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How important is your asexuality to your identity?


Spades36

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Which do you consider more important for yourself: your romantic or sexual orientation?

 

For example, I identify as a biromantic asexual. When mentioning the way I identify, I generally mention the bi thing first, and usually consider that more when contemplating my identity.

 

I'm curious how other people approach it :)

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I find this interesting for sure.

 

I am also biromantic asexual. I like talking about the romantic identity much more because thats the reality of where I want my future to go... to somewhere with someone I care about. 

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I'm heteroromantic asexual, though I wouldn't say no if a chick asked me out if I was single at the time since I'm curious about it.  But hetero- just disappears as a label to me since it's people's default and generally doesn't mean anything to most people outside AVEN.  My sexual orientation matters more to me because it sets me apart from the majority more than the hetero-romanticism 

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Badgerclaws

Another bi-ace here!

 

I don't know if one is more important than the other for me. I'd say I'm probably more "open" about my biromanticism (sp?), at least at first. With people I somewhat know, I don't shy away from saying things like "that guy/girl is cute", because I guess that's the part that's easier for people to understand?

 

I don't talk about my asexuality casually: if I bring it up, it's cause I'm Making a Statement™. I've got my go-to speech on hand and I am ready to educate the heck out of whoever I'm speaking to.

  

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NerotheReaper

For me, it is apart of who I am and kind of how I handle relationships. Mainly on how I go about them, and what they mean to me. But I don't feel like that is a major part of who I am, there are other things that make up me. But my sexuality and romantic attraction does matter on how I socialize with others, so yeah it is apart of who I am but not my central identity. 

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There are things that contribute a lot more to who I am and what I feel - my hometown, my job, my club :D  Sexual or romantic orientations certainly won't come to mind if someone asked me "What's your identity? Who are you?". I have precisely zero interest in sex and/or romance and I don't see why I would use those as starting points to identify as anything.

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I haven't found my orientations to be that important to my identity. They don't affect who I socialize with and they aren't the first things that come to mind when people ask me to describe myself. Where they matter is with regard to the fact that I'm perpetually single, which of course affects my choices and how people perceive me.

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My orientation is just another part of me - like being old or having blue eyes. It takes a bundle of things to make me me - none is more important than any other :)

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chair jockey

No longer asexual, but identifying as asexual was everything to me when I first discovered asexuality and it caused my whole life to make sense all of a sudden.

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swirl_of_blue

For me my orientation is important mostly because it affects my life (=makes it so difficult to find a partner and to understand almost everyone else). There are many other aspects of me that are more important to my identity. As for whether my asexuality or panromanticism is more defining to me, I would easily say asexuality. To me it seems weird that people could surely say they could only ever be interested in one gender (especially since I identify as agender and have trouble understanding people who "fit right in" with their biological sex). I don't really have to think of my romantic orientation, but my asexuality can and does have a big impact on my life.

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AsexualMemeTrash

I'm an asexual WTFromantic (quoiromantic) and I feel that my identity is important because it's a part of who I am 

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AJ Thompson

Pan-Ace here.

 

It's very important to my identity. To be fair though it probably wouldn't be if I didn't find myself the subject of so many sexual assumptions on a daily basis. 

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It's extremely important to my identity. I do a lot with it, it has played a central role in how I view myself and my relationships, and aspects of my personality that I know are closely intertwined with my asexuality have affected people's perceptions of me, all in a way that makes it hold a lot more weight than some other parts of me. It wouldn't be the first thing I tell people, because it is still a rather personal thing, but I am always glad to talk about it if an appropriate instance comes about, although I suppose that's partly because raising awareness means so much to me.

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Mezzo Forte

I honestly only notice my orientation in scenarios where I feel like I'm forced to notice it. Yeah, it's part of my identity, but its impact on my daily life is so much more subtle than some of my other elements of my identity. Heck, I almost stopped posting on AVEN altogether after a while, because it just felt like there wasn't much to say about my orientation.

 

That said, my transition seems to make my orientation a bigger deal to others than before. Romance seems like such a common part of the trans narrative, so I've actually had to defend my aro-ace identity on a few occasions and stomach the occasional annoying comment. I've only really had to deal with two people consistently pestering me about it, but my mom eventually got the memo, and I stopped seeing the nurse regularly once I started self-injecting, and I just tend to clock out when she makes comments about relationships when I do see her.

 

Recently, I've been caring more about how people read my orientation moreso than I have any justification for, but that likely comes from the idea that being perceived as gay means that people are noticing feminine things that I can't easily unlearn, and I'm not far enough along in my transition to stop giving a shit at this point.

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As demisexual heteroromantic person I think that my identity is strong conceted to this aspect of my life.

 

My view of life and relationships change since I discover my demisexuality and I started thinking about myself in other perspective and understanding many things about myself that I didn't see erlier. I have also strong connection to my family and place where I come from and this is also important to me and for sure this is part of my identity

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I'm heteromantic but asexual.

 

People perceive me as hetero. Few know that I'm asexual.

 

However, what means the most to me is that people see me as reliable, trustworthy, polite, interesting, generous and genuine.

 

It is only a part of who I am.

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SithAzathoth WinterDragon

I'm homoromantic/aromantic and sex repulsed never been sexual and have no desire to be. I do consider it part of who I am and always have since  I found out what it was by name upon looking it up when I knew I was not  like other girls my age back then. Early 2000's was when I knew something was different but never had access to internet much to research until high school, and even then I never looked it up until early 2013.

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Krakennicole

Aro-ace over here.

I love being myself. I'm super proud of it. I all but flaunt it, because I want people to see my confidence and know that it's ok to be themselves. 

Also, I want no boys. Or girls. Or anyone in between.

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Sexual orientation! By far. I find it more significant when considering both my identity and my future.

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Tiny-Grey-Dinosaurs

Hey, I'm ace aro. To me my orientation is definitely a part of who I am, I love that part of me and sometimes I feel bad because I want to talk about being ace aro just as much as my friends want to talk about their boy toys, but I know they probably find it boring. Being ace is a lot of fun and I'm proud of it. It really does effect who I am and my future. I hope that someday I can meet some people like me where we can actually understand each other better. This community that you all have built is very valuable. 

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I've never felt that being aro ace has been a part of my identity. I had a friends wife ask me why I had never really dated. This was before I found out about asexuality. I just said that my exposure to others' relationships hadn't been good, so I wasn't interested in going down that road. 

 

That being said I really hadn't had any interest in sex up to that point either. I was happy with my life's situation, so I didn't think adding another person to my life would improve it.

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Being aro ace is an important part of who I am as it gives me an inner confidence that I didn't have when I didn't have a word for it.  I am SOMETHING and not just a nothing / an abnormality.  I don't talk about it with others, but it is always there within myself.

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To me my sexuality is just another aspect of my identity, but as I've come to terms with it it's also allowed myself to reflect upon myself and my life in a way I haven't ever done before. Growing up I just assumed that I would be heterosexual but discovering I'm anything but has opened up a lot more paths that I could eventually go down.

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23 hours ago, Ace_Angel153 said:

Hey, I'm ace aro. To me my orientation is definitely a part of who I am, I love that part of me and sometimes I feel bad because I want to talk about being ace aro just as much as my friends want to talk about their boy toys, but I know they probably find it boring. Being ace is a lot of fun and I'm proud of it. It really does effect who I am and my future. I hope that someday I can meet some people like me where we can actually understand each other better. This community that you all have built is very valuable. 

I know what you mean. I've recently found out I was asexual and I find myself constantly wanting to discus it with my brother and my closest friends. I'm just happy and proud about all of this because I use to try and be something I'm not. I forced myself to do things and it made me distant, aggravated. Now I want to talk about it because I know there's nothing wrong with me. 

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Tiny-Grey-Dinosaurs

RIGHT!? I'm just so excited all the time 

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Anonymous Pillow

Considering I don't even know what my romantic orientation is right now (it's gotta be demi, gray, or aro but I just can't figure it out) I'd probably go with sexuality. But anyways it's pretty important to me, helps explain a lot and makes my life and understanding myself easier. However it's not too big of a part either, because a lot of other parts of my life are super important, though my sexuality has a funny way of lowkey slipping into all those parts of my life too.

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I'm pan-ace, but I tend to only speak of myself as ace to irl-people. Around where I live, the "local" pansexuals are highly sexual, and the panromantic label hasn't escaped the stereotype. To me, my panromanticism is more a result of my asexuality; I don't care what people have in their pants as long as it's not a grizzly bear. It is still a very important part of my identity, along with the label genderless, but I don't enjoy telling irl people about it in fear of getting told I'm just confused (again). Maybe I'm just hanging with the wrong friends.

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Morning Glory
On 2017-03-06 at 4:52 AM, swirl_of_blue said:

For me my orientation is important mostly because it affects my life (=makes it so difficult to find a partner and to understand almost everyone else). There are many other aspects of me that are more important to my identity. As for whether my asexuality or panromanticism is more defining to me, I would easily say asexuality. To me it seems weird that people could surely say they could only ever be interested in one gender (especially since I identify as agender and have trouble understanding people who "fit right in" with their biological sex). I don't really have to think of my romantic orientation, but my asexuality can and does have a big impact on my life.

I understand where you're coming from! I think our society puts far too much emphasis on gender/sex. There are many situatuons when someone can have an "exception" (ex. A homosexual might fall for someone of the opposite gender of them). That being said... I'm an aromantic-asexual, but I still want a QPR, and though I would prefer my partner being male, that doesn't mean that i wouldn't be open to the idea of a female partner.

p.s. I forgot to mention that even though I identify as female, I've noticed that I also have agender qualities(?)

 

as mentioned above: I am an aromantic-asexual. This part of me is very important to me. When I realized I was an ace, it changed my world, and I was so happy. I started seeing things differently and it improved my outlook on my life. When I was growing up, I never put much thought into it, but the fact of the matter was: I was different. Weird. Dating seemed to be so important to everyone, that when I stayed single for so long, well then that must make me a lesbian. As much as it bothered me, I just carried on my way; living a life that didn't revolve around romance. But there were still times when I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Finding this missing piece of myself did amazing things for me, and even though I know this isn't the only thing that defines me, i still value it so much. 

But it's also important to point out that this can depend on the situation, time and place. For example: our orientation won't matter as much to us when we're here on AVEN, versus when we're attending a huge public event in which several people may make advances on you.

and despite me being more of an introvert, I'm still fairly sociable; I like making friends and having friends. And being in a society that puts so much emphasis on romance and sex, my asexuality means a lot.

now... I was asexual before I even knew what it was, but I only recently realized that I'm aromantic. I'm still working things out, so I can't be sure which of the two is more important to me. On one hand: a part of me feels more certain about my sexual orientation then my romantic orientation. But on the other hand: I've realized that I am much more uncomfortable about romantic advances then I am about sexual advances...

so I'm kind of just sitting here trying to make sense of it all.

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Guest Jetsun Milarepa

As an older aro ace, I find that when everyone you have been friends with start to pair off and disappear, you suddenly realise you're outside the 'normal construct' . As for it being part of my identity, hell yes, and I wouldn't wish myself any other way.

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I'd say my asexuality is more important than my romantic orientation, mostly because I don't actually know what my romantic orientation is.

And I'd count it as a pretty big part of my identity simply because of how much it's ended up influencing the direction my life's gone in.

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