Until about a month ago, I had never heard the term ‘freysexual’. Now it seems to be popping up everywhere. It’s a person — man or woman (or non binary) who loves sexual interest in someone as soon as they start to develop feelings for them. It came up on a March episode of Dan Savage’s podcast, Savage Lovecast, and it seems to have taken off from there.
The idea — to expand a little bit — is that the freysexual will lose sexual interest in a partner as soon as they begin to know and like them. The ‘frey’ will not lose interest in sex altogether, they simply lose interest in sex with their partner with whom they are emotionally connected.
Dan Savage’s immediate reaction was ‘we used to call just call these people ‘a-holes’. And a part of me agreed with that. It is kind of/usually and a-hole move to immediately start directing your sexual interests toward others as soon as you become close with someone. I can only imagine how hard it would be to be in a relationship with someone you are just starting to get close to and then to see them: (a) have no sexual interest in you; and (b) start to direct all their sexual attention toward others.
This would really suck — being the non-frey person in that quote/unquote relationship. And it made me think — why are we giving voice and names to people like that? Doesn’t that just valourize bad behaviour. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it really does need a label, if for no other reason to give people a heads-up about the nature of the relationship they could expect to have with that person.
I began to think about people in my life who may be freysexual. One is exactly what you would think of when you hear the description of a frey. He’s a good looking, athletic guy who loves to date and hook up. He is certainly capable of liking people for non-sexual reasons, but his relationship history is a ling series of very short term relationships. He said he really loses interest in a woman as soon as he sleeps with her. Yuck. But an interesting side note — he said he still likes them and would be happy having them as friends — he just loses interest in them sexually. And in his conception of a relationship he cannot imagine staying close with these woman after the sexual interest is gone. Similarly, the women have no interest in continuing to see him because they feel they were kind of used and discarded. I do wonder whether, if it was known up front that the sex and intimacy would be a one time thing, but a friendship could endure, would everyone possible end up happier. I don’t know. Mostly, I still think he’s a jerk, but if he could self-label as frey, at least partners would know what they are signing up for.
Another guy — an old friend who is very religious. He’s the living embodiment of the Madonna Whore Complex. He thinks his sexual thoughts are all deviant and evil and he believes that anyone who would have sex with him must be damaged in some fundamental way. It’s weird, and for very valid reasons makes him very unattractive to most women. But he’s got some good qualities. He’s smart, he’s kind to people, he works as a psychologists and is reputed to be very good at his job and helps a lot of people, and he dedicates much of his free time to charity work. And he’s pretty good looking and would never, ever be violent. There is a lot for a woman to like about him. But he would not want a sexual relationship with the woman he dates. And he would have sexual thoughts about others. But he would never act on these sexual thoughts — despite being pretty open about feeling self-loathing about thinking about women sexually, he’s actually a virgin. So, he would not be sexual with his partner, but he wouldn’t be sexual with others either. The thing though — he would have sexual thoughts about others, but not his partner.
I am convinced there is a woman out there for him. But she is a rare woman and it would be awfully nice if there was some way — a somewhat non-judging way — for him to describe his very particular relationship style.
Circling back, I have come to like the idea of the freysexual label. It is a very particular style of relationship these people want. And it’s not for everyone. In fact, it is probably for very few. So, all the more reason to be able to label it appropriately and allow partners to go in with eyes wide open. sex
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Previously Published on medium
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