I’m Demisexual and Panromantic

Hi, everyone! I’m demisexual and panromantic, which means that I’m not straight. So, I’m coming out today, on National Coming Out Day! I’m sure you have some questions.

But you’re a woman and you’re married to a man. Doesn’t that automatically make you straight?

Nope! There are lots of women married to men, and men married to women who aren’t straight. Some are bisexual, some are pansexual, some are asexual, some are queer, etc. Orientations are about attraction, not action. Bisexual and pansexual people do not stop being bi or pan just because they are in a monogamous relationship.

What do ‘demisexual’ and ‘panromantic’ even mean?

Demisexual describes a person who falls under the asexuality umbrella, but still experiences sexual attraction under certain circumstances.

Asexual people do not experience sexual attraction. They may still have sex (though many don’t), they may still enjoy sex (though many don’t), but they don’t experience a desire to have sex due to a sexual attraction to a particular person.

Demisexual people only experience sexual attraction after developing a very deep emotional connection with a person. This is different from having a moral, ethical, or religious belief that experiencing sexual attraction to someone other than within the confines of a deeply emotional relationship is wrong. I don’t have that belief. I think it’s perfectly fine for people to experience sexual attraction outside of deeply emotionally connected relationships; it’s just not something I experience.

Panromantic describes people who are romantically (but not necessarily sexually) attracted to people of all genders.

Okay, but ew, I’m not interested in knowing about your sex life.

Great! You actually still know nothing about my sex life. Orientations are about attraction, not action.

Fine… So, does this mean you’re not monogamous?

Nope, it doesn’t mean that. As I said, pansexual (or in my case panromantic) people don’t become straight just because they are in a monogamous romantic relationship with someone on the other side of the gender binary. Just like people in all kinds of monogamous relationships still experience attractions to celebrities or strangers or fictional characters or friends or whatever, people who are bi or pan can experience attraction to multiple genders, but still remain in a monogamous relationship.

Whatever. It still just sounds like you’re straight to me. I mean, you’re not being discriminated against or anything. Aren’t you just making this day and the LGBTQ+ movement about yourself, even though you easily pass for straight on a daily basis?

Oof. This is the issue I’ve been wrestling with for awhile, and why I’ve never come out in a public way before. Many LGBTQ+ people are in real danger due to their orientations or identities, and I’m really not. I didn’t want to take the attention off of the people who are more affected by discrimination and put the spotlight on myself.

However, after talking to other people who fall under the ace (asexuality) umbrella, I decided it was important to come out, particularly on that front. Very few asexual or demisexual people talk about it publicly. Some asexual people really are discriminated against, especially those who also have no interest in actually having sex or who are sex-repulsed. Young people have experienced parents who are dismissive, and even downright abusive. They are frequently told by friends and peers, “You just haven’t met the right person yet,” or “You’ll change your mind, this is just a phase,” or worst of all, “You’ve just never had good sex.” Some are even shunned by family or kicked out of the house. One person in a Facebook group I was in said that his parents told him that they wished he was gay, because they could at least understand that. Many, many asexual people are told that it’s a medical problem that they should get fixed. Lots of people see being asexual as unnatural. So, while many asexual people don’t experience the level of discrimination that gay, lesbian, bi, or trans people do, many do experience traumatic and abusive treatment.

But in addition to that, our culture assumes that everyone experiences sexual attraction. And when you don’t, it can make things very confusing. For me, when I was young, I think my demisexuality-bordering-on-asexuality made it really easy for me to be judgmental of people who made what I saw as irresponsible or dangerous sexual decisions.*

I couldn’t understand why anyone would have sex in any situation other than the absolute ‘ideal’ circumstances. Movies, TV shows, or books where characters had sex when they were mad or sad or under circumstances that would cause them complications just made no sense to me, because I was not experiencing sexual attraction (though I did experience romantic attraction). And when real people did the same, I was just like “Why? Why would anyone do that? What a bad/stupid/irresponsible decision!” I couldn’t relate or empathize, so I just judged them.

At the time, I assumed everyone felt the way I felt, but as I got older, I realized that wasn’t the case. Which helped explain their behavior to me, but made me question what was wrong with me. Which wasn’t very fun. And for awhile, I continued to judge other people, to convince myself there was something wrong with them, not something wrong with me. It wasn’t great.

But part of the reason I felt that way was because there is virtually no representation of asexual or demisexual people. So I had no touchstone and no good way to make sense of it all. Coming to the realization that I’m demisexual has been huge for me. I really hope that demisexuality and asexuality become more visible so that asexual and demisexual people don’t have to wonder if something is wrong with them.

*Just to be clear plenty of allosexual (the opposite of asexual) people are very judgmental about sex. I’m not saying asexuality causes people to be judgmental or all asexual people are judgmental or only asexual people are judgmental. I’m just saying that in my case, the fact that I wasn’t experiencing sexual attraction made it easier for me to buy into judgmental ideas about sex.

As for being panromantic, for me that’s more self-explanatory. It doesn’t affect my day-to-day life much, but I’ve had non-sexual, romantic crushes on people of all genders throughout my life. The fact that I wasn’t experiencing sexual attraction to these people convinced me that I wasn’t bisexual or pansexual for many years. But after learning about different orientations, panromantic feels like the correct definition for me.

I still don’t understand why you had to ‘come out.’ Just keep it to yourself, okay?

Well, no. Being visible and letting people know that they aren’t alone and they aren’t the only one who feels the way they do is important. If it makes you uncomfortable, that’s something you’re going to have to deal with.