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Why are you asexual?


JoyEngland

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No trauma in my life.

 

Natural father was a serial adulterer. I never knew him. Mom's side has a  long list of affairs and out of wedlock kids. There were random relatives who never married, so maybe, just maybe,  they were ACE.  Now my family wasn't big on physical affection so that was lacking, but then I was the product of adultery. I don't think my mom and dad knew what to do with me. They weren't cruel. I would probably label it as benign neglect. That's the one part of my life that is probably 'irregular' but other people have been through that same scenario and that didn't make them ACE. 

 

No hormone imbalance. I get checked every six months because I'm diabetic. So far, nothing.

 

Had a religious upbringing, but so did family members and friends. None of them are ACE as far as I know.

 

So I got nothing. I was born this way. Lucky me. ;)

 

 

 

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Coily the Spring Sprite

For me, I was never one to hop into bed with just anyone. I have had opportunities that I passed on for numerous reasons. I have never felt the need to put another notch on the ole bed post. I need to be very comfortable and interested in someone before I get intimate. 

 

As I've gotten older, my drive has lessened. Maybe it's hormones or maybe it's just the way I am, but at this point sexual relations are far down my list. My main goal is to find good friends. I get along fine without sex and find I have more time to do other things. 

 

Not sure if this ramble answers the question, but it's what's on my mind tonight.

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Strange But Not a Stranger

Since I have always been the way I am, I am guessing I was just born this way. I don't think there's another explanation for it. This is just me.

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  • 1 month later...

Back in the day in Psych 101 we had a week long discussion about whether homosexuality was nature or nurture. And there were sensibke supporting arguments for either perspective. Because both is possible. It doesn't really matter if you always felt that way or if events over time influenced your feelings. I  was looking for clues in my past of why I am the way I am,  reading articles about dwindling libido, hormonal imbalances, foods and spices that are supposed to enhance your drive ... that's when I found a post about asexuality and had my enlightened moment. 🌈

I wonder if my upbringing had anything to do with it or why sex never excited my curiosity ,  but that's part of me and my personality. I hear stories of kids exploring their bodies or "playing doctor" where I was more interested whether cutting a worm in half really makes two worms (spoiler: it doesn't ).  So I decided for myself that it's nature enhanced by nurture  (my mom was never very fond of sex and sexy stuff). No traumatic experience,  no adverse reactions, just whatever.

What is nature's point?

Idk, why are there albinos? Why are some people born with an IQ of over 130? Why are natrual triplets born? Why is everyone in the world wired differently? What is nature's point? 

 

who knows.

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Ace is a sexuality.
There's no 'why', any more than there is reason why people are gay or straight.

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I thought i was assexual and i was really embarassed of it and had a feeling i was missing something in my life, then i started using different date forums and it appeared i wasn't the only one with the same problem, i registered here https://meetville.com/ amd met one nice woman, and after her i realised that i just wasn't into men, but was always afraid of trying something with women☹️

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I do not know why. Nature/Nurture is a big argument in many things.

 

I do know that I have several factors that people often attribute it to. Severe sexual abuse in childhood and as an adult. My hormones are messed up enough that I even suspect that I am intersex (though no diagnosis).

 

Pushing against that I was brought up to do for others even when it was detrimental to me. I have some rare physical disorders that make it difficult for me to even know what my body is saying to me. These factors led me to be sexually active even when I knew that I did not want to be. Sometimes they led me to activities while thinking that I wanted it but when looking back on them I regret every one.

 

All of these things lead me to understand that I am asexual despite having lived a life that included sex (and even occasionally enjoying some of that experience, though not enough to keep repeating it)

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1 hour ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

I do not know why.

^ this!

As I have said when explaining to others when I've come out to them, I feel that the part of me that should have me desiring sex is 'missing'.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Why am I asexual? I have a theory, I’m not saying it applies to everyone or anyone else.

 

In many creatures sexual attraction is associated with scent, more explicitly with pheromones. Whether these are active in humans is disputed, or at least under-researched. They might not be perceived explicitly like other scents, but might still cause arousal or perceived attraction. Supposing I am missing that sensitivity to sexual scents?

 

Here is the speculative evidence. My father was a congenital total anosmic, meaning that he had no sense of smell from birth. I always thought that my sense of smell was normal (whatever that means) until in my 50s I attended a wine-tasting event. It’s known that most subtlety with taste comes from the sense of smell, not from the basic taste receptors on the tongue. I discovered that my perceptions of the various wines were either similar to other people, or I didn’t detect any particular taste at all. So that seemed a clear indication that my sense of smell was actually quite selective; some things I can smell normally, and some things I just can’t smell at all. Logical extension to this, maybe I can’t detect sexual scents.

 

I tend to dislike the smell of people, although with close contact I can get desensitised to it. It never turns to anything attractive though.

 

Does any of this ring true with anyone else? I’d be very interested to hear. It’s an explanation of sexual orientation, not a denial of it.

 

A.

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24 minutes ago, Allport said:

I tend to dislike the smell of people, although with close contact I can get desensitised to it. It never turns to anything attractive though.

 

Does any of this ring true with anyone else? I’d be very interested to hear. It’s an explanation of sexual orientation, not a denial of it.

I am afraid not. I have extremely sensitive senses, including olfactory. I sometimes even identify people by scent and in fact I brought one of my fiances T-Shirts back with me so I could keep their scent near.

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I have a strong sense of smell, made even stronger after chemo. 

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On 10/21/2018 at 2:19 PM, will123 said:

And on the other side of the coin it's difficult for a guy to meet a female for 'friendship' if the guy is asexual. I'm pretty sure (big assumption here) that most females would like to be intimate with 'their' guy.

... or expect all males to be interested in sex or at least have that on their mind in some way... so they are at best always on guard and interpreting any signs in line with what they've had all their lives.

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I guess I have no sexual interest in men for the same reasons I guess fully heterosexual men don't have a sexual interest in other men and I have no sexual interest in women for the same reason I guess other women don't have a sexual interest in women...

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2 minutes ago, Acing It said:

I guess I have no sexual interest in men for the same reasons I guess fully heterosexual men don't have a sexual interest in other men and I have no sexual interest in women for the same reason I guess other women don't have a sexual interest in women...

Heterosexual men are not interested in men because their interests are in women.

 

Some women do have sexual interest in other women

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3 minutes ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

Heterosexual men are not interested in men because their interests are in women.

 

Some women do have sexual interest in other women

I think this misses the point - there are deeper, even physical reasons why fully heterosexual men are not interested sexually in other men. repulsion springs to mind.

 

I meant fully heterosexual women for whom the same applies.

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It another one of those opaque things floating around in me that no matter how much I try to figure out, there doesn't seem to be any other answer than that's just the way my genes expressed themselves. 

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1 hour ago, Acing It said:

... or expect all males to be interested in sex or at least have that on their mind in some way... so they are at best always on guard and interpreting any signs in line with what they've had all their lives.

When I was in my 20s I hung around with a girl that most guys would consider pretty hot. At the time I thought I was straight but never broached the topic of sex between us. Why? I have no idea.

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10 hours ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

I don't believe that everyone who is asexual is a sex-repulsed asexual

I don't either and i think how far people want to go sexually as a compromise or otherwise is on a sliding scale. If this was a comment on the point I made (not sure it is) I was making a remark about myself and didn't presume this applies to other people.

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18 hours ago, Acing It said:

... or expect all males to be interested in sex or at least have that on their mind in some way... so they are at best always on guard and interpreting any signs in line with what they've had all their lives.

I wonder how many females would wrongly assume that a male who is friendly with them but attempts no sexual activity whatsoever, is gay?

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6 hours ago, will123 said:

I wonder how many females would wrongly assume that a male who is friendly with them but attempts no sexual activity whatsoever, is gay?

A lot? Sometimes it's some sort of weird self confidence defence mechanism, which goes something like - male isn't interested - he must be gay because if he's not gay it must mean I'm not attractive - que lowered self esteem.

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2 minutes ago, Acing It said:

A lot? Sometimes it's some sort of weird self confidence defence mechanism, which goes something like - male isn't interested - he must be gay because if he's not gay it must mean I'm not attractive - que lowered self esteem.

but not all. I am certainly relieved when a man does not come on to me

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12 minutes ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

but not all. I am certainly relieved when a man does not come on to me

Yes! hahah, unless it's someone you would be interested in, no doubt! 😄

A lot of the time though, there is a flip side to this. When a male shows a woman kindness that goes beyond polite friendliness, it's drawn into the context of romantic or even sexual interest, whereas if another woman showed exactly the same friendliness, even if she were a lesbian, it wouldn't be. It's lifelong experience of men and their advances I guess but it's tough on men who just want to be friends I think.

Thinking of this, the other way round isn't easy either I think. There was this programme on tv a while ago where a female journalist was convincingly morphed into a male and she was shocked at how she felt and the responses she got viewed 'from the other side' as it were, when she tried some advances towards a woman and was unceremoniously bumped off. It was a real eye opener to her. I remember that after posing as a man for a while it affected her mental health and she had to stop, which made me think that's the difference between cis people and those who are trans. Cis people have their mental health affected if they have to pose as the sex opposite to their body and for trans people they have their mental health affected when they have to present as the sex of their physical body.

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On 12/21/2018 at 10:47 AM, JannyLI said:

I thought i was assexual and i was really embarassed of it and had a feeling i was missing something in my life, then i started using different date forums and it appeared i wasn't the only one with the same problem, i registered here https://meetville.com/ amd met one nice woman, and after her i realised that i just wasn't into men, but was always afraid of trying something with women☹️

Maybe it's just me but some of these sites can easily be called meatville instead of meetville 😂

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57 minutes ago, Acing It said:

Yes! hahah, unless it's someone you would be interested in, no doubt! 😄

Hasn't happened yet and I am 56 years old.

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On ‎8‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:23 PM, MichaelTannock said:

I did have a traumatic sexual experience as a small child and wondered if this caused me to become Asexual, but I don't believe so, and there doesn't appear to be any higher instances of sexual trauma in Asexuals.
That being the case, I think I've always been Asexual.

Is that right? wow. I think parts of my ace-ness now is due to the sexual trauma I've had as a child. it's like it is coming home, like homing pigeons, to me at this point in my life - that point where some people do more reflecting over their past stages from a place of strength and stability. But I also respect and believe that some folks just aren't into the sex thing - and it is totally okay! Which is why I'm so glad I found this forum. finally, other people who think like me about sex and sexuality.

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This is my response for today at least. 1. I'm menopausal. BTW it's not a disease (like so many "medical" websites seem to imply). It's a part of aging. It physically hurts to have intercourse.  2. I experienced sexual trauma as a child and as a young adult. Those experiences went deep, assisted with booze and drugs, and did not come to the surface until my mid twenties. Those experiences still influence my sexual expression/security.  3. I'm at that point in my life where I am asking a lot of questions and challenging a lot of societal messages, including why is sex so damn important anyway? There are other ways to bond, there are other ways to feel good physically, there are other ways to express love and nurturing. Great thread starter!

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On ‎8‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 4:33 PM, Ceebs. said:

There are a lot of people who fall in between. Honestly most sexual folks don't pursue sex with wild abandon. Some may have a minimal number of partners like you mentioned, which is pretty much how I see my own life going for a variety of reasons, but there are many who have more than 1-2 yet aren't lusting after everything with a pulse.

I also think there is so much damn messaging in our world, that has become increasingly prevalent and invasive, about sex and sexuality. We are bombarded with the message "got-to-have-sex-it's-normal" so many of us come to believe it. I sure did. when I hit seventeen, I embarked on a long and boozy career of sexual adventures. Did I enjoy it? Not at all. I just thought that was what I was supposed to do as a young woman. Now that I'm a not-so-young woman, relishing her personal empowerment, I look back and think, yeesh. what was I thinking??? I have a loving, respectful husband and we've had our years enjoying sex together. But my body is done with that now. I'm respecting my body's messages instead of pop culture's messages now. And I'm glad of it - and also glad there are others to talk with about this.

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