Have you felt curiosity about sex as a child ?

[Skyl]

I'm 21 and have no experience in both romance and sex whatsoever, however I'm certain that I'm asexual and aromantic.

I never felt any desire to form a relationship with anyone or have sexual experiences, neither did I feel any obligation to do so or much interest from a scientific viewpoint. I did experience peer pressure, accusations based on misconceptions because of my lack of relationships, receive encouragement I didn't need, but it never caused me to ponder the topic.I would like to think I was always so comfortable with my orientation, I never even questioned it or thought about it. Sex and romance was never a part of my life, even though everyone around me talked about it. It has never presented itself as a question in my emotional development during puberty, I never had a crisis or thought I'm abnormal. Maybe on the contrary-whenever I saw someone expressing interest and attraction towards someone, I would think they are acting or talking that way for some particular reasons and the desire is faked. During those moments when I would realize what they were showing was real, I would feel suprised. It's like it was so intrinsically there, I never cared about it to the extent where my brain wouldn't even process any information about myself in such context. I did want boys to crush on me at some point of my early years, but it was more of a desire to be liked and acknowledged, and lacked any romantic interest. It wasn't that serious too. I would've identified as heterosexual if asked back then, but I think I never instinctually understood what it actually meant. When met with displays of sexual intimacy in real life or media, the reality would hit me and I would find it repelling, because of how foreign and unusual such thoughts or desires were to my whole being. I thought there was something wrong and immoral with those people.

Recently, however, as I became more aware of asexuality and met others like me online, I thought that maybe I should question it, so it can become something I can tell myself I'm sure about. I tried masturbating and continued even though it felt about the same as rubbing my hands together( I'm aware that asexuals do receive pleasure from sex of self-pleasuring), I tried to see people of both genders in a sexual or romantic way. In conclusion it felt really weird and nonsensical to me. I won't force myself to try sex, because I'm not comfortable with the idea ( I'm not scared or anything, though.).

One thing that I still haven't got completely sorted out is my slight curiosity about the topic as a child. As far as I remember I never dreamed about being with anyone or wondering about how it feels, when I discovered the existence of sex, which was pretty early due to no real censorship in the internet. I played sex-related internet games. Nothing explicit interested me, though I remember trying some that didn't have any disgusting stuff. I liked dating sim games with girls, though I skipped the hentai stuff, because it wasn't interesting and looked disgusting. I also have some memories of trying roleplaying by getting into the bed naked, though nobody was involved and I had no idea what I could do or that something even has to be done. I would also like to draw stories and would include characters in bed with the implication of them having sex, though I was clueless to what there is to do other than take your clothes off and get under the blanket. I think I didn't understand what sex was at all back then, which explains why I would be disgusted by it in movies etc. and saw the two as separate matters. I'm quite sure I didn't actually try stimulating myself as a child too.

I don't think I ever had any real intrinsic desire or interest, and I don't think anything related to that changed in me over the years, but that puzzles me.

Any thoughts or similar experiences ? Am I missing some basic knowledge ?

[WinterWanderer]

Hi, welcome to AVEN! :)

A lot of what you said hits home for many aro aces. As a fellow asexual, I also was sometimes curious about sex, but never felt any desire for it. It seems odd to me that people do it for pleasure. *shrugs*

[Pi(e)]

Welcome to AVEN, have some cake

In many ways, it sounds like you had similar experience to me. I never wasn't interested in sex or romance and mostly thought my friends were being stupid when they started dating in middle school. I basically thought dating was for if you were considering getting married and people would marry their best friends. It took me until the end of middle school and the beginning of high school to realize this was not the case. Now I'm learning I'm not entirely aromantic after all so I am sort of questioning that, but in more of a "not enough information to go on yet" kind of way.

Like you I never felt off or pressured to do anything because I just assumed the way I felt was particularly normal. When I was younger, I was very interested in where babies came from, but not in sex which I find disgusting. I think I was actually like you in thinking people just got under a blanket or something without actually realizing entirely what it was until our growing and changing unit in sixth grade.

You'll probably find that many other people of AVEN have similar experiences to you. Feel free to look around, and learn more and enjoy the community.

[starry-night-sky]

Welcome :)

I think I was mildly interested in this topic when I was a child. It was this kind of "adult thing" and when you're young these things seem cool and interesting. I think I was just as interested in sex as in working because both are things that adults typically do. When I was around 11-14 I read all these girl magazines and of course they discussed topics like sex and your "first time" so I got more curious. However I was just curious about having sex one time. I remember that at some point I realized that after having sex with a partner for the first time you'll probably have it again and I just didn't want that at all. I actually confused my curiosity with desire for a long time.

So, this curiosity is very normal around asexuals.

[Busrider]

I think I had an "appropriate" childhood, where too much love displayed on TV turned the movie "boooooooring". - I was 30+ when I started using the Internet (but still too late born to encounter living dinosaurs).

I'm recalling feeling cis-programmed and clever by trying to socialize with girls before the dating stuff starts to gain me a bit of an advantage later at that moment. - I turned romantic (with heartaches and everything) at about age 15 but well, sex? - I felt no personal interest / urges that would have overriden the responsibility preachings during sex-ed & such. Around age 20 I had developed curiosity on a "I shall try when it 'll feel right to do so" base...

[Confusedloveally]

as a child, sex was a topic I either laughed about, or it made me very nervous. Learning about sex definitely changed the way I viewed relationships. I was pretty sexually frustrated when I was in middle school as well as my first 2 years of high school and I could never could completely understand why people would ever "do that to themselves". Eventually I learned more about myself and was able to overcome a lot of that frustration.

[songchick]

I was curious about sex as a child, because it is part of the human experience and I wanted to know about it. I put myself through a lot of sex also... trying to learn about it and such. Sounds weird to say but... it was more of an intellectual pursuit than a physical enjoyment. It didn't feel good at all actually. It hurt.

[SithLord]

I recall playing with my dolls when I was little and having them act out sexual acts. I also recall one occasion when I tried role-playing sex but it felt awkward and weird. Back then I thought it was because my partner was a stuffed lion, but now I realize it's because I didn't like sex when it involved me. Sex was all well and good when I was little, and still it now, but when it involves me it becomes a grey area.

Just now realized how telling that childhood experience for me is.

[barnowl128]

Interestingly I found as a child I was never curious about sex, and when I did learn about it I found it boring and unpleasant. Especially since when I had sex ed as a teenager, my teacher didn't mention asexuality, so until I found the term on the internet when I was 17 I was convinced I was ill and broken.

[WhenSummersGone]

In general I was and I had a libido even as a kid but never thought about myself having it.

[RoseGoesToYale]

As a child, I found sex interesting insofar as all the kids my age pretty much over-inflated the topic. It became this huge, crazy mystery that adults wouldn't talk about. We would random kitchen terms to refer to biology and talk about it out loud (our teachers never noticed, I guess they thought we were talking about cooking). Then in fourth grade, when our class was supposed to go to a health talk about the body, all these wild rumors started circulating about what they were actually going to talk about (which turned out to be nothing). It wasn't until high school that I explored sexuality as a concept and realized "Oh, so that's what it is. Well... now what?"

[TheStarrySkai]

Welcome.

Umm. As a kid umm... I had little interest in such topics. Star trek and avatar was wayyy cooler. Kinda still is. I didn't really understand what the whole sex craze was about. I still don't

Now I suppose I'm a bit curious. Simply for experience sake if you want to call it that. I guess I want to figure out whats so great about it. Kinda like a cool movie or food that everyone likes, but I've never seen or tried it. Its not really my thing, but I guess I'll try it.

[TrAse]

As a child, no. Then I learned that being interested in it is a way of connecting to my peers, so I talked about it (i.e. listened to them talk about it), watched porn and so on, but I was never interested in having sex myself. I didn't realize that others could have a sexual interest in me either. Sex was an abstraction. It had nothing to do with me.

[Ladyinred]

I see most who replied here also did not have interest in sex as children. I did not have any curiosity or interest as a child, but definitely did after puberty. Very curious! Even seduced a boyfriend into sex just to know what it was like. It was meh. Stayed curious and interested for decades. Tried it with various boyfriends. But it was still meh. Now I'm 47 and finally understand that I'm ace!

But lol I am still curious, and I am learning everything I can about asexuality.

[BreeZaps]

Sometimes. Now I see that it's not for me.

[Mychemicalqpr]

My first reaction was complete repulsion from the minute "the talk" started, and for a while after that I would avoid anything to do with it whenever possible, so pretty much the opposite of curious. Later though, something about it started to intrigue me sometimes. I eventually realized that what I was actually interested in most of the time was bdsm aspects, and found out that could be separate from sex. Still, learning about bdsm kind of led to me becoming a bit more open about sex, so now, when I'm in a calm, stable mood, I will have occasional curiosity.

[Philip027]

I didn't even hear about sex until I was 14, so... nope.

[tahtipolya]

as a kid i had 0 interest in sex, and the same is true today. actually, when i was around 14 i read about freud and how youre sexual at different ages (such as playing doctor as a kid) and i had experienced practically none of the stuff he said and i couldnt believe he was so famous!...still, no desire (and perfectly fine w it!!!!)

[Eternal_Daydreamer]

It's interesting this topic was posted because, in truth, I was probably more sexually charged as a child than I am now. I remember, when I was six years old, having a vivid, detailed dream of a penis entering a vagina. I'm not sure it's normal for a child of that age to know such a thing. Especially since I can't recall where else I would have seen or heard it. I also had a lot of sexual dreams around that age...probably more so closer to 8 or 9, and, as someone else mentioned, I made my barbie dolls have sex quite a lot. So, oddly enough, I would say that my interest in sex plummeted around the onset of puberty. Not only that, but I actually became extremely sex-negative and repulsed around that same time.

[RHD95]

Nope, I was pretty much as indifferent as I am now, probably due to overexposure via media/acquaintances. I felt sex ed on school taught me everything I needed to know and didn't need to dig deeper into the subject.

[EnterCreativeName]

I wasn't very interested in the thought. I knew what it was, without even being told. I wasn't very curious about it, never even thought of it. The most you'll get from me is reading about the reproductive system and looking at the pictures in a big book that supposedly had information on everything in the world.

[Wenderbread]

whenever I saw someone expressing interest and attraction towards someone, I would think they are acting or talking that way for some particular reasons and the desire is faked. During those moments when I would realize what they were showing was real, I would feel surprised.

I used to feel the same way!! It made my early relationships particularly confusing for me; I would never even want to see the poor guys. I sort of thought everyone was faking it just as much as I was, which ended in some rough break ups. I didn't realize for an embarrassing amount of time afterwards that those people might have actually had completely legitimate feelings for me, and I should have respected that more. I just didn't have that mindset back then.

Anyway, to respond to your real question.. I was fascinated with sex right up until puberty. It was a common theme among my friends when we played with our Barbies. I'm not sure exactly how old I was, but I had to be 7 or younger. Eventually, I learned that talking about sex was totally taboo and that I was definitely not allowed to talk about it ever (lol society). The fascination I had when I was young never really came back. Sometimes I get curious about sexual topics, but it's always from a very removed standpoint, and I never think about it in relation to myself. Sometimes, things are just interesting to learn about.