Ask Lemmy

I’m aromantic so perhaps my view of “dating” doesn’t fit. And, before I say anything else I should preface that the sexual preferences of a random internet stranger (me) should not be taken as indicative of universal self worth or appeal. You are valid regardless of the opinions/proclivities of others, especially random internet strangers like me lol

Anyway, I am kind of on the ace spectrum. I’ve only really been with cis women and with them I’m just indifferent to sex. I thought it would be the same for men despite not feeling any attraction whatsoever towards them, so I decided to experiment.

Turns out I was quite wrong and I am actually viscerally repulsed by both men and male genitalia. I can’t just power through the grossness like I can with others.

So, I would be quite hesitant to date a nonbinary person with male genitals. My gay friends were very chill with my reaction in the experiments lol, but I get the feeling that if I did end up having a reflexive negative response to a nonbinary person, it would probably increase any dysphoria they feel and I don’t want to to do that to anyone.

I also dont feel attracted to anyone with facial hair (regardless of “biological sex”) so that might cut down on the nonbinary population I would have a desire to date too.

The main point Id like to make here is that gender in general stupid for many reasons including, in my opinion, trying to define attraction. I don’t care what pronouns someone uses or if how they dress aligns with a specific gender or what social norms they adhere to specific to genders. What is most important to attraction is, specifically, attraction.

Does this person have the seemingly random traits my brain likes and not the ones it dislikes? Great. Maybe for some people those attractive or repulsive attributes fall along gender lines perfectly but I seriously doubt that’s the case for anyone especially since gender lines are more gradients than lines in the first place.

I would probably be fine dating a nonbinary person who has the traits which I like (physical and non-physical btw, like idc if someone’s hot; if they’re rude or cruel to others, they can gtfo) and not traits I dislike but that’s kind of as specific as I can get and none of my attraction/repulsion stems directly from gender.

Anyway, I again would like to tell anyone reading this that if someone (including me) doesn’t find you attractive, it should have no bearing on how you see yourself or your perceived self worth. Tell yourself “they don’t know what they’re missing” and keep on being you because you’re awesome and they’re just some idiot whose opinion shouldn’t matter to you anyway. (Plus there is plenty more to life than sex, I mean who cares about sexual attraction when there is cool physics and mathematics to learn right?)