I don’t think it’s something “objective” - it doesn’t happen with all attractive people or even most of them. And I don’t think others find them as attractive either. But sometimes, some very few times, I see someone either irl or online and I literally can’t stop staring at them. I think about them for hours afterwards. It’s only happened a handful of times but by god it is so freaking weird.
If there is an “objective” rating system, even if it’s subjective to the observer, then these people are not 8 or 9 or 10. They are outside the freaking scale. And I don’t mean they’re 11/10 or something. No, the scale just doesn’t even apply to them.
Like, am I weird? Does this only happen to me? Should I get my brain checked? It this what people mean when they say “type”?
HRT fortunately stopped the horny for me as well (at least for the time being, with cypro it's common that this changes again after a few months), but i still am completely awestruck by how beautiful some people are. Last week i met this cute enby who just perfectly examplified how beauty can work entirely independend from gender and who asked me if it was ok to touch my fingernails and i just can't stop wondering about how we met and if that could have led to something more than just showing off what a nice, soft top coat i can apply. And i met this beautiful trans woman and i can't stop thinking of her full lips that give me massive gender envy, but in a way that's somehow exciting, and of how graceful she looked, and about how pretty she must be in the costume she showed me on her phone ... you get where this is going. There's nothing sexual behind it, i'm not even getting horny when i'm sexting with one of my favorite erotic roleplaying / collaborative smut writing friends atm, but beauty and intimacy and even lust can exist seperately from horny. We just tend to overlook that because we live in such a sexualized society, where that kind of infatuation and closeness is always supposed to lead to something implicitly structured around the wishes of cishet dudes. There's this implicit notion that sexuality has to work towards penis in vagina and that sex starts with a boner and ends with an ejaculation and that's really missing out on so much.
Or maybe i'm just talking bs about not being horny and am just learning how to feel arousal as a woman for the first time. Maybe i should learn what it means to be thirsty instead of horny, ya know? I guess it's complicated.
You may be interested in the split attraction model. It's what's used (often by asexuals) to differentiate types of attraction: sensual, platonic, sexual, romantic, and aesthetic being the main ones.
i always thought that being cute, being beautiful and being hot were different traits that could or could not apply at the same time, so i guess this makes a lot of sense. There's always been people i loved to look at, but didn't have any urge to sleep with, for example. And there's always been people who i found irresistably hot, but were i was like "objectively, that person is kinda ugly, but somehow that's part of what turns me on."
And when i go beyond that now that i've successfully pummeled my libido into submission, i think i understand how you can be sensually and romantically attracted to somebody without it being sexual. Or rather, with sexuality being involved in a way that's less in the foreground. I don't think i've turned ace (although in hindsight i've always been demi), i'm fairly certain that if any of the people i think about now would be with me and would want something sexual from me, i'd not only be happy to do that for them, i'd get something decidedly sexual out of that, too. It's just that with my testosterone being so low, there's none of that :awooga: energy behind that, and i don't think i need that energy to have sex anymore. That kind of energy is a male thing to me. I want that kind of desire from men, i want them to be crazy for me to the point i make their tongue roll out, but there's very few men i trust enough to give that to me. Sapphic desire is entirely different from that, i've deep down inside always felt a disconnect between the way i wanted to have sex with women and the way men wanted to have sex with women and i think i'm beginning to slowly learn the full extend of that now.
saaaame. this has gotten me in trouble with some partners in the past.
yeah there's folks who think telling them "you're cute" means "you're not really hot, tho" as if cute was a kind of downgrade, something you tell people out of pity. but it's not. it's entirely possible to be cute and sexy at the same time, these are just two different dimensions of being attractive. there's people i find cute in an entirely platonic way, but if you're an adult human, it's perfectly reasonable that i'm feeling all kinds of attraction to you at the same time. that's a thing.
yeah to me it's just different types of attractiveness. equal but different not like some 1-10 rating system and absolutely someone can be "cute hot" or "sexy cute" etc.
i might be demi or something on the scale of ace because actual "levels of attractiveness" increases exponentially the more i get to know (if I like) someone.
Yeah, that demi thing makes a lot of sense to me as well. Especially finding people hotter the more i get to like them. It's not as if i have to be Disney Princess levels of in love with somebody to sleep with them, i've had one night stands in the past, but there was always some kind of emotional connection. That could just mean finding somebody really cool and tearing up the dancefloor with them, then being so convinced that the two us of were the raddest people at the club that sloppy makeouts and going home together ensued, but even when that's not romantic love, it's an emotional connection, and a powerful one for that one evening. Just a pure mutual attitude of hedonistic "fuck yes, this night belongs to us." But i can't do it with anonymous strangers cruising style. That just never worked for me no matter how horny i was, just as i can't find people i hate attractive in any subjective way. I can still say "objectively, that's a pretty face completely wasted on such an asshole", but subjectively, there's something that makes people i hate physically repulsive to me.
:bonk:
No this is ok horny, no bonking.
idk there were parts were i thought "maybe i should tone this down a bit more". I mean, i hope it's clear where i'm getting at and that i'm not objectifying the people i talk about and would always respect their boundaries, but i'm crushing kinda hard in that post and i can see how some people would find it difficult to contextualize what's going on with me romantically and sexually because i'm pretty far removed from how most straight people deal with these subjects.
still thanks tho
Na people should be able to discuss sexuality in a healthy and non predatory way. We get super weird in our society, and while I agree we need to discourage people be blatantly thirsty and gross, having a healthy and open discussions about our feelings and needs helps establish a culture of understanding which can in turn make people feel less alienated and therefore the aforementioned weird. Like yeah if someone is objectifying someone and being pornographic bring down the Vocel Cops, but not for genuine discussion.
Oh I guess thats true. But that is admiring an aesthetic, not like, staring at some chicks boobs lol
Isn't that always part of women loving women, tho? Admiring them without objectifying them the way men would do? Seeing the whole person in all of their glory, getting that "do i want her or do i want to be her?"dynamic, having that deep, deep longing for connection? Instead of zooming in on body parts like dudes are taught to do from the first time a movie shows them how to sexualize a female body, explaining to them how to remove or at least ignore the threat to their autonomy that is caused by their overwhelming hormonal urge to fuck us that can give us so much power over them?
I guess that's true. Just got a different vibe from the OP
oh yeah, same here