Two conjoined twins in Connecticut have opened up about how their romantic relationships work as one twin has a boyfriend while the other is asexual.
Lupita and Carmen Andrade are conjoined twins who moved from Mexico to the US when they were babies.
Connected at the torso, the pair share a pelvis and a reproductive system, while each has two arms but only one leg.
Carmen's aspirations are to be a veterinary nurse which she is studying for in college, while Lupita hopes to join her in the business as a technician and has a goal of being a comedy writer.
Speaking to Today.com, the sisters have explained how intimacy works as Carmen is in a relationship while Lupita is asexual.
Carmen explained how she met her boyfriend Daniel on a dating app, which she had to be careful of due to previous encounters with men who held ill intentions.
According to Carmen, she and her sister have been "fetishized" since they were nine. "No. 1 is being conjoined and another thing is people’s idea of just having sex with two people at once," Carmen shared.
"I knew right off the bat that Daniel was different from the others because he didn’t lead with a question about my condition. I have social anxiety, and I’ve ended up canceling dates at the last minute, but I felt calm on the way there," she said.
The pair have been together for two and a half years, and while discussions of an engagement have taken place, they want to live together first.
"Daniel and my sister get along really well," Carmen said. "It’s funny because I stay up later than Lupita, but when Daniel sleeps over, I fall asleep quickly — and he stays up talking with her."
To make it worth Lupita's while as the loved-up couple wants to spend a lot of time together, she often gets to choose the meeting point and where they go for dinner.
On the topic of a future family, Carmen said: "Both Daniel and I love kids, but we don’t want any of our own. I like being a dog mom. Lupita and I can’t get pregnant, we have endometriosis and we’re also on a hormone blocker that prevents us from menstruating."
The pair, who were born in 2002, were only expected to live to three days, the Daily Mail reported. As they grew older, Carmen and Lupita spent years in physical therapy together, learning how to sit up and walk, taking their first steps at age four.
Per a previous interview in a video titled 'We're Conjoined Twins. Ask Us Anything' by the Jubilee YouTube channel, the pair discussed boundaries.
One of those boundaries was whether the pair are sexually active, which Carmen revealed they weren't - however, she says her boyfriend is okay with that.
"I was obviously going to be transparent about everything. It was a learning process for everybody - we obviously had to have a discussion on what boundaries are okay and what isn't," Carmen said.
