What exactly is caedsexual?

[Blue eyes white dragon]

5 hours ago, SilenceRadio said:

Some aces feeling like they "became" that way (be it due to trauma or low hormones) doesn't necessarily mean that all aces have a similar origin story. I can understand not wanting to spread misconceptions about asexuality, but I think we can do that without arguing about some (necessarily meaningful to everyone) difference between "intrinsic" aces and "made" ones.

It's the same idea that someone "became" gay due to trauma. Later on, they usually find that they are not gay but just afraid of people that are the same gender that traumatized them. Or they might find they were gay/bi along but they didn't become that way but rather discovered it. When someone is traumatized, they should get help because they are hurting and suffering and it'll impact more than just their relationships 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Blue eyes white dragon
Scuffed phone

[SilenceRadio]

4 hours ago, The Sword said:

5 hours ago, SilenceRadio said:

If they're not interested in having sex and feel more connected to the ace community, regardless of any sexual attraction or desire they might have, it might make sense for them to ID as ace.

We won't find common ground there, no.

Really? In the same way some aromantic people feel like their aromanticism is tied to their singlehood, some asexual people can feel like celibacy is part of their orientation, meaning that these asexual people who've experienced sexual attraction yet have zero interest in acting on it will find common ground with those aces.

 

Especially since...

 

4 hours ago, The Sword said:

They should be referred to celibacy groups, instead of trying to bastardize asexuality by including them into a community where they simply do not belong (other than as sexual allies). If their feelings lead them to misidentify as asexual, they should be firmly (albeit respectfully) corrected; in doing so, we further education and visibility.

..."experiencing sexual attraction and drive, but not strongly enough to want to act on them" can be a gray-A experience, and therefore not completely unrelated to asexuality. So I don't understand the assumption that they're necessarily sexual. I'm not sure how forgetting about the gray area or how it can share common ground with asexuality "further education and visibility".

[The Sword]

@SilenceRadio

Since we're verging closer and closer to a full-blown defdeb here, The Sword's going to bow out at this point. 

 

[CharlieH]

I don’t really understand this conversation.  My trauma involves being raped repeatedly when I was little, and I have not felt whole and like I was on an island since then.  I heard about this term and found this discussion from a google search.  I took from the comments that You just see me as a bastard stepchild and don’t really have a place in the community.  I didn’t ask for this to happen to me. I will return to my island now.  Thanks.

[SilenceRadio]

1 minute ago, CharlieH said:

I don’t really understand this conversation.  My trauma involves being raped repeatedly when I was little, and I have not felt whole and like I was on an island since then.  I heard about this term and found this discussion from a google search.  I took from the comments that You just see me as a bastard stepchild and don’t really have a place in the community.  I didn’t ask for this to happen to me. I will return to my island now.  Thanks.

Most people on AVEN aren't criticizing the experiences themselves, I feel, more the way they are labeled. But I can totally understand how a line got crossed in this thread.

You have a place in this community if you want one (or, if not here, somewhere in the ace community, since it's bigger than AVEN). Your experience in no way undermines asexuality. Some parts of the ace community are worse on this point, but most reasonable people understand that trauma does not negate asexuality. You know yourself better, after all.

[CharlieH]

@SilenceRadio thank you for your response, I really appreciate you.  This journey has been a long bumpy road, and I am not sure who I am, I just want somewhere to belong where someone understands.  Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place and should be looking for resources for survivors and figure out sexuality later.  Thanks again for your reply !!

[SilenceRadio]

3 hours ago, CharlieH said:

@SilenceRadio thank you for your response, I really appreciate you.  This journey has been a long bumpy road, and I am not sure who I am, I just want somewhere to belong where someone understands.  Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place and should be looking for resources for survivors and figure out sexuality later.  Thanks again for your reply !!

You're welcome!

If you want ace-specific survivor resources, I know Queenie who's done a lot of stuff on that (such as a website dedicated to it). Here's one post in particular which gives more links (Queenie is particularly fond of linking stuff) as well as advice pertaining to ace survivors. "Survivor" and "ace" aren't mutually exclusive.

[LizCat]

I recently came across this term after struggling with my sexuality for the better part of the last decade. I am a survivor of sexual abuse that occurred when I was about 8 years old. So, I never got the chance to fully understand my own identity before my trauma occurred. It's hard for people who have experienced trauma at a young age because you will never know who you would have been without those experiences, who you truly were and would have grown to be.

I am repulsed by the idea of sex and always have been. However, I do not know whether or to what extent my abuse has caused these feelings. It could be that I was always ace but how will I ever know for sure. It's very confusing and makes you feel invalid in a community like the ace community because you're always wondering if you're an imposter or if you truly belong anywhere.

I don't know what I can officially label myself as, but my simple truth is this: I feel romantic attraction, I'm not attracted to people sexually, the idea of sex or sexual contact repulses me and I never plan on pursuing sexual activity.

 

I think within the definition of the word caedsexual is a similar uncertainty to what I described above. "...someone who feels that they were allosexual at one point..."

"Feels" that who they are has been fundamentally changed by past experiences, but will never truly know to what extent.

[Janus the Fox]

“Feels” allo (sexual or romantic) could be entirely subjective to me.  It’s quite possible Aces and Aros have felt this way despite having no desires or attractions, no experiences of anything.  The ‘feeling’ could be there until learning about Asexuality/Aromantisism for the first time.  An interesting theory to me and one that brings on the thought that where did this feeling came from in the first place.

 

Its a bit of a contrast to myself, there was no feeling of any kind either along with no attractions, desires or experiences.  I never knew I was different from anybody else.

[SilenceRadio]

7 hours ago, LizCat said:

I am repulsed by the idea of sex and always have been. However, I do not know whether or to what extent my abuse has caused these feelings. It could be that I was always ace but how will I ever know for sure. It's very confusing and makes you feel invalid in a community like the ace community because you're always wondering if you're an imposter or if you truly belong anywhere.

I'm sorry you feel this way. I'm not sure if my perspective might help, but I'll try.

 

When I first started questioning my sexuality, I kept wondering if I was "truly" asexual or if I was simply a late-bloomer. I didn't experience sexual desire or attraction, but because of the circumstances, I felt like being young invalidated my asexuality. I could only be "really" asexual if I knew that to always be true, to be a core part of my essence. I have since rejected this kind of thinking. Nothing is stopping me from being young and asexual, rather than asexual because I'm young. There are a lot of narratives around nonsexuality: religious celibacy, being a late-bloomer, trauma, gender dysphoria inhibiting any sexual desire. Pinpointing a "cause" to one's asexuality... does not negate that asexuality. In fact, you don't have to determine whether your abuse "caused" your asexuality or if you were always this way. The "born this way" narrative is a narrative like any other, not a universal truth that applies to everyone's experience with (a)sexuality. And it was one that was mostly used to justify (conditional) acceptance of non-straight (a)sexualities. You don't have to value it: it's a story that some people tell themselves, but it's one that you have to adopt for yourself.

 

I could've kept telling the story that I was "just" a late-bloomer or some repressed individual, but I'm not sure it was the kind of story that bred self-acceptance. At times, I tell myself that I'm deluding myself with this ace stuff, and that I'm hurting myself and others by identifying that way. But it's not true, and the reasoning is rather flawed and unjust. It doesn't matter why I'm this way: I am this way, and I can describe it with whatever words fit best.

 

You might find some of the comments here helpful:

 

Quote

you don't need to conceptualize your relationship to sexuality in terms of (or hinge your self-acceptance on ruling out) these kinds of origin stories. It doesn't need to matter where it came from. It doesn't need to matter if it's "natural" or not. You are here now, in the present, and you deserve the same autonomy as anyone.

 

[...]

 

The why doesn't really matter, only that it is a thing and should be viewed as is and not picked apart if you don't want it to be.

Like, is the aversion due to my asexuality or my (probable) autism or is it the touch aversion or the texture issue or or or. It doesn't matter! I'm not going to change it. Things are fine as is, who cares.

 

Some people on this very forum used to be allosexual, but their feelings then changed, and I see them as the asexual people that they are. You can belong here, or in another part of the ace community if you want to. Anyone who believes that people who identify as asexual and don't have a clear-cut "before" and "after" are damaging the community are wrong. We're meant to be a community fighting for the normalization of no/low sexual desire/attraction/libido, no matter the cause, and if we're telling others that they're broken as a way to make ourselves feel more whole, then it's not a community I want to be a part of. Asexuality is not some distinct, sacred and concrete Thing that needs to be separated from maybe-caused-asexuality, possibly-a-late-bloomer, I-don't-want-sex-but-not-for-"natural"-reasons or whatever. You're not an impostor, there have been many people in your position who identified as ace (and some who decided not to) and they were not impostors either. They were a valid part of the community.

 

9 hours ago, LizCat said:

I don't know what I can officially label myself as, but my simple truth is this: I feel romantic attraction, I'm not attracted to people sexually, the idea of sex or sexual contact repulses me and I never plan on pursuing sexual activity.

There's no official criteria to being asexual, other than identifying that way. There's no one who can deny your identification. If you're compelled to use the term, do! A lot of what you describe sounds similar to what many aces experience, so I don't see what would make you that different from them. To be fair, I believe "I never want to actually have sex" (and sex aversion) to be a good reason to ID as asexual. It's always been the more solid point of my own asexuality, more than sexual attraction and desire ever was.