Demisexual

Social Justice Usage

Source: “What is Demisexuality,” demisexuality.org.

Demisexuality is a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond. Most demisexuals feel sexual attraction rarely compared to the general population, and some have little to no interest in sexual activity.

New Discourses Commentary

“Demisexual” is the word used to describe someone who only feels sexual attraction in the presence of an emotional bond. Within the broad umbrella of queer Theory (within the Theory of Critical Social Justice), it is considered a (quasi-stable) sexuality and sexual identity category. As such, it would be considered a “queer” identity that therefore has both personal meaning and political valence (see also, personal is political).

The concept of “demisexuality” is not at all hard to understand and requires almost no elaboration except that it is unlikely to be a fully realistic description of one’s actual sexual response and is not quite the same thing as a sexuality or sexual identity in the way we usually conceive of these. It is, in fact, most likely a miscategorized reaction to the fact that, contra modern feminism (see also, third-wave feminism and blank slatism), many women are not as interested in casual sex as are men. In that sense, it is the attempt to categorize as queer that which is normal and yet rendered uncomfortable from attempting to understand it from an unrealistic Theoretical position. This also isn’t difficult to understand. The interesting concern, then, is that the ideology of Critical Social Justice would regard it as a sexuality at all. The reasoning for this is that despite it being common, especially in women, for people to only feel sexually attracted to people for whom they have some measure of romantic attraction, giving it an unlikely name elevates it to a status of being special and, when adopted in a political sense, queer.

Put simply, people who think in Theory believe that every possible manifestation or quirk of sex, gender, sexuality, ability status, or mental illness constitutes a unique identity category and seek to reify it as such. This is part and parcel with how adherents to Theory think about the world and themselves in it. Nevertheless, the objective with that “queering” line of thought is that it is an important critical goal to disrupt any possibility that assumptions attributed by the ideology to hegemonic “heterosexuality” might be considered normal or normative. On a more basic psychological and sociological level, it allows people who are experiencing something quite normal to feel extra special by it through the process of giving it a technical name to induce them into thinking of it and themselves in a way that is productive of queer identity politics (see also, queer Theory, intersectionality, and solidarity).

Related Terms

Blank slatism; Critical; Feminism; Identity; Identity politics; Intersectionality; Normal; Normativity; Personal is political, the; Queer; Queer, v.; Queer Theory; Social Justice; Solidarity; Theory; Third-wave feminism; Women

Revision date: 12/11/20

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James Lindsay