This post is my (first) submission to the October 2023 Carnival of Aces, which I’m hosting at this blog.
Sensual attraction can be an emotional or physical desire to engage in sensual acts with the person that the attraction is felt towards. Sensuality is a pleasure that involves the senses. … Many sexual people interpret sensuality as only relating to sexual pleasure that involves the senses, but there are other ways of being sensual. Some (though not all) asexuals enjoy nonsexual sensuality with other people.
AVEN Wiki
I understand why “sensuality” is distinguished from sexuality, or why there is an emphasis on “sensual pleasure” distinct from “sexual pleasure”. My problem is with that fact that upon scrutiny, I don’t think “sensual attraction” holds up. Let me explain.
Not Mutually Exclusive
In ace circles, we’ve often heard that physical attraction can be classified into sexual, sensual, and aesthetic attraction (even though the AVEN Wiki doesn’t necessarily classify it that way).
Classifications are useful only if they are exhaustive and mutually exclusive. However, this classification of physical attraction isn’t (which could be why the AVEN Wiki doesn’t include the classification).
Here is an example of how it’s not mutually exclusive:
Sensuality is a pleasure that involves the senses. … Sensuality often involves tactile stimulation, such as cuddling, kissing, or giving or receiving a massage, but interpretations of visual, aural, taste, or olfactory stimuli as sensual are also appropriate – for example, since the desire to appreciate the sight of a beautiful person involves visual stimulation, it could be seen as sensual.
AVEN Wiki
If sensuality is coming from all the senses, then “aesthetic attraction” would, at best, be a subset of sensual attraction. That is, if I am thinking of aesthetic as coming from the the visual sense. In fact, there has been some discussion in the past about whether “aesthetic attraction” is exclusionary, and whether it should be called “aural-aesthetic attraction” instead. But as thiro pointed out in one of my earlier posts, “aesthetic” doesn’t have to be exclusively about visuals — something that’s pleasing to the ear can also be aesthetic. By that account, sensual attraction and aesthetic attraction are basically the same thing.
I have a problem with the AVEN definition of sensuality as pleasure involving the senses because in pretty much all the ace discourse I’ve encountered, people use “sensual” to refer to the tactile. Although, interestingly, when I mentioned “sensual attraction” to one of my friends who is not ace, she said her first thought was about being attracted to someone’s smell or scent. So I can see why AVEN is including the other senses in the definition, but I think there is some merit to separating the tactile from the other senses.
Not Exhaustive
But there are problems with “sensual” even if we restrict it only to tactile. The AVEN Wiki I’ve been quoting from acknowledges this:
Sensuality is a pleasure that involves the senses. This is especially true regarding tactile sensuality such as cuddling. Some asexuals are uncomfortable with this classification, since they can also get sensual pleasure from nonhuman objects such as pillows, blankets or pets, to which they do not consider themselves ‘attracted’.
AVEN Wiki
The problem described above is pretty self-explanatory and does not need further commentary from me.
I will bring up another issue — the issue of eroticism.
Eroticism is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love.
Wikipedia
Would you look at that? Wikipedia combines ALL OF THE CONCEPTS into one sentence!
That first part of the Wikipedia definition might make it seem like eroticism isn’t something aces (or at least aces who do not experience any kinds of sexual feelings) would experience. But that second part of it also ties eroticism to sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. For the vast majority of people, these three things (sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love) are intertwined and go hand-in-hand, which is probably why whoever wrote the Wikipedia page expressed it this way. But as we know, the experience of these three things can be separate from each other, and I’m here to argue eroticism is a relevant concept for aces, at least some aces.
Let’s take the perspective of an alloromantic ace. It’s likely that they will agree that there is a different quality to cuddling with someone they have romantic feelings for versus cuddling with someone they have strong platonic feelings for. That difference, is what I think is eroticism. So it’s not just the quality that causes sexual feelings, but also romantic feelings. At the very least, its a quality that causes the umbrella feeling under which we can categorize sexual, sensual, romantic, whatever (but not platonic, where platonic means neither sexual nor romantic, or familial).
The problem, as I perceive it, is this — alloromantic aces tend to use “sensual attraction” to refer to this eroticism, whereas aromantic aces use “sensual attraction” to refer to something that’s not erotic. For example, the same language is being used by one group to refer to desire for, say, “romantic cuddling” and another group to “non-romantic cuddling”. This is because “sensual attraction” is defined as leading to the desire to cuddle (or hug, or touch, or whatever) without recognizing that those could be both erotic and non-erotic. Without the erotic and non-erotic distinction, this renders “sensual attraction” not very useful in communication.
Back when I was trying to tease apart attractions, I had proposed the following classification for physical attraction:
- Physical
The close and distant sensual terminology came from Ettina who suggested the close sensual and distant sensual distinction in this comment. Also note that I used “sensory” to refer to the senses, rather than “sensual” which is associated more with the tactile anyway.
So far, I feel like this classification does hold up to the exhaustive and mutually exclusive criteria, but I’m open to hearing differing opinions.
UPDATE (31 Oct): OK, I no longer think this classification holds up. Based on discussion in the comments, I am no longer convinced there is a difference between “erotic close sensual” and “sexual”.
And that is my long-winded answer to a question I posed in the call for submissions:
- Is sensual attraction erotic in nature, or not necessarily?
But I’ll actually keep going with my problems with sensual attraction.
Where is the line between sexual and sensual?
This question is at the heart of this month’s carnival topic.
Content Note: Explicit language in rest of the post.
Is sex only penetrative sex? Or involving genitals in some way? What about other forms of erotic touching? E.g., touching the thighs or the torso or the chest? Is that sexual or sensual?
What about kissing? Is that sexual or sensual? Kissing, especially if it involves tongue is, by most accounts, erotic in nature. It seems weird to lump “kissing” in the same category as “holding hands”. I suppose this is a cultural thing, but to me, holding hands is super normal among friends and family, and it’s really weird to me to see those things lumped together.
Physical intimacy, in and of itself, need not be erotic. (See my classification above). A long deep hug with your parents is a form of physical intimacy, but except in unusual circumstances, there is nothing erotic about it.
What about kink? Is that stuff sexual, or sensual, or a whole other category altogether? But it is typically erotic, right?
At this point, I’m not saying anything new. I’m really just reiterating my prompts from the call for submissions.
But I suppose I do have a point with all of these questions.
Here is my hot take: I think in ace discourse, we give far too much attention to poorly formed distinctions (such as the distinction between sexual and sensual) and not enough to more meaningful distinctions (such as, in my opinion, erotic and non-erotic).
Sources I’ve quoted from:
sildarmillion 
This is very interesting! I don’t have time to fully engage with it this morning and click through the links you linked and remind myself exactly what you are referencing at certain moments but I had literally just left a Facebook comment about what experiencing sensual attraction feels like for my as a demisensual person. It’s very much only the tactile stuff and as a sex-averse person I feel averse to the term erotic being used to describe anything in my own experience because what I feel is so very much always non-sexual and erotic feels like it includes sexual emotion always.
My Facebook comments to someone this morning included as part of them:
I identify as demi in a “sensual” way (as defined in this community) not a sexual way but it really is interesting how it feels to suddenly want something you didn’t before. Like I’m actively fantasizing about, craving, longing for a hug or other kinds of touch. I’m driving in the car with my partner in the passenger seat and the prior month I was not really fully comfortable with hugging and definitely not cuddling yet and borderline touch averse but then after my demisensual switch flips I’m actively feeling an invisible kind of energy charge between us and wishing our arms could graze. I don’t necessarily act on these feelings but they affect my emotions and thoughts and make me feel positive emotions about the specific person.
And then skipping to the next sensual attraction part of my comment:
My dad asked me in disbelief once that watching a sex scene in a film or TV show that’s designed to be sexy doesn’t make me feel anything? Really? And it’s like yeah. I get my sex-aversion triggered at worst or feel alienated. Or I feel neutral or bored/ find it boring. Or occasionally if I’m lucky the scene has some emotional resonance because the characters feel emotions I can relate to too in addition to their sexual attraction and desire. If they are excited in a cute/fun way that isn’t purely sexual but is because of romantic milestone maybe or because some aspect of the sex is more playful and fun I can connect with that. If they are in love and caring about each other and the sex scene is gentle and includes the types of touch my demisensual self could maybe appreciate like kissing their shoulder and elbow, caressing their hair, interlocking fingers, if it’s truly making love instead of purely sexual, the physical manifestations of love part I can kinda get behind while watching a show. But never once do I fully relate to the sexual parts even then. And nothing sexual crosses my mind. I’m not aegosexual like many in the ace community are. So I just truly don’t enjoy thinking about others having sex. It makes me uncomfortable most of the time.
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Thanks for sharing the comment on Facebook … what’s interesting to me is that when I read “I’m actively feeling an invisible kind of energy charge between us and wishing our arms could graze” – I would think of that as some kind of erotic charge. But you say that you are averse to this being described as erotic because “erotic feels like it includes sexual emotion always”.
That’s interesting to me. I am writing up some more thoughts that I’m going to put up in a Part 2 of this post and also in the roundup, and I’m really curious what your thoughts would be on those!
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I have to ask a really basic question: why must classifications be exhaustive and mutually exclusive? Exhaustive is what you expect from a complete system, which it is not. Mutual exclusivity is what you expect if the classification was designed top down, which it was not. More to the point, why must sensual attraction be a classification in the first place?
In my experience, sensual attraction is typically used to refer to tactile sensations–kissing and cuddling. I think the AVENwiki is being misleading by pretend that it actually refers to all the senses, when that’s just not a common use in practice.
Your second point seems to be an observation that sensual attraction isn’t specific enough about whether eroticism is present. What if I don’t want specificity though? It’s not clear to me how you’re using “eroticism”, as experienced by alloromantic aces. And if I don’t understand the concept then I wouldn’t want to take any stance on whether it is present or not.
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why must classifications be exhaustive and mutually exclusive?
It’s a good question. I should clarify that I’m not saying classifications must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive, but rather that they are most useful when they are. And here I suppose I am heavily biased because I’ve been spending all this time trying to understand the nature of certain things and especially trying to understand the boundaries between them — when these boundaries are so fuzzy, that becomes really difficult.
I also find that when boundaries fuzzy, people use the same words but ascribe different meaning to them and then they spend a lot of time bickering about semantics. (Going on a tangent, but if you’ve watched any of the Middle Ground videos by Jubilee, I find half the time people are just arguing about semantics rather than the substance of the topic.)
why must sensual attraction be a classification in the first place?
Not sure I understand this question. But if people are trying to distinguish sensual attraction from sexual attraction … isn’t that kind of like a classification?
In my experience, sensual attraction is typically used to refer to tactile sensations–kissing and cuddling.
This is also what I’ve seen. But this creates that issue of perhaps it’s not an intuitive term, because if I use the term, and others interpret it to mean “sexually attracted by someone’s scent” (like in the example I shared), then it’s not a useful term for shorthand communication, because I will always have to explain what this term actually means, which is then followed by a debate on semantics.
What if I don’t want specificity though? It’s not clear to me how you’re using “eroticism”, as experienced by alloromantic aces. And if I don’t understand the concept then I wouldn’t want to take any stance on whether it is present or not.
This is something I will delve into more in part 2 of this post which will be up tomorrow-ish, so please stay tuned for that, and please let me know if what you’re bringing up here isn’t sufficiently addressed there. 🙂
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I think it’s perceptive of you to observe the requirements of exhaustiveness & mutual exclusion. I think most people hold these assumptions without being explicit about it. But since you explicitly named the assumptions, I thought it was worth pointing out that I disagree with them.
Are we though? I feel like it’s okay if there’s overlap.
It’s also okay if there’s overlap between sensual and aesthetic attraction, although I think it’s important to note that in practical usage this overlap is not as large as might be imagined based on the name. I think the name can be kind of confusing tbh, but it’s the word that we got.
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Are we though? I feel like it’s okay if there’s overlap.
Sure, I concede that it isn’t an absolute necessity to be exhaustive and mutually exclusive. And it’s okay if there’s overlap. Maybe I should have said “people are often trying to distinguish between sexual and sensual.”
Take for example, Perfect Number’s comment on this post:
most of what I thought was sexual attraction turned out to be sensual attraction instead
I’ve seem people say similar things all the time: “This is X and this is not Y” — but I interpret that as meaning people are saying there isn’t an overlap.
(Also Perfect Number, please feel free to correct me, if I’m misinterpreting.)
I guess what it comes down to, regarding my problem with “sensual attraction”, is the language people use when they say, “that’s not sexual attraction, that’s sensual attraction”.
At the same time, I acknowledge what Perfect Number and VioletEmerald have been saying — that there is a difference between this sensual/tactile stuff and penetrative sex … but I also feel like that’s a very reductive way to view “sex”.
And I keep going back to the article by Dalychia Saah — she could have a very physically intimate experience with her partner that didn’t involve genitals, and she would still think of that as having sex. And I wonder how “common” that is among other allosexuals.
And finally, I think the name can be kind of confusing tbh, but it’s the word that we got. — yes I agree, the naming isn’t the most intuitive, but it’s also true that the usage has become quite ingrained by now.
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I didn’t see anyone bringing up penetrative sex!! I was bringing up sexual as a term much more broadly than that. The clarification is that for ME the feelings definitely don’t feel sexual in any way. They aren’t tinged with sexual desire. For other people a cuddling experience might be arousing or a hug might trigger all their sexual feelings for someone, their fantasies, the charge feels sexual in some way. Some energy is located around their genitals maybe but idk I’m a person with no sex drive who has never felt it so I’m not the best person to explain it. It’s not about what the actions or behaviors are or are not. It’s not about the fact that a hug isn’t sex. It’s about what the feelings’ flavor are. That this attraction this kind and not that kind. That this desire is this kind not that kind. It’s a personal classification of how it feels intrinsically, like there being no practical difference in the action of going out to dinner with a friend vs a date but there’s this internal emotional difference, there’s differences in intention, in comfort level, in intimacy. You might be literally doing the same action, eating the same meal, or even sharing the same story about your life but it feels different.
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I didn’t see anyone bringing up penetrative sex!!
I was going off Perfect Number’s comment: “I always thought this meant I really wanted sex, I thought it would be like passionate cuddling but even more- turns out that’s not what it is at all, it’s genital stuff (?)” and I interpreted this to mean penetrative sex or at least involving genitals in some way.
Which is why I was asking … does the difference between sexual and sensual come down to whether genitals are involved?
(And I’ll also wait for any clarification from Perfect Number regarding whether I misinterpreted anything.)
In the interest of streamlining, I’ll respond to your other comment here.
I forgot to include a CW, sorry about that! But thanks for engaging with the thought experiment regardless! But it seems like you and I are at least on the same page that something can be sexual even if genitals are not involved.
Given that, going back to my classification of physical intimacy as: sexual, erotic-sensual, and non-erotic sensual, I am now thinking that the first two are basically the same. (I’m critiquing my own classification rn — I guess when I made that classification, I was thinking of sexual as involving genitals only, and I take that back now.)
At this point, I think I’m able to understand the difference between the kind of “sensual” feelings you’re talking about and “sexual” feelings. But I think I’m still not completely sure about the difference between those sensual feelings as they apply to a partner vs. a really close platonic friend (or a sibling/cousin). And that’s something worth digging into.
I’ll keep thinking about this and maybe write more on it. Btw, if I reference your comments, what pronouns should I use?
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I’m a cis woman; she/her is great. 🙂
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I think maybe the way I define “sensual attraction” is different from how other aces define it- but it’s a really important concept for me, basically because most of what I thought was sexual attraction turned out to be sensual attraction instead.
I understand “sensual attraction” as wanting to touch someone, in a way that’s passionate and charged with romantic sparks. And this definition is useful to me but I don’t really expect that anyone else has to define it the same way, because like, how do I even explain what “romantic sparks” are…? I have heard some aces explain sensual attraction like it applies to all examples where you want to touch something, like you see a fluffy cat and want to touch it, but I don’t define it that way at all. For me it’s about like wanting to connect to someone with my body- and I don’t know, feels weird describing it that way because it sounds like a euphemism for sex, but it’s not. What I’m talking about is feeling someone’s warmth, the pressure from being touched, the smoothness of his skin, petting his hair, all of that, if it’s a guy I’m attracted to then it’s very romantically charged and exciting. And I guess for allosexual people, those things are sort of seen as, like, they are supposed to lead to sex, rather than being good enough just by themselves. I always thought this meant I really wanted sex, I thought it would be like passionate cuddling but even more- turns out that’s not what it is at all, it’s genital stuff (?). But also sex unavoidably includes touching, and if I hadn’t experienced vaginismus/ painful sex, I probably would not have even been aware that I wasn’t interested in the actual sex part but just the cuddling part.
So, it’s interesting that you say maybe alloromantic aces are defining sensual attraction differently than aro aces. Probably this is true! I also like to hug my friends, but I don’t call that “sensual attraction” because I don’t feel the need to call it anything. “Attraction” language is only useful for me for describing the feelings associated with wanting a romantic relationship with a man. But other people use “attraction” language differently, which is fine (and my definition is very much based on me being straight, so obviously wouldn’t apply to a lot of people).
As another example, the concept of aesthetic attraction is useful for a lot of aces because it shows that thinking someone is good-looking can be a totally separate thing from desiring romance/sex. But for me, I don’t really need that concept, and I use “aesthetic attraction” to mean thinking someone is good-looking in the sense that a guy I have romantic feelings for is good-looking. … oh so these are kind of opposite definitions, maybe they should be different words… In your post, you seem to be using “erotic” to indicate this difference, I’m not sure that’s the right word though, because I always thought “erotic” meant the same thing as “sexual.”
For me, aesthetic attraction, romantic attraction, and sensual attraction all kind of run together- ie, if I feel aesthetic attraction for someone, it could easily develop into romantic attraction/ sensual attraction if I spent more time with him, etc. (And also the way I’ve experienced attraction has changed, from when I was a teenager to being in college to being an adult, and then getting married and being married for a long time. Lots of changes in terms of which aspect of attraction is stronger.) I guess for allo people, sexual attraction also blurs together with the other kinds of attraction.
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Everything from the start of your second paragraph when you start describing sensual attraction, that’s so very much what it’s like for me too!! I love that description through that end of describing it with “it’s very romantically charged and exciting”. It’s funny because i never was sure I felt romantic feelings. But for me it’s kinda tied to falling in love and I call it alterous these days. Alterous love, alterous attraction. I wonder sometimes if really what my demi-sensual feelings are is sorta a way I’m semi demiromantic though. Like what I call gray-aro and Alterous and demisensual they could call demiromantic. Idk. All I know is the alterous way it feels to cuddle or long for a hug is very different than when I comfortably do it platonically with family or share a hug with a friend I love platonically but without any of that extra charge of like a crush or alterous feelings or whatever. It is very different.
Also yes Erotic always meant sexual to me. Maybe it typically meant some extra emotions too mixed in with the sexual but. Sexual was at its core as a term. Sexual was a foundational component.
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OK, follow up question for both Perfect Number and VioletEmerald.
Following up on “erotic” is sexual but not sensual.
So does sexual mean involving genitals and sensual mean touching except for genitals? I guess I’m asking: is it obvious where the line is?
Here are some examples.
– Rubbing someone’s shoulders
– Stroking someone’s thighs
– Kissing someone’s neck
– Kissing someone’s torso
Are all of these “sensual” because they don’t involve genitals? Or could some of these be “sexual”? Would you consider any of these to be erotic?
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I see it the way I know I talked about Kissing before a few places but I don’t recall well.. for some people it’s sexual. For some people it’s sensual but doesn’t cross into sexual. Maybe for everyone there’s some sensual component to it but if it is also sexual too that’s dependent on a case by case basis how it feels for the person.
Anything that’s both sensual and sexual feels like erotic fits in my mind. Things that are able to be just sensual without the sex are not inherently erotic though.
By able to be I mean I guess if someone experiences it that way genuinely. If you’ve heard of someone ever saying it’s actually not sexual to them. To me I’ve never heard of kissing a torso, kissing a neck, or stroking thighs being non-sexual and it kinda makes me cringe with triggered sex-aversion just a little to read about it and talk about it lmao. To me those are very sexual things. So is mouth kissing. Which I’ve blogged about my aversion to seeming linked to sex-aversion probably. Even though I feel sensual attraction I don’t feel like that kind of desire. I don’t feel comfortable with that kind of kissing.
Rubbing shoulders idk I could see that being very platonic even. Not even sensual always. I could see it being something a family member does or a professional massage therapist. I could see it being divorced from emotional intimacy or linked only to a type of intimacy that doesn’t feel sexual in any way. I can also see it at many other times being sexual and it depends on the intention of the person conducting the shoulder massage and the emotional state and interpretation of the recipient as well. I mean it’s a whole other blog post to discuss what is or isn’t a sensual act.
And when you bring eroticism into it… hmm. Maybe that’s like the objectively sexual meeting some kind of experiential dependent basis or emotion basis where it’s only erotic if at least one the people involved feel a certain way?
Well I’m thinking of people describing two heterosexual men or better yet a while volleyball team of them on a beach being shirtless on screen in a movie being described as a homoerotic thing to some people and idk where that falls.
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Wow very active comment section here! Let’s all appreciate the humor of this, we are a bunch of aces trying to figure out what “sexual” means.
I’m posting this as a new comment since it relates to several of the comments above.
So, the way I define the difference between “sensual” and “sexual” is by whether or not arousal is involved. So you could even have a situation where Partner A is doing stuff to Partner B, and Partner A is not aroused, while Partner B is aroused, so the experience is not sexual for Partner A, but is sexual for Partner B.
(But also I’ve heard that for people who have a penis, especially teenage boys, they sometimes get aroused for no reason at all? So if that’s happening to someone, then arousal wouldn’t be a useful indicator of what’s sexual and what’s not.)
And when I say “I thought I had sexual attraction but it was actually sensual attraction” I mean that when I stopped repressing myself and just followed my desires, they didn’t lead to sex, they led to much cuddling/kissing. Apparently for allosexuals, when they do the kind of intense cuddling and kissing, it then naturally makes them feel like the next step is to do stuff with their genitals (?). Which is very much not natural for me.
And for defining “sex”, I guess I want to say the “correct” definition is doing stuff that stimulates genitals, but actually as I’m thinking about it, I realize that in reality the definition I subconsciously use is more hetero and male-centered, like, doing stuff until the man has an orgasm. So um that’s kind of problematic. (Kind of similar to how a lot of people would say sex doesn’t have to be penetrative sex, but also they sometimes say “we didn’t have sex” when they did other sexual things but not penetrative sex.)
So anyway, the way I’m defining the difference between sexual/sensual, and the way I’m defining sex don’t totally line up- it’s very possible that someone could say “I had sex with my partner, but I didn’t experience it as sexual”. Like a difference between the specific *action* being sexual, vs the person’s feelings surrounding it, which could have been sexual or just sensual. Maybe this is confusing and I should use different words to make it more clear, but I don’t really feel a need to talk to anyone about it so it doesn’t bother me that I don’t have clear words for it.
(Also we can get the weird situation where it’s possible to get pregnant through doing things that you yourself are actually not experiencing as sexual- ie, having PIV sex while not aroused.)
(Btw for anyone thinking about having sex, I recommend figuring out what arousal is too.)
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Let’s all appreciate the humor of this, we are a bunch of aces trying to figure out what “sexual” means.
I laughed out loud when I read this — so true. But I think maybe it’s us asexuals who think this stuff is worth thinking deeply about to figure out.
Also, I love all the points you brought up. It’s this very fuzzy areas where things don’t line up with each other — it’s what I live for, haha. Trying to understand where those discrepancies come from, I guess that’s like my hobby.
Anyways, I’m really glad you brought up arousal because maybe that is also what I was thinking about. Like, I was thinking about the difference between cuddling with some of my friends and with my LO, and with my LO, there was this very different experience in my body, like something building up in my body. And the times it was especially intense, it was leading to an intense need for something and yeah, that has to be arousal and maybe what I needed was release.
But then you bring up the excellent point that arousal can happen even without another person involved (or with other kinds of stimuli) — but I think that might be a slightly different process.
So, if we were to say “erotic” related to arousal — well, yeah, that actually fits, I think.
And going back to the difference VioletEmerald was explaining … desire without arousal and desire with arousal … I can see the difference there.
So … I think it comes down to whether “sensual attraction” is being used to describe attraction without arousal. And I’m not convinced that everyone is using it this way. What I mean by that is, if someone is writing about experiencing sensual attraction, I can never know if they mean in an aroused way or a non-aroused way unless they specify it. So, it’s not a useful form of shorthand communication.
(I mean look at how “sensual” is used outside ace circles. If you google the definition, this is what shows up: “relating to or involving gratification of the senses and physical, especially sexual, pleasure.”)
Also great points that if people did “other stuff” but not penetration, they’ll say “Oh we didn’t have sex” — so the common understanding of sex typically does involve penetration only — and I guess, the more I’ve been thinking about it since writing about it, I’m just really on board with Dalychia Saah’s argument that we should challenge this narrow definition of sex and broaden it.
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“If sensuality is coming from all the senses, then ‘aesthetic attraction’ would, at best, be a subset of sensual attraction. That is, if I am thinking of aesthetic as coming from the the visual sense. In fact, there has been some discussion in the past about whether ‘aesthetic attraction’ is exclusionary, and whether it should be called ‘aural-aesthetic attraction’ instead. But as thiro pointed out in one of my earlier posts, ‘aesthetic’ doesn’t have to be exclusively about visuals — something that’s pleasing to the ear can also be aesthetic. By that account, sensual attraction and aesthetic attraction are basically the same thing.”
This passage makes a lot of logical sense, and yet I want to push back on it a bit because I feel like there is a difference between the aesthetic and the sensual, even it it’s hard to define. As an example, consider looking at a picture of a landscape versus looking at a picture of a kitten. I might find the landscape aesthetically appealing (i.e. pretty) but not consider that feeling sensual. On the other hand, the kitten might provoke an “Awwww! Cuuuuute!!!” reaction that I would experience as physical, visceral, sensual.
Or, to put it on a more human level, say you show me a picture of Audrey Hepburn and a picture of my best friend. If I’m judging aesthetically, I’d probably say the Audrey Hepburn picture is prettier. I might put it up on my wall and enjoy looking at it. I might even feel inspired to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie. But that’s as far as it would go. My appreciation for Audrey Hepburn’s beauty doesn’t lead to a desire for any kind of physical contact with her. She’s just a pretty person to see in photos and on my T.V. screen.
On the other hand, the picture of my friend might provoke all kinds of feelings in me. I might find myself thinking about her voice, her smell, about the experience of her physical presence. I might feel a tug towards her, a longing for her that might almost be described as physical. That longing might include the desire for direct physical contact (i.e. touch) but also for other forms of physicality, like talking, sharing a space, and doing things together. I wouldn’t call that feeling “aesthetic”, but I think it could easily be considered “sensual”.
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Hmmm, so that difference you’re describing, I had thought of that as the difference between aesthetic attraction and aesthetic appreciation. I had written about this back in my exploring attractions series. If I’m objectively evaluating something is aesthetically pleasing, without it affecting me in some way (emotionally, viscerally, etc.), then, idk, I wouldn’t really think of that as a form of attraction.
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Ah, I see. That does make sense. I guess you’re right: I wouldn’t really say I’m attracted to the pretty landscape, just that I enjoy looking at it.
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