Sex Lives chronicles the evolution of one person's sexual history. This week: Rhys, 29, in Chicago.
Being demisexual where I grew up—well, I didn’t know what that was until I was in college. I was raised as a hetero guy. The first time sexuality kind of dawned on me, I was 9 or 10 on a guys’ trip with my dad, my grandpa, and my brother and the hotel we were staying at had a car show coming up. There was a magazine with the cars on it and the showgirls and my dad handed it to me and was like “put this in your bag and bring it home.” And I was like, “Why? Nobody in our family knows anything about cars.” He just kind of looked at me like, are you serious? That was really the first time it occurred to me that people look at other people as… not objects… but through a physical lens, like Oh, I’m just interested because this person looks good. I didn’t know anything about that.
The way I grew up, you were either straight or you're gay. Those were really the only two options. I was always hearing from my dad or other guys that this is how you’re supposed to view women: you’re supposed to want to go and have flings and hook up and stuff. So when you grow up without ever experiencing attraction, you start to think am I gay? But then you think, well I’m not into guys either. So what gives? When I found out what asexuality was, I was like, ok I’m just ace. I’m not going to be attracted to people. And then I started dating this girl in college. We started hanging out and talking and I had kind of made peace with the fact that all of my dating was going to be just about liking to be around a person. Being demi, you can know objectively this person is gorgeous, but you just don’t have the physical desire. We were dating three or four months and just kind of out of the blue it hit me. Like ohh this is what that feels like. Once you get that connectivity, you get close and comfortable and you’re really emotionally connected with a person and you create that intimacy. It’s less, “They’re hot; I want to sleep with them” and more an extra level of intimacy you can give that person.
I really didn’t and still don’t masturbate for the most part. I have those physiological responses, but it’s like ok that’ll go away. There’s not really a sexual drive behind it. I don’t really need to do anything. As far as porn is concerned, really the only porn I’ve ever interacted with was with the girl in college. We were together almost four years and we still talk as friends. We took pictures and videos for our own use, especially because she was dating someone who was demi so she wanted to have that. It’s been a little over two years since we split and that was really the last time I ever had any interaction with anything pornographic. As a teenager, I was aware of what it was. And you think about it. You’re like, oh, okay, well I want to try it out. And then you sit down and you’re like, yeah, no I don’t really have a desire to go down this road.
I wouldn’t say that everyone I’ve dated is necessarily knowledgeable, since it’s such a niche portion of the population. Not a very large population and not a very vocal one because it’s very easy to be straight passing. So they might not understand demisexuality completely, but in my experience at least there’s been a sort of relief. You get to build to physical intimacy and there’s not a pressure of like we’re together we need to be physical. You can focus on the emotional and intellectual connection first and I think that takes a little bit of pressure off. But if you’re not good at communicating, the person who’s not demi might think oh, they must not be into me. I want to sleep with this person, but they don’t want to sleep with me. It’s hard to get that point across. I’m more than capable of objectively looking at a person, male or female and being like that’s a gorgeous person. It just doesn’t always translate to a physical desire to be intimate.
I’m very big on cuddling on the couch, hugs, things like that. Kissing is usually something that I differentiate from sex or foreplay. It’s kind of a levels thing. But it’s never been something where—even in my teen and early adult dating years—I was never like, Oh, I met this person out at a bar; we’re going to make out. It’s always been a let me get to know you a little better first thing. I think a lot of times when people hear about demisexuality for the first time they think You’re just normal—you don’t want to sleep with someone you don’t know. There’s a difference between wanting to sleep with someone, but choosing not to until you get to know them versus having no desire to be intimate with a person until you hit a certain point.
The willingness to move forward, I think, is really dependent on how well the communication goes with the other person. I try to be upfront with, “Hey, you know, I'm demi, this is what that means. We might be together for a few months before I’m physically ready to do anything, but that’s not me saying you’re unattractive or anything like that.” And sometimes they’re like “Great, sounds good! I don’t have a really big sex drive either!” and it works great. Other times, it’s been something where we talked and we decided not to date because they’ve been upfront and said, “I’m a sexual person. That’s part of what I expect in a relationship.” And it was like, fine, we can be friends because we like each other’s personalities but the relationship wouldn’t work. I don’t want them to go into it and think it’s going to be like dating the average hetero guy and then we start dating and they’re thinking Ok, is he just not into me? The big thing is communication and kind of managing each other’s expectations.
I’ve been with four people; three of the four were when I knew what being demi or ace was. The first one was having a hookup in college and everyone tells you that if a woman is pretty and you guys get along as friends and you like their personality you should sleep with them. That’s what you do. It was not a good experience. But the three I was in relationships with when I was more aware of my own sexuality, it was usually a few months before I was like ok want to be with this person sexually.
My most recent relationship, it was a couple weeks. It was fairly quick. I think it depends on how I feel about the person emotionally. Do I see ourselves in the same place? Is she emotionally mature? The last relationship, she had a six year old daughter and for me, it was kind of easier to build the emotional connection because we were both in the same place in terms of wanting to have kids. There was a lot of clicking on the big picture and I think that made the closeness easier to get to because there were so many boxes that got ticked. Whereas the relationship beforehand, we were together almost four years and ended up buying a ring together. Obviously it didn’t work out, but about six to eight weeks in, I started to get the feeling that this was somebody I’d get to this point with, and then about two or three months in I was like, “Okay, I’m comfortable with this.”
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The woman I ended up buying a ring with, we went on vacation for our first anniversary. We’re from around Chicago so we drove up to Milwaukee and I had never been to a concert in my life. She had no idea who Hozier was, but she bought Hozier tickets for our anniversary. I don’t know if you know about Hozier’s music, but it's a very romantic type of music. Since were both kind of unfamiliar with him, we just kind of hung out in the back and danced and then we went back to the hotel that night and, well, hands down that was the best sexual experience I’ve ever had. Not just because you’re coming off the kind of emotional high of we’re here on our anniversary trip, we just had this nice evening. That week was the week it set in for me: I want to marry this woman. SO there was kind of an emotional peak for me, like this is pretty much everything I could ask for in an intimate experience. She and I were talking the other day about it— I told her I was doing this— and that was the first thing she asked me. She was like “can I at least be the best sex you’ve ever had?” And I was like, “Yeah that’s going to be the easiest question to answer!”
One of the hidden benefits I guess you could call it, of being demi is that even when you’re not necessarily in the mood yourself, you sometimes are intimate. And I think it does make you a more selfless lover. So when you’re with someone and they’re like “Okay you might not want any, but can you help me out?” And there is a kind of relationship gratification in that for me. You might think you’d not get anything out of it, but in a way you do.
I saw the interview excerpt of Cillian Murphy going around twitter about faking an orgasm as a guy, and I was like, man, that’s the only time in my entire life I’ll have something in common with Cillian Murphy. I guess it’s an offshoot of the demi thing, right? I’m not super into sex, but if I know she wants to have sex… I hate to make it sound like “I’ll fall on this grenade! I’m doing a huge favor!” But there are times when my partner has wanted sex and I’m not as into it, so I’m like ok we’ll give it a shot. But then it’s been a while and she’s been satisfied and you haven’t come. So sometimes I’d fake it just to wrap it up. I haven’t really met anybody else who’s experienced that. It’s a weird place to be when you’re disconnected from a traditional kind of sex drive. I think a lot of guys might be like “You’re choosing to end this early? Why?” But I can also imagine not coming being a lot more common than it’s portrayed to be.
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