[The A Life Team]

Hey everyone,

This is the poll for A Life Podcast episode 12, in which the panel discusses Asexuality in Schools, including sharing our own experiences. We then get into a discussion about the idea of virginity, which we'd love hearing your opinion on.

~The A Life Team

[annwyl_cariad]

I figured out that my weirdness had a name - "asexuality" - my junior year of college, and shortly thereafter I started coming out to people. I'm a senior now, and I consider myself "out" in the sense that I'll talk about it if it comes up, but don't bring it up really. I haven't explicitly come out to any of my friends from high school, but if they're familiar at all with the concept of asexuality, they probably know that I'm ace.

I voted "Other" because I haven't gotten any explicitly negative reactions, but they haven't all been super-positive either. I've got a couple friends who are cool with the idea but still kind of expect me to come around and like boys eventually. Or girls, I suppose; they're pretty open-minded that way. I've gotten a lot of confusion, or people who think I'm joking about not getting any. I've had two people who I came out to kind of casually, and then referred to myself as asexual later and they said, "Oh, wait, you were serious about that?" I wouldn't call that a positive reaction, but it's not exactly negative either, because once I explained it they seemed to be supportive. For the most part, though, people have been positive and supportive, even when they're confused and I have to explain everything. And that makes me happy.


On the virginity thing...yeah, I find the term kind of irrelevant. I'm a virgin, and I'm a Gemini. So what? I find it silly to define yourself by an arbitrary activity that you have or haven't done. Although, my friends and I use the term virgin in a lot of contexts. Like, I might say I'm a scuba diving virgin, or "We're taking Jane to Cedar Point so she can lose her rollercoaster virginity" or whatever. It makes "virgin" into just a word for "you haven't done the activity we're discussing," which I think is a better use for the word. It makes it more versatile!

I also can totally relate to what Rebecca said about the sex and religion thing. I grew up in an Evangelical church and our Sunday youth group did a whole series that was like two months long on how to reconcile sexual desires with Christianity. At that point I was still figuring that someday it would be useful to know how to control the violent lusts that I would presumably one day have. But I found the whole thing totally irrelevant to my life at the time, not to mention pretty awkward.


Henrik, you should release an album of your key-optional musical compositions. I'd listen to it. XD

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

I'm glad that the topic of (a)sexuality has never came up when I was in high school. Friends or anyone I talked to rarely discussed sex in my presence.

People at uni rarely bring up the topic either. I've had a few people ask if I have a boyfriend, but that's about it. Other than silly comments along the lines of "you do engineering, you have all the guys to choose from", people from uni generally don't have much to say.

As for virginity, I find it irrelevant too. I've never had sex, but that's irrelevant because I don't intend to have sex ever.

[articvibe]

University isnt really school so i clicked other becuase before then i simply didnt put 2 and 2 together
and other for results because while i have only gotten 1 bad result the rest have been mostly good whilst the clear majority neutral but peoples responses to it is probably more of a clutural thing than anything else.

[Appledoll]

i voted for the college option,
even thouh im in university,
cause well couldn't be out before since i only figured out that I'm asexual a few months ago.

i look my self as out,
because I'd answer asexual if i was asked about my sexuality..
or well lack off

I've only told close friends and my mom,
but well my mom had sort of figured it out on her own.
so it wasn't as much a coming out ...as my mom asking if I'd considered that i might be asexual.

as for the 6 friends I've told:
3 are bisexual women,
1 is a lesbian
and the last one is a celibate Christan girl who decided to not have sex until shes married.

So open mindedness and respect has always been important for my bunch of friends,
thus their only reaction was pretty much the same from all... just an:
" Oh yup, that describes you very well."

[The A Life Team]

It should definitely have occurred to me when I wrote the poll, since I lived in Europe, but when I said 'college' I meant "and university". In America, they're very similar, though in Europe they're something different. Sorry about that!

~Rebecca

[Trini]

In middle school, before I'd ever heard of asexuality, I once told my friend that I wanted to stay a virgin forever. And she told me that I shouldn't tell anyone that when I'm 21 because by that age everyone is supposed to have had sex. I thought the idea was completely ridiculous of course, but at the time it really terrified me to find out that some people actually thought that way. Now though, that same friend is one of the first people I told about my asexuality and she's really cool about it.

[rosalie]

I voted "other" to both questions because I did not know I was asexual when I was at school (high school or even university later on), I just thought I hadn't met the rigt person yet. If I had known about my being asexual then, I think I wouldn't have come out (I still haven't - as I don't consider this a subject of public interest for others!)

[Hound]

I voted Other as well. I was still questioning when I was in college and was a few years away from figuring myself out.

I did get accused of being "picky" though.

[FelineHuggles]

I came out as Asexual to a Teacher in High School, she said 'Youre too young yet' And a few people asked if i like sex, and i said no

I've had great reactions from college students, they accepted I was Asexual!!

[Brienne]

Usually when I come out, the first thing people ask me is if I was sexually abused as a child. When I tell them no, they usually seem to think that I "haven't found the right person." They usually seem curious about why exactly I am asexual, and what my views are on relationships. Sometimes we get into debates about the role of sex in romantic relationships. I haven't had anyone react in a hostile manner to my 'coming out', They usually express curiosity more than anything, but some people don't believe I really am asexual.

[Rai]

I was out, it was mostly to friends so I pretty much got good responses.