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its official my partner is ace and aromantic
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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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There's a huge difference between making an effort for someone to be attracted to you and harassing them into having sex. That's a wildly unfair leap.
You can trust someone when they say they don't want to have sex. Everyone here is doing that, there's not a single hint of evidence to the contrary. Especially if you have a long-standing relationship with someone, it can be worth inquiring a little further as to why they don't want to have sex. There's a chance it's based on material conditions that the partner who wants more sex can change. Maybe it's a matter of attraction and they need to put more effort into their appearance. Maybe it's work related, and the partner who doesn't want sex's job or life is causing stress that's making sex completely undesirable. Maybe there's psychological hangups about the state of the relationship in other ways. It might be an abuse situation. It might also be that the partner who doesn't want sex has simply realized that they are purely through and through ace and are happier not having sex. Some of these things are situations where the higher sex drive partner can put in an effort and have that effort not be "harass[ing] them into having sex".
But if they’re ace they don’t experience sexual attraction???
Sorta my bad for trying to make this comment both general and specific, that makes it a bit confusing, but I will say that OP and her partner have had a sexual relationship in the past, so if nothing else, her partner hasn't always been ace. That doesn't mean that you can negotiate them out of it, that doesn't mean that there is definitely some way to her partner having sexual desire any more that doesn't mean that her partner isn't happy with being ace, I just take issue with any attempt to rebuild what existed in the past through effort and communication being called "harassment".
Ace, while a spectrum, is specifically about the lack of sexual attraction. Trying to “rebuild attraction” IS harassment. ace people (it is a spectrum so it does vary) can actually have sexual desire (varies from person to person) but they generally (not always) they specifically do not have attraction
You might already know this sorry
Aces engage in sex. Engaging in sex doesn't mean she isn't ace. And just because someone doesn't want to have sex doesn't mean they're not ace. Ace just means a like of sexual attraction to others. Sex can still be fun without sexual attraction, so some aces regularly engage in sex because they want to.
On the other hand, there's already a lot of society pressure to engage in sex and a lot of aces just do it because they feel they're expected to. And many people don't realize they are ace for a long time (for me, I realized in my late 20's and there's lots of people who realize a lot later). I think it tends to more be women who realize so later because they assume all women lack sexual attraction and only engage in it as part of their duties as a good partner to satisfy their partner's needs.
My comment was in the context of this specific case. I wasn't making a general claim. Communication is good. Which seems to have been happening over the last few years. Their partner's design to no longer engage in sexual activities seems to have been made extremely clear. Ignoring that and continuing to try to pressure them into sex is harassment.