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Coming Out!


FriendlyAceIThink

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FriendlyAceIThink

Yo! So... Coming out. If you feel comfortable about it, how’d you come out? Did you? Firstly, let me spill my coming out story to you. Two years ago, I came across the term “asexual” in a health class. Someone jokingly said my name when the teacher said asexual. I got home and I searched it up (like the digital native that I am). I came across an excerpt from a book called The Invisible Orientation. It talked about asexuality and the author’s experiences with the term. I thought, “Hey! That’s me!” From then on till late 2016, I began to think about the possibility that I could be asexual. I started to identify with the label and accepted it, coming out to my best friend at the time. Although I had come out to her, I still felt very closeted. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. Another half year of researching later, I came to identify as aromantic. I came to understand that romantic and sexual orientations were two different playing fields! 

 

I slowly but surely began to come out to my closest friends. (To some people, coming out isn’t a big thing. And yeah, I get that. For me, I think it’s a big deal.) It was all verbal. It went like this: “I identify as aromantic-asexual. Basically, that means I have no interest in romantic relationships or sex.” What entailed was a series of gasps and awkward noises because apparently, they’d: a) assumed I was gay (that happens a lot) and b) thought asexuality was a “plant thing”. Hah. Fastforward to present day! I’m very, very open about being aro-ace. I make ace jokes. I talk about being aro-ace. Now, tired with the old method, I edited an “it’s a girl!” card and wrote aro-ace instead. I call it my coming-out card. I send this out to my friends, with an explanation of the identities. It’s cool, it’s funny, and it’s me! So tell me, if you want, how did you come out?

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I first came out to my close friends via interpretive dance to the Lion King soundtrack... dramatic, maybe, but I thought it was real funny

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FriendlyAceIThink

Wait. Seriously? That’s so original! And yes, it is definitely funny. 

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th-emptyhearse

I came out to my friends first, I don't really remember but it was pretty casual I think, but one of them was pan so that was super chill and we just had a conversation about asexuality on the walk home and I explained it to her.

 

My coming out to my Mum was a weird product of Sherlock queerbait angst where we went from me agonising over Sherlock s4, to me explaining shipping to her, to making her try and guess what I was/ what I identified as from a list of definitions and flags I'd drawn up in my old maths book (I know, wtf, making her guess, I'm super repressed and reserved ok), to us having a deep conversation about a lot of things and just being really open. 

It was weird. But I'm glad I did it. She's really supportive of it so that's great. She tries to understand/learn about asexuality and the LGBTQ+ community and that, which is really cool, and I get to have conversations with her sometimes where it'll just come up in different ways and I'll teach her the meanings of a few words or identities or an LGBTQ+ issue, or I'll just have a rant to her about ace rep and generalising people to want sex and romance or something. She even ripped an article out of the paper the other day that was about an essay competition for LGBTQ+ youth that someone started because she thought I'd be interested. So yeah, she's been pretty cool about my coming out, and I'm grateful for her :)

 

Nowadays I'm just comfortable casually coming out to people if it comes up. 

One day, I was talking with a classmate about our media projects, and I told him I was writing an article about asexuality, and he was like "why, do you know any asexual people", and without missing a beat I just said "yeah, me". I have fun doing stuff like that. You can just see their head whirring, thinking, "oh".

But I live in a pretty liberal place, so I'm lucky for that. 

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So far the only "coming out" was to myself, to my husband - after finding the term for myself, to you guys on this site (I don't know if this really counts, since it's so anonymous, but I think it will be good practice for irl later) and my oldest son, which is always prying what I'm researching online. He can't relate, but is very accepting. 
I was considering talking to my mother about it, since she always expressed certain reservations towards sexual activity, and I'm wondering if she's on the "spectrum" as well, but we have never really been that deep in personal conversations, so that will be awkward.
I considered coming out to my other family (my office co-workers) but why. There have never been any advances in that area and we get along great, I just think that would open the door for a bunch of dumb jokes I don't need in my life, so better to let a sleeping dog...uhm, sleep.

I hinted towards the subject with some of my casual friends, it sort of got ignored though, they probably wouldn't have believed me anyway.

 

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FriendlyAceIThink

th-emptyhearse, I love that you and your mom can be so open about it. (I won’t judge the guessing thing, I mean, we all have our different ways, right?) She’s making an effort to understand it and that’s awesome! Coming out hugely depends on your environment, your current location, too. It was easier for me because I live in a pretty liberal place too. But yeah, kudos to you and your mom!

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FriendlyAceIThink

Nima, I get what you mean about the not-being-able-to-talk-about-asexuality-with-your-mom thing. I relate a lot. Also, your sexuality is your personal business, if you feel like sharing it with someone, then you should. If you feel like you’re comfortable just being, that’s cool too. But if you’re in a place that won’t accept you or will disrespect you, then it’s pretty much up to you. Guess you’re right: better to let a sleeping dog sleep. And yeah, I don’t get why people don’t understand or can’t accept asexuality as a real thing. Most of my friends used the wrong term for me all of the time, made jokes about it, etc. But we were liberal and could talk about it as mature people, so we did. The only constant in all our situations is our sexuality, basically. 

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