Demisexuality in a Hookup Culture
BY ANONYMOUS
I would like to preface this piece by stating that my experience with demisexuality is by no means representative of all demisexual people’s experiences. There is not one mold in which everyone who is demisexual fits; all forms of sexuality are on a spectrum and everyone has a subjective experience of their own sexuality. As a cisgender white woman, I am by no means trying to speak on behalf of the entire demisexual community-- only grappling and coming to terms with my own experience.
Generally, demisexuality describes someone who is not able to experience sexual attraction without the presence or creation of an emotional bond. The way I best describe my experience with demisexuality is that I do not have two feelings for emotional attachment and sexual attraction; it is just one feeling. In order for me to feel sexual attraction, I must be simultaneously emotionally attached to someone. As a demisexual, I’ve had sex and I loved it. But when people act shocked upon hearing that I haven’t hooked up with a single student at Wash U, or when people talk to me about their sexual escapades from the prior weekend, I can’t help but feel prudish and even left out of hook-up culture. Other than hookup culture’s inherent sexism and double standards, the aspect that is most troubling to someone like me is the emphasis on being absolutely devoid of emotions during any and all sexual encounters. In Peggy Orenstein’s Girls and Sex, she quotes a professor at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute saying “I have students who say people should be able to have no emotions in sex, and if you can’t, there’s something wrong with you and you’re missing out” (Orenstein 104). Now don’t get me wrong: although it is the culture we are living in, most people are turned off by the idea of hookup culture. Orenstein states that “nearly three-quarters of the boys and 80 percent of the girls said they’d prefer a date to a hookup” (Orenstein 106). However, for me, it is not a matter of preference. As someone who is demisexual, I legitimately cannot experience any form of sexual attraction without having an emotional bond attached. Upon sharing this with others, I’ve received the following responses (all of which I did not appreciate):
I’m going to be honest. I don’t feel that lucky. When I walk away from [often attractive] guys at parties trying to make out with me, my friends who don’t know that I am demisexual are often shocked. When I hear my friends made out with five random guys at a party, I just genuinely do not understand. I am bewildered when I hear that a couple I know started dating because they were hooking up for a few months and then eventually developed feelings for one another. In attempts to fit in more with this culture, I’ve experimented with hooking up with non-Wash U boys who were visiting their friends, or who had already graduated. In order to hook up with them, I had to subconsciously force myself to be emotionally attached to them. As I said, sexual attraction and emotional attachment are the same exact feeling for me (yes- the concept of forcing an emotional attachment is absolutely bizarre and I’m pretty sure most demisexual people don’t do this). The reason I’ve only done this for people who do not go to Wash U is because I wanted to protect myself from getting emotionally attached to someone who I would potentially have to see in my daily life. To be fair, this behavior is self-destructive regardless and always ends up in me being hurt; I have ended up having feelings for people I know didn’t deserve it, and I end up craving a relationship with someone that is only “hookup material.” The worst is when guys do an elaborate display of “emotions” during a one-night stand, including holding hands and staring lovingly into my eyes. It is things like that that get my demisexual ass all hyped up and then ultimately, I just get crushed harder. So in a way, I am living in denial of my own sexuality (or lack thereof), but the present culture of college campuses makes it so hard not to. The double-bind in society tells women that we are sluts if we hook up with too many people, but also that we are prudes if don’t hook up with any. Both of these definitions are limiting and damning in their own right. I know that when I have sex with the right person I absolutely love it, it is just increasingly hard to find the right person when so many people are looking for meaningless sex. |