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What did you think was "wrong" with you before you knew the word asexual?


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I was, and still am, often called innocent because it takes me a while to catch on to dirty jokes and I don't talk about sex like most of my friends do. Because I wasn't sexually attracted to the opposite sex I thought I was bisexual. I basically went through all of the sexuality's but none of them fit. Though I can say I am more romantically attracted to the same sex than the opposite sex. I somewhat recently found out about asexuality and felt that I had finally found out what I had been feeling, or not feeling, which definitely relieved a lot of stress. I cant say I ever felt broken, just different.

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Totally Schwuaat?

I thought I was immature and a prude. That everyone was "growing up" and here I was still not interested in sex.

It's not you. While the past tense would suggest this, it is amazing how other adults will continually suggest that this is not just something that you should do, that is sex, but an absolute requirement for being a "mature individual". It is a fundamental misreading of the, I don't want to use the word spectrum, but spectrum (fine) in which people can find themselves. At no fault of there own no less.

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I honestly thought it was aweshome that I was different from everyone and could never and still don’t understand how people can be physically attracted to others alone without any emotional connection.

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GoTheDistance

I personally thought of myself as a backwards version of what I think of myself now. I assumed that I was purely heterosexual who just had attraction towards a very small number of women, and then thought I was just weird when it came to taste in sexual activities (I had opposing views towards sexual activities compared to the heterosexual classmates of mine), I preferred to handle my own libido (even though its extremely low), and told myself that the reason I felt so crappy about myself during and after sex was because of the relationship I had with my partner at the time.

Now I realize that all of my thoughts on how I reacted towards sexual things was because I am asexual, prefer to be sexually inactive, and that's not wrong or weird like people and myself thought about me just because "everyone around me likes it and does it".

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I did think something was "wrong" with me psychologically, that I might have a mental illnes (!). What a troubled teenager I was! But fortunately I didn't give it that much thought, and when I eventually learned about asexuality everything started to make sense.

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I thought that I might be a lesbian or maybe I just didn't love my boyfriend enough to have those feelings. I've dated many people since and I've had sex with a few of them, trying to see if I could make myself feel something... But it's just not there. I'm a straight, decent looking, 20 year old female who just wants somebody to cuddle with and fall in love with. I'm asexual.

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specialsnowflake

For me it was a few things,

I always thought I was a late bloomer and that things would change one day, I also thought I had intimacy issues or something. But it was never a really big deal I was different from everyone else in so many ways that I thought it was just another of my quirks.

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I thought I couldn't get anyone to like me, that there was something undesirable about me that means that I haven't been dating. That I was the worst socializer ever. Not that I wanted to date, but I thought that I should be.

Ah, like the poster above me, I am still coming to terms with the fact that it's not intimacy issues. I've only recently realized that no matter how close I am with someone, how attractive I think they are, how much I trust them, I will not want to have sex with them. Before I thought it was caused by intimacy issues.

I also thought it was my depression telling me not to let anyone get close, but since I've gotten better with that, it was ruled out.

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truthisbest7

Well, mine is quite different and I don't know how much dtail I can go into right now but I'll try. I grew up without any other siblings to watch and I was the oldest of three cousins. So I had to depend on TV to show me what was appropriate behavior for a young budding woman......needless to say what was shown was girl s going after young males wholeheartedly. Act nice in the beginning and then pounce on them like a wildcat when they made their move.I think maybe it was a few too many cold war era spy movies and such...Anyway, that's how things went. I let Hollywood tell me how I should be acting. And I did a great job. Any man that was with me would never have guessed that the whole thing was an act. Sad to say, this went on for many years and thru two marriages now. Before I found out that I was beyond a doubt an ACE IN THE PUREST FORM, I thought I just had a very low sex drive brought on by cancer drugs. And the drugs did kill off all of my remaining hormones. But when I found this website everything suddenly made sense. I started to understand why I did some of the stupid stuff that I did when I was younger. And why I feel Love for my current husband now but have no physical desire to b with him. It all makes sense now. I wish I had known years ago because life would not have become so complicated. So to the young people out there...NO. You are NOT broke. You are different. And different is a good thing. If we were all the same this would b a pretty boring place. :)

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I thought I was normal well mostly normal until I was in high school and all the other girls were into boys (or girls) way more than I was. In fact I was totally grossed out by what they wanted to do with guys, they wanted to put that there ewwww. I remember when I was 13 staying up late at a sleep over with my best friend we snuck on to the internet (It was 1998 on a dialup modem those things are loud in the middle of the night) and we went into a chatroom pretended we were a 16 year old looking for a good time. My friend got quite into the whole thing meanwhile I was reading this chat and laughing at how lame the guys sounded. I remember thinking how ridiculous the whole thing was, I really thought people only engaged in cybering because it was hillarious and it was all a big joke on the idiots who got off on this stuff.

In year 9 I was pushed into being in a relationship with this guy by my friends, I wasn't attracted at all to him and it was horrible even holding his hand. I realised then that maybe I was a late bloomer. By year 10 I developed my first romantic crush, I could imagine growing old and having a family with this guy, I wanted to hold his hand. I thought that is what the other girls felt when they said some one was cute or hot, I held this belief until I went to uni.

So at uni I got back in touch with my crush and we started dating. Well he started dating me, I was just hanging out with a friend. About a year of hanging out and he kissed me that was it I was in love. I went home and I told my mum I had my first kiss her words "that took you a while." So I started thinking why did I take so long to get a kiss? What is wrong with me? Why have all my friends had so many sexual encounters and I haven't had any? Am I ugly and haven't noticed before? Am I defective? Maybe its the medications I take that make me this way?

So eight years after all that I am still in a relationship with my first crush and just figuring out my asexuality. These past few years I having been blaming my lack of sexual interest on my large amounts of perscription medication but deep down I knew that they have nothing to do with it.

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I thought I was just gay because I wasn't sexually attracted to women. Not into guys either, so... ace.

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My first post :) When I was 10 I noticed pretty fast there was something....off. When my friends started getting interested in crushes, sex, etc I had absolutely no interest. At the beginning I thought it was just an age thing and would develop. However, when my twin started to express interest in the same things and I was still oblivious to it all my family started taking notice. I started to feel uncomfortable around my friends and sister when they would talk about boyfriends or sex. They would fondly tease me about ignoring everything and never checking out hot people. I was told I would grow into "it" but never occur in High School or College. My family started thinking it was the meds I was on or my life experiances which was causing the "issue" and up till a few weeks ago I thought perhaps my family was right. I kept hoping it would pop up one day and I would understand what they meant about it all. A few weeks ago while looking at the news on CNN I found an article on asexuality. Almost everything in the article described exactly how I felt and one of the first times where I didn't feel I was wrong.

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I thought I was a straight, gay, maybe trans. I went through every sexuality and gender identity I could think of but none of them made any sense because I was romantically into guys but never interested in sex, and obviously I thought there was something wrong with that because we are never taught that there are separate orientations unless you deviate from the norm and stumble across a site like this or a person in real life who has a similar orientation. So yeah I knew there was something different and I struggled a lot but this past weekend I got off my ass and researched sexuality and I found my way here and BAM, feels like home. :)

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I don't know what I thought. Initially, when SexEd started, I was sex repulsed. Everything about it was just creepy and disgusting and uncomfortable, and I figured I was probably immature or the only sane person in my entire class because *ew that's nasty*. Later - after sexual encounters - I thought my body and mind were somehow broken. Like I had some sort of defect in my head because I just couldn't cope with sex and I had no interest in dealing with it either. I was perfectly fine just cuddling and maybe, maybe kissing, if I absolutely had to. But when everyone around you is talking about how amazing sex is, one starts worrying. It was like a revelation when I found AVEN :D

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TheStenchOfCrust

I Thought I was gay. Honestly.

Because when you're a wee lad growing up in England in secondary school, you are one of the following:

1. Straight "Normal"

2. A Fuggin' Faggot. "Retarded"

No Other Sexualities allowed. Even (In Most Public Schools) now.

I Had To Fake It Alllllll The Way Through Secondary School. I Felt Really Low

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Artemis Fowle

I thought I had a mental block problem. Like when you put in an equation into the calculator and you get "error". I knew I wasn't a lesbian but I knew I wasn't exactly straight. I was just lost and confused. And throughout high school I just acted like I was straight. It's funny that I subconsciously knew I was asexual before I knew it. Like not being sexually attracted to my ex-boyfriend, no interest in sex, saying I would love if someone love me like I love cake. etc. funny how things go. :huh:

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I always had a vague uneasy feeling that something was wrong with me, especially since I'm sex repulsed. I thought that if "everyone" likes sex so much and I found it disgusting that "must" mean that I was somehow broken or wrong. I even sometimes worried if maybe something had happened to me that I just couldn't remember. All of society's emphasis on sex and my church's teachings on resisting sexual temptation just reinforced my worries, since I simply couldn't fathom why people were so interested in it or why it was even a temptation in the first place.

Even hearing about the term asexual and reading it's definition did not really convince me I wasn't still somehow weird until I found AVEN because I guess at first I just didn't make the connection between a term and its definition and the fact that there really are many people who also feel this way. So glad to be here now! :)

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Breathing....

I didn't really think about it properly until I hit my 20's, I strongly believed that everyone was just exaggerating and trying to freak me out. I lived with students (in uni) for a few years, they were bringing home guys all the time and I was confused, grossed out but still just thought they were being over the top and, that dreaded line I've been fed all my life, that 'I'd understand one day'. Once I hit 21ish, I realised that (and still continue to be astounded by) people really aren't exaggerating, I did start to worry about it. I had hormones checked for another condition (all was fine), I thought depression and anxiety were to blame, I thought maybe growing up in a messy family situation was to blame, in my head I thought maybe I was gay, bi, I had a brief moment of maybe I'm the wrong sex and I got myself in a bit of confusion.

I was just all over the place but knew I wasn't interested and the though of even kissing makes me feel ill, but I couldn't let it go. I never discussed my confusion with anyone cos it seemed so obvious to me that it was something I should just know and I didn't want anyone confirming that I had lost my marbles or missed out on a large part of growing up and developing into an adult. Finding here a few months ago has been a great weight off, I'm beginning to come round to the idea that I'm not just waiting for my brain/development to make the final steps into 'normal sexuality/adulthood'

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I'm not insane

As a teenager, I had crushes on male friends, but never had sexual feelings for them. It was always based on romantic, intellectual, and aesthetic attraction. During sex ed, I was repulsed by how private parts looked, especially the vagina. My peers, on the other hand, were snickering at the images and drawing dick graffiti. My mom told me I was a late bloomer, so I bought that explanation for years.

I didn't think anything was wrong with me until I had a boyfriend. I was just not into sex. He had a strong desire, but I didn't. I couldn't relate. He told me it was because I was a woman, and that woman "just aren't into sex" (BS, I know). But I bought it at the time. He was pretty forceful about it, which made me feel even more uncomfortable doing it. I also thought that since I grew up in a semi-strict Catholic household affected my perceptions of sex. Maybe when I get married, I'll feel more interested in doing it?

That space between my previous and my current relationships, I learned more about my sexuality. I was comfortable enough to masturbate for it to result in an orgasm. I clearly had a libido, but I didn't want sex. I thought that was so weird but I didn't have the vocabulary or frame of mind to interpret it correctly. I just thought I was weird.

My next relationship resulted in marriage. Still no interest in sex. We relied on foreplay, he learned what made me feel good, and I was able to have sex with him regularly a year after we were married. I didn't mind doing it, it keeps my hubby and I feeling close, and well, he's good at it! I just would rather not. I went to a counselor for my continued disinterest in sex. I figured since my husband is so sweet and accommodating to me, I would want sex with him. I pinned my troubles on my previous relationship. I thought it was my ex that turned me off about it. I got my hormones checked; they were on the low-average scale, but not enough to affect my sex drive. Another theory I had included vaginismus (because I "tightened up" during sex), but the self-diagnosis didn't fit me well.

The counselor thing didn't work out (making Islamophobic assumptions about my husband and my marriage = bye bye!), and I was just comfortable saying that sex was over-rated and not interesting to me. Needless to say, when I learned about asexuality, the narrative of all my sexual experiences started adding up and completely making sense. It was like I was looking at incomplete portions of the canvas known as my life. With the language of the asexual community, I could take a few steps back and make sense of this Pollock-esque mess. ;)

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I thought that the way girls feel sexual attraction was fundamentally different from boys (so, confusing romantic attraction with sexual attraction) rather than them just shying away from talking about it. When it turned out that the latter was the case, I figured I was just a weirdo, and trying to talk about it with a couple close friends produced mixed results. One in particular kept trying to pair me up with people that were supposedly hot, and that just made me more sure of myself. I figured that I had a sort of a "blindness" to sexiness.

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I thought everyone else was just desperate and that i was the only person with a head on my shoulders lol. I feel suffocated when people flirt with me or ask me out..i thought that was a result of bullying when i was younger like, "i just don't trust anyone because i was bullied 15 years ago" it wasn't till i stopped and was like...i haven't been bullied in 15 years. People have been nothing but reliable and trustworthy towards me since then...so why the heck do i still feel like I'm being suffocated?

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I always thought I was just very, very shy about all things to do with sex and I'd come out of my shell a bit later in life. Obviously that didn't happen though, and I started feeling strange when all my friends younger than me began having sex and I still had absolutely no interest. I actually brought it up to my mother who was relatively supportive with my orientation when I came out as pan (although I've realised now I'm not actually pan), so I figured she'd have some insight but all she had to say was the usual 'you just haven't found the right person yet/ you're too young still, just wait a while', so she wasn't much help. For a while I just thought I was a bit of a weirdo and my lack of sexual attraction was something I'd have to hide.

When I found out about asexuality I was in the bath casually reading up on things and that moment in my bath was actually pretty life changing. Everything in my life fell into place and I actually instantly felt a little more normal than I did before. I'm thankful there's a community here to offer support to all of us.

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alicepractice

I thought I was immature and a prude. That everyone was "growing up" and here I was still not interested in sex.

Same here. I always just thought "Maybe my age is too young for having any interest in those things."

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Actually I thought/considered that I might be bi, years before I realized the aceness...

(Those bi thoughts seem quite common among aces I guess)

Took one awesome girl to make me realize any other way.

Bless that person.

It feels good to finally know who you are...

[somehow life is so much lighter... like a burden gone, stopping having to try and fit in]

(only those sexual comments of other people suddenly annoy me >< )

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AceWizardApprentice

Basically, I've always thought, from age 11 or so, that everyone else had become somewhat deranged by "--having taken this 'rebellion' idea too far, too soon." by acting all grown up after the "Puberty and you" lesson. I also thought that I was an incredibly devout Christian like my mother, whom with I share many views. I was pretty much taught "Every person develops differently, it'll happen when it happens, no sooner or later." from early childhood.

At around 13 or so, I clarified to a bully of mine that I couldn't be straight, gay or bi because I wasn't interested in anyone the way everyone else was and basically called myself 'nothing' on the sexual/romantic scale. She became dead-silent after I answered "That sounds about right." when she wondered if I was some kind of asexual. (She did, however, call me a freak of nature, but I was already used to that statement as it merely irritated me.)

I somehow managed to forget that discussion and pondered on the different labels for a while, but it always came back to the 'nothing' orientation. This naturally confused me because I have always liked the idea of getting married and having kids of my own some day.

Then I found Aven a couple of months ago and everything clicked. I had never, after all, known the definition of sexual attraction. (Due to a natural lack of interest.)

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Until recently I thought there was a lot "wrong" with me. Then I found out about asexuality (and demisexuality) and that made me feel SO much better about myself. The other thing that helped was finding out about Aspergers and that apparently I am an Aspie. That has also helped me realize that it's not something wrong with me, but that I am just wired differently than others.

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I thought something was wrong with me. I was sure I was having an identity issue but I also thought I was maybe gay or bisexual. Everyone around me made me feel as if there was something wrong with. I couldn't get anyone to understand that what I was feeling felt normal. I had to do a lot of research on myself before I came across a documentation. Glad I found it.

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I just thought I had severe intimacy issues possibly linked to some kind of avoidant personality disorder. I have a sex drive/libido but no specific sexual attraction to any person, and sex (and any kind of intimate acts) always seemed unnatural and scary. I never did anything with anyone (even kissing) until I was 20 and I found it difficult even then. I finally stumbled across asexuality articles etc recently and suddenly my whole life made sense. I could have cried, really. I wished I'd known sooner.

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I've spent a few years wondering exactly why I have such an aversion to dating seeing as I know I've felt romantic/aesthetic attraction before, I keep telling my friends I'm going to be a cat lady and they go 'Aw, you'll meet someone' and I'm like 'No, you don't understand. I want to be a cat lady'. I thought maybe I had a repressed memory or something or I thought it might have been connected to something that happened when I was younger and this guy basically exposed himself to me, that wasn't fun. But I've realised recently that it's just a general apathy towards having sex with people, I don't think it's connected to that and even if it was, I don't see why I need to care about sex when I'm happy enough without it. Like when I fancy someone that's a secondary concern in my mind because I just want to spend time with them and talk to them, and half the time I'll be too busy chatting for sex to even cross my mind, and I kind of gathered that this isn't how other people view dating. I assumed I was just prudish or something and thought maybe I'd been brought up differently to the people I knew who were more comfortable with sex. Like I'll watch sex scenes in films with the same kind of attitude I have to fight scenes, I'm just waiting for it to get back to the plot, and occasionally watching it trying to work out why other people are so obsessed with it. And when it came to oral sex I was just like 'Why? Why would you voluntarily...why?!' Like when people said 'Oh I'm a virgin but I've done other stuff' I kind of didn't see what the difference was. As far as I'm concerned a sexual act is sexual and I didn't fancy doing any of them.

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