How did you know?

[E.W]

Hi everyone, I am new to this and still trying to figure stuff out. I was just wondering how people knew what sexuality they were and if they were asexual or aromatic? Thanks 

 

[Digs_Dead_People]

I never really didn't know, I just never had a word for it and I just assumed that I was a broken individual with no sexual attraction.  I was around 20 or so when I learned the word "asexual" and I was like "Oh, that fits."

[thejm]

Before realizing I was Asexual, I always just assumed I would have sex someday since "everyone has it". Even though I had never heard of asexuality, I never felt any sort of sexual attraction. I finally started thinking about my sexuality after watching a YouTube video about being asexual. It seemed to actually describe me really well, so I started looking into it more and I realized I was asexual pretty quickly.

[TheAP]

I just kind of realized I don't feel any sexual attraction to anyone.

[AwkwardAxolotl]

I think I've always known that I was asexual, I just didn't have the right words to describe myself until I stumbled across AVEN. Before that, I called myself bisexual, just not very good at being bisexual, which in retrospect makes no sense whatsoever (how can you be bad at your own sexuality), but that was the most accurate I could be given the vocabulary I had to work with.

[MiraMeyneth]

I was 15 and I overheard stories of people losing their virginity, even a few people I know had lost theirs. I think I felt confusion on why people would want to have sex in the first place. I think I complained about it to my sister who mentioned asexuality, and I liked the label. Still haven't felt anything since (I'm 17 now and pretty much finishing up puberty) so I'd say it's a pretty reasonable assumption that I'm ace still.

[CallaWolf]

I think I knew based on the fact the only reason I ever wanted sex was because I was unable to explain why I didn't want sex, and was embarrassed at fact that I didn't know why. Essentially, I wanted to have sex to avoid awkward conversations, not because I actually wanted sex. Superficial really, but I really wanted to feel normal and didn't understand things yet.

 

Plus, the fact that the only reason I ever wanted to date was because I wanted to get to know the person better, not because I ever wanted to bang.

 

I think it officially dawned on me when one of my sexually charged (maybe even sex addicted) ex friends kept on looking at me weird when I told him on occasion that I didn't get why he liked sex so much. Then, after retrospect and soul searching, I was like "huh......interesting, that explains it."

 

 

Plus the fact that most of my life I always had the lingering feeling of wanting to tell any person who would ever want to have sex (or even a romantic relationship at times, for that matter) with me to 'F off' gave it away too 

[null-]

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[Autu]

I didn't know anything about asexuality since about a year ago. I knew that I was different from others when all of my friends started talking about "having urges" and I just couldn't relate. I never felt sexual attraction and I couldn't understand people who felt it.

About a year ago I was at school just reading through my psychology textbook and stumbled across the term "asexuality" and it caught my interest and I decided to google it. When I read definitions from a lot of different sites, something just clicked inside of me and I thought "hey, this is me" and after a lot of reading, I just knew.

[OldSoul]

It's not something you notice, or it wasn't for me. At some point I just noticed the absence. I suppose I was always waiting to suddenly feel attracted to someone, or I thought that maybe I simply was experiencing it-- but in a different way.
After awhile I realized that something was... different, and I still had to go read a lot, and take some online quizzers to understand what was going on with me.