How and when did you find out?

[Morgenrot]

Hey!

I was interested, when people actually notice that they're ace/aro, so...

Send me a message if there are any things missing or wrong or whatever...

 

Thanks for participating!

[Guest]

I was disinterested and somewhat grossed out by sex since I knew what it was, but I only found out about asexuality and the fact that I’m ace when I finally decided to look up “asexual fetish” to try to understand my confusing sort-of sexual feelings that have never involved people.

[SilentRose]

1. Not sure the exact age, but i probably realized i was ace around 19 or 20 and aro spectrum around 21 or 22. In both cases it was a fairly slow realization with a lot of back and forth and denial so it's hard to pinpoint an exact date.

 

2. There were several factors. First of all being trying sex and realizing that I found it boring and couldn't get aroused with another person in the room. Second being I was bored by sexual and romantic conversations and couldn't relate to the intensity of friend's crushes. Third, learning people wanted to actually date and have sex with their crushes...that never crossed my mind. Fourth...realizing that it was strange that i had gotten to age 18 without ever desiring sex, a relationship, romance or a first kiss. And that most people didn't consider that normal.

 

3. No, and i don't want to come out. My asexuality is for me and my partners to know and that's it. Everyone else can know that I'm not a very romantic person and im not super into talking about my sex life. That's all they need to know.

[Adam Taurus]

I feel like there should be an option for discovering it through active disinterest while in the process of sex/sexual activities. I don't think this is a terribly unusual occurrence. Alternatively maybe just an other option seeing as how that is the purpose of this poll. Just a little bit of feedback since I had to sort of stretch what actually happened to fit my answer to the survey.

[Skycaptain]

I was told about asexulity when I was 42, and I'm open about it 

[daveb]

On 8/13/2018 at 7:32 PM, SilentRose said:

2. There were several factors. First of all being trying sex and realizing that I found it boring and couldn't get aroused with another person in the room.

Can't answer the poll because this would be my answer for the 2nd question. 

 

Not sure if you're asking about people being ace AND aro or ace and/or aro. I'm not aro, which I think can make it harder to realize one is ace. You still want the romantic connection that people in general often conflate with sexual attraction. So I didn't realize I didn't want sex until I actually had an opportunity to try it (in a romantic relationship). And even then it took me a few months post-breakup to discover the term asexuality. Basically I knew I was ace before I knew of the term. The term gave a word to it.

[Fluffy Femme Guy]

1.) 29 (I'm 30 at the time of this post)

2.) Net surfing a year ago, but had known my feelings about the whole matter were different since high school. I wasn't completely opposed to it at the time-in the context deep committed relationships, etc. , but found how willy-nilly (in my point of view) many folks threw themselves into that kind of thing strange.
Still not completely opposed, but I seem to have outgrown or lost the emotional machinery that would make that possible for me.

3.) I'm very picky about how much of my person I reveal to people. I'm not out to very many people.
But I wear my black ring, and a beaded necklace in the ace colors, to see if any one notices.

[Morgenrot]

@Adam Taurus & @daveb: I just put it in the poll. Thanks for the feedback!

[Roidgy]

looks like im the only one on the "less than 12" age so far :/ I found out when i was 6 btw

[manicinsomniac]

On 8/30/2018 at 10:39 PM, Roidgy said:

looks like im the only one on the "less than 12" age so far :/ I found out when i was 6 btw

This really intrigues me. How did you know when you were 6? I mean, no 6 year olds are interested in sex and relationships, are they? Most don't even really know what sex and relationships are, let alone know what asexuality is. Did adults talk to you about it or was it a feeling of 'not now nor in the future' sort of thing. 

 

I answered over 20. Found out because I've just never been interested in having a relationship because I don't want sex and I don't enjoy kissing much (just go through the motions). I thought I might be gay for a while but realised I don't want to have sex with women either and I am attracted to men. I'm not really out but it's obvious that I don't do relationships. I say I'm useless at being around people all the time and I'm 'terminally single'. 

[Roidgy]

15 minutes ago, manicinsomniac said:

 no 6 year olds are interested in sex and relationships

idk if it was just my neighborhood or someth but.......... kids my age were constantly fussing about relationships. I was so confused by it and i was just like,, i just want to sit under the playground and pretend to lay eggs??? i dont care if sean has a crush on me i want to make a nest out of bark.

 

I was well aware of the whole "boys are supposed to like girls" and "girls are supposed to like boys"  and "eventually you will get married with someone you love" so, as a trans guy, i always pretended i was really into girls. But then i was like "You kno? this is stupid. I never want a girlfriend or boyfriend and i probably never will. I cant imagine myself ever being with someone, i just want to marry a dog or something."

[manicinsomniac]

@Roidgy Thanks for answering so clearly! For what it's worth, I think it sounds like you were a great kid. This:

 

24 minutes ago, Roidgy said:

i just want to sit under the playground and pretend to lay eggs??? i dont care if sean has a crush on me i want to make a nest out of bark.

is what children are supposed to be like! 

 

I think probably the children I teach are a little more 'innocent' than the average and I know I certainly was as a child. I don't remember much in the way of relationships among my peer group before the age of 10 and certainly the younger end of the children I teach (7-13 year olds) are really clueless. They build dens in the woods and play shops, fairies etc. My 5 year old cousin seems to think she is a dog half the time 🤣

[thunder14]

It was a slow realization. I guess I assumed I wasn't, but after some time I realized I was just trying to make something happen that wasn't gonna happen, and that I'm probably just asexual. Then I started T, and which is known to increase a person's sex drive. I wondered if it was like 'adding to their sex-drive' or just 'multiplying it', in which case you can multiply by zero all you want and still get zero. Either way, would it even change my sexual orientation? It didn't, and honestly I'm relieved. 

[Sath]

Well, wehn I was about 16 I saw a tumblr post with different sexuatities as Playground objects and there was the asexual sandbox. I had no idea what "asexual" meant so I looked it up and landed on an article from AVEN. Then I just kinda kept reading and I could really identify with the experiences shared, so yeah.

Not very dramatic, but that's my story.

[German User]

The problem with the "When?" is, that I have been aware of my lack of sexual attraction since I was at least 16. The issue was that being "Asexual" was sort of an insult that was just less common than "Gay/ homo". I just didn't realize that asexuality is more than a condition. The thought was: "I like girls so obviously I am going to sleep with one once we are in a relationship."

The realization that "Asexual" is how I'd describe myself and that that is perfectly healthy and normal came last year (at the age of 20) when I found this website.

@Morgenrot Id also like to add that I "researched" a little bit about sexuality (Watched sex ed, listened to sex therapists talking about relationships and sex, podcasts etc.). But this research was always focused on the "Why do people have sex?" question. One podcast then led me to the AVEN website where I identified myself with asexuality.

 

In short: Noticed age 16, identified age 20

[AceyMacey]

I hadn't heard of asexual before my friend came out as ace to me. Everything she told me and everything I saw online, researching it after made me realize that I was ace, too.

[wildandfree]

i was watching a youtube video where a guy came out as asexual, and as he described it i was just like wow thats literally me

[griffinej5]

1. I’m honestly not entirely sure, but my profile says I joined here in 2005, so that’s probably correct (I would have been 19 by my join date. 

2. I think there’s always been some realization, once other people started wanted to be in relationships and have sex, that I didn’t want to do that. I hung out with boys, but I never wanted to do anything else. There are other things I realized later on in hindsight. 

3. To some people. I’ve mentioned it in some discussions on a Facebook group. The other day I posted something in the group with the picture of my screen time for the week. This website showed up in the places I spend too much time online. There are some people who know me in real life. It’s just not necessarily something I feel a need to go telling people, but if for some reason it comes up, I have no issues there. I guess because I don’t want to talk about sex in general. 

[kstitch]

My friends were discussing their sexual "accomplishments" and I was like "I've never felt that way about sex. I just do it to make my partner happy, don't you all?" and that's when I found out because I discovered other women actually enjoy sex. Who knew? I was 21 about to turn 22. I just thought it was normal for women to not physically enjoy sex, only men did. I guess kinda 1950's type thinking since in my head sex was "for men's pleasure" and women are just the vessels for it. I'm actually really glad there are women out there that actually enjoy it. You go girls. 

[kstitch]

On 8/16/2018 at 10:43 PM, Adam Taurus said:

I feel like there should be an option for discovering it through active disinterest while in the process of sex/sexual activities.

Agreed! That was me. I didn't know until I tried multiple partners like "maybe they aren't great at it and someone good at it will make me like it" and that never happened and found out it was me. 

[•◡•]

I was doing research on different sexualities so I could better understand my LGBTQ+ friends and found out about asexuality

[Moonsong2003]

1.) Earlier this year, and I’m 15

 

2.) Didn’t know if this counted as surfing the internet or not so I put something else. I was reading this book online and asexuality was mentioned and I didn’t know what it was so I searched it up and it sounded like me.

 

3.) I’ve told only a few of my really close friends.

[I, Joan]

1) May of 2019, I was (and am) 18. 

 

2) While I haven't had sex, I dissociated seriously while making out with my girlfriend. Repeatedly. They suggested I might be aro, which I firmly rejected until finally reading an article on queerplatonic relationships, when all the pieces of my sexuality just came together. 

 

3) I've only told some close friends, but I want to come out to everyone but my family. 

[DarkStormyKnight]

I figured it out when I was in college, someone posted an Everyday Feminism article on FB or something like that. Anyways the article had a link to a similar article about asexuality. I started the article thinking "hey I should be a better person and know what asexuality actually is" and ended it with "omg that's me I'm asexual."

[Rili]

As of right now I'm 14 and I learned about asexuality from my aro/ace friend and thought, "hey that sounds like me." I'm only out to one person; that friend.

[Gingerpud]

I guess this all started when I was 12 and we were at the age of getting taught about sex in biology and people were thinking about relationships and I thought that I wasn’t interested in relationships because 1 guy was really horrible to me and put me off people.

 

Fast forward 2 years and all my friends are developing crushes, getting into relationships, people talking about sex and me still not caring at all for a relationship or to have sex. I spoke to a friend about it and she told me I might be asexual so I googled it and related to it but just brushed it off, thinking I was too young.

 

Fast forward to a few months ago asexuality had come back to my mind and I was starting to realise I was different to the other people at school and when I met another asexual at pride I instantly related to them and realised all this time I had in fact been ace.

 

Told a few friends and most have been really nice, some have been confused and questioned it. Had to explain to a friend what it was like to not feel sexual desires and he tried to explain what it was like to feel sexual desires. Yikes...

[Firefly8]

For #2, mine is a combination of "I was getting old and didn't find any excuses anymore" and "I was surfing the internet and discovered AVEN or a similar website."

[ThePoint]

First question is tricky. I found out about the idea of sexual spectrum quite recently (my poll choice), but I was aware of my difference up to 10 years earlier, just was very confused.

[neverlove]

Things weren’t adding up...

 

i.e. I think women are more (aesthetically) attractive than men, but I don’t want to sleep with women. I think I could sleep with men, but I really prefer basically everything about women. Neither of these things are terribly important to me. Rinse and repeat.

 

 Isn’t romance fiction? Why do people keep insisting being in love is so superior when their choices are so terrible? I don’t like this box, why won’t people listen or leave me alone? 

 

Romantic love always sounded like a contagious disease and I was both positive I would never catch it and terrified I would.

[Lunala]

Always known I wasn't interested in sex. Ever since I discovered sex existed (from reading a book about growing up and all that sort of thing) I always knew it just didn't interest me. I never understood why everyone around me got crushes on One Direction or whatever - I would rather mock One Direction and make up parodies of their songs (basically singing the regular songs but replacing the lyrics with toilet humour and poop jokes). I hated One Direction and all the other stuff, and never really "got" why girls would swoon over it - I was always more interested in playing with my Skylanders over One Direction. These days, I see all these teenage girls swooning over these male celebrities for being "cute" - I mostly perceive said celebrities as either "He seems like a friendly guy, I wouldn't mind being friends, but I don't get the whole "romance" aspect." OR "Boo, this celebrity is so generic and lame. How does he have fangirls?"

 

Always knew but I never knew the name for it. Until I was 14, was watching a youtube video about some cartoon character I REALLY loved at the time, and in the video, the guy mentioned the character possibly being ace. From there, I noticed it "all made sense", found this site, and ever since I've been here  (now i'm 16)