asexual and confused.

[chirpot]

hey! so this is basically a detailed account of what's on my mind lately. obviously there will be talk about sex in it, so fair warning for that! this is gonna be a very long overshare, but i really need to know if anyone else feels the same.

 

so. where to begin. when i was a teenager, i thought i might be ace. but i kinda ignored it, knowing full well that i was young and might just be a "late bloomer" or whatever. i didn't want to make any calls like that when i knew my body was changing a lot. so i guess i didn't give myself enough credit there; it's evident that i always knew on some level.

 

but i hit eighteen and went to college and had my little hoe phase haha. two girls and two guys in one year, and i didn't care for any experience. it felt so boring. i thought maybe i just didn't like the people enough, or that we weren't experienced enough for it to be any good. so, i was still just trying to explain everything away.

 

so here's where the dirty details start, so click off if you don't want to hear about some internet rando's college sex life!! i would not blame you. i know this is a huge overshare, but i really want to contextualize my experience and give specifics. i just wanna know if anyone else gets this.

 

also yes, you can laugh at these things. they're pretty ridiculous.

 

my "first time," if you can even call it that, was on christmas break of freshman year. literally lost my v-card on an air mattress in my parents' basement.

 

my girlfriend at the time was visiting for the holidays, so we wanted a little ~quality time~. she knew i was a virgin/i'd never been touched, even though i touched her. so she was patient, but when i finally let her touch me, i hated it. someone had their hands on me trying to make me feel as good as possible, and i'd never been less aroused in my life.

 

it felt like being stuffed like a fucking thanksgiving turkey. it was gross and awful and it hurt. i think i let it happen for about all of two minutes. to this day, i do chalk *some* of this up to inexperience on her part; we were pretty young. we broke up about a month later, though to my knowledge it was nothing to do with my bedroom hangups.

 

i ended my little freshman year hoe phase and didn't seriously date again for a couple years, until like 2020. i'd had a crush on this new girl for like a year, and she finally asked me to date her. i thought i'd be excited but i just wasn't. we kissed for the first time in her car and i was confused because i didn't like it at all. i just realized it feels so nasty to have someone else's breath on my face and their hands on me and just. ugh. weird. 

 

it was in the middle of covid, so we weren't allowed to bring people from other dorms into our rooms. every physical encounter we had was in her car, yet another thing i used to explain why i wasn't enjoying it. so finally, i sneaked her into my dorm room and. y'know.

 

i hated it.

 

i swear to *god* i almost threw up. (and again, you can laugh.)

 

she enjoyed it a lot, which was good i guess. but i just felt like garbage for the rest of the night, not knowing why i didn't like it. and the whole time, i didn't let her touch me. the thought of being naked in front of another human again was so disgusting. i lied and said i just wanted it to be about her.

 

it was disturbingly easy to pretend i wanted to do it. the whole thing felt like a performance. i was good at it, but i hated stepping into that role. i knew exactly how she liked it, exactly how to make her struggle not to react too loudly in my little dorm building, people sleeping on either side of my bedroom walls.

 

"i'm gonna wake up your neighbors..."

 

"fuck the neighbors."

 

i felt like a psycho for knowing exactly what to say and when, even though i hated it the whole time. i think this whole thing sounds like a humble brag, but it truthfully just felt awful. i was so good at lying to myself about it that i lied to someone who was trusting me with their entire self.

 

apparently, sex means something to people. to me, it was something to get over with. something you do for someone because you like them, not because you want to. it's either a favor or a means to an end.

 

next time we were supposed to do it was at her house. her parents were out of town and we had the place to ourselves. how exciting, right?

 

nope! i had a panic attack in her bathroom. literally just *thinking* about having sex with her again made me lose it. she was understanding, we chalked it up to anxiety, and she dumped me a couple months later when i moved back home.

 

i was weirdly relieved.

 

the following summer i dated a girl for about a month. i loved being around her; she made me feel calm and soft and warm. but the whole time, i was dreading the point where i knew i'd have to have sex with her.

 

one night, i got home from her apartment, where i'd stayed for nearly a couple days straight. without sex. i loved that. but i knew it was coming, and when i got home, i texted her: "i think i'm asexual." it was the first time i ever truly acknowledged it.

 

she didn't want a sexless relationship, and i understood that. we parted ways and it broke my heart. i decided that if being ace meant heartbreak, i didn’t want that. i stuffed it down again.

 

i didn't date again until senior year, when i met this girl that i thought was nice enough. she was pretty, and kind, and made me laugh constantly. but even just kissing her was a chore. while i was dating her, i met someone else. he was fascinating and attractive and hilarious. i wanted to spend all my time around him, and i realized that i was absolutely enamored.

 

he was one of the first people i admitted to not having real feelings for my girlfriend to. he was in the same boat, and we encouraged each other to leave our less than perfect relationships. it seemed great. he was one of my best friends and i loved everything about him.

 

but the craziest part was how bad i wanted him.

 

i had to move home again, and leave him, but nearly every night was full of frenzied sexts (via discord, because where else would you sext) and nudes.

 

i adored it.

 

some part of me still experienced confusion, like when he asked if i thought of him when i touched myself. people really think of their crushes that way? still, i wanted him badly.

 

but i parted ways with him too, and i've never wanted anyone else like that before or since. i can count on my fingers the amount of times i've felt like that: once, in high school, with my first love, and once with him. twice in 23 years.

 

it *finally* started to solidify when i talked to my best friend about it recently. they can sort through my mind barf and effortlessly understand what i'm telling them; it's incredible. but we talked for a long time and i eventually came to the conclusion that i'm probably ace or grey-ace.

 

i dread the sex stage of relationships; when i finally do it i'm repulsed at worst and bored at best; i can't stand even kissing people half the time; and i swear to god i've never once enjoyed my time with someone else as much as i enjoy time with myself, if you catch my drift. i could think of a million other examples, but yeah.

 

tell me someone else gets these feelings?

 

TL;DR: i've been in denial about being ace for years, and i'm forcing myself to actually address it and it's very confusing.

[EmeraldIce]

24 minutes ago, chirpot said:

some part of me still experienced confusion, like when he asked if i thought of him when i touched myself. people really think of their crushes that way?

This part definitely resonated with me. I had the same reaction when my ex asked me a similar question. Or rather, I was shocked to learn that he thought about me when masturbating. Like, I knew that people were attracted to each other, but I'd only ever understood it to mean romantic attraction like what I saw in my Chinese period dramas. I was nearly 28 when I learned that people could actually get turned on by thinking of someone.

 

On that same note, I think I may have already been married when I realized that physical proximity can turn people on. To me, a cuddle was just a cuddle. If you're a physical person like I am, a cuddle might feel like the best thing in the world, but it doesn't turn me on or lead me to want sex, and it actually created a lot of confusion in the early days of my marriage. We'd decide to have sex and we'd be cuddling and kissing and after some time, he'd ask me if I was wet yet, and I'd get super confused because I didn't realize he considered that foreplay. I didn't think we'd gotten started at all. In fact, my mind wasn't even on sex at all because I was enjoying his presence and the cuddling. To me, the more I enjoy the intimacy, the less I can get turned on. I have to put my mind into an imaginary world or an imaginary scenario in order to be turned on, and physical proximity and intimacy is distracting from that process of adjusting my mentality.

[chirpot]

22 minutes ago, EmeraldIce said:

To me, the more I enjoy the intimacy, the less I can get turned on. I have to put my mind into an imaginary world or an imaginary scenario in order to be turned on, and physical proximity and intimacy is distracting from that process of adjusting my mentality.

yes yes yes!!! i feel so close to someone when i’m snuggling them or laughing with them or making dinner for them. literally anything other than sex. i never feel further from someone than i do when i’m having sex with them. 

 

i *absolutely* have to use made up scenarios to get off at all, and that feels so wrong to do it with someone else, y’know?? but yeah i completely get that!!

[ei-hvað]

2 hours ago, EmeraldIce said:

On that same note, I think I may have already been married when I realized that physical proximity can turn people on. To me, a cuddle was just a cuddle. If you're a physical person like I am, a cuddle might feel like the best thing in the world, but it doesn't turn me on or lead me to want sex, and it actually created a lot of confusion in the early days of my marriage. We'd decide to have sex and we'd be cuddling and kissing and after some time, he'd ask me if I was wet yet, and I'd get super confused because I didn't realize he considered that foreplay. I didn't think we'd gotten started at all. In fact, my mind wasn't even on sex at all because I was enjoying his presence and the cuddling. To me, the more I enjoy the intimacy, the less I can get turned on. I have to put my mind into an imaginary world or an imaginary scenario in order to be turned on, and physical proximity and intimacy is distracting from that process of adjusting my mentality.

I can definitely relate to this. I'm placiosexual, so I enjoy pleasuring my partner, but I also just really enjoy cuddling by itself, and I've never fantasized about my partner or sex. Actually having sex, or having sexual attention turned to me runs the gamut from indifferency to aversion depending on what's being done. Even though my partner is asexual too, she is more sensual than I am and enjoys some pretty heavy petting. I'm happy to accommodate her and make her happy, but I'm also glad she respects my wishes not to have the focus be on me. She can touch my penis if she really wants to, but I really prefer no further movement.

 

I used to exchange nudes with my ex, and I was also very confused about it. Like, is this actually turning her on? Does she like seeing me naked this much? It was doubly strange because she also didn't want my face to be in the photos, while contextless photos of breasts and such make me feel queasy. I grew up in a pretty liberal society so I'm fine with being naked around others or seeing naked people, but as soon as there's a sexual dimension to it I feel awkward and uncomfortable.

 

I have a non-sexual fetish I masturbate to, but it's very much focused on fantasy and is clearly separated from real people. I've never fantasized about anyone close to me, and like you, cuddling is it's own separate great thing (which I honestly enjoy even more, because I can share it with someone else). It definitely doesn't make me think of libido fodder.