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Missed signs of asexuality


LouTheElephant

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LouTheElephant

I'm sure there is something out there already like this, but I'm curious if looking back, other people can remember signs of being asexual you missed when it happened. I'll share a couple of mine. 

 

A). My friend would always send me pictures of celebrities and ask me if I thought they were "hot" and I was just like "no what's that lol" 

 

B). One of my friends was texting me one time and somehow we got on the topic of masturbation and I only vaguely knew what it was but I was utterly bewildered when he said that he enjoyed doing it and it was actually really common. (Granted that I was in like seventh grade) 

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Whenever someone would show me a picture of a celebrity and asked me if I would date them I would respond with "I've never met them, how should i know!"

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I've posted this elsewhere, but in high school I joked to my friends that since I was the logical, science/mathematical/etc. dude in our group, I would reproduce via budding or cloning myself. I essentially jokingly referred to myself as being biologically asexual before discovering asexuality as an orientation.

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On 11/02/2017 at 3:23 AM, DoomDodo said:

Whenever someone would show me a picture of a celebrity and asked me if I would date them I would respond with "I've never met them, how should i know!"

THAT!

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The little ace one

I don't have a particular experience but whenever my friends would talk about sex and how it felt, i would sit and feel nothing and i simply couldn't imagine that i would ever enjoy something like that. 

 

I always told myself that it would come later though, until i discovered asexuality. 

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So, when I was about 14 or 15 years old, I was in a girl's Bible study class. One week we had a lesson on "purity," I'm sure you know what kind. The teacher passed a flower around the room, and told us we could handle it in any way we pleased. By the time it came back around to the teacher, it was in pretty good shape; we had all been pretty gentle with it. The teacher then stepped out of the classroom for a minute, flower in hand. When she came back, the flower was in tatters, several petals missing and the remaining ones bruised and crumpled. She said she had given it to a group of boys and given them the same instructions to handle it however they liked, and this was the result (I don't believe for a second that she really did that, though; I'm certain she crumpled it up herself). 

 

The intended lesson was that A. you can't trust boys with your "flower" (ugh), and B. once you lose your virginity ( outside of marriage) you can't get it back, you're essentially "damaged goods" just like that flower, and no one would ever want you afterwards. That it was unforgivable sin.

 

My reaction to this lesson? Outwardly: *nods solemnly* "Okay." Inwardly: :huh: "Well, that seems unlikely. If God can forgive ever other kind of sin, why not premarital sex? Why is that the unforgivable sin, where is that written? And even if true, why are you telling us this? For all you know, someone here might already have had sex, and there's nothing they can do to change that fact, so you're just making them feel bad for no reason. This makes no sense. But, I'm not going to argue, I'll just pretend to agree. It's not like I was planning to have sex anytime soon anyway. I'm way too young.

 

Yes, my 14-15 year old self seriously thought she was too young for sex. I find that kind of hilarious now, in retrospect. That was definitely one major missed sign of my own asexiness. :D

 

It should also be noted that I no longer believe sex outside of marriage to be sinful (I haven't believed that in years), but I kinda halfheartedly did at the time, so I couldn't very well leave that out of the story and have it be accurate. I do sort of regret now that I didn't argue with the teacher, though; my teenaged self had some pretty solid arguments against that purity culture nonsense. 

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Maybe when I pretended to have crushes on various boys so that I and my boy crazy friends would have something to talk about...

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cristalfleurs

When I was in 7th grade, I had a huge crush on this fictional character. Specifically, from an anime/manga called InuYasha. A friend of mine made various comments freaked out about how I'd paper cuts on my vagina and I was very, VERY CONFUSED. I mean, I'm still somewhat confused (I really doubt anybody would try to do it that way!) but like... sex literally had not crossed my mind. I knew that it was a thing that existed and that was it.

 

A couple years later, same friend. I had been dating my first girlfriend a couple of months and my friend asked if we had had sex yet. I was like, "No! We've only been dating [2 months or whatever]!" And my friend asked, "Why not? It's not like you can get pregnant from it!" As in, why in the world would we possibly ever not want to do it. Meanwhile my thought was basically the opposite -- like, why would we want to??? Fortunately that was a good conversation starter for us to talk about it. We both agreed that we weren't ready and neither of us had any interest anyway. We chalked it up to only being 15, though in hindsight when she later came to identify as asexual that probably should have been a hint.

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Hmmm, so many moments to choose from. What about the time a couple of girls in my year group (year 10, I miss being that young) on my bus were talking about masturbation and the only thing I could think off was how uncomfortable it sounded (I hadn't heard of it before at that point). They got round to asking me if I masturbated and I just looked at them blankly and said "no clue what that is" and got back to reading. They called me Virgin for the rest of the year and I thought duh, what else would I be, how is that an insult?

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An interesting one is your "sexual fantasies" do not actually include sex, and/or are not sexual in nature.

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AsexualMemeTrash

I should've realized that I was asexual when the first time I had a sexual encounter, I hated it. 

When I had crushes I could only imagine things being romantic or platonic and no sex whatsoever. 

In my last relationship, all I wanted to do when I went to his house was video games and his skull wasn't thin enough for him to get that that was all I wanted to do. 

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On 2/10/2017 at 10:40 PM, Azrael said:

I think about sex in an abstract way but not placing myself in the scenario. 

Yep, I relate to that alright. Only it's less abstract and more scientific curiosity for me. I study sex like an anthropologist! 

 

On 2/13/2017 at 2:00 PM, Fly By said:

It took me a while to realise I was. I missed a lot of obvious clues, but now I analyse everything...

THE SAME! :lol:

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It took me a long time to realize I was asexual. I think there were a lot of signs I missed. Back in high school, I was talking to a friend and she said something about how she didn't want to die a virgin or stay a virgin, and I said to her, "what's wrong with being a virgin?" I also remember telling her that it's not a huge deal to be a virgin and that being a virgin forever doesn't bother me one bit. I should have realized I was asexual then and there because back then and even now, I've never understood why sex is so important to people and why there's such a stigma attached to someone being a virgin.     

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

....when the more promiscuous kids all discovered sex, then their grades started slipping and they used to taunt me about particular sexual practices, saying 'you've never lived'...but I was fine with the way things were!

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i dont know that im actually asexual... but i do remember being a teenager and thinking to myself wait a second....when i get a partner, ill be sharing a bed all the time, right? WHEN WILL I HAVE TIME TO JACK OFF?!  

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Not thinking of random passing people in a sexual way

 

Not watching a movie or show just because an actor or actress is attractive

 

Not being able to tell which celebrities are "hot"

 

Underestimating the frequency which people have sex

 

Not feeling like you are missing something if you don't have sexual activity


Not masturbating thinking of someone you personally know

 

Not seeing the advantages of handjob / fingering over masturbation

 

Thinking of sex in an overly scientific and analytic way

 

Not being interested in sharing nude pictures

 

During sex scenes in movies, trying to figure out the physics behind the positions

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Not seeing the point in fancy underwear, being able to joke about sex in a way that would make most sexuals cringe (as it doesn't apply to me), having many opposite sex friends without the "complications" I hear other's complain of (I think I give off a strong disinterested vibe!). Oh, and never understanding the term "friends with benefits"; I mean I knew what it entailed but didn't get why :D.

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AsexualMemeTrash
2 hours ago, Twigwilter said:

Not seeing the point in fancy underwear, being able to joke about sex in a way that would make most sexuals cringe (as it doesn't apply to me), having many opposite sex friends without the "complications" I hear other's complain of (I think I give off a strong disinterested vibe!). Oh, and never understanding the term "friends with benefits"; I mean I knew what it entailed but didn't get why :D.

I don't really see the point in fancy underwear either. Especially if it's made of lace, that looks uncomfortable.

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Oh yeah, tons. I have to wonder how my life would have turned out if I'd knew that asexuality existed 10 years ago, but heh, what's done is done.

A few:

  • Fantasizing about girls but not when they were around me
  • My male friends exchanging looks and winks when they spot a good-looking woman, and me thinking "why are they doing that, that's rude!"
  • Obviously, not caring about having sex...
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5 hours ago, Twigwilter said:

Not seeing the point in fancy underwear

Isn't that true for most men? From what I heard, they prefer to see women naked instead of using lingerie.

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The fact that my feelings for people I was in relationships with tended to expire before the 4L jug of milk I bought in the same week should've been an indication. 

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Looking back I missed a lot of signs. Other people noticed things about me that I didn't. I was often 'accused' (as if it's a bad thing) of being a lesbian, especially by my sister. It was really annoying. My lack of interest in men was also mistaken as interest in women. I've always known I wasn't attracted to girls, so I didn't start questioning my sexually until recently. I started to think that maybe I wasn't attracted to men because I was gay (maybe all those people were right) but the answer was always a definite no. It took me longer than it should have to figure out why I kept questioning if I was gay when I knew I wasn't. That's how I finally started to accept that I was ace. 

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I tried to do the whole "wait until I was ready" to have sex (this was after logically talking myself out of True Love Waits), and then kept wandering why it was I never felt ready.

My ex-fiancé told me that no other guy but him would wait two years to sleep with me, I was genuinely puzzled as to why he felt that was so hard.

When my best friend is single, she goes out on her birthday specifically to find someone for birthday sex. I wrote it off as a weird quirk of her's. Then I made two more friends who did the same thing. I don't get it, it seems more like something you should be avoiding, not actively seeking.

I told an ex-co-worker it had been three years since I last slept with someone, her response was that she would help me get laid. I then avoided going out with her for a while until I felt she'd properly forgotten.

When people would say that they'd have sex with a person- real, celebrity, random walker-by -I always thought they were exaggerating.

The first time someone told me that someone was in their "spank bank," my response was "people actually have those." The idea of thinking about an actual person during any sort of sexual activity is so weird...people do not belong in my sex life. I don't even like me in my sex life.

 

Note quite a missed sign but:

I'm 27 years old and realized less than a year ago that Netflix and Chill was code for sex.

I'm usually very good at things like that, I'm the one who explains to other people what various sexual terms mean and even pick up on when other people mean hang out vs "hang out." But the idea that someone would go over to someone's house, put on a movie/show and then....not watch it? What? Why? That seems like such a waste.

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In high school my friends asked me over and over whom I liked, and I never liked anyone. They didn't like that answer, so I ended up making up some guy and based him on myself so I'd never mess up the lie. I kept it up all throughout high school just to get everyone off my back and only recently told my friends. I always thought it was because I was "picky" and everyone else couldn't understand, but nah. I was just mindblowingly ace. :D

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RoseGoesToYale

I never realized that most people get "turned on" when they see or think of someone they're sexually attracted to. I thought people just got warm fuzzy feelings in their chest, and maybe heart racing, but that's it. Looking back now, I probably should've realized that the lack of arousal was a huge indicator. And I also just realized that when I told people I had a crush on someone, they were not thinking of it the same way... urg, I've always been so dense.

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12 minutes ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

And I also just realized that when I told people I had a crush on someone, they were not thinking of it the same way...

Yes and no. I think it would be more accurate to say they also felt other things.

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