Describing Asexuality

[Lostandalone]

Hey, all!

So one question I got from a friend recently is "how is being asexual different than being straight when there are people who are straight and have little, or no, interest in sex?" How would you explain the difference to a friend who posed this question to you? I was having a really hard time explaining it because I'm so new at identifying as ace.

 

Anything is helpful!

[Ruru+Saphhy=Garnet]

My answer: "when you're asexual, you don't find men or women sexually attractive. If a heterosexual have little or no interest in sex, they still experience sexual attraction. If they didn't experience sexual attraction... They obviously wouldn't be heterosexual then."

That's my explanation. Sorry if it isn't much help.

 

 

[knittinghistorian]

It seems to me that a person who is straight and has no interest in having sex with anybody is, in fact, actually asexual, unless it's abnormal for the person (like because of an illness or something).  Asexual people can want romance, and they can also find people attractive (but without having the desire to have sex with the person being tied to the attraction).  

[Pramana]

There are different answers to this question depending on how one approaches sexual orientation. Applying the "born this way, not a choice" paradigm whereby orientations are defined in terms of the capacity to experience the relevant psychological states, someone who experiences sexual attraction would not be asexual, even if they're uninterested in acting on those attractions. That being said, someone who experiences sexual attraction – but for whom those attractions are functionally irrelevant in their life – may wish to identify as asexual, and identifying as asexual for that reason is not unheard of in community history.