Very confused 22 year old male

[Pathfinder]

I’m just going to go right into this, “stream of consciousness” style.

 

I can think of two times in my life I felt attraction to somebody else: once to a boy when I was in elementary school, and once to a girl when I was in 7th grade. Both times it was a fleeting experience that was over quickly. I’m 22 now, didn’t kiss anybody till I was 21, and I rushed myself into letting that girl give me a blowjob, but I couldn’t get aroused and it was awkward for both of us. It was a milestone I felt pressure to get out of the way, but I regret doing it because it just made me feel weird.

 

I’d LIKE to be a father one day, but I’m probably asexual and probably aromantic on top of that. I’m also an atheist nihilist living in a small town in the bible belt of the USA. I grew up in an extremist religious household and there was a lot of physical abuse from my several successive step-fathers after my father died. Despite knowing there is probably no basis for meaning or ethics, I still find myself grappling at times with what is good to do and what is bad to do. I trust scientists and scientific consensus to explain phenomena when I lack the resources to look into something myself, but experts on “ethics” do not seem to have a testable, repeatable methodology. As what the school system labeled “twice exceptional”, meaning I am both labeled ADHD and intellectually gifted, I generally stick with questions till I have an answer. Ethics stump me, though. I certainly have revulsion to some actions people do and dislike “cruel” people, but what is the logical basis? I’m at a loss.

 

I got off on a tangent there, but my point is, my lack of attraction to people is very alienating. I masturbate often, but its not towards people. Its towards imagining myself being transformed either into an animal, a furry, into the opposite gender, or some combo of those three things, like turning into a vixen furry, then going feral vixen if I still haven’t gotten release. This is a bizarre fetish, and my mother got on my phone without my permission a month ago and started interrogating me about my “deviancy”, as she put it. She looked through my internet history and that was supposed to be very private. That’s upset me. My mom is also my boss at work, and we have a little bit of a codependency thing going, where I’m trying to get more independence and she doesn’t like it.

 

I don’t think I’m trans...despite my fetish...though I do wonder sometimes if life would have been better for me as a girl given how I don’t fit a lot of male stereotypes. For example, I’m nurturing and work with kids, and I don’t like heavy physical exertion.

 

Sorry about the rambling nature of my post.

 

 

[Bandrailian]

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

I don’t think I’m trans...despite my fetish...though I do wonder sometimes if life would have been better for me as a girl given how I don’t fit a lot of male stereotypes. For example, I’m nurturing and work with kids, and I don’t like heavy physical exertion.

Gender stereotypes are silly, and usually demeaning. Being a man doesn't mean you can't be good with kids and a nurturing caregiver, that's the entire idea behind fatherhood. It's the same as how a woman who plays sports isn't necessarily any less feminine than one who doesn't. Further, a man or a woman can learn to use femininity or masculinity in a balance to express who they want to be. Now, on to the real stream of consciousness:

Not being sexually attracted to people, or having any sexual desire are to trademarks of asexuality. Ultimately, asexuality is a label that only you can give to yourself if it's something that you think describes you and might give you some comfort in knowing you're not alone. It's also not something that you have to keep for life, such as if you realize one day you're not or you find a better way to describe yourself. Masturbation or having a libido won't make it so you can't adopt this label, it's just your body responding to hormones. Your fetish is likely just a way for your brain to perceive the hormones without involving your actual self or another person in a sexual act, since those things don't 'do it' for you. There are asexuals that have fantasies when they masturbate in order to help the process.

I'm not really up for debating ethics, because they change with culture and personal values, but consider them as a "compass" inside people that guides them to perform certain actions that they view as proper or even good. The basis for them is very psychological; people are rewarded or punished for certain actions, are told how they should behave, and watch how others behave. This shapes what an individual considers good ethics. The problem with ethics, is that because they are different between people using one's own set to judge others can create conflicts from a lack of understanding the other's perspective. People are naturally hesitant or hateful of what they don't understand because it could potentially be dangerous, it's a biological survival thing.

You didn't really have an actual question, so I hope my responses to your thoughts will help. If you want to add anything or have more questions, feel free to ask.

[NickyTannock]

@Pathfinder Welcome to AVEN!

 

Thank you for introducing yourself.

I think a lot of the confusion people have with regards to Ethics come from losing sight of its purpose.
People who want an objective basis for Ethics are looking for a description of Ethics, and refuse to define the purpose of Ethics first, out of a fear that this is a subjective foundation, and thus invalidates anything derived from it.
But boiled down to its simplest, the purpose of Ethics is to reduce harm.
 

[TheAP]

Welcome! I'm sorry for what you've been through. Hope you enjoy this forum.

 

[Lichley]

Welcome! With ethics what is right and wrong does vary but the general consensus of don’t harm others is a good guideline for the general gist of things. Everything else is usually more cultural stuff. 

[local spicy skeleton]

There is a great kink forum on here, you should really check them out! I'm also from the bible belt, so I can empathize with you. I'm sorry about your experiences-- I have a hard time dealing with my own trauma, and sometimes I have a hard time convincing myself that my asexuality and my past aren't connected. 

 

Don't apologize for rambling! Whether you find comfort here or not, I'm glad you could find a place to vent.

[Pathfinder]

Honestly, I think its the kink that upsets my mom. She seems fairly ok with the asexual part. Its like she doesn't count an absence of desire towards people in her religious hatred of lgbt. She's Jehovah's Witness, though, and there isn't a lot of tolerance for deviation from what the leader says. Its a cult in the sociological sense in that its a very high control group. That said, since the rest of my Mom's family has either died or left the religion, its more like she pays lip service to it these days and doesn't follow ALL the rules. For example, she isn't shunning me for not being active (nor is she shunning me for being an atheist) and she works a lot instead of doing religious meeting days. To give you an idea how behind the times the religion is--the leader of the religion was recently banned from youtube for making very homophobic and racist videos on a regular basis and countries around the world are starting to ban my childhood religion because people still practicing are super radical. I'm grateful the USA has religious freedom protections (or else atheists like me would probably also be persecuted), but those freedoms mean monstrous cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses also get protected.

 

As for my transformation fetish--that seems like the most random fetish in the world! I wonder why I have this fetish?