Is what I'm feeling sexual attraction?

[sleepyfish]

Hi,

I've never seriously considered if I am asexual before. Someone once suggested that I might be and a I reacted very strongly against it. I am already gay and shy, I don't want another complication in my struggle to not be single and lonely forever. But now I am reading about the different kinds of attraction and I think maybe what I experience may not be sexual attraction after all. Here is what I experience. Please tell me what kind of attraction this is.

Ever since I was about 11 or 12, I have had crushes on girls that came out of nowhere and I couldn't control. I don't need to have more than a passing acquaintance with the girls I like and sometimes I don't even like them that much personally, but I can't stop thinking about them and hoping they will notice me and like me.

I once had a really bad (and unrequited) crush for a whole year, but after summer apart, I discovered that feeling was gone and that girl and her touch (not sexual, we were just friends) make me feel vaguely nauseous. I think that means that what I felt was physical and not romantic (right?).

I have never once thought that I would like to have sex with someone. I just cannot imagine sex, but I wonder if that is just because I am a virgin. Until now I figured it was like how I grew up keeping kosher and so I don't crave bacon, because I've never tried it. It seems to me that people go on about bacon the way they do about sex. Supposedly it is fantastic and special and you are supposed to crave it all the time. It seems ridiculous to me, but maybe if I tried bacon or sex I would suddenly crave it the way it seems like everybody else does.

I have tried masturbation. I like the way it feels, but can go years without doing it and not miss it. It gives me the same feeling in my stomach that thinking about my crushes does.

A boy kissed me once and I let him keep doing it because I thought I should be enjoying it. The way he suddenly got all physically dominant and protective towards me made me really uncomfortable though, so I left, although he kept trying to get in one more kiss. Afterwards, I felt awful and washed my mouth and cried for a week. My friend suggested that it was because I am gay (I am a girl), but maybe it was also because I am asexual?

p.s. If you have actually read this far- thank you thank you thank you! I know I wrote a lot, but I am just not sure what all of this means, if it means anything. I am 23 and I feel like there is something wrong with me because the though of sex just makes me uncomfortable.

[Lost247365]

Sexual attraction simply means that you desire to have sex with others for its own sake.

If you lack the ability to desired to have sex with others (male or female or any other gender) then you are asexual. Crushes and Masturbation have nothing to do with it.

[Baam]

It sounds like you experience romantic attraction, but not sexual attraction. I can't say for sure though, the only one who can is you.

[Elluna Hellen]

Sounds like you might well be asexual if you don't desire sex with anyone at all. Welcome to AVEN! Nothing is wrong with you, asexual or not. You're just... You!

And that one crush that you suddenly didn't feel anymore after a summer apart from her, maybe you just got over it? That can happen, right? (LOL anyone who is not aro please confirm xD). Doesn't mean it has to have been physical, I would say :)

[Hardly any]

You sound homoromantic to me. Not desiring sex could be a result of having no interest in pursuing it for the sake of itself. Which is under the ever expanding asexual umbrella, I'm pretty sure, disinterest.