links.mimuki.net

Practice Consent, Boundaries, and Connection in a Platonic Environment

Particularly the book recommendations on compulsory sexuality seem interesting.

In short:

• Sexual arousal refers to the set of automatic physiological reactions, with no defined direction or cause, and with variable frequency and intensity.
• Sexual desire is the intentionality or impulse to engage in sexual activity, either with oneself or with another person. [...] Desire appears after arousal.
• And finally, sexual attraction is the focus or direction of desire: the concreteness of desire toward a specific person who sparks interest or with whom one wants to engage in sexual activity.

Sexual attachment, on the other hand, can be defined as the development or strengthening of a bond between two people after sexual activity, caused, among other things, by hormonal interaction and the neurological and psychological adjustments this entails. Sexual attachment will strengthen if the experience is repeated between the same people and, to some extent, will create emotional dependency.

That is to say an asexual person could develop sexual attachment toward their partner—if they have sex recurrently, of course—despite having no attraction, no sexual desire or even no sexual arousal.

In my particular case, as I have already mentioned, I do experience sexual arousal occasionally; but once out of the relationship, I realized that my sexual desire and my "sexual attraction", upon returning to their natural state, so to speak, became practically nonexistent or diffuse.