So what is sexual attraction?

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So what exactly is sexual attraction? A desire to get into the pants of somebody?

What is the difference between sexual attraction and ordinary attraction?

If somebody is attractive, does this always generate sexual attraction?

Do personality traits and identity affect sexual attraction, or is it a purely physical thing?

OI!
This is m*MY* turf.
I might get some "heavies" to pay you a visit so you can pay protection money.

It’s when you want to be enveloped by a desirious woman.

So, what you basically say is that sexual attraction is whatever somebody wants it to be? I don't think that helps much with explaining the situations were it presumably is required.

Yes, I know about reproduction and all of that stuff, but the thing is that basically all animals have courtship rituals which individuals follow and which *at some point* ends with having sex (reproduction). Almost all animals have short mating periods, and males will only be interested in "knocking up" females during these periods and will not attempt to have sex with anything that looks like a female all of the time.

Also, having sex today has an extremely low chance of resulting reproduction. Nowadays, we typically plan reproduction.

The strange thing is I have had sexual attraction from a very early age but I am late to know what to do about it. The attraction is petering out at my age though and I am not too bothered anymore after a few let downs.
Giving up hope in this respect. But anyway. It is when ones body responds to the attractiveness of seeing someone (Normally of the opposite sex but not always. With me it is. Same sex is a turn off for me where all my insides go "Err!" while opposite sex all my insides go "Ooh!").
Uhmmm. How best to describe it? From a very early age my downstairs regions have embarissed me. For the first few years it was with toy cars or trains which turned me on but in my teenage years these moments seemed to turn to girls. Nope. I never did anything about it. I was embarissed. I was brought up not to associate with girls in a sexual way. It was seen as wrong. It came as a great shock to me at the age of 18 when I found out my Mum was pregnant, and it suddenly dawned on me that my parents had had sex and had had it more then once! Three times to my reaconing! (As I have two brothers). How could they missbehave like that? I hardly spoke to them for two weeks until my Mum asked me what was wrong and I said "You've had sex!" My Mum then said "Where do you think you have come from?"
But having sex and being turned on (Sexual attractiveness) are different things. I do not think one can have sex without being turned on? I don't know. The two go together.
I am actually still a virgin. In real life I shy away from forward women as I don't know how to cope with them, and also I don't seem to notice women flirting. So if a woman goes beyond flirting I kinda of run away, and if she just flirts I don't pick up on the flirt. So it is probably why I am still single! Haha. I will stick to trains! (Nope. They only turned me on in my early years of childhood so it is not like that why I said I will stick to trains. They mentally attract me).

Uhmm. I may just be rambling on here making not much sense and have probably strayed way off the origional subject. I tend to bring trains into everything into my comparissons! It is how my mind works!

Without reproduction, there is no life.
Simples.

So, going back to the original question, what is sexual attraction?

I think we need to separate what causes sexual attraction to be experienced (which probably varies greatly), and what the effect is.

So, I got the suggestion that it was "want to be enveloped", which I take is the same as "mount" or "knock-up", which can be summed up as: "want to have sexual intercourse".

However, I don't think that is the way it operates. In animals, a male may sniff a female to check if she is in estrous, and if so, he might mount her. So, sexual attraction for that male is "female in estrous". However, this behavior is only seen in pretty primitive animals that have no courtship ritual (or where the courtship ritual consists only of sexual intercourse). In more advanced species, the effect of sexual attraction is to start the courtship ritual.

So, does the courtship ritual of typical humans only consist of having sexual intercourse? I don't think so. Experiencing sexual attraction almost never leads directly to sexual intercourse (and when it does, it's criminal behavior). Instead, typical men will try to start a conversation, ask for a date, and on the 3:rd date or so, he will want sexual intercourse.

Therefore, it is wrong when people claim that sexual attraction relates to a desire for sex. It only does for animals that have this as the only stage of courtship, which no humans have.

This definition also fixes the problem for asexual people. Asexual people can feel sexual attraction without wanting sexual intercourse. This is because the neurodiverse courtship ritual is mostly about bonding at a distance, and sexual intercourse doesn't have to be part of it. In fact, it can't, because then it no longer would be at a distance.

When it comes to infatuation and a crush, these are things that are part of courtship. They certainly are triggered by sexual attraction, but they don't depend on it once they are triggered, and there is no need for a desire for sexual intercourse since that is at the end of the courtship ritual and a crush is at the beginning.

Pepe, the Dawkins book is great. It was one of the most influential books I have read.

Rdos, I used to believe that men who paid attention to me were interested in the person I am. All those courtship rituals...

I now believe that it is just an extended version the bowerbirds building its bower. He just is trying his best to get intercourse so he can pass his genes along. Or, from Dawkin’s POV, the genes are manipulating the body to get the body to have sex so it (the gene) can reproduce itself.

Just because we now know that pregnancy can be avoided doesn’t mean the inherent biological drive to have sex isn’t the over-riding factor in the incredibly intense drive to have sex.

The real problem in relations between the sexes is the change from having females receptive only part of the time, to females being sexually available all the time. (Not my opinion. This was proposed in a book I read. Don’t remember which.)

I am only interested in sex with a woman whom I have respect for.

I don’t desire to get into every woman’s pants.