Do you ever doubt your asexuality?

[StoneMoon]

Not really... I mean, if someone asked I'd confidently say I'm definitely asexual. If I asked myself I'd say the same.

But every now and then I do seem to ask a couple of questions from myself, like:

"What if I actually haven't met the right person, and am actually demisexual?"

But then I answer myself:

"I think I've had enough close male and female friends to know I'm not attracted to either. "

Or:
"Maybe my asexuality does have to do with my hypothyreosis, since I have no sex drive either?"

And answer myself:

"It makes no sense since taking thyroxin keeps my hormone levels the same as any healthy person's and I know cases where the lack of it was a reason for lack of sexual desire and in those cases getting thyroxin fixed it. I also don't suffer from any other common symptoms of the disease, so it sounds really unlikely."

So....
I guess I don't really doubt my asexuality but just have a habit of asking hypothetical questions? :D

[PurebredMuggle]

All. The. Time.

But then I remind myself of all the times, before I discovered there was a word for what I was feeling, I've sat in a room full of people and thought 'why are none of these people sexually attractive to me?'

I sometimes think there is a good chance I'm demi, but seeing as I appear to be aro as well...

Does anyone here think it's possible to be aromantic AND demisexual at the same time? If so how would that work?

[jd910]

I feel like this happens to me every single day. My asexuality is a recent part of me that I've finally begun to embrace. I was talking to a very, very close friend last night and I just happened to mention this site, I forget why. So he asked me what site I was talking about and I said "oh, it's basically a community based around asexuality - It's really cool, I like it.". Of course he smiled and nodded like, oh alright that's all it is. And then there was a pause and I suddenly get "Wait, what the heck are you doing on an asexuality website?!". Needless to say I spent the remainder of my night wondering how I had caught such a close friend off guard. Don't get me wrong, he's still supportive, but every day I get this reaction. I even hear it from people who assumed I was asexual before I even knew the term. It's tough fighting societal expectations and still maintaining your identity, but really that's all this is. It's an exercise in standing up for yourself and having faith in the fact that you are the only person who truly knows who you are inside and out. :)

Keep calm and fight on.

[rickmanster]

Nobody can tell you what you believe. Nobody can tell you what you feel. Nobody can tell me you what you are. Nobody can tell you who you are.

[RedPanda3]

I do doubt myself a lot. Especially because I do feel arousal at certain times (like reading or watching something sensual). I have no idea whether I experience sexual attraction or not. There's points pointing towards asexual and some point away from it. So, I think it's probably best if I avoid labeling myself as asexual to other people. What I do know for sure is that I don't want to have sex, I don't want anything to do with it since I'm sex-repulsed. By all intents and purposes I act, behave and think like a romantic asexual. And that's enough for me to be a part of this forum here, but I don't think there's a need to label myself out in the world where people will simply try to discredit it because people hate it when others label themselves as different. If I'm straight-forward about my feelings about sex, they can't fight with me on that. No one can deny how I feel about it and my chosen behaviour to avoid it in relationships.

[Member54880]

Not anymore, but I used to have a lot of doubt over it. There used to be a part of me that thought I had no right to identify as asexual despite knowing I'm not sexually attracted to anyone.

[Schrecken]

I do, and I have almost always questioned myself (even before I had a name for it) ever since I was a child, which is why I chose to ID as grey-a. I know for sure I'm not a typical heterosexual cis-gendered female, but I also realize that I'm not 100% asexual either. I have had a few crushes on people in my lifetime, but I have never had the desire to have sex with any of them (OK, a couple of them I might have had sex with them given the chance, but that wasn't my primary desire) in the way I'd imagine most sexual people do with their crushes. But simply having crushes is also more than many "full" asexuals ever experience, even though it happens to me very rarely.

[~Emmie~]

Needless to say I spent the remainder of my night wondering how I had caught such a close friend off guard. Don't get me wrong, he's still supportive, but every day I get this reaction. I even hear it from people who assumed I was asexual before I even knew the term.

This has happened to me too. I had a friend who, before I came out as ace, would say things like "you know, I think you're asexual," and "are you sure you're not asexual?" Then when I finally did come out, he said "oh, well I guess you COULD be asexual, but I don't know." And he just kind of brushed it off. I guess I don't really care that he reacted that was because a lot of people react that way, but I was just really surprised because he was the person who kept insisting that I was ace! I don't understand people.

[kelico]

I've yet to feel doubt...the only "doubt" i have is thinking, "What if I do find someone that I feel sexually attracted to?" If that's the case, well I'm demi. Until then, I'm ace and content. : )

[littlepersonparadox]

Needless to say I spent the remainder of my night wondering how I had caught such a close friend off guard. Don't get me wrong, he's still supportive, but every day I get this reaction. I even hear it from people who assumed I was asexual before I even knew the term.

This has happened to me too. I had a friend who, before I came out as ace, would say things like "you know, I think you're asexual," and "are you sure you're not asexual?" Then when I finally did come out, he said "oh, well I guess you COULD be asexual, but I don't know." And he just kind of brushed it off. I guess I don't really care that he reacted that was because a lot of people react that way, but I was just really surprised because he was the person who kept insisting that I was ace! I don't understand people.

He may have been joking about it to make himself feel better, when people are uncomfortable by something they like to poke fun at it. Here was someone who could be ace and he's uncomfortable about so he insists that you can be ace to either joke or try to comfort himself. As if saying your ok with it can make you ok with it, trying to lie himself into it. But when you straight up said I'm ace it's too blunt for them and they can't lie anymore about they feel because secretly they were caught off gaurd.

[Aisntllecxtual]

I think questioning one's sexual orientation, if one lies outside the heterosexual norm in feeling/inclination, is not so unusual - actually, probably, quite common. For myself, when I question my asexuality - and I do in frequent moments of reflection - the door shuts rather quickly when I consider the weight of experience and abiding feeling.

I explicitly came to realization of my asexuality late in life (at age 51). I was nearly 25 years of age when I had my first sexual experience and it was really very underwhelming at best (boring, would like to be anywhere outside of what I was doing). In this first sexual relationship, I avoided sex like it was the plague. I dreaded each time my girlfriend hopped into bed with me, dreaded the inevitable wish for sex she had, in which I would aver, and tension would result. My first girlfriend at age 18 already had a boyfriend (I take it, a sour partnership) and it was one of the most exhilarating relationships I ever had, but we made out fully clothed. When we finally got to the bedroom, acting on the social expectation that that (sex) is where attraction leads, I acted for the brief moment we were naked like we had our clothes on, dry up and down - no penetration. Have I enjoyed sex? Sure, but the number of times has been woeful - once, perhaps, twice in my life - and yet after those enjoyable experiences I had no thought of revisiting/repeating said encounters after they occurred, and I could get just as much enjoyment from masturbation as I could from any partnered sex (including the joyous rare one or two I recall). When I view the forest of past experience, I realize I went 21 years without sex from my first experience (at age 24) to the present day at nearly 54 years of age (three ~7 year spurts without any sex) without any regrets. I've had about 35-40 sexual experiences in my lifetime. I didn't marry (first time and last time until I revert back to single status: it has not been a good experience) until late - almost 49 years old. It was under the unrelenting (and for me unrelenting would be no more than a monthly urge from my partner) sexual expectations of marriage that I realized my asexuality (that it actually existed as an orientation) and found my way to AVEN. When I question my asexuality, all I have to do is realize that there has not been one moment in my life, from the earliest memory I have, where I couldn't have said with absolutely no hesitation that I would not only have no regrets but would be filled with the greatest of joy in never having (to have) sex (to be without it for the rest of my life: could have said it with the blink of an eye at any point in my life). The difference is that I am now not in the closet and rationality is my companion and irrationally engaging in activity which one does not have the heart has thankfully dissipated in the unenlightened historical mist that was once my life.

[alicepractice]

Sometimes, but only because I'm incredibly inexperienced when it comes to physical intimacy so I occasionally think "What if it turns out that I'm actually a sexual person and just unaware of it?" etc. However, even if it turned out that I'm not entirely asexual, what's for sure is that I definitely do not have a normal sex drive or anything like that, given that even the thought of having intercourse doesn't seem desirable to me and I never feel any need for that sort of "pleasure."