Drwho314 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 How did y'all figure out you were asexual? I was reading a story and it had the word asexual in it I had a vague clue due to knowing Greek roots and context, but I decided to look it up to learn more and came across the asexuality archive and figured out that is what I am. Aromantic was figured relatively soon after. After that I decided to see if there were any gremlins hiding in the area of gender and figured I was agender Link to post Share on other sites
Bio 7 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I spent a few years thinking I was bisexual first but after starting uni I came to realise that wasn’t me. Possibly biromantic but more like bidemiromantic/demibiromantic or whatever the term may be. Link to post Share on other sites
Yoruka Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 Searched it up after looking at somebody's article on demisexuality when I was eight and searching it up years later for the hell of it. I didn't know what sexual attraction was back then. Link to post Share on other sites
Low End Things Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I just mentioned this in another thread! I've sorta always known, but it became clear to me when I was being intimate with someone, who I was very attracted to, and just got..bored as we got closer to sex. It wasn't the first time it had happened but I thought I was just getting nervous. Turns out I just didn't care too much! As for the term itself, a very close friend of mine in college took me to a student-led seminar on various sexualities. She suspected I was ace and wanted me to learn more about it. Link to post Share on other sites
euphrasie_fauchlevent Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 21 minutes ago, Low End Things said: As for the term itself, a very close friend of mine in college took me to a student-led seminar on various sexualities. She suspected I was ace and wanted me to learn more about it. your friend sounds awesome! I didn't even really think about it until I was on a date with a very awesome girl and (after a string of dates where I'd felt absolutely nothing) I was desperately trying to convince myself to find her attractive because she was so cool and it wasn't working. Came home, googled asexuality, read a load and realised that it really fit basically my whole life? And then relief-cried a lot. But the girl was lovely about it, and we're still friends today. Link to post Share on other sites
wolf_of_the_pack_ Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I had heard of Demisexuality on Instagram (not the most ideal place) and I thought it was cool, because I never felt completely straight I guess. Like straight didn't ever feel like it was refering to me. In December, I started to look up the sexualitys, just wondering what they all were and seeing if maybe I kind of fit with any of them. I had heard about asexual, but I thought it was basically aromanticism, so I had brushed it off because I did like people and wanted a relationship. But I did end up looking it up, and found this really long article that explained pretty much every part of asexuality very clearly. I had already decided that I didn't want to have sex, like ever, and figured since everybody else seemed to want it, that I would just not ever have relationships and stuff, which I had come to accept. And when I found out asexual was no sexual attraction, I thought that was very weird that people just, idk, looked at people and wanted to have sex? That's a real thing? Well I definitely don't experience that😂. I was very happy to figure it out, and then I found this place, which has introduced me to lots of sexualitys. Anyways, I'm just happy to be here! Link to post Share on other sites
AceAnimeFan Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I read an article somewhere about an asexual student group at some university and realized the things they were describing were things I related to. I looked up what asexuality was and found that it fit me but it was a few more years before I started learning more about it (sexual orientation never really interested me as a research topic, and I was comfortable just knowing what I was and that there wasn't anything wrong with me) and being completely comfortable identifying that way. I kind of wish I hadn't waited so long; I'm already 24 and I feel like I wasted a lot of time just being apathetic about it all. Link to post Share on other sites
dandeliongirl Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I first heard the word reading fanfiction. A couple months after that while searching for more fics using the 'asexual character' tag (I loved the concept, but still hadn't realized that was because I related it to it so strongly. I just thought it was great platonic relationships and enjoyed reading them) I read another fic with an ace character, and the wonderful author (whose user name I unfortunately forget) put a link to AVEN in the bottom. I clicked on it, literally read the first three paragraphs and it was the most eye opening experience of my life! Like, everything I've ever felt (or not felt, as it were) wasn't because there was something wrong with me, and there is a place I fit in, and being here is incredible. One day I will have to go back and find that author. I owe them a very big thankyou. Link to post Share on other sites
Zagadka Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 At a Pride Month event, they had speakers from all parts of the LGBTQ+ community, and two of them happened to be ace. Once they explained how they felt, it immediately clicked with me. Link to post Share on other sites
RenalWaldo Posted March 13, 2020 Share Posted March 13, 2020 I’d heard the word before, but didn’t realize it applied to me; I assumed I was just a prude. Finally, I started to wonder if other people really were different when I realized that the only reason there were so many doggone intimate scenes in movies was that a fair number of actual normal people kind of enjoy that kind of thing. It was an artist I follow by the name of Nathan Butler who eventually drove me to look up this place when he rebooted his comic with his cartoon dog character being ace. So, tell him “Thank you” for me if you see him. Link to post Share on other sites
WanderingKate Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 I had never even heard the word all throughout my school career. It took getting to college, getting into my first relationship and being asked what I was into sexually to realize...oh, I'm not into anything sexually 😂 I started researching online to see if it was normal to not have sexual fantasies, to not want a boyfriend/girlfriend, to be bored by sex and romance, etc...and here I am! Link to post Share on other sites
AllTimeBubble Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 I was watching BoJack Horseman, saw the episode about Todd coming out. Went to bed thinking nothing of it, then jolted up later, remembered the episode and a YouTube video I'd watched a couple years before about different sexualities and was like "oh sh** I think I'm asexual" so then I stayed up until 3am doing various sexuality quizzes. Link to post Share on other sites
Ella Joy Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 I went home one day and said “you know what? I think I’m bisexual.” Walked around with that for a day, then retreated back to random sexuality quizzes because it wasn’t clicking. When I got asexual, I panicked, because I thought that meant I didn’t want a relationship of any kind, which isn’t true. I was ecstatic when I realized that attractions don’t have to be the same. Link to post Share on other sites
will123 Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 Back in 2005 I saw an article in the paper. A definite "Ah hah!" moment for me. https://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/8327-montreal-gazette-article-about-asexuality-mentions-aven/ Up to that point I thought I was straight, but not doing a very good job of it. Link to post Share on other sites
Spent3YearsTyping Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 Basically thought I had a crush on my friend( found out it was called a squish), thought I was bi, started researching lgbt , thought I was lesbian, went back to bi, went to questioning, went to bi-curious, one day the same friend asked if I was asexual, I said no immediately, went home, researched about asexuality, thought I was Demi, went back to researching ace stuff, related with a lot of ace things, pondered for a while, realised I was most likely just ace, had doubts and thought I was gray-a, continued to sway between I’m probably ace but what if I’m actually grey, decided to hell with it (a)sexuality is fluid plus I’m not of legal age of consent anyhow so i could always merge into the grey area if I found I changed and accepted myself as ace. Want to come out to a friend with a doctor who meme. Great show i hope 12 is ace. Link to post Share on other sites
HonoraryJedi Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 I had reached into my 20s and still lacked interest in pursuing any form of sexual relationship, and this was recognizably an oddity. So I started looking into asexuality but was confused. I didn't understand what sexual attraction really meant, I wasn't sure it fit. A lot of the information I saw initially was in regards to sex-favourable aces which seemed almost an opposite of my experience. What defined my feelings was that I didn't want to do it at all, and I didn't know what 'sexual attraction' meant, so maybe it applied to one of the feelings I did actually have. It wasn't until I randomly stumbled upon the specific term 'autochorissexual' that it really clicked for me. It was some tumblr post. I had to bookmark it because I kept forgetting the word x) It's a bit of a mouthful. Link to post Share on other sites
Zyph Posted March 25, 2020 Share Posted March 25, 2020 My discovery story happened over the course of many years. First Exposure to the Term The first time I ever heard of asexuality was in my 7th grade year of school. One of my friends asked me, "Are you straight, gay, bisexual, or asexual?" I knew what the word "gay" meant, but I never heard of the other three. I asked what he meant and he gave some pretty basic definitions. I answered that I'm straight, not knowing the true definition of those words. By the way, my biggest confusion that stopped me from realizing that I'm asexual was the way people described the phrase "sexual orientation". As a kid, everyone who's ever defined it for me said that it's about the gender of who you like. I've actually had a couple of crushes by that point, so I answered based on what I felt. I never heard of sexual orientation referring to sexual attraction until more recent times. I thought asexual referred to people who weren't into romance (which I now know as aromantic). Still, this was the moment when I first heard the term "asexual". Realization that I'm Different Throughout middle school and high school, I wasn't the most fond of sexual humor. In a biology class my freshman year of high school, my lab partner would speak about sexual topic matters with another group. They tried to bring me into one of their conversations, which I deflected by pretending to not know about. Over the course of a few months, they'd ask me questions since they were curious about me. Eventually, one of the members of the other group told me that I'm asexual. I would not believe him because, again, I misunderstood its definition. The beginning of my sophomore year of high school, I started to do a little more soul-searching. The previous school year, I had developed a crush on this guy from my Taekwondo class. I tried my best to ignore it and pretend it didn't exist. I eventually had to stop Taekwondo because the class schedule was too inconvenient for me. Since I had a lot going on, I successfully forgot any of that ever happened until about 9 months later. I looked a small bit into bisexuality and decided the label fit me. I didn't really go anywhere from there and about a week later, I decided that I'd just try pretending to be straight (my bi preference was in favor of females anyways). In my junior year, I began to pay attention to my different attitudes towards anything related to sex: it wasn't constantly on my mind, I didn't have the same kinds of thoughts others did, and the thought of doing it was quite frankly off-putting. I wanted to find people who felt the same, so I would constantly search hypothetical scenarios into Google such as "boyfriend doesn't care about sex". Much to my dismay, I mostly found articles that portrayed sex in a Cosmopolitan-esque way. I would continue doing this throughout the remainder of my journey. Not much happened for my ace discovery journey during my senior year of high school. I had a lot of realizations, but that's the bulk of it. If there was one big change, it was that I finally came to terms with calling myself bi. I didn't come out to anyone, but I figured that I should at least come to accept who I am. Learning that I'm Ace I finally learned that I'm ace during my first semester at my university. In my YouTube recommended feed, I found some video whose title said that men and women cannot be friends. In the video, every male said that men and women being just friends is impossible because someone will eventually develop feelings. I got annoyed because the implication is that men are too sex-crazed to want a genuine platonic friendship with someone of the opposite sex. I scrolled through the comments section. I started to at least feel somewhat relieved when bi people started making jokes about the logic of the idea, but something didn't sit right. I continued scrolling through the comments, hoping to potentially find something more. Eventually, I came across a comment that did a good job of referencing asexuality. I did some research on it and the rest is history. Now here I am on AVEN, more open about myself than I ever thought I'd be. I'm not out to anyone I know irl yet, but I don't think it would surprise that many people. I plan on eventually getting more involved on my campus. I wish I could now, but my university will unfortunately be a ghost-town until at least late August. Link to post Share on other sites
will123 Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 3 hours ago, Zyph said: I found some video whose title said that men and women cannot be friends. In the video, every male said that men and women being just friends is impossible because someone will eventually develop feelings. I got annoyed because the implication is that men are too sex-crazed to want a genuine platonic friendship with someone of the opposite sex. Now here I am on AVEN, more open about myself than I ever thought I'd be. I'm not out to anyone I know irl yet, All I ever wanted to be with females that I knew was just to be friends. I never tried to hold hands, cuddle or kiss any of them. I kissed one long-term friend when we were in our 30s. What a mistake that was. Last year when I came out to her (we're in our 50s now) she didn't question it and was very understanding. To quote her, "Society is so over-sexed, not everyone is going to fit that." She continued, "I guess I should feel honoured that you're comfortable in telling me this". "Well we've known each other for so long and I'm probably the only guy that never tried to get into your pants." "After a pause, she replied, "You're probably right". It's all good between us. She texted me on Sunday hoping everything was good at my end (she lives in the westernmost province of Canada) and I told her it was. Link to post Share on other sites
Zagadka Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 Long ago after a relationship ended, I realized I wasn't interested in doing that. For a couple of years, I thought I was bi because I didn't have any preference for men or women. This was years ago, long before I'd heard of asexuality... after a while, my indifference kinda solidified and I just stopped caring or trying to have a relationship. It was over a decade later that I learned that was a thing people sometimes felt and I wasn't just broken. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamfae Posted March 26, 2020 Share Posted March 26, 2020 I was in my late 20s and getting worried because, while I'd had two short-term boyfriends, I hadn't felt the way I thought I was "supposed" to feel about either of them. For a while I wondered if I was secretly a lesbian, since my immediate reaction to the thought of seeing a penis was "Ew!", but that didn't seem to fit either, because all my fictional crushes were male. Then I came across an informational comic about asexuality that somebody shared on FB and thought, "...Huh. This sounds a lot like me." (I haven't been able to find that comic again since, unfortunately.) It mentioned AVEN, so I came here, and the more I read, the more convinced I was that this was the explanation I'd been looking for. Link to post Share on other sites
StarrySkies Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 I honestly thought I was demisexual for a while because I didn't have sexual feelings for anyone but I figured I would eventually if I met the right person. When I got with my girlfriend, I never felt any sexual desires for her, even as she felt those feeling for me. That's what made me question my sexuality. I realized that even though I thought about sex, the idea of me actually doing it made me sick and uncomfortable, and I just had no desire to do it, no matter who the person was. Link to post Share on other sites
FabQueen Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 I realized I was a bi-romantic asexual when I was a senior in high school. Ever since I was little I just never really cared about physical appearances. At first I thought it was because I was a kid but as I got older and friends would drool over the hot boy that just walked in I realized I really couldn’t care less. Friends and family always assumed that because I was disinterested in boys that I MUST be a lesbian but I always knew that I didn’t care about girls either. It wasn’t until I was a senior that I heard of asexuality and decided to look it up. Link to post Share on other sites
hyperfractal Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 On 3/12/2020 at 7:57 AM, Drwho314 said: How did y'all figure out you were asexual? I'd always known there was something odd....I always liked physical contact and being in a relationship, but couldn't muster any enthusiasm for sex. It made for some awkward moments sometimes, and a whole lot of self-doubt. The first time I had heard the term 'asexual' applied to a person was only a couple of years ago. It didn't make much of a ripple at first but my mind kept coming back to it over the next several months, and after a bit of reading I found that some of my more uncomfortable and confusing past experiences made a lot more sense. The final straw? One evening last year my wife said to me, "Don't take this the wrong way, but....do you think it's possible you might be kind of asexual?" That's when it clicked. Link to post Share on other sites
theparkermathews Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 I was working at my summer job and during some down time I started to think about myself and my own preferences and how I wasn't to keen on sex and then the thought of "holy shit. I might be asexual" entered my mind Link to post Share on other sites
will123 Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 8 hours ago, hyperfractal said: I'd always known there was something odd....I always liked physical contact and being in a relationship, but couldn't muster any enthusiasm for sex. It made for some awkward moments sometimes, and a whole lot of self-doubt. The first time I had heard the term 'asexual' applied to a person was only a couple of years ago. It didn't make much of a ripple at first but my mind kept coming back to it over the next several months, and after a bit of reading I found that some of my more uncomfortable and confusing past experiences made a lot more sense. The final straw? One evening last year my wife said to me, "Don't take this the wrong way, but....do you think it's possible you might be kind of asexual?" That's when it clicked. Has this affected your marriage? Link to post Share on other sites
hyperfractal Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 1 hour ago, will123 said: Has this affected your marriage? @will123 It was a bit of a relief in some ways. It helped explain some aspects of our relationship that always before had been attributed to some problem, or some deficiency. That's not to say that being married to an ace doesn't present its own challenges (it certainly does), but in this case the lack of sexual interest was not indicative of an emotional disconnect, or of a weakening of our bond. That, at least, was reassuring. Link to post Share on other sites
will123 Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 @hyperfractal That's good to hear. I met a female ace a couple of years ago who was married. She was trying to salvage the marriage (she loved her husband) but wasn't able to overcome her lack of interest in sex. Her husband wasn't very understanding in the situation. Link to post Share on other sites
Alawyn-Aebt Posted March 27, 2020 Share Posted March 27, 2020 I had stumbled upon the term quite a while ago but didn't think anything about it. Unlike many here I knew I wasn't bisexual because I was definitely against having sex with another male and since I am heteromantic I never questioned my it. Then I had two super-open and super-sexual classes at college, a cultural anthropology one and a intro to biology one, both with really dirty-minded and very open professors. That's when it hit me that sex was not seen by most of society as something that is simply cultural conditioning and that I could not relate to anything they were saying regarding sex. Later after about ten minutes of me wondering if I was a sociopath due to my lack of importance and interest in sex as an important part of relationships (at which point I remembered that actual sociopaths never realize nor even contemplate they are sociopaths) I looked up sexual orientations and reread the Wikipedia article for asexuality and it fit well. That feeling when I stumbled upon asexuality was wonderful. Link to post Share on other sites
will123 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 10 hours ago, Alawyn-Aebt said: That feeling when I stumbled upon asexuality was wonderful. X2 I know exactly how you felt! Even though I wasn't questioning my sexuality (or lack thereof), I was SO happy to find out about asexuality. It was such a relief to me that I didn't have to try to be something that I wasn't (straight). I was quite content to identify as asexual and go on with my life. No regrets whatsoever. Link to post Share on other sites
Atlantis Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 I heard the term in high school but didn’t think much of it, as I have a conservative family and dating wasn’t allowed, and in my friend group only two people very occasionally talked about crushes. I never thought to ask about how they felt, I just thought it was weird they had a crush on a random person they didn’t know (or on a friend and risk the friendship). I’ve always liked the freedom of being single and didn’t understand why they would want to spend time with one specific person instead of hanging out with friends or doing something on their own. Then in my first semester of college I met someone that was also asexual and she explained it and I was super surprised that sexual attraction was a thing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it tbh, but I’m glad I found out (although I don’t think I would’ve noticed anything odd for at least a few more years bc I can be kinda oblivious and my friends don’t talk about crushes or things of that nature lol). In hindsight, I guess there were some signs—in middle school I always thought the idea of sex was gross and the (generally popular) kids that talked about it were trying to be “cool” or something, since they took it super lightly. And I think this is more of an aro thing, but I always felt uncomfortable playing house in elementary school if I was the “mom” bc it meant I was married and had kids 😅 Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.