Do you mind me asking, and you can choose to respond by email if you don't want to talk about this in public (stele32002 at yahoo), how do you handle the asexual thing in play relationships? I'm just now taking an active part in the scene and while I've heard there are a fair number of asexuals in the BDSM world, I've run into people who are like, "BDSM is always sexual." And IDK how I feel about playing with someone who thinks that way, even in scenes that don't involve explicitly sexual acts. Because, like, for THEM it would be sexual; they'd consider themselves to be having sex with me. I guess I worry that there's the potential for some really major miscommunications, there, in terms of what people want from a scene.
So how do you navigate that? Do you only play with other asexuals? Or do you just say, hey, this scene isn't going to include any overt sexual acts, and let the dice fall where they may?
PS Have spent the evening fiddling with a couple of clothespins! My whole left arm is covered in red squares. :)
HI! not to butt into this conversation, but really to butt into this conversation, i do hope you don't take it off into email or IF YOU DO that you'd be willing to include me. i'm not an asexual, but i am just starting to REALLY explore my masochism, and would love to do that without adding a sexual component just yet. still working out how to navigate that whole business. it's a work in progress, and it's interesting to hear how other people navigate it. /TMI
I've heard that too! But they are hard to find - so I've found myself not really being actively involved in the scene at all, mostly because there are so many issues. Even trying is putting yourself out there more than I am, at this point /o\ Especially as an aromantic ace with nonstandard trans issues who's just recently been getting comfortable being open about anything, it's scary even to try, because there needs to be enough understanding to be intuitively on the same wavelength.
Sometimes I think I'm just being too much of a pessimistic idealist for my own good, though.
It's interesting, because - as this discussion of what makes something sex helped me realize - I do feel a definite "this is sexual" line even with acts that might not inherently be of a sexual nature, simply because I've got a heightened awareness that other people see it that way. And if I could express what reason there is behind that instinctive line, it might help other people not to cross it - but again, the ideal is that they don't want to, either. Which means it would be easier to just play with other asexuals, unless there was someone with whom you've got chemistry of a sort where their sexual relationships are separate from, say, kinky friendship. Which brings us full circle! :D
Do you mind me asking, and you can choose to respond by email if you don't want to talk about this in public (stele32002 at yahoo), how do you handle the asexual thing in play relationships? I'm just now taking an active part in the scene and while I've heard there are a fair number of asexuals in the BDSM world, I've run into people who are like, "BDSM is always sexual." And IDK how I feel about playing with someone who thinks that way, even in scenes that don't involve explicitly sexual acts. Because, like, for THEM it would be sexual; they'd consider themselves to be having sex with me. I guess I worry that there's the potential for some really major miscommunications, there, in terms of what people want from a scene.
So how do you navigate that? Do you only play with other asexuals? Or do you just say, hey, this scene isn't going to include any overt sexual acts, and let the dice fall where they may?
PS Have spent the evening fiddling with a couple of clothespins! My whole left arm is covered in red squares. :)
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Sometimes I think I'm just being too much of a pessimistic idealist for my own good, though.
It's interesting, because - as this discussion of what makes something sex helped me realize - I do feel a definite "this is sexual" line even with acts that might not inherently be of a sexual nature, simply because I've got a heightened awareness that other people see it that way. And if I could express what reason there is behind that instinctive line, it might help other people not to cross it - but again, the ideal is that they don't want to, either. Which means it would be easier to just play with other asexuals, unless there was someone with whom you've got chemistry of a sort where their sexual relationships are separate from, say, kinky friendship. Which brings us full circle! :D
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