5 ms·

I'm not sure that's true. I have little to no sex drive (am "asexual" as the kids say), but I've had intense crushes/obsessive feelings about individuals with

I'm not sure that's true. I have little to no sex drive (am "asexual" as the kids say), but I've had intense crushes/obsessive feelings about individuals with no associated desire to have sex with the targets thereof. I imagine that for people with normal sex drives, both components play a role in initial relationship formation; ie, there's an emotional component in addition to "lust" as conventionally defined. You could quibble that these (relatively short lived) intense emotions are "lust", as opposed to the "love" of a longer relationship, but that seems to be playing a semantic game that doesn't really concord with how we generally use those words.

danachow 5y ago
Infatuation?
seibelj 5y ago
There are edge cases to anything in biology. I would say you are an edge case. Love and sex are fundamental to humanity and our continued existence. You being a 0.001% outlier, who will likely not produce any offspring who would have a chance to inherit your asexual-ness, does not refute the parent comment whatsoever.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  Love and sex are two different things. There's a reason we have two separate words, not just one. And, people can love their parents, children, and siblings. Does not mean they want to have sex with them.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  What little research that has been done on asexuality puts us at closer to 1%.
- Epenthesis 5y ago
  I'm certainly an outlier, but it seems intuitively likely that I'm experiencing a subset of what other people experience, rather than a disjoint. Ie, other people feel the socio-emotional component as well as the lust component, with me lacking the latter. However, it might be difficult for most people to orthogonalize these two components, since for them they occur simultaneously. That's the relevance of my asexuality to my comment: I suspect it allows me to experience the socio-emotional component without also experiencing the lust component, and thereby more easily see them as different. If it's true that there's both a lust and socio-emotional component, it still seems inaccurate (or at least, idiosyncratic) to refer to the combination of the two as "lust".
  - titanomachy 5y ago
    I appreciate this perspective. I also appreciate that you responded to a comment that could have been construed as dismissive or personally attacking without a hint of defensiveness or enmity. HN often surprises me.
  - waterhouse 5y ago
    Data point: I'm definitely not asexual, but I do experience romantic feelings and sexual feelings separately: I feel one, the other, or both towards various people. (A situation that satisfies one drive is likely to inflame the other, but initially they are often distinct.) Just because people have questioned the word "love" and stuff: when I say "romantic feelings" above, I mean this type of thing: "I find myself idly thinking about her, and that this tends to make me blush; when near her, or imagining it, I'm hyper-focused on her presence (primarily her face), such that if she moves slightly closer, it's as if I feel it on my cheek; my desires are to look at her, smile at her, tell her about my feelings, and touch her affectionately." Upon touching her (or imagining doing so), I would tend to notice her body and, as I say, that is likely to inflame sexual desire; but often not before then. I've asked around. I've met some guys who said they were similarly separate drives, and others who said they always coincided. I think girls tended to say they were separate as well. I don't have too many or too certain data points, though.
- spython 5y ago
  Please don't devalue and dehumanize your opponent and their contribution by calling them an edge case and a 0.001% outlier. Instead, speak for yourself. If for you 'falling in love' is a highly lust driven experience, that's fine. It may be much more 'emotional attachment' driven for others.
  - czzr 5y ago
    Tangentially - being an edge case doesn’t inherently dehumanise someone, edge cases do exist and we need to be able to discuss them without feeling we have to deny that to protect people.
    - maccard 5y ago
      Being an edge case is one of the most human things you can be. Our differences are what make us interesting!
      - yetihehe 5y ago
        I've read an anecdote somewhere that some phrenology doctor tried to find the most average man in a camp, by measuring everyone and then finding who is closest to all averages of measurements. Turned out that no one had all their measurements near average, everyone was off in one category or another. So, most of us are edge cases.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        zafka 5y ago
        Sounds like early design on jet fighter seats. Found it!!! https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
  - emptysongglass 5y ago
    Nobody is doing this. A person who struggles with ADHD, who has a diagnosed personality disorder such as schizophrenia, or who identifies as asexual is an outlier neurotypically speaking. Pointing this out is not dehumanizing. The problem with the thrust of the argument the asexual person is making is they are equating their feelings of obsession as "half" of what makes love work. It's a false equivalence.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  I know plenty of people who are demi-sexual, in which the love comes first and the sex perhaps later. And for that matter ace folks do have children too.
mattmanser 5y ago
That's called limerence, not love.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  That's the word some psychologist coined. It's pretty absurd to me to take such a common part of the human experience and use a neologism for it, when it's something that has been experienced for thousands of years the world over, and has received common words - love at first sight, infatuation, lust, depending on exact details.
  - mattmanser 5y ago
    Ok, call it infatuation if you want, but it's still not commonly called love. But limerence sounds like it is like infatuation on steroids. Psychologists have simply got better at classifying emotions, what you've decided to dismissingly call 'coined'.
    - pcthrowaway 5y ago
      The original response being disputed was that people initially fall in lust rather than love. Infatuation and lust seem like different things to me
    - kbelder 5y ago
      >Psychologists have simply got better at classifying emotions This being Hacker News, I am really not supposed to lay into the statement with all the derision and vitriol that it legitimately deserves. I'll restrain myself.
    - staticman2 5y ago
      One critique of psychology is practitioners use fancy sounding words- ideally with latin rootes- to make unscientific claims seem scientific. I believe I read that critique from a psychologist.
emptysongglass 5y ago
That's just obsession and has nothing to do with your status as asexual or not. Everyone is prone to obsessive feelings but they're not companions of love. I think you're actually the one that's pushing a semantics game here as in societies which are broadly liberal (let's say most Western cultures for sake of argument), sex is the hook that gets you to love. You generally don't start with love and then lust later.
- smeej 5y ago
  I don't think my experience is at all uncommon among women. It's extremely common for me that I will love someone first for who he is and only develop lustful feelings later. Perhaps men routinely begin with lust. Perhaps women do too. But starting with love and lusting later is also common.
speby 5y ago
Lust may be the wrong word here. Infatuation is more like the term I tend to associate with people's initial attraction and substance of their relationship with someone else. The simple reason has more to do with the fact people simply CANNOT truly know each other, their values, and the result of their behaviors and choices, until enough time passes. It is also worth mentioning that people's lives arc on their own, in that they change. Preferences change. Values might even shift for some people over time (e.g. a religious person becoming totally secular or even atheistic later in life). And those changes also do not typically emerge in a couple of months of dating and flirting with one another. It's.... just human nature.

danachow 5y ago

Infatuation?

seibelj 5y ago

There are edge cases to anything in biology. I would say you are an edge case. Love and sex are fundamental to humanity and our continued existence. You being a 0.001% outlier, who will likely not produce any offspring who would have a chance to inherit your asexual-ness, does not refute the parent comment whatsoever.

galaxyLogic 5y ago
Love and sex are two different things. There's a reason we have two separate words, not just one. And, people can love their parents, children, and siblings. Does not mean they want to have sex with them.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
What little research that has been done on asexuality puts us at closer to 1%.
Epenthesis 5y ago
I'm certainly an outlier, but it seems intuitively likely that I'm experiencing a subset of what other people experience, rather than a disjoint. Ie, other people feel the socio-emotional component as well as the lust component, with me lacking the latter. However, it might be difficult for most people to orthogonalize these two components, since for them they occur simultaneously. That's the relevance of my asexuality to my comment: I suspect it allows me to experience the socio-emotional component without also experiencing the lust component, and thereby more easily see them as different. If it's true that there's both a lust and socio-emotional component, it still seems inaccurate (or at least, idiosyncratic) to refer to the combination of the two as "lust".
- titanomachy 5y ago
  I appreciate this perspective. I also appreciate that you responded to a comment that could have been construed as dismissive or personally attacking without a hint of defensiveness or enmity. HN often surprises me.
- waterhouse 5y ago
  Data point: I'm definitely not asexual, but I do experience romantic feelings and sexual feelings separately: I feel one, the other, or both towards various people. (A situation that satisfies one drive is likely to inflame the other, but initially they are often distinct.) Just because people have questioned the word "love" and stuff: when I say "romantic feelings" above, I mean this type of thing: "I find myself idly thinking about her, and that this tends to make me blush; when near her, or imagining it, I'm hyper-focused on her presence (primarily her face), such that if she moves slightly closer, it's as if I feel it on my cheek; my desires are to look at her, smile at her, tell her about my feelings, and touch her affectionately." Upon touching her (or imagining doing so), I would tend to notice her body and, as I say, that is likely to inflame sexual desire; but often not before then. I've asked around. I've met some guys who said they were similarly separate drives, and others who said they always coincided. I think girls tended to say they were separate as well. I don't have too many or too certain data points, though.
spython 5y ago
Please don't devalue and dehumanize your opponent and their contribution by calling them an edge case and a 0.001% outlier. Instead, speak for yourself. If for you 'falling in love' is a highly lust driven experience, that's fine. It may be much more 'emotional attachment' driven for others.
- czzr 5y ago
  Tangentially - being an edge case doesn’t inherently dehumanise someone, edge cases do exist and we need to be able to discuss them without feeling we have to deny that to protect people.
  - maccard 5y ago
    Being an edge case is one of the most human things you can be. Our differences are what make us interesting!
    - yetihehe 5y ago
      I've read an anecdote somewhere that some phrenology doctor tried to find the most average man in a camp, by measuring everyone and then finding who is closest to all averages of measurements. Turned out that no one had all their measurements near average, everyone was off in one category or another. So, most of us are edge cases.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - zafka 5y ago
        Sounds like early design on jet fighter seats. Found it!!! https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-force-discovered-the-flaw-of-averages.html https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
- emptysongglass 5y ago
  Nobody is doing this. A person who struggles with ADHD, who has a diagnosed personality disorder such as schizophrenia, or who identifies as asexual is an outlier neurotypically speaking. Pointing this out is not dehumanizing. The problem with the thrust of the argument the asexual person is making is they are equating their feelings of obsession as "half" of what makes love work. It's a false equivalence.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
I know plenty of people who are demi-sexual, in which the love comes first and the sex perhaps later. And for that matter ace folks do have children too.

mattmanser 5y ago

That's called limerence, not love.

tsimionescu 5y ago
That's the word some psychologist coined. It's pretty absurd to me to take such a common part of the human experience and use a neologism for it, when it's something that has been experienced for thousands of years the world over, and has received common words - love at first sight, infatuation, lust, depending on exact details.
- mattmanser 5y ago
  Ok, call it infatuation if you want, but it's still not commonly called love. But limerence sounds like it is like infatuation on steroids. Psychologists have simply got better at classifying emotions, what you've decided to dismissingly call 'coined'.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    The original response being disputed was that people initially fall in lust rather than love. Infatuation and lust seem like different things to me
  - kbelder 5y ago
    >Psychologists have simply got better at classifying emotions This being Hacker News, I am really not supposed to lay into the statement with all the derision and vitriol that it legitimately deserves. I'll restrain myself.
  - staticman2 5y ago
    One critique of psychology is practitioners use fancy sounding words- ideally with latin rootes- to make unscientific claims seem scientific. I believe I read that critique from a psychologist.

emptysongglass 5y ago

That's just obsession and has nothing to do with your status as asexual or not. Everyone is prone to obsessive feelings but they're not companions of love. I think you're actually the one that's pushing a semantics game here as in societies which are broadly liberal (let's say most Western cultures for sake of argument), sex is the hook that gets you to love. You generally don't start with love and then lust later.

smeej 5y ago
I don't think my experience is at all uncommon among women. It's extremely common for me that I will love someone first for who he is and only develop lustful feelings later. Perhaps men routinely begin with lust. Perhaps women do too. But starting with love and lusting later is also common.

speby 5y ago

Lust may be the wrong word here. Infatuation is more like the term I tend to associate with people's initial attraction and substance of their relationship with someone else. The simple reason has more to do with the fact people simply CANNOT truly know each other, their values, and the result of their behaviors and choices, until enough time passes. It is also worth mentioning that people's lives arc on their own, in that they change. Preferences change. Values might even shift for some people over time (e.g. a religious person becoming totally secular or even atheistic later in life). And those changes also do not typically emerge in a couple of months of dating and flirting with one another. It's.... just human nature.