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The Asexual-Sexual Q&A Thread


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My parents were 37 when I was born and rumor had I finally happened after 8 miscarriages.  You’d think they would have used all that time figuring out how to cope with a kid if they finally got one... but...

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Agreed, my parents were good people.  Just not good parents.  They had too many issues of their own.

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Yeah, my parents could not cope with my having emotions, especially ones that manifest as noisy or needy.  Because, you know, kids are never noisy or needy.

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1 minute ago, Snao Cone said:

I'm learning a lot of this about myself as a dog owner. :mellow:

Same, with cats, especially now that I am living alone and overwhelmed.

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Anthracite_Impreza

My mother walked out and my father was an emotionally closed off bigot \o/

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Anthracite_Impreza
1 minute ago, CBC said:

I'm grateful mine isn't a bigot... well, much... but he's hella judgy and rigid nonetheless.

My father still thinks it's funny to make black people and banana jokes.

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Anthracite_Impreza
2 minutes ago, CBC said:

Ohhhhhh no. Nope nope nope. I'm really sorry you have to deal with attitudes like that.

I call him (and the rest of them) out on their shit, but it never seems to make any difference. Worst part is, I was raised in the same way so I was a horrible bigot when I was younger, and still have a lot of internalised racism to this day.

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11 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

My mother walked out and my father was an emotionally closed off bigot \o/

You win!

 

Unfortunately.

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Mine grew up in an area and time when bigotry was encouraged but my mom was super-concerned about being offensive so she shushed him a lot.

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I was born when my parents were 30, their third child, and they're still together. So there's really no comparison to the difficult origins (for a lack of a better word) that some of you have shared. HOWEVER I'm still a fucking mess in spite of favourable conditions, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

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2 minutes ago, CBC said:

Change is damn hard.

Too right. 

I applaud anyone who tried, never mind achieves.

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Anthracite_Impreza
5 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

You win!

 

Unfortunately.

I have lots more "my childhood was so bad it's a wonder I'm still here" stories ;)

 

1 minute ago, CBC said:

Recognising it is really important though, especially realising its origin and actively trying to work against prejudices that come up. Change is damn hard.

It really hit me when I was writing my story a couple of nights ago. When I'm adding a new non-main character I basically use a random name generator, cos nationality in this story is irrelevant. When an Igbo (African) name came up my immediate reaction was "well I can't use that". It took a few seconds for me to think "Wait, why not? Stop being racist". I did use that name in the end.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I hope I'm not jumping in too much in the middle of an existing conversation (always tricky on long threads in forums), but have a question for sexuals and/or romantics.  I'm pretty sure I'm asexual and probably aromantic as well but still questioning things, as I have never been in a romantic or sexual relationship.  I'm just wondering if any of you would be willing to share your experiences of how you 'knew' you were sexual/romantic: trying to get a sense of the spectrum of different experiences I guess.  Particularly wondering if anyone didn't feel sexual/romantic feelings (or not strongly enough to recognise them) until they were in a relationship or had dated someone for a while and then did so?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies or thoughts, anything would be useful!

 

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Grumpy Alien
4 hours ago, Kharina said:

I hope I'm not jumping in too much in the middle of an existing conversation (always tricky on long threads in forums), but have a question for sexuals and/or romantics.  I'm pretty sure I'm asexual and probably aromantic as well but still questioning things, as I have never been in a romantic or sexual relationship.  I'm just wondering if any of you would be willing to share your experiences of how you 'knew' you were sexual/romantic: trying to get a sense of the spectrum of different experiences I guess.  Particularly wondering if anyone didn't feel sexual/romantic feelings (or not strongly enough to recognise them) until they were in a relationship or had dated someone for a while and then did so?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies or thoughts, anything would be useful!

 

Honestly, I thought I was ace into my 20s until I entered a serious relationship. I always knew I was romantic because I always wanted to love and be loved romantically.

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19 hours ago, disGraceful said:

Honestly, I thought I was ace into my 20s until I entered a serious relationship. I always knew I was romantic because I always wanted to love and be loved romantically.

Thanks, that's helpful to know.  Can I ask when things changed (it sounds like your identity changed from ace)- how far into the relationship were you?  When you say you always knew you were romantic, were you always attracted to particular people romantically or was it more a sense of a general goal until you began to date a particular person ('I would like to love/be loved' but not directed at a particular person)?

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Grumpy Alien
13 minutes ago, Kharina said:

Thanks, that's helpful to know.  Can I ask when things changed (it sounds like your identity changed from ace)- how far into the relationship were you?  When you say you always knew you were romantic, were you always attracted to particular people romantically or was it more a sense of a general goal until you began to date a particular person ('I would like to love/be loved' but not directed at a particular person)?

It’s hard to say because we were friends first so it was serious from the start of the romantic relationship. A general goal. I never had many crushes - about 5 in my 26 years. 

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7 hours ago, Apostle said:

My wife is asexual although she may not have known she was before we were married. She went along with sex but was never proactive and maybe did it to please me. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time trying to please her sexually but to no avail. I thought she just had a low libido but as soon as our children were born the tap was shut.

Been an enforced celibate ever since. Whatever you do, if you fall into a relationship, ALWAYS tell your partner how you feel about a sexual relationship if they think there may be one. It will only lead to confusion, anger, dismay and a sense of betrayal if you don't.

Honesty in this scenario always pays off.

Thanks for sharing your experience, that sounds frustrating for the pair of you!  My issue is I don't know for sure how I would feel having not been in that situation, hence wondering whether anyone has experienced a desire for/interest in sex/romance growing on them after they've met someone even if they had minimal experience of it before.  If I was to embark on anything serious I would bring it up but all I could do really at the moment is to describe my experiences and explain that I don't know if those feelings will ever change or not.  It would always be tricky to judge when to reveal that though as it is something quite personal and something I've only ever really discussed with my very closest friends/family and even then not at huge length, so it would feel very unnatural to tell people really soon after meeting them.  I guess it is fortunate that I'm not in that situation!! 

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On 5/30/2019 at 6:21 PM, Kharina said:

Thanks for sharing your experience, that sounds frustrating for the pair of you!  My issue is I don't know for sure how I would feel having not been in that situation, hence wondering whether anyone has experienced a desire for/interest in sex/romance growing on them after they've met someone even if they had minimal experience of it before.  If I was to embark on anything serious I would bring it up but all I could do really at the moment is to describe my experiences and explain that I don't know if those feelings will ever change or not.  It would always be tricky to judge when to reveal that though as it is something quite personal and something I've only ever really discussed with my very closest friends/family and even then not at huge length, so it would feel very unnatural to tell people really soon after meeting them.  I guess it is fortunate that I'm not in that situation!! 

I never experienced sexual feelings until age 30, with my 5th partner. It grew out of a very loving and mutual respect (and sexual pressure free) based relationship over the course of a year. 

 

But, since it takes me a long time to even feel romantic feelings for someone, I decided traditional dating is a no go for me. People in dating culture want kissing and often sex within a few weeks, maybe a few months. I need like a year of knowing you to even want to kiss or cuddle. So, I just go with friends and eventually something develops from friendship. All five of my long term relationships developed from friends first. 

 

And from dating strangers my rule is by third date..with friends before first date. 

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Anthracite_Impreza

I do actually have a question, inspired by earlier comments. I know this will depend entirely on the situation, but how tiring are the different "sexual experiences"? I never really thought about the physical stuff involved before. Are we talking 300m sprint levels of tiredness, or pushing a heavy wheelbarrow up a slope? Do you feel like you've done exercise? Bear in mind I am an (unhelpfully curious) repulsed ace, don't go too detailed :x

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Some things can be pretty physically tiring, but often more in the repetitive use sense than the sprint-running sense.

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On 5/23/2019 at 5:42 PM, Kharina said:

I hope I'm not jumping in too much in the middle of an existing conversation (always tricky on long threads in forums), but have a question for sexuals and/or romantics.  I'm pretty sure I'm asexual and probably aromantic as well but still questioning things, as I have never been in a romantic or sexual relationship.  I'm just wondering if any of you would be willing to share your experiences of how you 'knew' you were sexual/romantic: trying to get a sense of the spectrum of different experiences I guess.  Particularly wondering if anyone didn't feel sexual/romantic feelings (or not strongly enough to recognise them) until they were in a relationship or had dated someone for a while and then did so?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies or thoughts, anything would be useful!

 

I've never dated, but. I had a couple boys I "liked" in elementary school, not sure if I liked them as friends or if it was the typical childhood puppy love. As a teen I experienced zero crushes until I was about 18, 19ish. Before that point I did wonder if I was just someone who didn't care about romance (the word aromantic wasn't on my radar yet). Since then I've had two major crushes and probably two or three very slight ones, where the interest was there but not super strong. I used to think that if a guy paid attention to me that meant he liked me, and I'm largely recipromantic, meaning that if someone is interested in me that's when I may decide I'm interested in reciprocating. (I don't consider myself to be greyromantic though. Just someone who's largely apathetic about romance, especially these days. Even if I am both romantic and sexual.)

 

I was interested in sex around 14, but never felt pulled to anyone in particular, just found the general idea appealing. At age 15 I heard about asexuality bc a couple of my deviantart friends were asexual, and I was like "that's not me but nothing wrong with that". 

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21 minutes ago, Apostle said:

If you mean actually having sex with someone then it is definitely more mentally tiring for the male. This mentality factor only occurs with actual penetrative sex though as a balance has to be attained between maintaining an erection and not spilling the load. This takes a lot of time to master, sometimes months or years and I think many females expect the male to be accomplished in this from the word go and are disappointed when it does not happen.

Again, it's probably due to media expectation and porn movies.

If you are only having sex for your partner then it is mentally draining too.

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24 minutes ago, Apostle said:

it is definitely more mentally tiring for the male

The “mentally tiring” aspect of doing something unpleasant-to-you while maintaining a cheerful façade is a different sort of mental work than the sort needed to be successful at something you’re enjoying.

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4 hours ago, Apostle said:

Okay, to be more specific, we are talking about maintaining an erection, something that no woman can experience.

A man cannot think of what colour to paint the wall or ceiling whilst he is trying to maintain an erection whereas a woman can lie back and enjoy sexual stimulation if she so wants to. It would be an absolute disaster for both partners once the man thinks of something other than the act of love, sexual intimacy and his partner. A woman, if she pleases, can completely turn off whereas a man cannot to maintain penetrative sex.

 

Obviously, if the woman is not turned on or is not interested then yes, she will have to start thinking about where she is at in the relationship. 

 

Not sure what you mean by having sex only for your partner though. Perhaps you can clarify?

 

Certainly. As an asexual, when I was younger, I had sex because my partner wanted to, even though I didn't want to and it was painful.

 

I wish I had known now what I didn't then....ie that it was normal for a woman to enjoy it. As you said a woman can contemplate her shopping list if necessary.

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