When you realised you were asexual, did you have doubts?

[JD5]

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all? Does this still occur? What type of doubts do you have and how do you stay true to yourself? I believe myself to be asexual. I think my body has been trying to tell me for years, but I've only recently encountered the term asexual. It's taking me a while to 'believe' myself, due to this lack of normalisation of a range of sexuality. My upbringing was painfully het norm, and my family/friends back home still operate in this sphere - despite being in my 30s it is taking me a while to wrap my head around my reality. Even while I write the word, 'reality', I'm like, "But *IS* this real?" I'm lucky to have one friend who experiences indifference to sex, so we can talk about some things. I'd like to become more active in this community so I can feel less alone, and try to understand myself and the asexual experience better. If you're reading this - thank you!

[SithLord]

Yeah, I questioned myself a lot. I went through a period of time where I thought I was just a disinterested bisexual, and I thought asexuality would be just another phase in trying to figure out what I was. But asexuality fit, and it wasn't just something people say like "I'm Brad Pitt-sexual" but a real thing people actually felt. And I didn't feel comfortable using it until after I found AVEN and a few other sites with stuff written by actual asexuals about their experiences. 

 

I don't really have any doubts any more. I can separate my love of R or X rated material from a love of sex or sexual attraction. I can see how others experience something I don't and now understand what it is. I sometimes question if I'm on the grey-spectrum, but the extent I would doesn't affect me much in real life so is inconsequential. Besides, if I did learn I was something else, I know people would be understanding. 

[Iam9man]

1 hour ago, JD5 said:

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all?

Yes.

 

1 hour ago, JD5 said:

Does this still occur?

Yes.

 

1 hour ago, JD5 said:

What type of doubts do you have and how do you stay true to yourself?

Mainly “am I actually asexual when my experiences differ so much to most other asexuals?”. Then I go through a fairly simple loop whether I meet the definitions, whether another orientation would be more accurate, how I feel about sex, what really is sexual attraction, what is the nature of reality, etc and I always teach the same conclusion 😊

 

Happens less frequently the longer I ID as ace, but still happens occasionally.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, JD5 said:

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all?

Yes

 

2 hours ago, JD5 said:

 Does this still occur? 

Very much so

 

2 hours ago, JD5 said:

What type of doubts do you have and how do you stay true to yourself? 

For me it wasnt doubt more like hope. I dont want to be asexual so I hope that I am not the majority of time. I dont stay true to myself much but I just learnt to deal with it. 

[oldgeeza]

I knew from a very young age that I didn't want to have sex, that I wouldn't ever get married or have children, my grandmother always used to mention me saying that from the age of 7, it wasn't until I was in my 40's, when I bought my first computer, whilst experimenting with what a computer could do, I typed in the search bar "I have no interest in sex" the results came down with the wikipedia definition asexual, underneath, Aven, I looked on here and after a few minutes of reading, I realised that I could identify with what I had read, I find women attractive, do I ever think of having sex with them? never, I'm a big cuddle slut, I'm very lucky that I get a lot of cuddles from ladies I work with or close friends, but again, I never have any sexual thoughts.

 

When I was growing up and all my peers were having sex, it just didn't appeal, I would rather be working, doing something that I enjoyed or would be earning from, I looked but didn't touch when it came to women, very much as I do now, I experience attraction from a distance.

 

When I was growing up, we were seen as homosexual or heterosexual, that was it, because I didn't get involved in relationships in the way my peers did, I was frowned upon and regarded as homosexual, back then, there was a huge stigma attatched to being homosexual, homophobia was rife until fairly recently, in the 60's, 70's, 80's, even in the 90's, if you were gay, you kept it to yourself, you didn't even tell your family or close friends, bisexuality, asexuality and, don't even think of transgender, you'd risk your life for cross dressing, luckily, we've advanced and become more accepting of individuals within our society

[oldgeeza]

6 minutes ago, GatsbyGirl said:

 

 

For me it wasnt doubt more like hope. I dont want to be asexual so I hope that I am not the majority of time. I dont stay true to myself much but I just learnt to deal with it.

I was confused when I was younger, I did try to have sex but I hated it, it lasted a few seconds, I felt sick after, I had two sexual partners, I was so glad when impotence set in when I was 19, being asexual is a part of who I am, I am happy to be asexual now that I know there's a term for it, I know I'm not broken, it makes me feel better. Now that people are more accepting of differing orientations, I think that finding a partner, should you want one is gradually becoming easier too.

 

I thought I would mention this as in part, back in my teens, what you stated there @GatsbyGirl possibly described my feelings up until the time I tried having sex, I hope you don't think I was criticising you and what you said

[Anthracite_Impreza]

3 hours ago, JD5 said:

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all? Does this still occur? What type of doubts do you have and how do you stay true to yourself?

I questioned it out of paranoia initially, yes, but I don't any more. It's blatantly obvious now I've been in a relationship for years and have no desire (and indeed, active repulsion) to incorporate sex. I've never understood peer pressure, never understood why anyone does things because 'everyone else does it', so it's not exactly hard for me to stay true to myself in that respect.

 

That said, I'm extremely in the closet about my romantic orientation because I'm well aware it could cause me and my partner issues in the society in which we live. Only my very closest RL friends know and I hope to keep it that way.

[Galactic Turtle]

I questioned myself in terms of what the correct word to use would be. Like I knew sex was not on my life agenda, but was it correct to call it being asexual? Picking a whole new sexuality term seemed a bit extreme or silly. Why not go with celibate? People are more used to that term. Why not admit that mentally I can't engage in physical contact without all my internal alarm bells going off? I'm fine thinking of myself as asexual now but out in the world I'm simply someone who isn't interested in sex. On one occasion someone said "oh, are you asexual?" And I responded "yes, that is a word you could use."

[jLpfeiffer]

I questioned myself for sure because my  lack of understanding asexuality. The different labels you can add, sex negative, neutral, and positive, and the such. 
 

Spoiler

My main question because I was very ignorant of my own orientation was I thought asexuals didn’t want anything to do with sex and as a byproduct relationships. 
I want to one a relationship and though I consider myself sex negative I enjoy “exploring my body” so to speak myself every once in a while. How could I be asexual. 

After essentially pulling an all-nighter google-ing and Watching YouTube I learned all I possibly could and then several days later with some quality souls searching did I come to turns with it. 
 

So in the beginning I did question it but not so much any more.

[Philip027]

Whether you mean when I discovered that I had no interest in sex (which is when I first learned about it, at 14) or when I discovered that this had a name (at roughly 25), either way there weren't any doubts at those times.

 

In more recent years in which I've gotten into a relationship and married, I have wondered for some time if I was actually demisexual, since there exist some signs in our relationship that I could be.  In the time since, I've come to realize that that's pretty much all they are -- signs.  Upon doing more research (which is still an ongoing thing) I'm realizing how much demisexual people differ from how I am and how they still run into the same problems that "normal" sexuals do in any other sort of sexual/asexual mixed relationship -- which is a big part of why I don't get how anyone could consider demisexuality to be a "form" of asexuality or something on the asexuality "spectrum" (what a load of bollocks that is, imo).  Something that could easily be confused for asexuality outside of the context of a relationship, sure, but still not the same.
 

My current stance on things is... I don't really feel like I'm demisexual, but if that's what someone wants to think of me as, I don't really have any problem with that either.  It's kind of exactly how I feel about being referred to as the "male" gender, incidentally.

[AceMissBehaving]

Oh heck yeah 

9 hours ago, JD5 said:

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all?

Oh yeah a lot. I spent a few years kind of living with the idea before I felt sure enough to accept it 

 

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Does this still occur?

Sometimes, but I don’t struggle with the thought when it pops up anymore, just acknowledge it and let it slide on

 

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What type of doubts do you have and how do you stay true to yourself?

Mostly because I came into my understanding of it later in life, I have years of trying to force myself into being something I wasn’t. It was hard to parse out what was genuine and what wasn’t at first. When I look at my track record thoughts there is a very clear pattern, but it’s hard to break a life long habit of trying to find something in myself that just isn’t there.

 

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Ibelieve myself to be asexual. I think my body has been trying to tell me for years, but I've only recently encountered the term asexual. It's taking me a while to 'believe' myself, due to this lack of normalisation of a range of sexuality. My upbringing was painfully het norm, and my family/friends back home still operate in this sphere - despite being in my 30s it is taking me a while to wrap my head around my reality. Even while I write the word, 'reality', I'm like, "But *IS* this real?" I'm lucky to have one friend who experiences indifference to sex, so we can talk about some things. I'd like to become more active in this community so I can feel less alone, and try to understand myself and the asexual experience better. If you're reading this - thank you!

This community has been a great place to find my voice. I hope it will be for you too. Welcome to the forums!

[laLibby]

As soon as I found the term asexual I connected to it immediately. But I was only 15 at the time and before that had thought I was just a late bloomer when it came to sex and all that. I thought I was too young to call myself asexual, even thought I related to it so much. 5 years later and I'm still 1000% ace though. So I guess it was never really hard for me to accept. I felt more relieved to know that I wasn't alone. 

[Kimmie.]

Yes and I still have doubts from time to time. But I know that I don't desire partnerd sex.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, JD5 said:

When you realised you were asexual, did you question yourself at all?

On the contrary - I felt such a relief, realizing that I wasn't mentally ill or crazy or whatever, but discovering that this was a valid sexual orientation felt extremely freeing. I was first introduced to asexuality as I watched a documentary on it on TV when I was around 19, I think, and to see that there were other people experiencing the same feelings was awesome. I never once questioned myself because I did that already for years, questioning why I didn't feel the same way about sex as everybody else did.

[Homer]

I don't use "labels". "Problem" solved. No need to bang anyone at this point, but que sera sera. 

[daveb]

19 hours ago, JD5 said:

did you question yourself at all?

No, not really. But I had several decades of lived experiences to back it all up with.

[Janus the Fox]

Yes and no.  Yes that I was certain there was something different and absent on the sexuality, doubts with the lack of experience.  The Aro Ace identity became 100% certain 1, 2 and 3 years into a relationship without romantic or sexual developments taking place despite everything else put in place.