Demisexuals are people who truly need a deep emotional connection to have quality sex. But we get horny, too.

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Written by Char Pfaff.

Art via Agnés Ricart.

I pull up in my red Ford Fiesta. I get out of my car and walk to the door, shaky and nervous as hell in the calming-yet-exciting summer air. I knock on his door, looking around and staring at trees. I don’t feel excited to see the person I don’t know, I feel excited to be touched like I haven’t been in months. He opens the door, we introduce ourselves. Exchange an awkward hug before heading up to his bedroom. The undressing is almost businesslike; we both know what we are here for: to have an orgasm.

We go through the phases, kissing, touching, and then trying to have intercourse. But when the time comes, I don’t. Unaroused. Stressed out. Upset that I can’t be a lone wolf who can get their physical desires fulfilled anywhere. I keep it calm and collected on the outside, making sure to not upset my stranger-lover. He orgasms. I get dressed, get in my car, and wonder, “What is wrong with me?”

Slowly I began to learn about myself through this feeling of inadequacy. Why couldn’t I embrace my inner hoe and have GOOD sex with a stranger? I wanted to be the carefree, powerful seductress who was powerful in their own sexuality. My identities had already seemed fully fledged out, I’m a queer non-binary person. I felt truly identified within myself.

So I went home and began googling, the telltale sign of a lost identity in this modern age. Frantically typing in the words “Why can’t I keep an erection for a hookup?”, ads for Viagra pills pop up. Blogs about stress, male-centered ego take over the page. Stress was there, but for what reasons? I felt like a good partner in bed; engaged, romantic, pleasing. There had to be more.

Then the word pops up: Demisexual.

Surprisingly, “demisexual” isn’t a term for people who like to have sex as powerful as the gods.

Demisexuals are people who truly need a deep emotional connection to have quality sex. Being a demisexual was a strange concept for me at first. I didn’t want to require love in my sex — I wanted to be a different, sexually free, hoe of the new generations! But I can take my identities and make them fully my own, interlacing my radical desire to break the oppressive structures while needing deep love for a good fuck. It’s kind of an oxymoron, I guess. The sweet irony that drips from every identity I have discovered within myself.

It’s empowering to learn a term about yourself, but sometimes it feels like I’ve added another complex gate for people to unlock in their attempt to love me.

Yes, I need an emotional connection to have enjoyable sex, and I still need to need to feel like I’m desired sexually. Desired for my body, my identity, myself. Just because I’m demisexual doesn’t mean I don’t want sex. I’m single. And demisexuals get horny too.

So, I had to find a way that works best for me as a single, queer hermit. Hooking up as a demisexual, non-binary queer person involves a multitude of realms that need to be respected, by myself and others. (Each person’s rules are vastly different; explore whatever makes you feel comfortable in your sexual magnificence!)

Hooking up as a demisexual, non-binary queer person involves a multitude of realms that need to be respected.

Here are a few of my hookup rules:

1. Intimacy is a Non Negotiable



Whether I’m meeting a person I’ve met twenty minutes prior online, or a consistent hookup, I need intimacy. They have to be into the same physical desires which fill my needs as someone who requires emotions in sex. They have to love foreplay, cuddling, being soft and accepting of my personal boundaries. When I first started hooking up, I would always require the hookup to shower with me. Something about the warm water and closeness made me feel calmer when going into a hookup. Creating the illusion of intimacy to satiate the physical desire is a vital part for me to hookup as a demisexual.

2. Set Boundaries

My body is a private place. I’m usually not open to having intercourse of any kind on a hookup, and I let them know ahead of time. Many people don’t respond after this point; they’re looking for a quick fuck, and that’s totally okay! I let them know that I require foreplay, cuddling, and intimacy of some kind. That I won’t be going beyond my boundaries for them. This allows me to firmly protect myself and gauge the person from the second they try to go any further.



3. Get to Know Them (even a little!)

Even if it’s just a paragraph about what they do, or checking their instagram, knowing something about the person and their work has greatly allowed me to have better hookups with people. The longer I have talked to them, the better the hookup is for me. They need to know me in a sense, that I carry my identities proudly into these hookup spaces, and that I expect to be respected in the bedroom.

Needing the emotional connection cannot always be satiated by creating an illusion. Dating isn’t easy, hooking up isn’t easy. Being a part of hookup culture, embracing my inner Marina & The Diamonds Heartbreaker, is not something that has come easily to me in any sense. It’s been awkward kisses, and leaving in the quiet dark while a drunken stranger snores.

As a person who needs emotional connection, we’re allowed to hook up, we’re allowed to feel emotional, and we’re allowed to set our clear emotional boundaries in sex so that we may also have a good time. It’s not all just heartless hookups while looking hot (while that’s great shit too!); it’s about being held closely in not only the physical sense, but in the mental and emotional sense as well.



Char Pfaff is a full-time pizza chef, full-time queer, and, on select days a full-time undergraduate student at Chico State University. Southern California is where they were born, in the dry, yet breathtaking, landscape of the high desert. They aim to utilize all of their creative talents into the field of editing and publishing, aspiring to work as a magazine editor bringing strange, new-age art and fashion into the life of print. As an artist, it is their goal express their own perspective vividly; to always be in pursuit of refining and tuning their work to be a prolific writer of their time.

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