ya know, really wish someone would sit down and explain the difference between romantic attraction, sexual attraction, aesthetic attraction, and physical arousal
and also help sort out what's what, and how autism, dysphoria, and other brain stuff interacts with it
cause despite writing erotica, having a girlfriend and a bunch of kinky friends, sometimes I get really confused as to what's what, and have just been sorta guessing at what my own feelings are, cause they're very fluctuating and contradictory
this is something i have spent a LOT of time thinking about and the short answer is that its all very squishy and about your perspective and experience and culture. heres kind of where i landed on my understanding of these concepts, some with more understanding than others lol.
physical arousal - my body is currently displaying physical signs of arousal. wetness, hardness, changed breathing, genital sensations, etc etc. this can be entirely independent of desire, mental awareness, mental control, etc.
aesthetic attraction - this person looks cool or interesting or has good style or is eye catching. this is separate from an emotional/physical response/desire/drive.
sexual attraction - this person is someone i feel an innate drive to engage in sex or similar forms of physical intimacy with. some examples of how this shows up for people is fantasizing about it, feeling internally compelled to take steps to have sex with them, physical arousal when near them, and other things, but may not necessarily include those examples.
romantic attraction - this one is the furthest outside of my understanding, i think especially because of the autism and cultural nuances, but it seems like it refers to feeling an innate drive to engage in activities that are typically attributed to romantic relationships. as a us american millenial, to me this means hand holding, cuddling, sleeping in the same bed frequently, attending family events together, dedicated and intentional one on one time, to name a few.
in my personal experience, dysphoria interacts most with physical arousal and aesthetic attraction. dysphoria can inhibit arousal (i feel bad and therefor find it difficult to feel like engaging in sexual activities), aesthetic attraction can lead to increased dysphoria (that person looks like how i want to look and it makes me feel bad that i dont look like them), dysphoria can lead to certain kinds of aesthetic attraction (that person looks how i want to look and i like that).
for me, autism interacts most with romantic attraction, as well as finding the borders along all these concepts. in particular, i struggle to understand what makes a relationship romantic (besides declaring it so), why certain acts are romantic or platonic, why we are expected to limit the number of romantic relationships we have, why sex is associated to romance, the list of questions goes on and on. obviously white supremacy/capitalism/etc are huge influences, but im thinking outside of the structural forces.
i also feel like my experiences of these are all fluctuating and contradictory, so you arent alone there. hope my rambling was helpful at all, even if just as a jumping point for coming to your own understanding.
Thank you for your thoughts! and yea, the weird thing was always getting confused because, looking at lewd images of women causes physical arousal unlike with men, and definitely have an aesthetic attraction, but that's never translated into sexual attraction. And I always felt that maybe I was misinterpreting that? Because I can be horny, but it never turns into "I would like to have sex with X" and have always wondered if bottom dysphoria was causing that or if I just don't experience sexual attraction.
and romantic attraction is something I'm just unable to understand, because books always describe that doesn't reflect any crushes I've ever had. The way people who talk about it describe it just doesn't reflect any feelings I have beyond getting flustered at the idea of calling two very cute girls my girlfriends
but yea thank you!
ive been thinking about this more after my first response, particularly around how culture influences our perception of romance, and i do wonder if there is such a heavy overlap of transgenderism, aromanticism, and polyamory because of the ways queer people, trans people, and especially explicitly t4t people conceive of family, friends, and love. in general, books and media that we are exposed to before intentionally getting into queer and trans media doesnt depict hardly any kind of queer love, romantic or otherwise. and if youre already autistic and struggling with social scripts, i think it makes a lot of sense for someone to end up in this place of...im in romantic partnerships but also dont understand what romance/romantic attraction is, but i love my partners and that feels good (which literally same, i identify as aromantic but also have multiple romantic partners).
as for the sexual attraction/bottom dysphoria/aesthetic attraction, i do think the lines are so very very blurry, and it doesnt help that all of them can be fluid in addition to these porous boundaries. from my experience, i frequently have physical responses to things that i perceive as sexual, but that doesnt map to attraction for me. it took me a long time to untangle it, and it may or may not be similar to your experience, but just because something elicits a physical reaction, doesnt mean i have a desire to engage either with the person or in the activity that i am responding to. also, even if bottom dysphoria is contributing to your lack of sexual attraction, or is the entire reason for it, that still means you have a lack of sexual attraction. no one experiences their sexuality in a vacuum and dysphoria impacting it doesnt make it any lesser of an experience.
i hope i havent commandeered your post too bad, this is all just such interesting discussion and i love knowing everyones thoughts about it while i try to figure it out for myself too.
You keep adding really good thoughts!
