AFAB, did you always think asexual was the norm for women?

[xLiraelx]

TMI for discussion of masturbation, porn.

So speaking as a female I have always figured that women have a lower sex drive than men.

There's this weird idea that women are supposed to want sex, but not too much. Like, if you don't put out, you're frigid. But you can't talk about it, or admit that you masturbate, because that would be weird.

I grew up thinking that most women were fairly asexual, and since I masturbated from a young age, was aroused by porn, and had a libido, that meant I was a highly sexual person compared to my peers. Since we never talked about it for the most part, I went on assuming that I was bisexual.

Now that I've passed my teenage years, which were full of strong romantic crushes and a hormone-induced libido, I have seemed to regress into a childlike state of slight curiosity but mostly indifference.

I'm only just starting to realize that most women probably think about and want sex a lot more than I do.

Before I felt like an outsider because I thought I was the only one with a libido and with these super intense romantic crushes.

Now I feel like an outsider again because that never developed into an adult sexuality. I never even had real romantic relationships.

[Emery.]

I did (a sexual here). From the terms I know now, I'd say that a good woman is heteroromantic asexual. I was this way until 16.

edit: Maybe it's my own take, depends on what you define as libido or sexuality. This is the hard part. I think I'm more sexual than other women (not crazy, though, it's just a stupid monkey part of brain), but 1. I'm rather young and my friends might not all have their sexualities woken up still 2. Other women might be defining sexuality a bit different than I do, I'm probably closer to the dudes.

There is something from psychiatry that women think of relationship and of sex just or almost just in that context, that women have to be "turned on" sexually. That women don't distinguish between sexuality and love. And men separate sex and love. They get aroused easily but it's not love. But I'm not sure if it is true. Women almost never admit to having a sexuality unless they are hormone-buzzing teenagers. I'm not sure how much of this is that they are hiding and how much they don't experience it. Probably, what's going on in my head is also unnoticable, although it's quite pornographic and quite frequent. Probably it's all a propaganda for men to think they have to conquer women and deserve their sex. Dunno. And yeah, there is another dubious thing about men being aroused by visual things and women no idea what, but in my opinion it's rather the question of what is the primary sense of a person, e.g. someone very visually thinking will be aroused by images, no matter what their gender is.

However, men can seem to be more sexual as they are more into sex on itself on average, and women prefer it in relationship, but I don't know how much of a streotype/supersition it is. I have read all the superstitions on gender :D (I'm a bit crazy on that point )

[Rising Sun]

I personally thought that women had as much sexual attraction and desire, but that to be respectable, they had to actively refuse sex outside of vanilla sex in a relationship. And I didn't even know that female masturbation was physically possible.

[deltaX]

I was kind of the same way. It was a bit easier for me to figure out something was up, because I'm also aromantic, and females are expected to desire romance, but I thought my sex drive and level of sexual attraction were normal-ish for a really long time. It was kind of shock when my friends started talking about sex, and I learned that all the stereotypes about females not wanting sex were wrong.

[Heart]

This thread has been moved from Gender Discussion to Asexual Q&A.

Heart

Gender Discussions Moderator

[drjohnhwatson]

I think I always thought that men just had more sex, and the sex would tend to be more casual than within a sustained relationship?? That women would not be asexual, per se, but that they would have most of their sex with their partners. I didn't really think too much on it, though.

When I first was coming to terms with being different, I always wondered how much """normal""" people thought about sex or daydreamed about it. I feel like whatever number of times I would come up with is probably far below the actual amount!

[Slob Dylan]

Not really. My experience was sort of similar to yours, in that I had a strong libido and thought of myself as more sexual than my AFAB peers. That being said, I still acknowledged that there were women who had a lot of sex, casual or otherwise, and that I definitely wasn't the only person who felt as I did when it came to perceptions of sex. I don't think (at that point, at least) I was even really aware of asexuality, but even after I had become aware, I still assumed that most women were on the same level as men in terms of sex drives. There's more backlash against women for it, but I've never really doubted it.

[butterflydreams]

I'm AMAB, but figured I'd chime in, since I actually felt "asexual" at least, how I experienced sexuality/all that stuff, was how everyone experienced it. It was actually my female friend in college who really blew my mind about the differences (or lack thereof) in sex-interest between male and female. I knew my male friends in high school were into it, and I could watch them date and be interested in girls and things, but they were like brothers to me. They must've been like me, so either they were faking it, or just doing these things for laughs.

But it was my female friend from college and her totally nonchalant and candid attitude about sex. The fact that she discussed it so openly around me was something I'd never experienced before, even with my male friends. It was shocking, and very uncomfortable at times. Here she was, talking this way, and I felt like I was falling so far short of her experience and desires. It hurt a lot actually. When I finally came to understand my asexuality, all those feelings clicked into place. Ahhh, I get it now. I see why I was so uncomfortable with her talking that way. I actually told her about it, so that she could be aware that, hey, this is a thing, and indiscriminate talking about stuff like this might make people uncomfortable.

[Winnie_A]

For a long time I assumed everyone was like me and didn't care about sex (more like I didn't really think about what other people though about it). Once I started to figure out that wasn't the case, I assumed that it must be just men who were super interested in sex and that women didn't care all that much. Eventually I realized that, though men on average may have a higher sex drive, most women enjoy and want sex a lot too.

[yellow]

I was floored when I realized that some women actually wanted sex and liked sex. I thought they were all just faking and pretending like I was!

[Noky]

I wondered if I was gay since, 'like girls' I didn't have as much interest in sex as guys were supposed to have.

It was years before I realized that was a really stupid notion and girls had just as much sex drive as anyone, at which point I just felt insecure and weird. I really hate the whole notion that people are only respectable if they, as women, act like ladies, and as, men like vultures.

I personally thought that women had as much sexual attraction and desire, but that to be respectable, they had to actively refuse sex outside of vanilla sex in a relationship. And I didn't even know that female masturbation was physically possible.

I didn't know how to masturbate for years, lol. I kept asking people how to do it and nobody would tell me. Everyone talked about how good it was just opening your legs and..., so I would just do that and be like... nothing happened, wtf are you guys talking about o_O, XD

[Kazu]

I grew up thinking everyone was asexual or at least somewhat asexual. I assumed sex only felt sorta good and most women only did so to have children (betcha would've never guessed I went to a private catholic grade school). In middle school when my classmates (mainly girls as that was who I mainly hung around) started getting more interested in dating I remember saying something along the lines "Why are you guys so eager to date? Don't people date with the end goal of marriage in mind? And later having sex to have children? We're too young for that." Boy did I get some weird looks but I really thought everyone was just interested in dating so they'd come across more mature or grown up.

Even after realizing that women also had libidos it didn't really click with me until I started masturbating and being like "holy crap this is the best thing ever now I understand the hype behind it"

[Aisntllecxtual]

The unchanging view I have had is that women are just as sexual as men: that there really isn't much difference in their desire, or, even, differ much in the context in which they wish it (i.e. casually or in a committed relationship). I saw and still see level of desire, being aggressive as opposed to passive, as matter of the individual person - not contingent upon gender. I knew many girls in high school that I would have considered quite sexually aggressive by the way they talked and acted. I remember one time in 7th grade science class I was about to sit at a class table with a mixture of boys and girls. One of the girls made a sweep with her arm, hand grasping, with a loud growling sound as I was about to sit down - that was a well pointed unmistakeable gesture understood by all, including myself (going for my private parts). I flinched back jerkily in reflexive surprise from the sudden gesture. Embarrassing! All at the table laughed. Maybe, I had/have the view I had/have because I was looking and continue to look at all through my eyes, and both males and especially females seem(ed) much more sexually interested/charged than I. I say especially in regard to females because I, perhaps, saw/see them as bringing conflict - or worse as posing possible predatory threats - since I had/have a hetero (back then, as in the closet, heterosexual; now asexually aware as hetero-aesthetic) orientation. In regard to distant past, this was case by case but unfortunately more general than perhaps memory serves.

[Smmk]

I thought women were just pretending to like it so much.

[AceInhibitor]

In a way, I guess. I mean I knew people did it but it always baffled me that they'd actually want to.