r/HonestHotTakes • u/perfumed_with_gas • 2h ago
Sexual dysphoria exists, and “just accept your sexuality” doesn’t always answer it.
A person can be alienated from their own sexuality in a way that is neither reducible to stigma nor resolved simply by redescribing their sexual experiences as an authentic part of themselves.
By “sexual dysphoria,” I mean a persistent and distressing mismatch between the sexual life a person wants to have and the patterns of desire, attraction, arousal, or sexual response they actually experience. I’m not talking about biological sex or gender, and “I’m not claiming that ‘sexual dysphoria’ is a recognized clinical diagnosis.”
Someone can wish they were attracted to people they aren’t attracted to, wish they weren’t attracted to people they are attracted to, want a different level or kind of sexual desire, or feel alienated from recurring sexual responses. Stigma or social pressure may contribute to that conflict, but identifying those influences does not by itself establish that reconciliation is the right response.
A person can accurately recognize what they experience sexually and still wish some of it were different. Recognition doesn’t entail endorsement, identification, or reconciliation.
“Accept your sexuality” can therefore answer one problem while missing another. If acceptance means recognizing what one actually experiences, the person may already have done that. If it means becoming reconciled to those experiences or ceasing to wish they were different, that is a further claim, and it doesn’t follow merely from the fact that those experiences are genuinely present.
Repression, confusion, or internalized stigma may contribute to the distress without exhausting it. Their presence does not establish that the person’s alienation is reducible to them, nor that addressing those factors would necessarily resolve the conflict.
6
u/perfumed_with_gas 2h ago
Given how much disagreement there is about what counts as sexual attraction, desire, and sexuality, a universal claim that all apparent sexual alienation is exhaustively explained by stigma, repression, or confusion requires a much stronger argument than is usually supplied.
4
u/yoongely 1h ago
i think i get your point. i have trouble feeling sexual attraction in general towards others and many doctors told me to just accept that but i cant. it doesnt feel fair i lack what most people have
1
3
u/whatarechinchillas 2h ago
Describing how your sex life isn't going as well as you'd like as a type of "dysphoria" is a stretch... Honestly a bit patronizing for people who actually do suffer from a form of real clinical dysphoria.
2
u/perfumed_with_gas 1h ago
I’m describing more than someone’s sex life “not going as well as they’d like.” I mean persistent distress arising from a mismatch between the sexual life someone wants and the patterns of attraction, desire, arousal, or sexual response they actually experience.
I don’t see why the phenomenon I’m describing should be assumed to be categorically less distressing than gender dysphoria. Clinical recognition doesn’t by itself establish a hierarchy of severity. Sexual dysphoria, as I’m using the term, could be relatively mild in some cases and intensely distressing in others. I’m not claiming that the two phenomena have the same causes, structure, or treatment. If someone thinks sexual dysphoria cannot produce distress as severe as gender dysphoria simply because it isn’t an established diagnostic category, that asymmetry needs an argument.
2
u/whatarechinchillas 1h ago
I think you need better examples. The only example I can think of are people with OCD who think of really inappropriate things during sex and it kinda just fucks the whole situation up, but that's not classed as dysphoria.
3
u/perfumed_with_gas 1h ago
One example would be someone who experiences same-sex attraction, strongly wishes they didn’t, and is persistently distressed by that mismatch. Stigma might contribute substantially to why they want that attraction to be different and to how distressing the mismatch is without making the mismatch itself disappear. On my use of the term, stigma and sexual dysphoria can coexist.
Another would be someone who deeply wants to be sexually attracted to a partner they love but persistently isn’t. Someone might also experience recurring attractions, desires, or patterns of arousal that they wish were absent or different, including cases where they don’t regard those responses as immoral or shameful. Or their level of sexual desire might be persistently very different from the sexual life they want.
I’m not claiming that all of these have the same cause. I’m using “sexual dysphoria” for the common structure of persistent distress over a mismatch between the sexual life someone wants and the patterns of attraction, desire, arousal, or sexual response they actually experience.
I also wouldn’t count the OCD case merely because the intrusive thoughts are sexual and distressing. Intrusive sexual thoughts can be distressing without thereby being sexual attraction or desire.
1
u/whatarechinchillas 1h ago
The first one sounds like internalized homophobia.
Second one sound like just sexual incompatibility in a relationship.
I feel like you're trying too hard to use the word dysphoria for things that already exist and already have definitions. If you apply the same logic as your use of dysphoria then I can claim I've got financial dysphoria coz I'm broke af.
1
u/perfumed_with_gas 15m ago
Saying the first case “sounds like internalized homophobia” doesn’t really answer the example. Given the way I’m using the term, someone who experiences same-sex attraction, persistently wishes they didn’t, and is distressed by that mismatch straightforwardly fits the description of sexual dysphoria. Calling it internalized homophobia adds a further causal claim about why they want the attraction to be different, and that requires its own support. It may be true in some cases, but it can’t simply be assumed from the existence of the distress.
Likewise, “sexual incompatibility” doesn’t fully describe someone who wants to experience sexual attraction toward a partner and is persistently distressed that they don’t. Incompatibility describes the relationship, while sexual dysphoria describes the person’s conflict with their own pattern of attraction.
And I’m not sure “financial dysphoria” is a reductio. Even if persistent distress over a mismatch between someone’s financial life and the financial life they want were reasonably describable as dysphoria, that wouldn’t show that sexual dysphoria is incoherent or that the term lacks descriptive value. It would show, at most, that dysphoria can be used descriptively for persistent distressing mismatches in more than one domain. If the objection is that the term should be restricted to some domains and not others, that restriction needs an argument. I’ve already explicitly said that I’m not proposing a clinical diagnosis.
1
u/FastSelection4121 52m ago
Homosexuality is not a mismatch of desire. They could easily just remain celibate if they believe it's religiously prohibited.
Sexual dysphoria is an older term, for what is now called gender dysphoria.
0
u/RedeemedNephilim 1h ago
What they described is no different than "real" dysphoria
1
u/whatarechinchillas 58m ago
So incels have dysphoria coz no one wants to fuck them? What OP describes is just sexual frustration or dissatisfaction. It's not clinical.
1
u/RedeemedNephilim 54m ago
"What gender dysphoria describes is just gender frustration or dissatisfaction"
1
u/whatarechinchillas 53m ago
False equivalency
1
u/RedeemedNephilim 51m ago
Is it tho?
1
u/whatarechinchillas 44m ago
Gender dysphoria is distress about your IDENTITY. Sexual frustration is being unfulfilled sexually whether that's bad luck in dating, performance issues, societal pressures, etc. Having sex is not an identity. It's a behavior. Gender is an identity.
Dysphoria has to do with who you are. Sexual frustration has to do with what you are (not) doing.
Edit: but whatever, if you wanna use dysphoria as a word wrong then go ahead. But you won't find any mental health professionals agreeing that "sexual dysphoria" is a clinical term.
2
1
u/AutoModerator 2h ago
Hello! I’m AutoMod, and I’ll be hanging out in the comments on every post. Be sure to give our rules a quick read, and most importantly, have fun in the subreddit! Feel free to join our discord! https://discord.gg/EGXtuyUC
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
2
0
5
u/niceguy1428571 2h ago
Good hot take.