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How old were you when you found asexuality?


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I'm in my 60's and asexuality 'didn't exist' when I was a lad. I've always liked the look of women and just assumed that when others said that they 'fancied her' and she was pleasant to look at that my friends and I were experiencing the same thing. But no! It turns out (and how can I have missed this?) what they meant was that they would rather enjoy sex with the person involved. And as many times as possible!

I had friendships with females and from time to time I'd go on dates with women. I even joined a dating site and met (and have retained) quite a few friendships. I'm not repulsed by sex, just don't enjoy it on a physical level, so it was quite easy to 'get into a relationship'. But they all foundered when it became apparent to my partners that sex, for me, was something of a relationship statement - yeah! we've done sex! We are in a relationship! Don't need to do that again! Or certainly not frequently. So all (this sounds like there were loads, but I'd say less than 10 when I think of it) my relationships foundered.

I eventually realised that, perhaps, I 'wasn't like other guys' when I was in my 50's (yes 50's!). And I'm definitely well within the asexuality spectrum, according to all the tests (and as you can see from above).

What's your story? When did you realise?

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straightouttamordor

I had an awakening when I was 47. My marriage was in trouble, I never dated in High School and sex just didn't manufacture or fabricate love in my estimation. I  always hated the term, " making love". Sex was and isn't and never will be important to me. I occasionally feel sexual attraction and I'm not sex repulsed. I believe Western civilization has become hypersexualized and desensitized to much deep emotional connection thru sex. A flash in the pan feeling that wanes as fast as it waxes leaving people with broken families and financial devastation. Plus the spectere of STDs all because of sexual confusion and problems. Some say I was a late bloomer, others that the right person will cure me. Still others that I'm broken, gay or low testerone. All wrong analysis. I know me like no one else knows me. I am masculine, my tetesterone level falls within the normal range for a man 50. I can have sex if I want to but I don't feel this primal Darwinian drive to exercise some kind of sexual prowess or pursue sex. And some say I'm just celibate and it's a conscious decision. Or childhood emotional trauma is the culprit. Perhaps an amalgamation of all those things ?

Call it what you want. I am not pursuing a sexual relationship, I could if I wanted to. I'm fairly handsome for my age. I prefer to attempt to find a woman close to my age who is also asexual. Not aromantic or demiromantic. I enjoy affection of all types, it just doesn't have to culminate in intercourse. I'm happy with that. Of course some say asexuality doesn't exist or asexual people aren't a "real man/woman" whichever you happen to be. 

You know,  I quit worrying about what " they, them and everbody"  thinks a few years ago and I feel emancipated !  I hope everyone on this web site no matter where they fit on the spectrum, reaches this Eureka moment !

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Happy Valentine's Day, then! Does it now seem so obvious that you wonder how you couldn't have known it before? I wonder if there is any difference between males/females? Maybe I should have spotted it earlier, considering the supposedly sex-obsessed nature of males?

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In my early 50s.

Only realized it by being in a relationship long enough for sex to become an issue.

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When I was 20 a friend of mine told me that our other friends thought I was asexual behind my back. I didn't really know what it meant, but I got so offended because i felt they were assuming stuff about my sex life. He just said that asexual meant that I dont like anyone. I told him: "Just because I'm not interested in any of YOU doesn't mean I'm asexual!!!" and it sort of died there. 

It took me one year (age 21) to stumble upon the word and want to research it on my own and completely realize that they were actually right. This is me. I felt a mixture of emotions that I could not separate into individual emotions. It was bittersweet! But I certainly felt free. 

I still am a closet asexual and none of them know.

 

TL;DR: 21

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If that's an accurate picture of you, I wonder how soon another friend of yours (who you may not realise is asexual too), will recognise you? I've wondered about what picture to adopt, and still haven't decided.

 

Coming out isn't easy, is it? I've told very few of my friends explicitly, but others sort of know (I haven't dated for the best part of a decade. Which is a bit of a clue...), And still treat me as if I was hetero-sexual. One of them joked a few months ago - you aren't homo - more NOmo! Which was pretty accurate, and quite amusing.

 

Keep strong!

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Fernanda de Oliveira

I 've always known I was different from others in that sex subject. But for many years I thought I had some kind of psychological trauma because I never met a single person who was not crazy about sex. I even find myself doing selfcensorship, because when saying something like "love is not just sex", people look at me if I was an abnormal. It is sad to keep silent about the subject, to keep it clandestine. For me, it is a plus to be an asexual and I am proud of being it and I wouldn't like not to be it. The difficult is really that social taboo. Answering the question, I was maybe 30, when some day I think to myself "in fact I am an asexual", this was 2 decades ago and I had never heard the word. It was simply the way I felt about my own sexuality. 

 

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@Fernanda de Oliveira If you weren't asexual you'd be another person. And wanting to be another person just seems like self-betrayal to me. Would I like to not be asexual? I've no idea - I've never tried it. I imagine it brings with it a whole load of different issues. 

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rosscantflirt

I was 31 when I stumbled upon the term asexuality and it was then when my world finally started making sense. 

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@rosscantflirt. Welcome to AVEN:cake::cake: 🎂 🎂 

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Last year, almost 3 months after I turned 25, I initially identified as demiromantic demisexual. A couple of months after I discovered more about asexuality and AVEN, I now identify as gray-aroflux gray-aceflux with a predominant repulsion to both romance and sex (since it fluctuates between being gray, aro/ace, demi, apothi, quoi and akoi). I initially came out to my parents and a family friend when I first identified as demi, but it didn't turn out well. So for now, I keep my gray-arofluxness and gray-acefluxness a secret until I find the right and appropriate time to formally come out to more than just my parents and a family friend.

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I first came across the term asexuality when I found this site last year - when I was 39 yrs old.  However, I had accepted that I was what I was a few years before that and had decided not to try and pretend to be something else.  It was great to find this site and find that there were plenty others like me.

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@Blackthorn You did well to recognise, accept and not pretend. And I see that you have the pleasure of living in the county of my birth. :-)

 

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I discover my sexuality almost year ago when I was 26 but I started questioning myself few years before. I always knew that emotional and sensual atraction in my case is nothing wrong but moment that I discover my "label" and  that there are many people like me give me reassurence.

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Fernanda de Oliveira
22 hours ago, Midland Tyke said:

@Fernanda de Oliveira If you weren't asexual you'd be another person. And wanting to be another person just seems like self-betrayal to me. Would I like to not be asexual? I've no idea - I've never tried it. I imagine it brings with it a whole load of different issues. 

"Self betrayal", maybe, but I wouldn't call it that name. It is much more complex. And it surely brings suffering. But I believe we do not command what we think or feel about ourselves. It just is what it is. 

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TheGrumpyBear

I was 30 when I came to the realization of what I was. Ever since my first relationship, sex was always a struggle. I could never develop enthusiasm for it. My inability to want sex and have arousal for it upset many of my partners. They couldn't understand,  thinking that I just didn't find them appealing. I tried time and again to explain, but could never find the right words for what I was feeling, or not feeling as the case was. What finally opened my eyes was, oddly enough, a research paper about gender that I was doing for a class. During my research, I came across the idea of asexuality. I began exploring the topic and, page after page, I found more and more parallels with myself. It was then that I came to understand that this was me. This was what I am. It was such a relief.

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59 and 2 failed marriages. I am mostly sorry that I made 2 other people who I loved miserable along with myself.

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@Mocha Jo Wasn't it Samuel Johnson who called marrying for a second time "the triumph of hope over experience"? I know that's frivolous - please don't take it as anything other than light-hearted nonsense.

 

I'm sure that many members here have had failed relationships that, with greater knowledge at the time, they would have known were destined for failure. That doesn't make us (I include myself) bad people.

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TheLastOfSheila
On 3/20/2017 at 8:33 AM, MelMart said:

It was bittersweet! But I certainly felt free. 

Yes, that feeling of freedom is incredible, isn't it?  I was around 57 or 58 when I learned about the asexual community, and happily identified with it.

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I was in my mid 40s. I had never heard of asexuality before reading a newspaper article. Up until then, hetero-, homo- and bisexual were the only sexual presuasions that I was aware of. It pretty much explained why I had never felt a real urge to have sex.

 

For some reason I only recently became active on AVEN. The forum was mentioned in the article and I did check it out at the time (about 10 years ago). 

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andreas1033

When i was around 13 or so, i knew i would not be like others. I used the term androgynous, as i saw myself, as neither male and neither female. So what people describe as asexual, i thought it was the term androgynous, when i was at school back then. I would of first used that term asexual, when i fund this place a couple of years back. I had heard the term in media when young, but it was a derogatory term, to rubbish people, from my experience of seeing that term used in media, before the net.

So being 41 now, like others i had to work out all this for myself, as obviously no one my age, or around me, would accept such a thing as anyone but straight or gay people existed back then.

I am glad, for those today, whom see themselves as asexual, can understand by seeing how others talk about themselves, on places like this place. But asexuals have always existed, and always will, no matter if most of the human race, do not want to accept people are like us.

I do not know what your experiences of peoples were, but i can understand why males whom were asexual, just went away years ago and lived in some monastery to get away from this endless pressure society seems to have on people, to want them to be with another. Asexuals, have always had the problem, where there was enormous pressures on people to be with another.

When i see people claim asexuals are not oppressed, i just laugh, my life showed, what really happens to them, especially when its public.

Why do those idiots think, males went away from society and lived out there lifes in some monastery, before modern society?

So for me, it would be around 28 years ago, when i would of been around 13, i started to work out for myself, about being asexual, but i used the term androgynous, as i saw myself, as neither a male, or female, so i just saw myself, as too inbetween, to have any sexual interest in others.

Attraction is based on energies, and if your too inbetween the scale, of extreme masculine, or extreme feminine, your energies, do not get stimulated by the opposite. Extreme masculine, projects out, and extreme feminine pulls in(everyone is between these two ends of the scale). If your too inbetween, you do neither.
^^
Thats how i saw myself, and still today i see it that way.

Humans need others, as they need to complete there energies. People like us, already do that, so we do not desire sex, or others to touch us, to do this. Thats what others do not understand. People that are lonely, are needing to be around others, or to be touched, is most peoples bodies crying out to complete this circuit of energy. Sort, of like an electrical circuit. But our electrical circuit, is already complete, thats why we do not desire, others, in sexual, or in other ways.

I am glad, like alot of you, i was right i was asexual, but i did not use the term asexual, as i never heard it. I called myself androgynous, which effectively means the same thing.

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2 hours ago, andreas1033 said:



I am glad, like alot of you, i was right i was asexual, but i did not use the term asexual, as i never heard it. I called myself androgynous, which effectively means the same thing.

I don't want to start something but I was always under the impression that this was the definition of androgynous:

Quote

partly male and partly female in appearance; of indeterminate sex.

(see David Bowie)

 

I had known about this long before asexuality, but in no way did it fit me even though at time I had no interest in sex.

 

As far as I was concern I was just like any other male except I used my penis for relieving myself only. I had no reason to use it sexually

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straightouttamordor

Like some of the above posters, 48 and two failed marriages. Wish I had known earlier.

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2 minutes ago, prib23 said:

Like some of the above posters, 48 and two failed marriages. Wish I had known earlier.

Heck I didn't really make any attempt to have a girlfriend, so I'm really puzzled when I read this ^

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TheLastOfSheila
12 hours ago, will123 said:

Heck I didn't really make any attempt to have a girlfriend, so I'm really puzzled when I read this ^

Why puzzled? 

 

For many of us older aces, we were pressured to fit into a certain category in society, and there weren't many options.  Growing up, it was expected that girls should date, marry, have children, and I did all of those things.  Fortunately, I was not sex-repulsed, but sex never did much for me either.  This made having relationships tough, although I loved being a mom.  The marriage I could have done without.  Anyway, younger aces don't understand what it was like for many of us back then, or our efforts to conform to our cultural standards.

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