there's lots of ways to achieve intimacy, and any given one not being relevant in any given relationship is... honestly not that big a deal for me?

Having this attitude means I mostly don't feel guilty in the contexts where I don't want to have sex (once I've managed to actually have the conversation about it not being a thing I want). And I am one hundred per cent uninterested in my partners feeling guilty if they don't want to have sex with me, for what it's worth: like, no, please don't, you don't owe me anything and you especially don't owe me this, from my perspective it really is just information about what approaches you'd like us to take to our relationship, I'm... not interested in sex that you don't want and the thing, the key thing, is that it's not something you want. Seriously the only thing that matters to me is "how can I best manage my sex drive in a way that's neutral-to-positive in terms of its impact or lack thereof on you", and even that's only really relevant if we're living together.

For what that's worth. (If I might be able to clarify any of that wordsplodge in a way that might be helpful, I'd like to try.)

[staranise]

I've been thinking a lot lately about childhood experiences most people don't keep narrative memories of, that nevertheless leave deep marks in procedural memories: People who don't care if their sexual partners are anything but willing to lie there? Are probably not people who consistently got (explicitly or implicitly) punished for trying to do something with an unenthusiastic partner. I have deep childhood wounds because I tried to get some chum or other to do a thing with me and they didn't want to but they said yes to keep me happy, and then they got bored or upset or whatever with me, and then it was OMG HOW COULD YOU BE SO HORRIBLE AND SELFISH TO DRAG HER INTO THE THING SHE REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO DO.

[recessional]

Huh. I . . . do not recall having this experience myself. Unless "people avoiding spending time with you after that" counts as implicit punishment, which is a bit iffy for me in terms of the word "punishment", but I could go with "negative consequences".

I never got told off, even by friends, it's just if I asked people to do something they weren't enthused about they resultingly wanted less to do with me, and even I could spot that pattern after six or seven go arounds.

[recessional]

Internet stranger, but really . . . if your partner is fine with it, then it's fine. Whether that partner is hypothetical or real. It's up to your partner to figure out what's important and what she needs and where things can balance for her to be happy, and everyone's a bit different, and everything's a spectrum.

So for whatever that's worth.

[liv]

I'm finding this discussion really interesting, thank you for bringing it over here, which is a better place to discuss this sort of nuance than the CA comment threads. I really take your point about negotiating objectification, and I'm finding the comments here really chewy when it comes to what's ok to want from a partner.

I'd like to add in a theory of mine, which is kind of anecdotal, and please feel free to pick it apart, I'm still trying to figure out whether it's actually sensible. I think there's a kind of orientational spectrum between... I don't have good names for this, but in my mind I call it other-focused and self-focused sex. I think what some people want out of sex, or what they find most exciting, is for partner to stimulate and pleasure them. And what some people want is to provide pleasure for their partner, that's the point for them. And of course even if this really is a difference in orientation, everybody has an obligation to be considerate no matter where they fall on this putative spectrum, it's not an excuse for being selfish and oblivious.

I guess I find it potentially helpful to consider this difference as in itself morally neutral, though? It's a bit analogous to the dominant / submissive spectrum, no matter which roles a particular person finds arousing, they should still be considerate and respectful. But neither dominants nor submissives are inherently "selfish" any more than people who strongly prefer vanilla, egalitarian sex. So I can imagine someone who is strongly self-focused, and if they care about their partner at all they'd want to make their partner happy and provide physical pleasure for them, but it might be that what they're getting out of doing that is the joy of doing something nice for someone they care about. (I'm quite other-focused myself, mind you, but I've observed that partners can be more so or less so.)