Anybody think I fit here?

[Sara (the geek)]

Hi guys, so. I have a personal story I'd like to tell y'all and see what you think. I know I could read through this whole forum and possibly find someone (or multiple someones) similar to me, but I'm a busy kid so I'm just going to go ahead and ask your opinions on me personally first. Again I'm sorry for how long this is but basically I'm an individual who thinks way too much.

I guess I've tentatively put myself somewhere on the grey-A scale for a long time. Whether this is "right" or not is up for discussion.

I generally go by "panromantic lesbian" for a label but I don't really know, it just describes the way that I only feel sexual (or what I think are sexual) things for girls, but can "like" anybody in a vaguely romantic sense.

From the beginning of my awareness of this thing called sexuality, I understood it as something quite distant from me personally, although emotional love I did imagine and look forward to. In early high school I went from thinking it was a philosophical choice to be uninterested in anything remotely sexual, to identifying as asexual--granted, I didn't have the word for it then. It was feelings of romantic love that clued me in to my gayness, but I still drifted around being not very interested in sexual things for a long time. When I crushed on a lesbian I just really really wanted to get a hug out of her, and after two years that became "well I'd kiss you if we could ever be together," but I knew we wouldn't be and besides, I had never been kissed so there was probably a lot of simple curiosity playing in there.

So anyway, I was generally describing it to folks as "I'm just a very non-sexual being," when I met my current girlfriend. It was weird for me because I'm used to friendship becoming romantic friendship becoming a sexual(?) crush, but with my girl and I it's kind of all wound up together. Does that make any sense? Like the sexual attraction grew alongside the romantic attraction and the deep emotional connections.

We've been together for a substantial amount of time now and the things I feel for her make me question my previous assessment of my sexual capacities.

Now, I know nobody but myself can definitively tell me who I am, but I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if some things I've always experienced are normal for sexual people or not.

Things like, I don't understand what "horny" means. Is this because I just don't match the feeling with the word, or is it because I've never felt it? I mean, I tend to think it's the latter.

The thing is, I don't completely understand the concept of sexual desire, or at least I never have in the past. If I have a sex drive I don't recognize it. Intuitively I have no feeling to match with the idea. Like… a need to have sex? I don't… think I've ever felt that. I totally have a kiss drive and a cuddle drive but not a sex drive. And the first two only with my girlfriend.

I've never had an independent sexual need. Like, I've never found myself desiring something sexual when alone, like apparently many people do? I mean, there are always folks on the internet complaining about how they're lonely and horny. And I know a girl who was sleeping with a boy only because as she put it "I'm a teenager and I'm sexually frustrated. I have my needs." I don't understand either of those things.

I've never felt I needed any sort of sexual release, ever. I can dictionary define the term libido but don't have anything to match with it in myself. I've never masturbated, probably I don't know what I'm doing but the few times I've attempted touching myself it didn't do anything for me. I always say "I can't make myself feel things," even innocent things like touching my ticklish places (neck, arms, ears) don't do anything unless someone else does it to me (someone I'm attracted to, that is). I don't feel like I need to feel anything, either.

I've also never deliberately watched porn and the few times I've stumbled across it accidentally I am completely and utterly turned off by anything that goes below the waist. This goes for anything, straight or gay, although female-female kissing I love in any form (be it photos, movies, writing, other people, or me). I've indulged in occasional lesbian fantasies but only for figures I already care deeply about romantically.

I can identify attractive females, both in the sense of "aesthetically pleasing" and in the sense of sexually/romantically attractive (I don't know which it is), but I don't really find myself identifying males in that way. I do find every human being beautiful in an aesthetic sense. That said though, the only picture I'll get butterflies from is my girlfriend's smile.

Now, okay, the only reason all this bothers me is that constantly-recurring line-- "I'm asexual like this and this and this, EXCEPT with my girlfriend." Um. That's the thing.

We only kiss and cuddle, nothing very squicky so to speak, but when she touches me it's completely unlike anything I've ever experienced. I feel things for her physically, a kind of catching my breath, a kind of warmth, a kind of euphoria. I can't describe it. I never understood sexual attraction before but I think I'm starting to get it. From her I can definitely say I understand the idea of being "turned on." I like that image, it's like a lightbulb. Again though, I don't know if what I experience as "turned on" is different from what more sexual people experience.

I've never had a relationship of any kind (romantic, friendship, or otherwise) that ran this deep. We share everything we can't share, hopes, fears, confusion, the things we're ashamed of. I know I'm only seventeen but I say that I love her and I mean it. I also don't know whether I could feel what I feel for her physically without this emotional connection that we have. I don't know.

That's about it, I guess. If you got through this whole post I will be eternally grateful to you for your patience. I sound kind of sort-of-asexual to me but I don't know if that's just because I'm a teenager with no experience. But even my younger friends know what being horny means and I just don't. I think I will eventually want a sexual relationship with my girlfriend but I have never wanted that with anyone else, and I don't know if I would actually like it. Thoughts? Am I some kind of ace? or am I a demisexual who's with a girl right now and therefore having lesbian feelings? or am I really just a plain vanilla lesbian who didn't know it before?

#confusedconfusedconfused

[GrannyWeatherwax]

You could be demi or gray-a. To be honest, while I think labels can be useful, it sounds like you are in the middle of discovering more about yourself. Maybe you could keep the label question open, but off to the side for a while. Let your relationship take you where if is going to take you and evaluate in a few months. It sounds like you know you are somewhere on the ace spectrum, but don't know where. It is OK to be questioning.

Sorry, that didn't answer your question. But again, I don't think we can answer it; only you can. And may you can't answer it now. You may need more information.