chat

I had a great platonic friend in high school who like on our second time hanging out just told me point blank "I'm never going to fuck you" which was really funny just given our dynamic so hey, maybe you could just put it out there

Not to undermine your point (because it's perfectly true that a lot of people never get beyond "relationships lead to sex or they lead nowhere" in their psychosexual development), but you can and should defend your position directly and be straight up with people rather than "sanitizing" your interactions with them to passively (and maybe presumptuously) forestall the development of such feelings. It is socially correct and healthy to straightforwardly set and maintain boundaries with people and flatly deny further contact if they can't respect them. Leaving your feelings unsaid leaves the other person room to fill in their own narrative in the same way that their unclear position leaves you adjusting your behavior without a feedback mechanism.

For obvious safety reasons, it's a good idea to set these boundaries in public and try to avoid being alone with people you don't completely trust to respect them.

I'm not aro/ace, but I've had fulfilling relationships with no "romantic" content; where sex was physically/psychically impossible; and many of the grades between those and allosexual-alloromantic relationships.

Again, you're not wrong, but everybody involved is communicating in a pathological way.

Why must this indicate romance in the sense that this escalator ends in sex?

Heteronormativity is frightened by honesty? Modern dating relies heavily on plausible deniability both for safety (like women getting murdered) and to save face when they are rejected. In addition when you are single people implicitly see you as on the market unless you loudly state otherwise. There's also the 'fun' assumption that men are always ready for sex to the point I've been called very colorful names and my orientation questioned when I've turned people down.

rhetorically, why is sex and romance such a big deal anyways? Both seekers and avoiders place an importance upon it that seems excessive. Its simply a thing that happens when your lives are compatible enough.

There is a huge society-wide ideology that privileges coupling up and treats it as the norm, while being single is treated as deviance. Look how much angst society has for people not having kids^[Especially since 10-15 years ago all the elites were loudly pontificating about overpopulation and said we should have fewer kids.]! Because of that people get into relationships and have sex for all kinds of terrible reasons. This article about Hate Sex has several funny confessions.

at this point simply showing anyone any form of attention is "leading them on."

???

People who struggle with social relationships in general likely don't have a partner and since most people have a desire for intimacy (which is okay to not have), those who struggle with social relations end up struggling with fulfilling their intimate desires.

What one might call "true love" where both the desire to be with someone + being materially able to be with them, is also increasingly difficult under capitalism. People are materially forced in relationships they don't like, intimate or not, hookups become more necessary, they're also perfectly compatible with capitalism and dating apps that further perpetuate hookup culture.

I could go more in depth, but I'm feeling really tired now.

There's a book: "Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence"

It could be related to this topic, but I haven't read it myself. Maybe someone who has read it can comment is this good book or not?