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Ages in asexuality


CherryPoptart

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CherryPoptart

Hi there, my name's Cherry ^_^

So I've only recently joined here, pretty nervously. I'm really hoping this works out, you see, as I've tried to join other places like this but there's always been a problem- I'm a teenager in the younger years. So I'll just ask straightforward, do you think I'm too young to know what I'm talking about?

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WinterWanderer

I don't think you are. I've heard that some teen asexuals will realize later on that they are actually sexual, but even if it does change, that doesn't mean you shouldn't claim asexuality now. :) If you're asexual now, that's what matters.

Happy new year!

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Welcome :cake:

Nope, I've spoken to people of many ages in the chat (from young teen to 50/60 years old). Indeed, we (well, me - but I know people would agree with me), are happy you know what you're talking about at a younger age, as many people struggle with identity and stuff, which leads to all sorts of havoc.

So welcome! (again).

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EnterCreativeName

Welcome! Don't worry about being young. I'm 15 and new to the site too.

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CherryPoptart

I'm not too sure if I'm replying right here, but I just really wanted to say thank you :lol: I'm so glad, honestly.

So I'll take the cake thank you~ and Happy New Year as well ^_^

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StrawberryCake

I don't think there is a problem in identifying as ace in a younger age, although there is a chance that you might not feel the same way in the future.

I am a young person just like you, and I must say that this community is very welcoming and supportive, regardless of our age.

Well then, welcome!

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You are too young to know for sure.

We all have peaks in energies, and once you have reached your peak and past it, then you can be absolutely sure.

But of course when your young, you should understand there is a high chance you are asexual. You should understand that your not going through puberty the same as others.

But there is no way of confirming it, until at least young adult life.

Males normally reach there sexual peak in early 20's, and females later upto 30 ish.

So you can never be too sure at a young age, you should understand there may be a high chance you are. The only way in the future, is to prove it to yourself. You will know yourself, and no one can tell you but you.

Like i said yesterday, you cannot prove a negative to others. I mean as a male you cannot prove to others your not interested in females. And as a female you can never prove to others your not interested in males. A person can only prove this to themselves. You have to live with you and who you are, and no one else.

Always remember you cannot prove a negative to others, but you can prove it to yourself.

Thats why at 23 i was absolute confident that i had proved i was asexual(i did not know the term, but its what i meant). By that age as a male, i knew i had reached what ever energy peak i would have. Like i said as a male, your sexual energy peak is normally early 20's. So only after that i knew absolutely that i was right.

Seeing as your a female, you may have to wait a little later in life late 20's until saying as a female your totally sure you are really asexual.

We can never know in life whom may come along and change your life, or the way you feel. But if you reach your sexual peak and have not changed, i would think its safe to say you were right, ie you are asexual.

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Phantasmal Fingers

"Always remember you cannot prove a negative to others, but you can prove it to yourself."

Interesting.

So if I feel sure of something (such as being asexual, for example) you are saying that - in addition to this - there is also some kind of proof which is only accessible to me? But if I do not have this proof (or if I think I don't have it) then even if I'm sure I can't actually be sure that I'm sure because even if I think I am I still might not be. :wacko:

​Is that what you're arguing, andreas1033? And what exactly is this negative proof?

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What i mean is. If you think as a male, you do not fancy females. Its impossible to prove to others. So its called negative proof. You cannot prove it to others as a fact as others will never believe it.

If your a female, you cannot prove you do not fancy males.

This is what is called negative proof, and can only be proved to yourself.

Its like being gay, you cannot absolutely prove your gay and not heterosexual. You cannot do it. But people respect peoples label of themselves.

People are so convinced that everyone wants to be sexual, you cannot prove to others you are not wanting sexual relationships with anyone.

So therefore this is called negative proof. You can only prove something like this to yourself.

My life proved that even as a male, if you show no interest in females, some female can claim your interested in them. You have never seen them in your life, or had contact with them, but somehow your interested in them. This is what you will get constantly if you think your asexual, and people know.

People will always project there own rubbish into your life, that does not exist.

Thats why being asexual can be hard.

I am sure for females too it happens. If your a asexual female, some male can just claim you like them, when you don't.

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Even if you were, its never too early to learn!
Welcome, I hope you enjoy your AVEN experience!

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No, you're not too young. If you discover your sexuality is more fluid thats cool too it doesn't invalidate anything you're feeling now, heck even if you decide to not define yourself with labels thats cool as well. You're feelings are always valid. Congratulations on your new found self-awareness to become more you at any age is a beautiful thing! Welcome aboard! :cake::cake:

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There is no such thing as being too young. In the long term the earlier you can identify your orientation the better. Pretending either to conform, or due to unawareness of an orientation or fluidity of your orientation can only be toxic. O speak from experience here that if I'd known about asexuality in my teenage years it would have made my life a lot less stressful

Edited by SkyWorld
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Xia the Nerd

I'm also a teen and I also wasn't sure how old you had to be to identify as asexual. I started to identify as asexual in my head, only to myself, just to see if it felt right. Soon I relaized that, at least right now, I am asexual. I still haven't told anyone besides the lovely people here on AVEN, but I will come out to my friends and family eventually. What helped me the most was the fact that sexuality is fluid, and if one day I you realize that you're sexual then that's okay too. All that matters is how you feel right now, nothing my else.

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A lot of people on AVEN sway back and forth between knowing what they're talking about then having no idea what anything is then feeling confident in their identity then questioning what identities even are and then again back and forth and back and forth again. There's a lot of information here that will conflict and confuse and confound, so if you're up for that ride then you are ready for AVEN :D

As for your age, you have a lot of personal changes ahead of you, and one of those might be discovering you're not strictly asexual. That is completely normal. The importance of gaining awareness and understanding of asexuality applies to everyone, so whether or not someone thinks you truly know your a/sexuality yet, you're welcome here to discuss things and learn and work your way through your life if you think we can help.

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Does this work the other way too...........like you're sexual but gradually turn into an asexual. That's fluidity the other way round, isn't it?

My wife's asexual but I was sexual. After many years of no sex it does not bother me now so am I asexual?

Personally, I think, reading the many posts of different categories in this website, you should be honest with who you are and not be pigeon holed because the more you think you are one type of person or another, the more you will believe you are. Just enjoy life for what it is, and by heck it is pretty short if you live a hectic one!

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First of all, hello, and welcome to the site!! :cake: :cake:

As for your age, you may be too young to know or you may not; people are able to know these things at different ages, so in depends much more on you then what age you are. I know when I was a young teenager I probably could have identified myself as asexual if I knew it existed, but I know there are others on this site who needed more time. It really depends!

My advice would be to identify as asexual if that's what feels right or comfortable to you, but be open to the possibility that it could change as you grow older. In fact, no matter what point in your life you are at, you should be open to change, because for some people sexuality can be fluid.

But most importantly, no matter whether you're asexual or not, or whether or not you're "too young to know", you'll be welcome here. You don't need to have all the answers right away, so feel free to be a part of discussions regardless. No matter what your orientation, I think this site could be a good resource for you as you begin to explore your sexuality! :)

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Well you can ask the same thing to people your age or younger who believe they are straight , gay, etc. It is just something you learn about yourself. I don't believe sexuality is something learned you just kind of experience it. Am I this way or this way?

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Welcome to AVEN :cake::cake::cake:

Age doesn't matter, feel free to post your thoughts here. However, be prepared to learn, you will be surprised of your naivety when you go through AVEN (I bet we were all naive when we joined). Keep an open mind, you will enjoy your time here.

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Welcome to AVEN, Cherry! :cake:

As to your question, I do not think that there is a concrete answer to it. I think that it really depends on each individual person more so than it does their particular age. For instance, some people know really early, while others may not figure it out until much later in their lives. Identify as an asexual if that is what feels right to you, but remember that sexuality is sometimes fluid and be open to the possibility that it could change as you get older. If you later grow to realize that you perhaps feel differently, then that is completely fine.

As some of the others have already said, you’ll be welcome in AVEN either way. On that note, I definitely urge you to take a look through some of the stories that others have shared, to gather as much information as you can, and to join in the discussions. I think that you’ll find a lot of useful information here!
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I agree with what everyone has said, most people figure out their sexuality (or lack thereof) during puberty; however, there's nothing wrong with questioning either. Also, some people happen to not identify as any "label" as they please, and that's fine too. I don't really think of labels as "restricting", but more of a way to help explain how we feel and be able to connect with others. People change, it's human nature. If you identify as something and no long feel associated with it, it's okay if you want to identify as something else that fits you better, or~~ you could also choose not to identify with anything. In the end, just be yourself and don't let anything hold you back. :)

There's also a thread in Intersectionality, "Asexy Teens" if you are interested in checking that out and connecting with people.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Levi Ackerman

Nah, you're not too young. If you're old enough to question it, you're old enough to know who (or rather what) you want getting into your pants and if you feel anything for it.

But sorry, I ate all the cake..... welcome tho

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Welcome Cherry! We try not to be too intimidating, so I hope you won't stay nervous for long (although Lord knows, I was when I first joined these boards). If you're an early teen then yeah, you are young in this context. That does not mean you're "too young" and that "can't know what you're talking about." You may not know everything you need to about your self, it is my experience that most people don't, and we're always learning more things. And as you age, and especially as you go through your teenage years, things can change quickly. I say this to encourage you too keep an open mind. Ask questions, challenge your own assumptions about yourself. As you do that, you may find those assumptions are wrong, or you may become even more confident in what you feel about your self. But make sure it's you doing that challenging. No one but you knows what your feeling, so in the end, you're the only authority on what you're talking about. We are here to listen to your story (if you wanna share it), to share with you our stories (if you wanna hear them), to offer what meager advice we can, and most importantly, to be a community where we can all figure ourselves out, and explore what that means.

Once again, welcome to AVEN, and please enjoy the cake. :cake:

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Lightning Blue Ray

I'm 17, and I don't think you can be too young to know if you can start questioning yourself. I might have known I was asexual at 13, had I known about it. I only found out at 15 years old, and when I was 16, I was identifying with being ace.

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The AVERAGE age of experiencing sexual attraction for the first time is 10 years old. The standard deviation is 3.5 years.

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Michael.Berger/lit/McClintock.pdf

http://www.education.com/reference/article/development-sexual-orientation/

Assuming a standard pattern of deviation this means that by 14 over 68% of people have experienced sexual attraction. By 17 over 95% of people have. By 21 it exceeds 99% of people (and asexuality only makes 1% of the population-you can do the math from there).

So while it is theoretically possible that you might not experience sexual attraction into your mid to late twenties the odds are nearly zero. I would say you can be somewhat confident now that you know your orientation, and by the time you reach 17 you can be very confident, and by 21 know the odds of you suddenly experiencing sexual attraction is less than 1%.

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