"Normal" Sexuality

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I was talking to a friend at work the other day about Pavarotti and said, "His voice makes me swoon."

She thought (understandably) that I was telling her I had a crush on him. That's not what I was saying though and I don't, just listening to him. Then she went on this thing about how he wasn't good looking and I just didn't really know how to respond (I don't think he's bad looking at all to say the least and I bet he got all the girls he ever wanted)!

But is there a thing - and this is a question, I'm not trying to say we're better than them (who is we here? who is them here?) - but is there a thing where if you have "normal" sexuality you have trouble appreciating people on a physical level in any way that is not sexual?

Or is this an Autism thing - not so much a characteristic of Autism, but just because we tend to experience life differently and maybe see it differently? I was really baffled, I mean sure in a conversation about Pavarotti you could say a lot of things, not everybody even liked him - but her whole spiel was about how he looked which is the last thing I would have thought to discuss about him. What is that? Maybe it was just the word "swoon" that caused her to think about it.

But for me there is a level of really strong attraction that has nothing to do with wanting to have sex with somebody - it happens in real life too. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

Shallowness. Defaulting to mainstream ways of categorizing people ? looks, money, sex appeal, race, etc.

No I think she misunderstood your feelings about him. I think to many people, swoon means emotionally, physically, and sexually attracted. In your case, it sounds more like a matter of emotionally he has an effect on you that perhaps strikes emotions from deep within you. Let's face it, that is what good music is all about. And someone that can put life and feeling into it such as Pavarotti is one of the things that made him great. My take on this at any rate....

Edit: BTW Normal Sexuality = Oxymoron

miscommunication happens often between NT's and between anyone.

But even assuming she thought I meant crush, I was talking about his voice specifically. I"m not saying she's shallow at all, she's not. She's pretty cool. The whole thing confused me more than anything, because then all of a sudden I felt like I was a party to calling him ugly (she didn't use that word) and I don't know how it got there!

She could have been referring to the irony (in her opinion) that he had such a great voice, but wasn't a good looking man (again, in her opinion). This is not an uncommon turn of conversation in the NT world. Without being there, I of course can't say for sure, but she may not have thought you had a physical crush on him at all. It could have been more like, "what a shame, he has such a beautiful voice, but his appearance doesn't match it."

When you talked about Pavarotti and swooning I thought of a scene in the movie "Amadeus" where Salieri is looking at the music Mozart has written and he hears it in his head. His eyes fall shut and his head falls back because he is so smitten with the beauty of the work. Then the sheets of written music fall from his hands.

I think she just wasn't listening. You said "His voice" not "His sexy, sexy body".