My experience questioning my sexuality

[Noa28]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and I'm not sure whether this is the right place to post this storytime/rant/life experience. I warn you that this will be a long post. If this is not the right place to post long storytimes/personal experiences, please, let me know. 

 

First of all, I'm a 21 year-old girl and although I'm not asexual, I relate to many things about asexuality, so I think that I could be somewhere in the asexual spectrum. I post here to share my thoughts and experience to see if someone can relate to them.

 

I know for sure that I'm not arromantic. What's more, I consider myself a quite a romantic person. Since I was a little girl, I experienced romantic attraction towards boys. It has always been difficult for me to develop a crush on someone, but I have liked several guys during my lifetime. They have always been guys, I have never had a crush on a girl or wanted to do anything romantic with one. Apart from that, since I was very young I've had the typical celebrity crushes. Everytime I've liked a guy, it's been about thinking he was cute/handsome, super nice, fun to be with, easy-going, you know, the typical crush. I've wanted to do romantic stuff with them, but I never thought "I want to fuck him", "I want to see  him naked", or any of that stuff. What's more, seeing them naked would be a turn off. It's important to clarify that the relationship I had with these guys remained platonic and never progress in the direction of something more. There were several reasons for that: I liked them  but not enough to make a move, I wasn't completely sure whether I liked them or not, they already had a girlfriend, they were not in my social circle and I didn't know how to get to know them better, they lived far away, the situation wasn't the best one to make a move, etc. 

 

I didn't have my first kiss until last month, at age 21. Until I was 18, I wasn't really interested in kissing anyone. Like I said, everytime I liked a boy there was something preventing me to go further, most of the times it was that I wasn't really good friends with the person, so it would be awkward to make a move towards that direction. I wasn't a social person during my childhood and teenage years (still working on that), and I used to hang out always with the same friends, so I didn't have that many opportunities to meet new people. When I was 15, a guy asked me out and I turned him down, and that was the only time someone approached me during my teenage years. I was ok with that since I wasn't interested in dating myself, but sometimes I wondered what was wrong with me, why no one was attracted to me? I wasn't ugly, I was a nice person, yet no one approached me. I realised later that being succesful in dating is more a matter of attitude than appearance or personality. 

 

To sum up, I didn't want to date anyone until when I was around 17-18. When that guy asked me out at age 15, I considered dating him, but I ended up turning him down because I barely knew him. When the girls in my class started being interested in guys and all that stuff, around at 12-13, I had literally zero interested in them. There might be some guys I considered cute, but that was all. I had zero interested in making out, and I thought that I was too young for all that stuff. Luckily, my best friends were similar to me and they also were uninterested at guys, and thought that we were too young for that, so I was for years in a bubble that made me feel like not being interested in dating and sex was a normal thing. I even thought that I could be a lesbian since I found girls more attractive in general, and I thought that a girl’s body was sexier than a guy’s (my opinion about this is not the same anymore, and I think that the reason I thought that was because I was already familiar with the female body, so it seemed more “natural” to me, instead, the male body was something kind of alien).

 

I used to go to summer camps between ages 11-14, it was always with the same association, so I used to go with a few friends from school, and I already knew from previous years many of the people, thought they were just acquaintances. The year I was 13, something changed. People weren’t acting like children anymore, but like teens obsessed with making out. That was the main topic of conversation, who was hooking up with who, whether I liked someone, and so on. One of my friends started acting really annoyingly at that period. She used to complain a lot about me and other friends being “bland”, and she insisted in wanting to hook up with a guy (I’m not American and I don’t know by sure if I’m using those expressions correctly, but I use hooking up in the sense of kissing, making out, groping, but without sex).  I didn’t liked anyone, even more, I thought that guys in general were quite stupid, with the exceptions of some guys I’d liked, what goes so great about them? Plus, I really didn’t like that atmosphere of hooking up. There was no privacy, the reason why they were making out was not only because they felt like doing it and were attracted to that person, but mostly because they were supposed to do it in order to be “grown up” and “cool”. I remember the girls I used to hang out with in the summer camp talking about it and it made me feel sick. There was no point of hooking up with someone if no one else was there to see it or you didn’t talk your friends about it. The following year in the same camp, I overheard some girls talking about some guy who apparently was super hot (I thought he was kind of an idiot), and I recall correctly they all were planning in making out with him. The last night, the same friend who started acting annoyingly at age 13 told me: “I might make out with this guy tomorrow”. I told her that it wasn’t a good idea because she hadn’t even talked to him, plus, what goes the point of making out with someone if he’s already making out with other girls the same day? What’s special about it? And besides, she said “I might make out with him” like if that was a one-sided thing, what’s his opinion about it? Does he even know you exist?

 

In a few words, I thought that the way people thought about hooking up at those ages was super lame and pathetic, there was nothing intimate or special about it, it was just a ritual to feel older and to show off, and I didn’t want some random stupid guy to brag about making out with him to his friends like if I wasn’t a person with feelings and thoughts. But the main reason why I didn’t want to do it was because I simply wasn’t attracted to anyone. I was very comfortable with that, and I thought to myself that I would have time for that when I was older.

 

At age 15, I opened myself a bit to the possibility of dating someone, but only if the situation happened, I wasn’t interested enough to actively seek for it. However, I still didn’t feel like having sex with anyone. At some point I started founding more attractive the male body, but the idea of seeing a penis, even in pictures, freaked me out. I sometimes heard the girls in my class talking about how hot was someone and how they wanted to have sex with some celebrity, but I thought they were just joking or pretending. I was living in my own innocent bubble and the idea of people my age actually wanting to have sex was inconceivable to me. I thought that the people looking for sex at ages 12-15 were the exception, not the norm. Like I said, I wasn’t a social person, and I didn’t get along with most of my classmates, so I don’t know very much about their personal lives, but I think that most of them first had sex between ages 16-18. Even my friends began dating guys at that age (15-16), with the exception of two friends, one of them is by sure asexual, she has never been attracted to anyone, and I doubt she even has a sex drive. The other one has only dated one guy in her life, from ages 18 to 20. She had her first kiss with him at age 18, and also lost virginity to him, but she rarely talks about sex or being attracted to anyone, she hasn’t had anything with anyone since she broke up with her boyfriend two years ago, so even if she’s not asexual, I know that sex is not a priority for her.

 

I know by sure that I have a sex drive, and I’ve known this since childhood. I do masturbate, but most of the times, I don’t think about someone I find attractive, but about a fictional situation, like a couple having sex, or after reading erotica. I find porn too graphic and unappealing. Most of the times I don’t imagine myself having sex or inside that situation, it’s a sex drive not directed to anyone in particular. For some reason, I also find the idea of lesbian sex arousing, but then I think about me having sex with another girl in real life and I don’t feel like doing it, and like I said, I’ve never crush on a girl. It’s like if fantasies during masturbation were completely separated from what I’m attracted to in real life, if that makes any sense. I could compare it to when you like a certain piece of clothing but you wouldn’t wear it for yourself because it’s not your style.

 

I thought that I could be heteromantic asexual, but I don’t think it anymore, because I know that the moment I start dating someone I like I’ll develop sexual feelings for him. I’m still a virgin, and I know that one of the main reasons I don’t have an urge for having sex is that I can’t miss something I have never experience. But I think I could sum up my feelings about this saying that sex is something secondary for me now because I don’t have a partner, but it will become important once I’m in a relationship. That’s sounds like demisexuality, but still, I don’t think demisexual is the right word for me because I have experienced sexual attraction outside a strong emotional bond, just not as frequently as most people. Until quite recently, I thought that my case was very typical, after all, I’ve heard many people saying that they don’t like casual sex and that they need to get to know the person before feeling like having sex, but I don’t know what to think anymore. I really don’t understand when people say that kissing is just a foreplay to sex, or when they have casual sex without feeling at least a bit of emotional attachment, or how can they remain having no feelings for someone after making out and having sex with them. I know that if I had sex with someone now, I’ll be thinking about that person for a long time, and I know because that’s what happened after I first made out with someone last month.

 

Talking about that, after I turned 18 I started being more interested in guys, and noticing them more. I realised that maybe I was just a late bloomer. Also, during my teenage years I didn’t interact very much with guys, and I wasn’t attracted to the ones I interact with, so I think now that if I had known more guys I could be attracted to during my teenage years, I would have felt the desire to date one before. Also, after I turned 18, I started feeling anxious about being kissless. Apart from my asexual best friend, I just knew about a few other people who were still kissless at that age. I tried to meet more guys to see if something happened, but things never went in that direction with anyone. I was too awkward to make the first move, so I waited until the other person made it or the situation itself became appropriate (it’s not the same trying to flirt with someone at university than in a party environment with friends). I must say that although I’m at university, I still live with my parents and never moved out, like most people my age in my country, so my social life remained similar to the one I had in high school. If I had to move out for college, I would have had more opportunities to meet new people, so it would have been much easier.

 

After I turned 20, I started feeling more anxious about this. When I was 13-15, I used to say that I didn’t want anything with anyone, and I really was happy that way, but I wasn’t that happy about it anymore at age 20. I felt like I was missing out something important. The fact that I was a virgin didn’t bother me, but I wanted to date someone to kiss, cuddle, do romantic stuff, be together the two of us, be intimate and to feel loved in a different to the way my friends and family loved me. Besides, it was also the social pressure and humiliation. I didn’t mind telling people that I was a virgin and that I’ve never had a boyfriend, but being kissless was a different story. I avoided telling people, people were shocked when I told them about it, or they didn’t believe it.

 

This summer I went on a trip abroad with a student association I’m member of. I didn’t meet anyone from before, but we were a group of young people from different countries travelling around and doing lots of activities. Everyone was super nice, we visited many cool places and we had a lot of fun. Most of the friends I made there were guys. My best friend there was a guy my age with whom I had many things in common and with whom I could talk about anything. He was very sweet and kind, and I found him cute. I did like him, but I didn’t know whether I liked him enough to make a move. Apparently, according to what a third person told me, he was hitting on me, but I was oblivious. There were gossips about him and me every day, but I thought that it was just people shipping us. I didn’t realise how much I liked him until the last night, when he hooked up with another girl he just met, and I felt jealous. I know now that he thought I wasn’t interested in him, so he gave up trying. However, I think he should have been more obvious, because he never brought up the topic of relationship/dating in our conversations. There were several reasons why I didn’t make a move: due to my completely lack of experience, I don’t know how to do it, we first started as friends so moving on a different direction felt awkward, I was sick during most of the trip so I wasn’t feeling like hooking up with anyone, I didn’t want to develop strong feelings for him because he lives in a different country and I know I would miss him a lot if I started something with him… But the main reason was that having to spend the whole day with a big group of people, there was no space for intimacy, and I just couldn’t get on the mood with everyone paying attention to all the flirting moves of everyone to gossip. When I thought about people gossiping about something special and intimate for me like if we were doing it in order to entertain them, I become furious.

 

To sum up, nothing happened. We are in contact and remain as good friends, and I’m sure we will meet sooner or later in another event, but sometimes I wonder how would have been to have a fling with him. It’s important to clarify that I never thought about having sex with him, I didn’t imagine him naked, nothing like that. But now I know that if I had made out with him, I might have felt like having sex with him.

 

Last month I went to a weekend event with this association. The event took place in my country but in another town. There were over 100 participants, and I only knew from before a few people from my city and four people I met during the trip, in fact, the reason I joined the event was to meet them again. The first night during a party, I was talking for a long time with a guy I just met. He didn’t know many people there neither, and he had only been a member for a few months, so we ended up talking a lot since we were in a similar situation. At some point when we talking outside, he gently put his arm around my waist and guide me to the backyard behind the building, where we were all alone. We sat in the kerb very near to each other and suddenly he asked me if I had ever made out with someone. I thought it was an odd question since at my age it’s assumed that you have. Mind you, he was a bit drunk, and although I wouldn’t say I was drunk, I wasn’t sober either. I told him that I hadn’t, and then I told him that it was a due to a mix of life circumstances, personal decisions and lack of interest. I told him that I was rarely attracted to anyone. He thought that meant I was asexual and said that it was a pity. I replied that I wasn’t asexual, it was just that I began being interested in guys later than average. He then asked whether I was interested now (I understood “now” in the sense of present time, now I think that he meant now in the sense of right now), and I said yes. Then, he kissed me. All I could think while we kissed was “finally!”. After the first kiss, we talked, and then we kissed again. We continue on kissing-talking for a while, but I was really cold because it was around 4 am and I was just wearing a dress. When he saw I was trembling, he held my hand and he guided me towards his room. I tucked in his sleeping bag and he hug me, cuddle with me, caressed my face and hair… We kept on kissing, most of the time quite heavily: open mouth, tongue, groping, he kissed my neck… We didn’t take off our clothes at any point. After a while, we just cuddled and caressed each other. Around 5am, I was feeling extremely sleepy, and I almost felt asleep in his bed. He told me to stay to sleep over, but I told him that I had to go since all my stuff was in my room. He guided me to the door and kissed me one last time. When I was preparing myself to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened. It had been a completely unplanned and unexpected experience, I didn’t feel awkward at any point, and it had been amazing. Even if he was a guy I just met, he had been very sweet and didn’t propose to go further in any moment. That’s one thing that bothers me about casual hook-ups between people my age: sex is expected, because, why to stay at kissing when you can have sex? The following night, we hooked up again. We talked and kissed for hours, and then we slept in the same bed. Sadly, that was the last night of the event, so we had to say goodbye the following day. We are from the same country, but he’s from a city far away from mine. If I had known him for longer, I would have proposed to go or come visit, and he lived nearer, I would have meet him afterwards, but it wasn’t the case, so it remained in a week-end fling. We are in contact and talk sometimes, we might see each other in two months in another event, but many things can happen in two months, so I don’t know what will happen when we meet again. I still can’t stop thinking about what happened, and I have developed a crush on him.

 

Anyway, this experience has confirmed me what I already knew: I do experience sexual attraction, but it’s secondary. When I first met the guy I made out with, I wasn’t even attracted to him. I wasn’t after I had made out with him that I started to feel attracted to him, and the idea of having sex with him occurred to me, but only after I was already back home and I was thinking about what happened.

 

Until now I thought that the reason I didn’t feel like having sex with anyone was either because I was somewhere in the asexual spectrum or because I am a virgin, so I couldn’t miss something I didn’t know. But after this experience, I think that what happens is that I need to have some physical and romantic interaction before feeling sexual attraction. Again, this doesn’t sound exactly like demisexuality because I don’t need to have a deep emotional bond, but I do need at least some kind of bond and chemistry. I also thought when I was younger that this was the normal thing, but after seeing how casual are most people about sex, I don’t think so anymore. To sum up, the idea of having sex with someone just for the sake of it doesn’t appeal to me. This doesn’t mean that this person has to be my SO or someone I love, but at least not someone I don’t even know, for whom I don’t feel anything and who I won’t see again.

 

Sorry for the long rant! I hope it’s allowed to post long storytimes/rants/personal experiences like this. I just wanted to know if anyone else has been in a similar situation and who feels this way.

 

Thank you for reading!

[Octopus98]

I understand your confusion. I have no piece of advice, I just want to say that stories like yours consistently make me realize how terrible is the lack of proper sex education (by proper sex ed I mean educating teens that there is SO MUCH MORE than being straight/homo/bi). So many people grow up thinking that they're "broken"/"sick"/"inexperienced", and only later they realize that they might actually be somewhere on the asexual/aromantic spectrum. 

Anyways, all the best with the new guy!!

[AceMissBehaving]

I think what you’re feeling is fairly common. There are a lot of non asexual people who are not interested in casual hook ups, and who don’t think about sex with someone upon seeing them.
 

Hook up culture I think causes a lot of lot of confusion for people who aren’t into that. Not being into hook ups is perfectly normal, and I think more common than a lot of people seem to think

 

This piece on NPR might be somewhat helpful on the subject...

https://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/514578429/hookup-culture-the-unspoken-rules-of-sex-on-college-campuses

[Noa28]

Thank you to both for replying! I guess that while growing up I got used to my friends who weren't interested in casual hookups either, so when I step outside my bubble, met more people and learnt that casual hookups were more common than I thought and how people can move on after having something with someone it kind of shocked me. 

[Octopus98]

On 10/30/2019 at 8:25 PM, Noa28 said:

Thank you to both for replying! I guess that while growing up I got used to my friends who weren't interested in casual hookups either, so when I step outside my bubble, met more people and learnt that casual hookups were more common than I thought and how people can move on after having something with someone it kind of shocked me. 

saaammeeee

[Guest]

What you are describing isn't that unusual. ONS and hookups aren't all people want. You need a connection first. And, sounds like some sort of responsive desire going on, which is more common with women than men. 

 

So, you can decide on the label you find most comfortable. But, you aren't weird. You just don't fit this odd modern hookup for status culture some people live in.