What did you think was "wrong" with you before you knew the word asexual?

[AceInhibitor]

I used to think that maybe I was just more mature than everybody, or that maybe it was due to my religious background. I assumed that everyone was only pretending to be interested in sex because they thought it was "grown-up" or "cool," like smoking and drinking. And me? I could look at a guy or even a girl and think or say that they're cute/good-looking, but I didn't think about them any further than that. I've never even had the desire to kiss anyone. I actually used to believe that sexual attraction was only in books and movies. I didn't totally believe that stuff happened to real people - it was like magic or telepathy. And when I read books, I was always disappointed when the main characters had sex. I felt that the sex cheapened their love, made it into lust, and that having it proved that's all they wanted in the first place. I know that's not always true, but that's how it felt to me. It sounded more animalistic than loving. I could never understand what drove them to do such things instead of settling for a long hug, cuddle, or kiss. Spending time with each other should be enough to show how much you love someone, right? That's what I've always thought. I'm glad to find that I'm not the only one!

To be honest, I didn't sit myself down and seriously consider my sexuality until a year or so ago. It didn't seem important. I figured that I would become sexual someday and fall in love and get married and blah blah blah. But the older I've gotten, the less important and appealing it is. Falling in love sounds great to me. Sharing the rest of my life with the person I love sounds great. But sex? Eh. I think I'll pass.

I feel like this too. Not just with fictional characters either, growing up I always felt a little bit disappointed when I found out one of my friends had had sex, I thought I was jealous or something but then I didn't want to have sex, so maybe I was just jealous of them being happy to do it. Especially if it was someone I liked romantically, I was like 'Oh. So I guess you'd expect me to have it. I don't know that I'm ok with that'

[blackwingsblackheart]

Because I was young long before asexuality was discovered as an orientation, I went through a fair amount of angst on the subject. Oddly, attending a very conservative parochial school made things worse, not better--the unrelenting pressure to not be sexual made me wildly curious about it (forbidden fruit and all that), whereas in a more relaxed atmosphere I probably wouldn't have thought about it much at all. When I finally did have sex, with a boy, it was a crashing disappointment. Not only was it not pleasurable, I felt repulsion.

I decided at that point I must be lesbian (in the 1980s, there were only the two options; people were actively debating if bisexuality was even real). Then, when I couldn't maintain a lesbian relationship either, I thought maybe I'd been traumatized by the repression of my religious upbringing and the lack of intimacy between my parents. I'd also had surgery for ovarian cysts as a teen and been put on birth control pills, so maybe the explanation was in the trauma of the surgery, or the libido-squelching effects of hormonal birth control (I did get a libido after getting off the pills, in fact, but it still failed to attach itself to a person). I went on feeling vaguely wrong for years, until a chance mention at a convention panel put me onto the idea of asexuality. I came here, read a lot, and just like b88, my life made sense at last.

[IanH]

I knew something was up when I found out that my pledge for celibacy until marriage (for religious reasons) was a cakewalk, but I didn't really think too much about it. I tried being a sexual person by looking at porn and such but never got anything out of any of it. I finally gave up when I've started learning about Asexuality.

[Bubblegum Princess]

I've often considered lately that it might be a major side effect from my long term depression or my birth control, but then I think back and remember how I've just always felt distant from the desires other people described.

Even before my depression and brith control, I never watched porn or masturbated. I was horrified at the idea of another person using my body like that. I never cared that I didn't have a boyfriend when my classmates started to date. I guess at this time I just thought I was scared or a late bloomer and the desire wold eventually come to me.

Needless to say it never did. I tried to get into these things thinking that maybe once I tried it it would get more enjoyable, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm wiling to accept maybe my depression contributes to it, but I've always just felt that maybe I was born with something different about my body that didn't give me that same drive.

Well I didn't think anything was wrong with me just that I hasn't met anyone of interest yet but then sometime last year my friends would start talking about sexual things in a less abstract way and I started to realize something may be off when it came to me. One things that comes to mind is my friend was complaint that she was horny at school and one of my friends said "it happens to the best of is even Natalie" and I immediately responded saying that it really doesn't and they just laughed. Then I was hyper aware of all the people around me and how to them sexual attraction wasn't an abstract thing and I realists that I was different.

I had a similar epiphany when some classmates were asking people if they masturbated. I said no, and then they accused me of lying. They couldn't grasp the fact that I had no desire to maturbate. They said I was just lying because I was "too embarrassed to admit it". I didn't understand. It was far more embarrassing to be singled out as the only teen In the room who didn't do it...

[Cassara]

Literally nothing occurred to me at all. I invented these bizarre explanations for why everything around me was so sexual and somehow managed to explain away virtually everything relating to sex.

Part of a wake-up call was when someone close to me confided in me about their sex life and I realized I'd been sort of subconsciously thinking I'd wait to have sex since it wasn't something of particular interest for me.

Then I read some stuff for asexuality awareness week and realized that it sort of fit, though I had a crisis over whether I even knew what sexual attraction was or not. It's kind of hard to say you don't have something if you've ... well, never had it. I'd wondered if my romantic feelings were classified as sexual (no, duh).

Now that I identify as ace I realize all the dumb things I ignored in my assumption that I was heterosexual like many other people. It's more of an issue now because I want to date. Not that I feel broken, just ... like it's going to be a long road

[Breathing....]

I have had the Crazy Cat Lady conversation many times. People dont believe me, or maybe they do and it totally terrifies them..... :)

....I keep telling my friends I'm going to be a cat lady and they go 'Aw, you'll meet someone' and I'm like 'No, you don't understand. I want to be a cat lady'. I thought maybe I had a repressed memory or something....

Like I'll watch sex scenes in films with the same kind of attitude I have to fight scenes, I'm just waiting for it to get back to the plot, and occasionally watching it trying to work out why other people are so obsessed with it. And when it came to oral sex I was just like 'Why? Why would you voluntarily...why?!' Like when people said 'Oh I'm a virgin but I've done other stuff' I kind of didn't see what the difference was. As far as I'm concerned a sexual act is sexual and I didn't fancy doing any of them.

I do not undertand why anyone wants to touh each other, certainly cant get my head around oral sex.....I mean atleast 'nomal' sex can produce a child. :o

[AceInhibitor]

I have had the Crazy Cat Lady conversation many times. People dont believe me, or maybe they do and it totally terrifies them..... :)

....I keep telling my friends I'm going to be a cat lady and they go 'Aw, you'll meet someone' and I'm like 'No, you don't understand. I want to be a cat lady'. I thought maybe I had a repressed memory or something....

Like I'll watch sex scenes in films with the same kind of attitude I have to fight scenes, I'm just waiting for it to get back to the plot, and occasionally watching it trying to work out why other people are so obsessed with it. And when it came to oral sex I was just like 'Why? Why would you voluntarily...why?!' Like when people said 'Oh I'm a virgin but I've done other stuff' I kind of didn't see what the difference was. As far as I'm concerned a sexual act is sexual and I didn't fancy doing any of them.

I do not undertand why anyone wants to touh each other, certainly cant get my head around oral sex.....I mean atleast 'nomal' sex can produce a child. :o

I've already named my future cats. I am so set. Me and my friend talk about our future cats the way other people talk about their weddings haha. I mean I do talk about weddings sometimes but I'm perfectly happy to never get married. Yeah, I just can't imagine why it would be enjoyable to do that? But heck, it's not my business unless someone else wants me to do it and then we've got a problem because I do not want to. Ever.

[SMW22792]

I don't remember thinking there was anything wrong with me before I discovered asexuality. I just never considered the idea that other couples had sex. It was something that never interested me.

[odd_boi_out]

I actually called myself asexual long before I knew such a thing existed, in humans anyway. It was about the year 2000 or 2001, and I was in middle school. We were studying asexual reproduction in science class, and I was a smart enough kid to know that asexual literally just meant not sexual. Meanwhile, all of my friends were talking about crushes and sex and, while I was a little intrigued by the idea of sex, it also struck me as something that I never wanted to have myself. And so I figured I was not sexual in the way my friends were, so I called myself asexual.

Years went by, and I began to have crushes of my own, and so started identifying as a lesbian. But still, there were rarely if ever sexual components to these crushes. But I just kind of assumed that that was normal, or that my own extreme feelings of dysphoria about my own body were just getting in the way.

I don't think it was until I had my first girlfriend, at age 21, that I started to think that things were different for me. I had little sexual attraction to her until after we'd been together for a couple of months, and even then I was totally satisfied just kissing and cuddling. I would have been willing - happy even - to have sex with her, though I think she grew impatient with me and eventually broke up with me before I could really get comfortable with that.

It was also around then that I heard about asexuality as an actual identity for the first time, and while the label didn't initially resonate with me - and still doesn't completely - I've come to understand that my place on the asexuality spectrum does make up an important part of my identity. Though, if you asked me to describe my sexual orientation, I would most of the time just say queer, as I am queer in so many ways (in terms of my romantic attraction, gender identity/expression, etc.) that are actually a lot more important to me than my general lack of sexual attraction.

[Danceitbacktolife]

At first I thought that I was a lesbian. I got romanticly atracted to some girls or maybe it was just what I call friend love. Being really close to someone and caring deeply about them. So thought I was a lesbian, but never really sexually atracted or interested. So then I thought it was my childhood sexual abuse. But then wouldn't it go away with all the trama work I did. Then I realised I was deep in an eating disorder and thought it was just lack of labedo from malnutrition. So when I was refeeding I tried some stuff with a close friend but did not care for it, and still am not atracted. I'm still half convinced it's somthing wrong with me I have to work through, only just found this place.

[Veranna]

Not entirely sure. I just felt wrong and soothed myself by telling myself that the strong interest in sex that everyone else appeared to have had to be fake and media induced. Still felt wrong for no good reason.

[MaxAmoeba]

For me, even during the growing-up years there was no awkwardness or wrong-ness about my sexuality. I didn't had this term to make me realise I was one!...an asexual. The culture where I come from also doesn't encourage one to talk about sex and sexuality openly so, there were no peers or family asking me to date and things like that.

[tortecat]

I didn't really think I was any different until about 14, when I had sex for the first time. I thought romantic and sexual attraction were the same thing at the time, but I didn't enjoy it at all, so then I figured that maybe it was because I was too self conscious and that was getting in the way of me enjoying it. Again maybe a year later with a different guy, and still wrote it off as being caused by low self esteem. At one point, I had a boyfriend who would often try to send me sexual messages on the phone or online, and every time I would roll my eyes and try to play along to make him happy. It quickly got too annoying to be worth it, though, so that relationship didn't last long.

After all that, I just figured that maybe once I was out of high school, everyone would calm down about sex and I would be able to get into a serious relationship. At some point between then and now, I learned that asexuality was a thing, but I didn't look too much into it because I thought I couldn't be since I'd had sex before (assumptions never seem to get me very far...). But then a friend of mine brought it up a few months ago since she's asexual, and gave a simple definition that made me think "Oh, that... That sounds like me.", I did some research and tried to learn as much as I could, and here I am!

Also, nope, it seems that in college, I still hear just as much about it as I did in high school. Maybe more, since in hs it could earn you a glare or two from any teachers that overheard.

[cheeringselenator]

I just thought I was like a late bloomer or immature for my age, and that I would grow out of it. I was always like maybe when I am a little older I will want that type of thing, but I'm only 20 and still have no interest. I read about asexuality in my sociology textbook and it got me thinking. Then reading all the other posts on here, I feel like I understand what everyone else is saying and that I fit in.

[llamajesus]

I just thought I was like a late bloomer or immature for my age, and that I would grow out of it. I was always like maybe when I am a little older I will want that type of thing, but I'm only 20 and still have no interest. I read about asexuality in my sociology textbook and it got me thinking. Then reading all the other posts on here, I feel like I understand what everyone else is saying and that I fit in.

That's pretty much me. For the longest time I just felt like a late bloomer and once I found the right person my feelings would change. I've been romantically interested in people, but no matter how hard I would try to imagine myself in a sexual relationship with them, it never felt right. I basically felt nothing thinking about it, and that made me feel weird. I can thank tumblr for informing me more about asexuality though, because it made my feelings seem much less "wrong" to me.

[genderirrelevant]

I didn't think anything was 'wrong' with me, I was just morally superior because I didn't fall for temptation. I didn't realize for years that I wasn't really feeling any temptation and it was wrong for me to feel morally superior.

I only ran across the term asexuality in 2005. Prior to that I considered myself non-sexual, the opposite of bisexual, but there was nothing wrong with that.

[misskrys]

i was only fifteen when i found out what asexuality was, so before that, i just thought i was too young, too immature or childish, a 'late bloomer', etc etc....u_u;; once i heard the label and read up on asexuality and explored my feelings a bit, everything fell into place and finally made sense, haha

[Tabula Rasa]

I didn't think anything was 'wrong' with me, I was just morally superior because I didn't fall for temptation. I didn't realize for years that I wasn't really feeling any temptation and it was wrong for me to feel morally superior.

I only ran across the term asexuality in 2005. Prior to that I considered myself non-sexual, the opposite of bisexual, but there was nothing wrong with that.

This describes me. I grew up in a religious environment, and I thought I was somehow "better" than other church members because I was holding out for the right person and time. Yet, I never felt like I had to avoid any temptation because I didn't feel it in the first place.

I have since left the church and denounced religion. Even after that, I did not feel a need to rebel against any church mandate to be celibate until marriage. To me, marriage, sex, kids, and all that was never on the table.

[nika71]

I thought it was because I was an angry, Aspie teen. Then I got older, lost the anger, and still didn't care about sex. I very briefly considered that I might be homosexual and managed to completely freak myself out. Then I decided I was just messed up inside somehow. Finally I realized that I heard the word and within 5 minutes of reading I knew that was me.

[Twilanthe]

I struggled because all of my friends were constantly talking about sex. They had boyfriends, and they'd talk about whose boyfriend had a bigger penis. They'd talk about making out, and what they do to make boys horny. I was always shy. I'd blush and keep quiet. They noticed of course and when they pushed me I'd say that I wasn't really interested and I never wanted to have sex. They would laugh at me and wink at each other, telling me that "someday I'd get it."

I got a boyfriend in high school and we had sex often. But I did it only because from talking to my friends I felt that was what I was supposed to do. That it was a girl's job to have sex with her boyfriend to make him happy. I loved Matt, I really did. I enjoyed spending time with him. We were into the same things, liked the same stuff, he was my best friend. I had sex with him because I wanted him to be happy, even if I didn't like it. As I got older though, I found it harder to do it just to make him happy. We stopped having sex, and eventually broke up because of it.

I thought something was wrong with me. I didn't think I was sick or anything, I just felt sad that I didn't like sex the way my friends did. I thought maybe I was just too shy or nervous to enjoy it. I thought maybe they were right and I just hadn't had "good sex" yet or had sex with the right person. I've had three other boyfriends, but it was the last one that was the biggest wake up call. We dated for almost 3 years, and he kept pushing me to be creative in bed, to initiate things, to be kinky and come up with things to try. It was so unbelievably uncomfortable I cried myself to sleep a lot because I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I couldn't make him happy. Eventually I sat him down and I explained that I just don't enjoy sex. He got so very upset because he felt like he'd been raping me for three years. We had a long talk and I explained that I was an adult--I'd consented to sex and done it willingly, and while I didn't enjoy it physically I was happy to be making him happy. In the end however, I'd decided that as much as I wanted to make him happy, I just couldn't do it anymore. He was a very sexual man, and having sex to him was important enough that we broke up. I've been single for about 6 or 7 years now.

Recently I've seen a guy at the store I work at. We're both nerds, and big Doctor Who fans, and I enjoy chatting with him when he comes in the store. He hasn't asked me out (which I'm secretly glad for) because it got me to thinking that even though he is a good looking guy, and I'd be interested in talking to him, and hanging out sometime, I've no sexual attraction to him at all, and no interest in ever having sex again. Thinking all this got me to get onto google and find out what was wrong with me. I thought maybe it was some medical issue or hormone imbalance. I also thought maybe I was gay (but some soul searching and a bit of lesbian porn that did nothing for me told me I wasn't gay either). Instead I found AVEN and am now exploring and learning about my asexuality. It's been such a relief to realize that there isn't anything wrong with me--that I'm not selfish for not wanting to have sex, and that there are other people out there who feel the same way. I'm not broken, I'm just different.

[Goober]

I thought I was broken and that nobody could love me if I couldn't figure out why I didn't go with the hype of sex and sexuality. But now I know that's not true and I know I'm not broken, just different.

[quietspecter]

Before I knew about sexuality I thought I was straight and a late bloomer or something. When we talked about puberty at school and they'd say that teenagers start wanting sex from hormones and stuff I thought maybe I'd skipped right past getting horny and shit because I was forced to be mature for my age and I didn't have time for that. When other kids were interested in dating and sex I didn't get it, and luckily my friends never pressured me into dating so I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong. If anything I thought it was convenient, because my mom was super protective, and didn't want me dating anyways, so I figured I'd date when I felt like it and tell my mom I don't care if the situation ever came up.

When I started paying attention to my aesthetic attraction I thought I was pansexual, but it never felt right. I figured out I was ace when I looked into the word "lithrosexual" because it happened past my dashboard, and led me to learning about asexuality which I identified strongly with after doing some research and setting people debunk some common misconceptions.

[nakita!]

I had been taking SSRI medication since like 5th grade (Prozac, specifically) and it the thought of "oh my god dude you're supposed to crave sex right now" didn't really jump into my head all of a sudden until late sophomore year of high school. I didn't really understand why people desired sex other than to reproduce even then, and I had an extremely unrealistic ideology of relationships in thinking cuddling would fit into the massive norm whereas sex actually fits in (although I'm aware now these relationships are certainly possible woopy doop).

There was a side effect commonly associated with SSRI's that informed of the sexual side effects pertaining to usage of it, and I was normally okay with it at first since I assumed as long as I can transition off of it eventually, this "drive" I'm supposed to feel will return - until some dork friend of mine told me "dude you need to get off right now you could be stuck like this since you've been taking them before you even went through puberty" which certainly wasn't helpful. At all.

I vent to a one or two trusted friends and they proceed to tell me about this site - so here I am today! I mean, I feel really bad for the early users who couldn't find this community even through multiple Google searches ):

There are still some things I remain skeptical about, such as why I have a fetish that I take a lot of shame in, but don't even fantasize about sex regarding it, etc etc, but AVEN as a whole has already been a huge help.

[Sakurastar]

Nothing. I know that sounds rubbish but it just never bothered me. I think it was because I felt, just personally, other things mattered more.

[Specktro]

I experienced romantic attraction, and i decided when I was around 13 that i would only be able to date people i liked until i was 18ish.

When you're young, sex isn't an expected thing to happen in a relationship. I'd heard so much stuff on TV about having sex after the third date and whatnot, so I drew the conclusion that you're not allowed to date in the adult world if sex is off the table. That made me feel awful because I knew that i would still have crushes on people but I'd never be able to act on it and be in a relationship. Like, how could I expect someone to sacrifice the all important sex for the sake of a romance with me? I hoped that I'd die young, so I wouldn't have to die alone.

At the time I thought it was just that I was uncomfortable with my body, that I decided not to have sex so no one would see it. But as time went on I realized that I didn't want sex in any body. And I really wouldn't have been happy if i looked like a model anyway because my discontent wasn't me thinking that I'm fat or anything, I was literally just weirded out by the fact that I have genitals.

[member50]

I took one of those celibacy vows at church when I was a teenager but it was literally the easier thing and I always thought that everyone else had it that easy as well. Like come on, why wouldn't you just wait for your wedding night? and I never understood my friends who would talk about how difficult it was to wait and like 'I just can't help it sometimes!' and I was like "really? You really can't just wait?" like not even kissing is fun for me so the fact that people wanted to spend their time doing that and then it leading to sex was the weirdest thing to me.

I also kind of thought that the day I got married a switch would turn on and I'd want to kiss and make out and eventually have sex and I kind of thought that's how it was for most people, that when you got married your brain was like, "Okay, let's go!"

and then I found asexuality and realized that's not the way it works haha

I remember in college I had friends who were so amazed that I'd never do anything more than just short kisses with my past boyfriends, they were like, "wow you have such good self-control!" and I would be like, "It's... it's not that hard? It's gross and not fun anyway"

[VoxNihil]

For a while there I was pretty sure that I was a sociopath, thanks to the none-too-subtle suggestion of a girl with whom I previously had refused to have sex. Needless to say, I was rather relieved when I discovered AVEN.

[AwkwardAlien]

I've been weird for a variety of reasons my entire life. From day one I knew that was how it was, and by high school I had fully embraced that. I don't feel broken for any of the things I am that clash with society, I feel more upset with society for being the way it is. I feel like I'm sharing a planet with a bunch of illogical, mentally unbalanced people who shouldn't be here, but it's not my call to make about any of that. I just do my thing and if someone wants to get in my space and try to make my life difficult, I say "Challenge accepted." I have moments where I feel like I am broken in some way, but I always bounce back quickly by thinking, no, being a minority doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with me. It just means there are fewer people like me, which isn't the same thing.

[Iggy]

At school I never felt all that different. Some kids were interested in sex, others not so much. Some kids were sexually active, or believed to be, others probably not. It wasn't till adulthood when everyone else seemed to be pursuing sex and relationships and getting married that I started to feel a bit different. It didn't bother me a whole lot but when I did think about it I just thought I might be a bit immature or developing a bit slower than others. It was only when I had sex that I really felt different. I just didn't get as much out of sex as my partners. It felt like I was missing something. It's something thats bothered me a lot over the years until recently but I could never put a name on it. There was just something wrong with me.

[divinelydesigned]

I knew there was "something wrong with me" at about 16, but I didn't know what to call it. I went to the county health dept. to see if I could get some counseling at 19, and the counselor offered to teach me how to masturbate, which scared the crud out of me, and I never went back!
I got married at 25 because he said he could love me "anyway", and we were married for 24 years, until I asked him to leave last year. We had finally found the label of "asexual", but he had already spent 10 years refusing to allow me to touch him, out of spite, because I had done nothing to find out how to "FIX" myself. I realized last year that I don't need to be fixed...HE does. So I asked him to leave.

I DID go through a period of time thinking something like this: "I'm not even GAY. I'm NOTHING. At least gays can GET SOME, and ENJOY it once in a while. I'll never have that".

I realized that this frame of mind was very destructive for me, and I let it go. I am also a Christian, and the Bible helped me out quite a bit. I'm not a scripture quoter, but I can tell you that there are passages in there that say we are all uniquely designed by God with love and care. .... So I changed the name of my art company to Uniquely Wired, and I have not looked back on the idea that there is something wrong with me. I am designed this way for a reason.

I knew there was "something wrong with me" at about 16, but I didn't know what to call it. I went to the county health dept. to see if I could get some counseling at 19, and the counselor offered to teach me how to masturbate, which scared the crud out of me, and I never went back!
I got married at 25 because he said he could love me "anyway", and we were married for 24 years, until I asked him to leave last year. We had finally found the label of "asexual", but he had already spent 10 years refusing to allow me to touch him, out of spite, because I had done nothing to find out how to "FIX" myself. I realized last year that I don't need to be fixed...HE does. So I asked him to leave.

I DID go through a period of time thinking something like this: "I'm not even GAY. I'm NOTHING. At least gays can GET SOME, and ENJOY it once in a while. I'll never have that".

I realized that this frame of mind was very destructive for me, and I let it go. I am also a Christian, and the Bible helped me out quite a bit. I'm not a scripture quoter, but I can tell you that there are passages in there that say we are all uniquely designed by God with love and care. .... So I changed the name of my art company to Uniquely Wired, and I have not looked back on the idea that there is something wrong with me. I am designed this way for a reason.