Jump to content

Asexual with a Sexual History?


PoeticallyYours

Recommended Posts

PoeticallyYours

While I mentioned this in my introduction post, I wanted to create a more elaborate post about it here.

Is there anyone else out there who identifies as asexual, but had an extensive sexual history before they discovered asexuality?

It might just be an age thing. I think it's awesome now that younger people are growing up and knowing about identities like asexuality so that they don't have to go through the trouble and distress that I went through trying to prove to myself that I could be a sexual person.

My history and relationship with sex is pretty complicated, and I"ll try to spare the gory details, but I'll outline the gist of it:

I was brought up an incredibly religious and conservative family. Sex was something that was never talked about. Any mention or display of sex on the television was quickly changed without a word. Even as I hit puberty, how to deal with sexuality was never brought up. The most my mother ever said to me was, "Never let a man touch you."

As a kid I mostly went unnoticed. I was super smart but shy and a little chubby. I never had a lot of friends and had pretty low self-esteem. And then puberty hit. And suddenly everyone was looking at me, and making sexually suggestive comments, talking about my body, and asking about my sexual activity. At just 14 I had to deal with grown men propositioning me, and it it something that continued throughout my teenage years.

The attention was uncomfortable, but at least I wasn't being ignored anymore. Part of me liked it. It made me feel special, I like I had some kind of power over men that other girls didn't have access to. If I had only knew that sexual attraction means nothing, that someone who just wants to have sex with you has put about as much value on you as a sirloin steak when they're hungry, it would have saved me a lot of grief.

So I started to experiment sexually in a variety of ways, trying to ride the ego trip that someone "liked" me, because in my teenage brain I thought being sexually attractive meant I was worth something. This continued into adulthood, where my sexual experimentation took me to some unsavory places, and I had to endure some traumatic sexual experiences.

It wasn't until college until I started thinking about what I actually liked. I had crushes on women before, but it wasn't something I ever felt comfortable pursuing until then. It was then that I came out as a lesbian, I think partly to try to fully pursue my interest in women, and also because I was tired of the abuses I endured at the hands of men and thought women would treat me better. While being with women was different, and more fun, there still wasn't that "spark" that I thought I would have. I spent years thinking that it must have been the people I was hooking up with, that they were "bad" at it or something.

It's been years since I graduated college, and I'm only just recently ending my near decade-long sexual experimenting. While asexuality is something that I heard of in college, and watching (A)Sexual made something click in me all those years ago, it wasn't something I've been ready to face until now. A few differing factors made it obvious. I was actually hanging around straight men again, which I avoided in college, and realizing that they made comments towards women in a way that I had never thought of towards any gender. I also was seeing a genderqueer person (with similar genitalia to my own) and realizing that their body was responding in ways that mine had never been capable of. All of that started to add up in my head, and that's when I started to seek out asexuality resources.

It's been about a month now that I've lived with this, and I'm pretty comfortable with it. The identity of "panromantic asexual" seems incredibly fitting to me. But, I do feel somewhat out of place here. Do others here have similar experiences, or am I just the sluttiest asexual alive? :P

- Robyn

Link to post
Share on other sites

I had a couple sexual encounters, so to speak, before I realised there was nothing wrong with not liking sex or being sexually attracted to people. For me though, my response to sex and sexual acts was complete repulsion, which was what drove me to research what was "wrong" with me. Because I thought, "surely this can't be normal? This cute guy is touching me and I want to cry and squirm away from him..."
I don't think I'd ever found asexuality if I hadn't had sexual encounters, simply because it's not like asexuality is widely advertised. I had no idea there was such a thing. Finding AVEN was awesome, just because I'd thought there was something seriously not right with my body, never mind my head (which I was starting to realise wasn't quite 'normal' either, for the record).
I had two sexual partners, one with whom I spent a year and a half before I realised the sex was making me mentally unstable (I was paranoid about pregnancy, scared out of my mind and bordering on hurting myself if I missed a period, and that just wasn't good for me). The other encounter was a one-night-stand-ish kind of thing with a close friend. I couldn't go through with it. He said I was broken, so I took to researching my 'brokenness'.

I guess in my case it wasn't experimenting as much as me wanting to figure out why it wasn't blowing my mind as everyone had said it would. Like you, my teenage brain thought being sexually desirable was the most awesome thing. Now I couldn't care less about being sexually attractive, nor do I much care what other people do or don't do in the privacy of their own homes. So long as it's consensual.

I can definitly understand your wish to experiment with it though. I mean, there is a lot of pressure on sex, especially on teenagers, and don't we all just want to be accepted by our peers at that age? I think you'll find many aces on here who have had similar experiences.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Welcome to AVEN.

Wow, you are so hard on yourself!

I will say I have had similar sexual experimentations, for the same reasons as you. although most of them have been with men. Well I say men loosely, it was two, one when I was a kid and was manipulated, the other with a friend I had had for a while. With maybe a gap between 6th grade and College. I would like to count the woman I feel in love with, but I was so intoxicated I don't remember it well, if at all. It was an unusual situation. She came to terms with being a lesbian, many years later I came to terms being asexual.

Anyway, asexuality might of existed way back when, but there wasn't a word for it as you have pointed out. I know I feel romantic feeling towards women, and find women aesthetically attractive, but I have always had a barrier that prevents me from trying to pursue anything with them. They few times I had tried have not gone well. I don't behave the women expect a man to behave like, so they have a can't figure me out and lose interest.

Yup, saw the same documentary (A)sexual and things just clicked as well. I am happy to give a name for something that I have known all along. I'm Heteroromantic Gray Asexual.

We all have a past on this site, for some it is a sexual past, but I'm not sure why you think that would matter? I welcome you here, and I know I won't be the only one. For some on the site the past has been horrific, but this site is to set it be safe in your asexuality, or sexuality if you feel you need the support. I know where you are coming from, maybe not completely, but enough to empathize.

Okay, I feel like I'm taking too much.

Have a beautiful day.

Link to post
Share on other sites
PoeticallyYours

Thank you so much for the replies, that definitely helps. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've also had experiences of sex, with, er...people possessing both societally-expected sets of pink bits. I won't get into gory details but although to some extent I enjoyed it, I never enjoyed it in the way I'd expected to. It was nice...especially with the one longtime partner I've had, but it was never the life-defining pleasure it seems to be for other people. When I was having it I was usually thinking about what to make for dinner, not about anything sexy! I never sought it out or needed it for its own sake. Rather, it was a means of intimacy and expressing affection for the other person. I'm happy to have sex with a partner for their sake, but in a perfect world it'd just been cuddling and kissing for me. Unfortunately that relationship broke down because, although I was expressing a lot of affection in other ways, they felt that they just couldn't feel loved unless there was a LOT more sex, in ways I didn't feel comfortable with.

I feel quite sad looking back at my past. I'm not very sexually experienced by Western standards, and although I couldn't care less about that now, I spent a lot of time worrying about it when I was younger, to the extent that I got into situations I really didn't want to be in. It was all just to feel 'normal' and like I fitted in, and had a lot to do with my low self-esteem. I thought if I met someone and fell in love with them, they wouldn't want me if I was bad at sex (Later I realised that such people wouldn't be worthy of going out with, anyway!)

Now, I don't feel particularly 'changed' by it at all, because how often I have sex, or who I have it with does not define me. This is one of the biggest problems I have with society and the media obsessing over people's sex lives, particularly with women, who somehow have to be chaste and modest and yet brilliant in bed and irresistibly sexy at the same time.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, we all have pasts, whether that means that we've had no sexual experiences, only straight, only gay, bisexual, a little, or a lot. Why would you feel bad about your history? It's part of what makes you, you.

In a way, my history is similar to yours, in that I started off being with me, then thought I was lesbian, so moved to being with women. Then (relatively recently), I wondered if I was bisexual, but didn't do anything about that sexually. Then I thought I'd made a huge mistake in being with women at all, and perhaps I was straight after all (and again, did nothing about it). Then I had a bit of a lightbulb moment - none of this sexual chop and change, or just wondering, was really doing anything for me at all, I was just going through the motions, because that's what was expected. It turns out, I'm really not that into any sex, full stop. I don't get that desire, that attraction thing, when others go crazy over a man or woman. I might think he/she is attractive, but that's it. Nothing more.

Anyway, it lunds to me like you belong here - it doesn't matter what your past is. You've lived a life in one way, now it's time to live it another way, by the sounds of it. Sex isn't the be all and end all. Just be you.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Over 30 years ago, I had a great burden taken off my shoulders when i came to terms with my gayness

, or so I thought. The real boulder rolled off last year when i accepted my asexuality. Some claim this is just that proverbial phase, but I haven't been happier. My only regret is not accepting my asexuality years ago. Just think of everything I could have happily been missing!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...