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Asexuality
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A long ask
I worry about identifying as asexual because I dont want to trivialize a very real identity if I dont actually belong to it. I end up scrutinizing everything I do to see if its proof that I am or are not ace. So I am hoping that if I ask you, you could put some things to rest.
Basically i have never felt this sexual attraction towards people the way that i think it exists for other people. I dont get turned on by people. I dont want to see them naked, I dont want to do anything like that. This is the way its always been.
However, there are some things that make me nervous. Like the sounds that people make when they have sex turn me on. Just the sounds. But people make those sounds…
And when I get drunk i very often end up hooking up with someone then wake up competely ashamed and regret what i did (it never involves actual sex, but its obviously sexual). when im drunk i dont do it because im attracted to the other person, i think i just like the attention.
Anyways, could you help?
So sorry I just submitted this again without answering
sorry one second
Edit: Muscle memory about answering asks, I think. Sorry about that.
“Basically i have never felt this sexual attraction towards people the way that i think it exists for other people” that is really all it means to be asexual. You can get aroused by various forms of stimuli such as noises like you say. You say you engage in sexual behaviors but do not experience attraction, that’s all asexual means, is no sexual attraction.
You can get aroused, have sex, enjoy sex and all sorts of other things. The only thing that makes one ace or not is attraction.
Also, I understand worrying about trivializing an identity like that, and it’s nice you’re considering that. But don’t worry. The thing about these identities are to help you make sense of yourself, so if you feel like you fit, then you belong. It may change later, sexuality is fluid, but if it helps you, don’t hesitate to use it.
-Griff
On “-sexual”.
One of the most common criticisms of the terms “asexual” and “demisexual” is that the suffix “-sexual” refers not to the act sex and sexual desires, but to the physical sex of the individuals involved. This argument is cissexist, poorly built, and ignorant in a few ways.
First, let me address the cissexism. While some people’s sexual attraction is based on sex, others are based on gender identity. Some have attraction regardless of gender expression or identity. By saying that -sexual refers only to sex, you are erasing the experiences of many queer people as well as denying the gender identities of many trans* people.
Second, let me address the ignorance. Languages evolve. It is true that -sexual was originally used to refer to the sex of the individuals involved, and in fact terms like “bisexual” were used in science to refer to hermaphroditic organisms. (“Hermaphrodite” is not the same as “intersex”. The former refers to organisms with both differing sets of genitals, while “intersex” is a condition than can refer to intermediate genitals, genetic conditions, and more. However, “hermaphrodite” is also a serious slur against intersex people.) Language evolves, and the original meaning of a word does not always stick. this needs to be accepted.
Third, let me address why this argument is poorly built. The earliest queer rights activists, following World War II, rejected the term “homosexual”. The term they preferred instead was homophile, meaning “same love”. Why did they choose this? Because they were stressing love over the act of sex. This term was overrun in the 70s by GLBT, on top of “homosexuality” being removed as a psychological disorder from America’s psychological associations.
Not only are the uses of -sexual to mean sexual attraction common, but they are standard and have a long history. Trying to debunk the ace spectrums with semantics is baseless and bigoted.
(Source: licoriceplease)
Gray asexual, or just sexually developing slow?
This is really a question, but it’s much too long to put into an ask. I really want to describe my situation as clearly as possible so I can get the best answer.
About me: I’m a girl, I’m almost 20, and right now I consider myself a heteromantic gray asexual. I recently started following this blog, and I’ve never really wanted to do much research about my own asexuality because it’s confusing as there are so many different levels. I tell myself I’m one thing, but then I’ll read something that says otherwise and then I have to change exactly what I call myself.
When I was in middle school and high school and all my friends and I were going through puberty and being all interested in boys, I felt attracted to boys, but not sexually. I didn’t really understand how my girl friends were all “OMG I’d totes bang him!” I’d just laugh and play along even though I didn’t really get it. I had like 1 crush my entire middle/high school life, and since he was “popular” and I wasn’t, I never even talked to him so that was all physical. There were other boys that were good looking but I wasn’t attracted to them in the same way. I think I was sensually attracted to this boy, and other boys I just found physically attractive. I figured it was just the guys in my town were all kind of… not good enough and that I had standards or whatever.
One day I was reading a yaoi manga (junjo romantica! yay!) and I was trying to tell one of the boys on my bus that I don’t really care about the sex, I just really like the romantic relationships. He said “Have you ever heard of AVEN?” I asked him what is was and he said I should just look it up when I got home.
So I did, and that is what opened me to the world of asexuality. I was 15 at the time, and was still figuring out exactly what I wanted in a relationship, if I even wanted a relationship. I had a boyfriend at one point, and really only decided to date him because he was my best friends friend and he asked me to his junior prom, but I wasn’t really attracted to him at all. We were together 3 months.
Between senior year of high school, and my first year of college, I had a boyfriend for about a month. I told him that I consider myself asexual and he didn’t really get it and only wanted to see my boobs. I was totally fine just hanging around in his room with my shirt off. He kept pressuring me to go farther with him but I wasn’t really into it. I dated him because I felt I needed more experience as to what I wanted in a relationship.
Skip to the middle of my second quarter in college, I met this guy in one of my classes. We kind of had this mutual flirtation going, and he was the teddy bear kind of cute. We went on a date, and it was a good date, but then I just kind of ignored his advances afterwards. I don’t really know why, I just wasn’t feeling it. We’re still friends.
About a year ago (so the end of the next quarter), I met this other boy. I’m a game design major, and let’s be honest, cute nerdy guys are kind of hard to come by. I sat down next to this guy because I thought he was cute (physically pleasing!). We didn’t really talk much but I always enjoyed our little conversations and I would be a bit disappointed when he didn’t show up for class.
At the end of the quarter, he asked me to lunch and I was so excited. We exchanged numbers and I texted him the second I found a free day in my schedule. I called one of my best friends and told her how I was hoping that it was a date because he was just so cute and a really nice guy. After our third time going out we decided to become a couple and be official and all.
After about a month into dating I told him that I consider myself asexual. He was like “What?” because he’d never heard of that before. I explained that I don’t feel sexualy attraction, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find him physically attractive and that I’d like to have sex one day just to say I’ve had it, but I don’t find it totally necessary. It didn’t really change anything, so I was thinking maybe he didn’t understand. I went home and did more research on it so I could better explain to him what I am. We talked about it again and he just said maybe because I haven’t tried sex, I feel that way. I told him that’s not the case and I told him I’d like to have sex with him eventually because he is sexual and it’s a way that we can make that mutual romantic connection or whatever.
Anyway, as our relationship progressed, I started to find him more and more sexually attractive, I think. I had the desire to see him and cuddle up next to him when he wasn’t wearing a shirt and basically I found his body attractive.
So I’m confused because I’m experiencing a little bit of what I think is sexual attraction. Eventually we have sex, and it’s not the best thing in the world. But there’s this moment while we’re doing it where I just feel so connected to him and I can’t get this anywhere else. And it’s the only reason I wan’t to have sex with him.
I don’t think about having sex with anyone else, I just can’t see it. Sure, I’m attracted to other guys, but he’s really the only guy that I’m seriously attracted to.
Even after a year of dating, he still makes my heart pound whenever I see him or think about him, and I’m still totally physically and romantically attracted to him, where with other boys I’ve just lost all interest after a month.
So, my question finally. Should I still consider myself a gray asexual or am I just sexually developing slowly? I can’t imagine myself being in a relationship with anyone else or experiencing these feelings with anyone else.
Sorry, accidentally published this without replying. One moment
Edit: I think you actually sound like you could potentially be demisexual. You developing attraction to this guy after forming a connection sounds like that’s what it could be.
But it’s up to your distinction.
Edit: I went with demi since you specified sexual attraction, as well as that other attraction (which sounds sensual attraction), so that’s what I went with.
It is also possible to experience sex and enjoy the connection while not being attracted, per se.
-Griff
Hey there! I was hoping to ask a favor. You see tomorrow (*today) marks the start of my data collection for my honors thesis. I’m writing a paper on asexual identity and experiences. I need people of pretty much every sexuality, though I need a large number of asexuals for my data to be usable (*…) Thanks! -Siri
The survey is here: (x) anyone who has time to fill it out, it would be appreciated.
* The things in parentheses are my adds, just to give you an idea of what the survey is for, but omitting needless information.
Edit: it should work now, I accidentally put a space in the html.
If it still doesn’t here: http://ucsas.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6zBrB9NFv9wPR6A
-Griff
so most friends are okay when I say I’m asexual, and they are understanding to the point we can joke about it (“oh, I’d totally want this guy as long as he kept his clothes on”), and it’s fine, and then every once in a while you hear someone go “this is crazy” and “there’s no such a thing” and “you just say that because it’s trendy/because you haven’t find the right person” and there’s absolutely NOTHING you can do to tell this person that’s just what you are and that’s so damn frustrating, even more so when you’re talking to a gay person and you can actually say “LISTEN, buddy, a few years ago someone would be saying the same thing to you”, but NOOO. because sex is NATURAL. and I want to say that “oh, because gay sex is so very natural and there are so many BABIES coming out of that” SHIT. same damn logic and even some gay people can’t get it. I don’t get it. can’t get it. blargh.
Yes, this is always frustrating! It’s a good thing we have the support of a community to fall back on, though, when it gets rough.
-Griff
ASexy Pep Talk
Seeing a lot of posts under the asexuality tag about newly-discovered aces (hetero-romantics, pan-romantics, homo-romantics) who feel like they’ll never find love that isn’t horribly tangled up in sex and super complicated so they’ll just live alone forever.
I think this is a terribly disturbing thing to think. It’s like what they say about everything: if you send out good energy, good things will come to you. I believe there’s a book called The Law of Attraction, which you don’t even need to read because I just spoiled it for you.
So thinking “I’ve just made my chances of finding love incredibly over-complicated so I should just own up to the fact that I’ll never get a bf/gf,” isn’t going to help you at all. Why are you looking at this new label as a hindrance? I get it, I do, it’s hard enough to find love in this crazy world without over-complicating your search terms. But you have to think about the bright side:
You’ve just changed your parameters. Someone out there is thinking the same thing and searching the same world and your chances have gone from “Maybe one day i’ll find a heterosexual/homosexual partner who will just have to accept less from me” to “maybe one day i’ll find another asexual romantic and we’ll have the perfect relationship, I won’t have to conform to another person’s social needs and/or overwhelmed with guilt, and we’ll live happily ever after!” AND “maybe one day i’ll find a heterosexual/homosexual person who totes loves me and doesn’t even fucking care that i won’t do certain things!”
Positive thinking is an amazing thing. Hope is an even more amazing thing. Hope can keep you going when all else is lost. Hope can raise you up from despair and help you believe in yourself.
I think it’s important for newly-discovered asexuals to realize that they are definitely not alone. There’s a perfectly positive community of us everywhere: tumblr, AVEN, facebook, lurking in the shadows, etc. There’s even newly-created media that is opening the world’s eyes to the possibility of another sexuality. It won’t be long now.
You’ve just got to remember that even if you feel oppressed by the heightened sexuality of the world, even if your family/friends/coworkers don’t get who you are, even if you feel like you’ll die alone or forced into an awkward relationship of sorts…
Even if all these things feel like a dead weight on your shoulders, you need to remember that there are a whole lot of people on this earth. There’s so many people, it’s impossible not to find one for you. It’s impossible not to run into someone with your exact worries, or someone who cares about you enough to put their sexual desires on hold indefinitely. And even more importantly, there’s enough Asexuals out there you couldn’t possibly meet them all…
Though it would seem a vast majority of them are on the internet.
P.S: just did a search on google. “asexuality” generates 835,000 results. Imagine each one of those results was one person.
Related: it’s approximated that 1% of the world’s population is asexual. 1% of 7 billion is still 70 million people.
Submitting because the ask box can’t hold this many words.
I used to think I was a very romantic asexual, but now I’m not so sure. I enjoy romance in fiction, and I get squishes often, but when I really think about the kind of relationship I want, it just doesn’t seem all that romantic. I’m curious about kisses, but that’s it. I don’t want makeouts on the beach or candlelit dinners or anything else romantic, I just want a really strong friendship. I guess the only difference between the kind of relationship I want and friendship is that a relationship requires a lot more commitment, which means I wouldn’t fade into the background and be forgotten like I usually am.
What’s your opinion on all this? Would you consider me a romantic with a modified definition of romance, or an aromantic who just wants to feel noticed?
Alrighty, I am going to use this post as a shameless opportunity to flaunt one of my favorite terms ever: queerplatonic (x).
There is also a relatively new concept of WTFromantic (x) which is basically someone who doesn’t view romance in a traditional manner.
-Griff
About Asexuality
