zensunni posted:
Look carefully at what you wrote and realize that you just entirely marginalized the way demi-romantic and demi-sexual people feel.
Telling me to "look carefully at what I wrote and realize" after completely misunderstanding my point is all sort of ironic. I didn't exclude their feelings. I included them. I said, the terms feel pointless to me, because I already include them in the definition. To me there's no point differentiating between them, because the way demiromantic/sexual people experience love is normal. There's no need to single out every single way we can experience falling in love and giving them different names, because everyone falls in love differently so there's infinite ways to experience love. Acting as if all those experiences are so fundamentally different from each other, that they need their own labels, is only going to make people more separate and alienated from each other, when in fact all those ways to fall in love are in the end perfectly normal. Sure not everyone's experience will be the same and you might share it only with small portion of people, but that's true for everything and there's nothing wrong with that. We all are different and different things will be natural for different people.
The perfect example of what I'm talking about is the term grey-a, which is basically "everyone else that didn't fit to any other term we came up with". It pretty much sums up my entire issue with it. If you can't just group everyone in few different groups, because there're always people who don't fit into any of them, but they're not big enough to warrant their own group, why try to split them in different groups in the first place?
Alright then... you are NOT demi... the fact that YOU are capable of that doesn't mean that it is the UNIVERSAL TRUTH. There are people who are NOT capable of finding someone sexually attractive in a very short amount of time (demi-sexual) and others who are not able to fall in love with someone in a short amount of time (demi-romantic). They have to form a strong bond with the person before the feelings they are "demi" about will happen.
And I never said they should be able to? I wasn't posing myself as some kind of proof. My point was that labeling myself as demi wouldn't be true since I'm capable of feeling attraction quickly, but then I had demi experience as well, so it would mean I can bond and fall for someone over the time just like a demi would. So by labeling myself either way, I'd need to deny that other part of myself as untrue, when it isn't. I was giving a example, why sometimes those specific labels just don't work.
While I would argue that demi-romantic is probably a more healthy way to enter a relationship, it isn't necessarily the norm. Most relationships do start based on the first rush of sexual and romantic attraction when a couple falls in love and not from a long term friendship that turns into love after months or years. Of course, most relationships also end in failure... but I don't know that the success rate is any better for one style over the other. Humans are humans...
I'd argue while people falling in love at first sight or dating because of initial attraction is pretty common, people developing feelings for each over time is pretty common as well. In fact I consider it the natural way feelings should develop, as no matter how attractive someone is, it's the personality that most matter in the long run. But I wouldn't go around insisting that one way or another is more common or the norm or the way things normally are. That's why I don't treat being demi as some special case, because I don't think it is. Sure, there'll be people who can't relate to you, but that's normal. It's neither your fault nor theirs.
Also I feel like this whole thing bases heavily on common conflation of feeling attracted/infatuated with someone and actually loving someone. One is fleeting feeling, mostly created by hormones and initial attraction, other is a deep, strong feeling that can last a long time if properly maintained. So it's very possible that demi people simply never experience that initial attraction.
Just in case, it's not just demi thing. I'm against labels in general. People have that unhealthy need to categorize and label everything, but I feel like sometimes it does more harm than good. Because some things are more complicated than that and you can't just put them into nice clear cut boxes and trying to do so can sometimes lead to harmful generalizations. Sure, in some situations they can work as a handy shortcuts, so you don't have to give a whole explanation to someone. But more times than not, all it does instead is just simplify concepts and remove the nuance, that you'd get from just explaining the thing yourself. So overtime labels becomes generalized stereotypes, riddled with misconceptions and associated meanings, you might not necessary agree with. Pretty much like saying you're a "leftist" without actually explaining your political views. That being said, I do understand some people's need to use labels. It can be hard to feel like you don't belong anywhere and needing that place where you fit in. Having a name. That's why I'd never criticize people for wanting to use labels or tell them to stop using them.
To end on a lighter note. The only label I'd call myself with is lesbian and the only reasons I'd do that is because I like the way word sound, but to me saying "I like girls" sounds way more natural than saying "I'm a lesbian", because it feels more like expressing myself.
Blastaar posted:
One drawback of insisting on labeling others with what purport to be "identities," though, is that people can and do change--patterns are only patterns until they're broken, and a descriptor that fits someone at one point in their life may not apply at another.
Exactly. I made very similar point in different thread quite some time ago. Putting label on yourself might help you at the time, but often it can also make you feel like you need to stick to it and become less flexible or unwilling to change or accept change, because it become part of your identity and now you're afraid to lose it.
