The Personal Root of your Asexuality

[junkman]

I am a new member of Aven, but I have done a fair amount of post reading here. I am curious about whether anyone has an idea about the roots of their asexuality, and wonder quite a lot about the roots of my own essential asexuality.

If I have understood correctly, most asexual persons do not enjoy sex and have therefore chosen to abstain from it; but to the extent that they have an instinct for sex, their focus of arousal would be oriented toward the physical presence of another person. The root of my sexual orientation as a male is different in that I have always found the actual presence of a female a distraction. I am able to be aroused only from fantasies, and never from anything that I can see with my eyes. These fantasies are about females, but never real females.

Another thing is that I have always been divided against myself with regard to sex in that psychologically I have always wanted to have it, but physically I had no lust or desire. Not to be dramatic or self-pitying about it, but this is not a psychological place where you want to be. To live with one part of your psyche wanting something, while another part of you renders that thing impossible, is to live a tormented life. I am 55 now, but until the age of 49 I remained someone who had never had intercourse. I tried numerous times, but until age 49, with each encounter I found it too much to pay attention to all the lovemaking details, which were supposed to arouse me but didn't, while at the same time maintaining a fantasy in my head that might have allowed me to complete the sex act. You might say that my essential problem was an inability to multitask. :D

I went through one marriage in which my wife tolerated the absence of sex, but she never accepted it. When that marriage ended I vowed I wouldn't marry again unless I learned to have sex, or found someone who didn't care about sex. What finally happened was the latter. I went through a campaign to 'train' myself to stay focussed during a sexual encounter, and finally managed to 'pull it off' with the woman I'm now married to. But while it removed a source of torment to me, I now view having sex as a chore, just something I occasionally have to do, but would rather not.

Anyway, I would be interested if anyone would like to share the roots of their asexuality.

[Sally]

Welcome, Junkman. It seems that new people get cake, so here's some

I tried to train myself all my life to be able to want to be, or even simply able to be, sexual with other people; just didn't work. I find that I'm attracted to what I consider to be good-looking people, but on an aesthetic level, not a sexual level. However, reading a rather sexy novel or any piece of writing that describes sexuals feeling sexual is exciting to me. I guess this might be likened to your fantasy business, since it's not about/with real people. Needless to say, this is inconvenient at best. If you're going to be attracted to people because you think they're handsome/beautiful, it gets confusing to them if you don't want anything sexually to do with them. And why can someone get excited by words on a page but not with a real person? Perhaps sometimes some deep-seated emotional business, but this has been going on all my life, from early childhood.

[osito]

I definitely have some important things in common with both of you. I am quite able to be aroused by fictional or fantasy erotic images--not all; there are themes. But they never involve real people; thoughts of sex with real people--even people I have had sex with--are a total turn-off (and the sex itself was forgettable, as always).

I, too, am attracted to beautiful people in an aesthetic, not sexual, sense.

I have quite simply never experienced sexual attraction to another person. That is the defining characteristic of my asexuality and seems also to be the lowest common denominator among people at AVEN.

Perhaps sometimes some deep-seated emotional business, but this has been going on all my life, from early childhood.

Certainly true for me. My best guess is that it is rooted in a very early-childhood constellation of opposite-gender identity and loss (around age 4 or earlier), when I was obliged to recognize the identity of my female body. I went through a bizarre splitting-off of my former male identity into something like an imaginary playmate/animus figure, and that in turn formed the basis for both nonsexual and sexual fantasy in which I was never a participant, only a disembodied observer. There's a lot more to this than I feel comfortable revealing here, but I delved deeply into it during several years of Jungian analysis. I have lately come to appreciate even more depth to it than I or my analyst recognized at the time.

As for sex, I gave it up some twenty years ago after giving it twenty years of effort, trying to become something I simply am not.

[cdraines1959]

hello!! :cake: that is exacty how i saw sex, a "chore", just another job for the day. and my mind couldn't stay focused, and i also had to think of other things in order just to " get through it " (as a matter of fact, i've used the same word, chore, to describe it, lol) where are the origins? i really can't remember when i didn't feel this way. but i married because it was expected of me. i had the dream, the house in the suburbs, the pool, the 2 cars, the 2.5 children and the cocker spaniel. but it was hell. the doc always says it is the product of sexual abuse when i was young, but i have no memories of such a thing. i think my origin of asexuality, is that i was born that way. i got to the point, i could tolerate it if i had to, but it just couldn't work for me, or her. she would have had sex everyday, i would have been happy never doing it. actually, sex was our only problem.

[roddy9uk]

Junkman, I can relate a lot to that which you say.

Whether my lack of desire for actual sexual intercourse was innate or caused by early childhood illness (either seems possible to me) I still looked for that which everyone else seemed to not only have but also enjoy mightily. But like you I could only "perform" by keeping a fantasy alive in my mind. It was, as you say, a chore.

In some ways I can analogise it to playing music. I wante3d to play music. I was fully capable of learning the fingering required to produce the right notes at the right time on an instrument. However I never had any real musical talent. It just didn't "do" anything for me so what I produced was, at the very best, barely technically correct. What it never was was "music". Others, though technically imperfect produced far more musical output. Lack of musical talent is still something that irritates me to a minor degree.

Just to be desperately awkward I DO have a particular talent for something that society and the law says I really should not practice. I happen to like machine-guns! For a few years I could occasionally indulge in this liking when in the Army but there is not much opportunity now for a 58 yo semi-retired accountant to play with them here!

roddy

[junkman]

Thank you all for the responses. Sally, I too have had the problem all my life of attraction without lust, and it really has been frustrating because I have never met anyone for whom attraction did not automatically mean sexual interest. I guess that's a common theme on this site, but I get the sense that for most posters here their asexuality arises from a complete absence of sexual desire, where for me I have always had the desire, but never a 'target' outside myself. The really terrible problem with desire for a mate, but without sex, is that invariably in my experience the other person feels devalued and insulted at the lack of sexual interest. I have never tried to be serious with a woman for whom this was not true, which is why it is somewhat amazing to me to find that there are so many women on this site who feel as I do. How I wish the internet had existed in my earlier life!

Osito, the roots of your asexuality that you touched on sound very complex, or perhaps you are just someone who has spent more time than most to understand them. What I mean is: it may be that the roots of all asexual persons are complex, but we just don't realize it. In the end, while understanding is interesting and maybe comforting, we are what we are, and we must come to terms with the everyday reality of it.

Cdraines1959--We seem to have a lot in common on this issue. Sex was also the main problem in my first marriage, and in reality I think the other problems were really the sex problem dressed up as something else. Being married to someone who badly wanted something you couldn't give them is a special kind of hell, no? That doc that ascribed your asexuality to abuse was just parroting the only explanation he knew to give. He (or she) just hadn't a clue.

Roddy9uk--The music anology seems quite apt. When you are 'normal' sexually, everything about the sex act is instinctual, self-reinforcing, and of a piece. When you are like us, the thing has to be mastered as a series of technical details. The products of the two approaches cannot be compared. I have Asperger's syndrome, and there have been a number of things I have had to learn 'by hand', that is, acheiving passable mastery as a technical feat, that others simply can do innately. I used to think that my asexuality was just another feature of Asperber's, but on the Asperger's web site, I have not noted anyone who seems asexual. (There are many middle-aged and older persons who have never had intercourse, but for reasons that seem based in their social awkwardness, rather than true asexuality). [/b]

[Sally]

It's interesting to me that posters on the AVEN site seem so intellectually adept. Some may be Aspies (who knows, I'm not sure I'm not, except I'm certainly not a "typical' techie-type Aspie!) and Aspies are often extremely bright. But whatever the cause(s) of our asexuality, maybe we could at least pretend that one of those causes is that we're just too intelligent to see sex as anything but a silly chore. We need whatever compliments we can pay to ourselves!

Now if only the rest of the world were that intelligent. These unknowledgeable shrinks are doing a lot of damage to us.

[cijay]

Not interested, not even in "trying it to see what I'm missing", no specific root, just not interested.

[Ziffler]

Welcome Junkman

I welcomed you in the Welcome thread also.

The root of my Asexuality is from birth. I was born Asexual. I have never been interested in sex. The actual sex act itself is disgusting to me. I don't understand how anyone can do that. :lol: I am glad that people can, because this would be a lonely world if there wasn't any sex. I just wish they could keep it in the privacy of their own bedroom and not out in public where it's hard for me to avoid seeing it.

I am also 55 years old, but I am still a virgin and will die a virgin. I knew that by age 12. However, even though I am asexual and will never have sexual intercourse with anyone, I do have an active sex drive. I get aroused all the time. Even at my age. :lol: It's just something that I take care of myself, because there isn't anywhere to focus that sex drive. When I was younger that was very frustrating. As a teen, it drove me crazy. To have all that sexual tention and no where to direct it was hell on earth.

I believe the root of my asexuality is in my genetics. I was born asexual, just like others are born, heterosexual or homosexual or bi sexual. It's who I am, and I have taken a lifetime to learn who I am and to accept myself for what I am. As much as I would have loved to of had a life partner, a soulmate whom I could have loved without end for all eternity, I believed that I was the only one like me. A freak of nature. I didn't discover AVEN and Asexuality and a community of others like me until it was too late in my life to have a loving companion who was like me. Now, I am too hardened and closed within myself to share love with anyone, not even another asexual.

But there is hope for the youngins of today, for they don't have to be alone in their asexuality. They can find others like them and maybe find love with someone who shares their lifestyle and non-sexualness.

Ok, I rambled too much.

Welcome again to AVEN and our little corner of the internet.

[osito]

junkman, there are a number of asexuals who identify as 'romantic asexual'. I am one. It means that we are perfectly capable of tumbling head-over-heels in love with another person, but we are not interested in sex with them. It sounds like you may also be a romantic asexual.

I suppose I've been spared the jaws of the dilemma largely because the people I've tumbled for were often unavailable; I was not able to advance to the next level of misery. :D

I have no idea whether my asexuality is more complex than average; I do know that I have always been driven to churn up the benthic sediments of my mind. My educated guess is that asexuality has a biological component and an early-environmental component in many people, and that the primordial stewpot in which these ingredients are mixed lies in very early childhood, probably before we learn to speak. Because memory and language are so entwined, we have no memory of this phase, and it feels as if it's 'from birth'. It might as well be, and it is just as immutable. So Ziffler, I am not disagreeing with you. Even before we are born we are affected by many things in our environment: our mothers' emotions and body chemistry, and certainly sound, as water--or amniotic fluid--is an excellent conductor of sound waves.

Sally, there does seem to be an exceptional level of intelligence among the AVEN population, but there has also been some resistance (I can't retrieve the posts, however) to the idea that asexuals are brighter than average. I am impressed not only with the intelligence of people here but also with their repertoires. It's a wonderful place.

In my opinion, the real benefits we enjoy as asexuals arise with the immunity we tend to have from all the passionate and obsessive drama that torments sexuals. There is much more to be said about this, and it's been said in many threads already. But it is always worth a reprise.

osito

[Sally]

Ah, would that all asexuals were immune to the drama! Unfortunately, romantic asexuals are not immune; it's just that our pool of "possibles" is almost infinitesimal because we fall in love with people who want the impossible of us. :(

[osito]

I have fallen in love so infrequently that I do feel relatively sheltered from the drama. But when it has happened...hoo boy!!! It was devastating--often because the person was unavailable (married, or on another continent, or killed by lightning).

What I really feel liberated from are all the annoying games and expectations that accompany sexual relationships, even the pre-relationship prologues. I totally missed the cultural side of puberty, for instance, and continued right on through in my genuineness and innocence while watching myself grow bigger and stronger. I picked up some extra testosterone at that time, it seemed, given some of the things I experienced (voice cracked, more hair than I was expecting, and most definitely a certain boldness). So I am not likely to be A due to testosterone deficiency.

[dogmom]

Thank you folks for finally labeling what I am!!! I am a romantic asexual. I always fell in love with fictional characters in books but sex was never part of that fantasy. The sex act itself remains a puzzle to me as I can never picture myself doing it.... not even as a chore. All I can think of is that part of my body is so stinky and full of germs. Yuck! It's where people go to the toilet to put it bluntly. Still my fantasies abound with fictional characters who never ask me to do anything but cuddle.

[jay williams]

It is always imperfect to label ourselves.

But I will plunge forth in explaining what I know...um...er…believe.

Asexual to me is the lack of desire for genital contact with another person. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ah…well…asexuality can come in shades or degrees as well. I was mildly sexual when I was a teen and in my 20s. I have been purely asexual since being 30 something.

I "define" asexuality as an "orientation". This is not a perfect pigeon-hole, since we can be (in addition to asexual) straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual.

Our sexual identity is composed of multiple parts. Some components are: Gender, eroticism, orientation, libido and attitude.

With my definition, a person can (and probably usually does) have erotic feelings/needs/desires and be asexual. We can still prefer heterosexual (or bisexual or homosexual or no) relationships. We can still be romantic or not. We can have zero libido (or otherwise). We can be repulsed by sex, in part or not at all. Gender is important too. The idea that there are exactly 2 genders; that one is male or female; and what a person has hanging (or not hanging) between the legs is the start and finish of gender---this idea is increasingly being shown as way too black and white. Gender studies are showing that gender is far more complicated than physical qualities, and that people can have gender components that are at odds with the gonads that they possess.

Whenever I write a message I want to completely cover the thought completely (redundancy intended). The topic of asexuality is too complex, and it has too many facets to cover in one message. I hope that we all expand on this in future messages.

BTW, I am a bisexual, antisexual, asexual, romantic male. :)

[cdraines1959]

great post jay.

[Sally]

Hmmm---Jay mentions eroticism. :idea: That can be separate from sexuality; perhaps "erotic asexual" could describe someone (of whatever gender/orientation or mixture of orientations) who has sexual feelings but doesn't want to carry them out with any other person.

[newgirl]

I not asexual but i might be gray asexual.All my life,I just knew i would never have a boyfriend or lose my virginity because most men value sex then verbal committed relationship.Well so far, all the men i've met in my life have prove me right.

[jay williams]

great post jay.

Thank You.

[jay williams]

Hmmm---Jay mentions eroticism. :idea: That can be separate from sexuality; perhaps "erotic asexual" could describe someone (of whatever gender/orientation or mixture of orientations) who has sexual feelings but doesn't want to carry them out with any other person.

Thank you for contributing. I don't claim to have the corner on this stuff. So far as I know, the vast majority (but not all, apparently) of asexuals have erotic feelings.

[junkman]

Very interesting posts, all. I am wondering if anyone can try to answer this question about themselves: If you had been raised in a bubble, totally cut off from society and therefore free from its influence, would you by instinct know how to carry out the sex act? (I don't mean would you WANT to carry it out, but only whether you would know what to do.) I guess this question is mostly for men, but comments from women would be welcome. For me the answer is, I wouldn't know what to do. I have no instinct that would guide me, and I have always wondered whether I was missing an instinct most other persons are born with.

[Sally]

If you're an erotic asexual (i.e., have physical feelings), you'd probably know what connections to make (literally). If not, probably not. But then I can't speak for men of either type of asexuality.

[jay williams]

Very interesting posts, all. I am wondering if anyone can try to answer this question about themselves: If you had been raised in a bubble, totally cut off from society and therefore free from its influence, would you by instinct know how to carry out the sex act? (I don't mean would you WANT to carry it out, but only whether you would know what to do.) I guess this question is mostly for men, but comments from women would be welcome. For me the answer is, I wouldn't know what to do. I have no instinct that would guide me, and I have always wondered whether I was missing an instinct most other persons are born with.

Interesting question.

The problem is that our answer comes from the accumulation of knowledge that we have from cultural influence. I assume I would not know. I also assume I would want to try the sex act, if by chance I had stumbled on to it as something to try. Lastly, I assume I would want to try it a number of times, and then get bored with the novelty of it. People don't have to have sex much in order to reproduce.

[isillote]

I don't know if I would know how to carry out the sex act if I'd been raised in a bubble. Very interesting problem, though!

I suppose I'm a romantic asexual. I do feel attraction, and I suppose sexual attraction, but like Jay, I can't link that with genital contact. All my fantasies have always stopped short of sexual intercourse at any level. My sexual experiences have been all right, and at the start of a relationship have been the price I've paid for physical contact, sometimes very willingly and sometimes reluctantly, when I was younger and not confident enough to admit I was so different. But what I've really wanted is the physical closeness of cuddles, etc, not the sex.

I've always been like this. I was not abused as a child, so I don't think it's anything to do with that. I suspect my mother was asexual, and she was my main parent, my father being an emotionally distant figure, so maybe I was influenced by her.

Yet I've broken away from a lot of her influences as I've got older, but not the asexuality, which I now think is just an intrinsic part of me, and one I'm quite happy with.

[jr1]

we are who we are

[jay williams]

More than a few of us have called ourselves "romantics". Anyone care to define a "romantic"?

[Sally]

Romantic to me brings forth definitions that need definitions themselves, like "sentimental", as in sentimentally attached to someone else. Yearning, moony, feeling hearthrobs, trying to please, wanting to see them ...none of which you really want to feel unless the other person is safely asexual also. So to a romantic asexual, being "romantic" is quite inconvenient. :|

[isillote]

Romantic to me brings forth definitions that need definitions themselves, like "sentimental", as in sentimentally attached to someone else. Yearning, moony, feeling hearthrobs, trying to please, wanting to see them ...none of which you really want to feel unless the other person is safely asexual also. So to a romantic asexual, being "romantic" is quite inconvenient. :|

Good definition! I felt like that for several men, but the romantic feelings died as they quite naturally, mistook my romantic yearnings for sexual invitations. However, the sexual man I'm now with is the most understanding person I've ever met. He understands exactly where I'm coming from, and respects my needs for romance, cuddles, and no sex.

I know how lucky I am!

[jay williams]

I like the definitions of romantic also. But I also consider not having intercourse as romantic too. In my younger days, I remember the joy of dating a woman, getting to know her, having intimate conversations, affectionately touching each other, etc., with sex being unthinkable until some point in the future---such as being in love or after the 99th date or some such thing. Those were romantic, blissful dates---spoiled when the romance was replaced with orgasm achievement.

[Depot]

Osito wrote:

My best guess is that it is rooted in a very early-childhood constellation of opposite-gender identity and loss (around age 4 or earlier), when I was obliged to recognize the identity of my female body. I went through a bizarre splitting-off of my former male identity into something like an imaginary playmate/animus figure, and that in turn formed the basis for both nonsexual and sexual fantasy in which I was never a participant, only a disembodied observer.

I don't know that I have ever heard myself so aptly described. Wow.... In addition to the frustrating recognition of the importance of gender, and the splitting-off of my sense of a male self (who then became a character that just sort of walked around with me) I was very aware of taboos associated with same gender attraction. I knew I could never let anyone know. The level risk that I felt was too great. I have no idea whether it is true or not, but I feel like I consciously shut it down and became completely passive in an instant.

Still romantic? You bet. And I can be aroused by fantasy, but have no use for the real thing.

[Gatto]

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