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I Don't Want Sex and That's Okay? How it Feels to Hear About Asexuality!


Lady Girl

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Well I was both relieved that there's nothing wrong with me and really sad, as I had finally found a man that I hoped to built a life with and everything was okay until he kissed me and I realised I just CAN'T STAND this kind of intimacy. I can hug you a friendly way, I may even nap next to you if we're close, but anything sexual is a big NOPE. It absolutely repels me!

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44 minutes ago, Nill said:

Well I was both relieved that there's nothing wrong with me and really sad, as I had finally found a man that I hoped to built a life with and everything was okay until he kissed me and I realised I just CAN'T STAND this kind of intimacy. I can hug you a friendly way, I may even nap next to you if we're close, but anything sexual is a big NOPE. It absolutely repels me!

I hear you loud and clear. The one girl I knew I could've hugged her until the cows came home and really enjoyed her company, but when she broached the 'us having sex' topic, it was a hard no. We had previously discussed our sexual experience and I didn't have any issues at that time.

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14 hours ago, will123 said:

I hear you loud and clear. The one girl I knew I could've hugged her until the cows came home and really enjoyed her company, but when she broached the 'us having sex' topic, it was a hard no. We had previously discussed our sexual experience and I didn't have any issues at that time.

It's nice to hear I'm not the only one! My ex-boyfriend (we had to break up as he's sexual) and I are still great friends, and we meet every time he's nearby my hometown. The first weeks after the breakup were super hard on me, though - I felt I missed my chance of being happily married with a great guy who shared my dreams and goals. 

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A purple cat
2 hours ago, Nill said:

My ex-boyfriend (we had to break up as he's sexual)

That hurts so much. I'm a very romantic person and still believe that a solid relationship should be able to overcome difficulties, though I realise that when you can't find a fair compromise it's better to accept it ASAP.

Good that you are still great friends, and I hope you'll be able to find your way to live happily and, why not, also to get married :)

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A purple cat

Hi everyone, I don't feel ready to share my whole story yet, but hopefully will start a new topic later.
I had known the term asexuality for a few years (I can't recall where I heard it, but remember I did a quick search for the definition). I felt I could partially relate to the concept, but didn't go deeper. I talked a few times with my boyfriend about it but he couldn't understand. I can't blame him, as I wasn't fully convinced myself!
Then very recently he looked for info about asexuality and told me he finally understood. I also started to read a lot about the topic and, though I find definitions still confusing sometimes, I can definetly identify with many of the stories and experiences that have been shared.
What a relief! I finally got to understand that's how I really am, that I'm not broken nor lacking anything. Then many contrasting feelings came too: happiness (now I know), fear (mainly for the future of our relationship), pride (I accept me for who I am), loneliness (yeah, that black-sheep feeling), love (my parter understands, now I feel even more connected to him), fault (why didn't I understand before? Will he continue to suffer because of me? Am I too selfish?)... It's still a work in progress!
I'm so glad to have found this community, you have already helped a lot, just by sharing your thoughts, doubts and advices. I hope I'll be able to return the favour.

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29 minutes ago, A purple cat said:

That hurts so much. I'm a very romantic person and still believe that a solid relationship should be able to overcome difficulties, though I realise that when you can't find a fair compromise it's better to accept it ASAP.

Good that you are still great friends, and I hope you'll be able to find your way to live happily and, why not, also to get married :)

Thank you for you kind words. It would be difficult to find a compromise in our case - he wanted love, and I couldn't even kiss him without thinking 'yuck'. I was lucky to have his support, though. 

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22 minutes ago, A purple cat said:

Then many contrasting feelings came too: happiness (now I know), fear (mainly for the future of our relationship), pride (I accept me for who I am), loneliness (yeah, that black-sheep feeling), love (my parter understands, now I feel even more connected to him), fault (why didn't I understand before? Will he continue to suffer because of me? Am I too selfish?)... It's still a work in progress!
 

Dear Purple Cat, I'm still new to this all, but I am certain of one thing: whatever sexuality or gender you are, it's not your FAULT. It's not like we choose who we are attracted to, and you didn't chose to be asexual to spite your partner! 
I really hope you and your partner will figure out a way to be happy together, but please respect your own boundaries and don't 'sacrifice' yourself to make anyone happy. I wish you all the happiness and love! 

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9 hours ago, Nill said:

It's nice to hear I'm not the only one! My ex-boyfriend (we had to break up as he's sexual) and I are still great friends, and we meet every time he's nearby my hometown. The first weeks after the breakup were super hard on me, though - I felt I missed my chance of being happily married with a great guy who shared my dreams and goals. 

Unfortunately in my situation we parted ways that evening. I think she was weighing her options (according to the girl who introduced us, things didn't turn out well). I was really broke up as I had never opened up to anyone like I had with her. The fact that I said no to us having sex when I in some way was looking forward to it, wasn't really a concern.

 

Glad to read that you were able to remain friends despite your differences.

 

Now to the 'what if moment' , had I known about asexuality at the time, would I have been able to come out to her, would she have understood (my friends that I've told have been cool 8) ) and would we have remained platonic friends?

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On 6/13/2022 at 11:19 AM, A purple cat said:

Hi everyone, I don't feel ready to share my whole story yet, but hopefully will start a new topic later.
I had known the term asexuality for a few years (I can't recall where I heard it, but remember I did a quick search for the definition). I felt I could partially relate to the concept, but didn't go deeper. I talked a few times with my boyfriend about it but he couldn't understand. I can't blame him, as I wasn't fully convinced myself!
Then very recently he looked for info about asexuality and told me he finally understood. I also started to read a lot about the topic and, though I find definitions still confusing sometimes, I can definetly identify with many of the stories and experiences that have been shared.
What a relief! I finally got to understand that's how I really am, that I'm not broken nor lacking anything. Then many contrasting feelings came too: happiness (now I know), fear (mainly for the future of our relationship), pride (I accept me for who I am), loneliness (yeah, that black-sheep feeling), love (my parter understands, now I feel even more connected to him), fault (why didn't I understand before? Will he continue to suffer because of me? Am I too selfish?)... It's still a work in progress!
I'm so glad to have found this community, you have already helped a lot, just by sharing your thoughts, doubts and advices. I hope I'll be able to return the favour.

Hi I’ve just joined and reading this definitely resinated with me, but my partner just doesn't get me and I think it’s about to come crashing down for us.  I’d love to know how you are moving forwards together. 

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Gigantimaxie
On 11/24/2012 at 2:40 PM, Tengu said:

I think I had the inverse epiphany. I discovered that everyone else was sexual. I have a personality that can ignore anything that doesn't directly relate or affect me, so I think I ignored the whole sex thing. When I finally understood how much sex affected other people's lives, I had a big "OOOOOOoooohhhhhhhhhh" moment, and I was flooded with memories of situations that didn't make sense at the time. They finally made sense when put into context of my being asexual, and the rest of the world being sexual.

I think I was excited because things I didn't understand finally made sense. I'm able to use these new pieces of data to interact better with people around me.

Yeah, I never really felt attracted to anyone before, and knowing I'm ace helps me with understanding that. I mean, I'm only 17, so I don't know all THAT much. Ironically, I've been able to feel certain amounts of arousal, yet never wanted to go through with it; like being that physically intimate with someone. Plus, any fantasies I've had (when they actually DID happen) was just me either hanging out with the person for some fazed reason I wouldn't let myself remember or feeling unreasonably anxious  around them. 

I never really wanted to go on dates that much, either. It was only earlier this year that I really thought about it, since my parents were egging me to date this one girl I have a Squish on (I'm straight, just to get that out of the way).

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aroace dinosaur -3-

be warned, i know this thread is more about asexuality, but i'm gonna talk about my aromanticism along with my asexuality ._.'    throughout my life, i've kind of always thought that i was too young to feel sexual (or romantic) attraction, but as you get older, it becomes a kind of "wait why don't i feel these things" kind of thing and tbh i always thought i was straight because for a lot of my life, that was the only thing i knew existed, so when i learned about other things and i happened to not like any gender, i kind of mixed up the types of attraction i felt? for a while, i kind of confused platonic attraction with romantic attraction and aesthetic attraction with sexual attraction i guess, because when i didn't realize you could be not straight, that's what i had done, and in retrospect, kind of feels like it was just me trying to feel included? shows and movies are always talking about crushes and falling in love and there's a real emphasis on little girls giggling about their crushes and so i kind of just thought that sounded fun so i convinced myself i had crushes. at some point i had a friend i was really close with and kind of thought i liked him, but when i think about the way i told my friends, it sounded more like i was trying to convince myself i liked him, asking things like "i really do like him, don't i?", and after that my friends tried to convince me to tell him that i liked him, kind of putting a lot of pressure on me to tell him that i liked him, and when i told him, he told me he liked me back, and i was in shock, so he asked me to date him and i said yes because like this was what i thought i wanted, but throughout the rest of that day, i felt really gross and i had a terrible sinking feeling, which, i thought i was just nervous, but i decided to tell him i didn't want to date him (i got lucky and chickened out before it was too late, that would have been an awkward conversation ._.'). moving onto asexuality, movies about teens are most of the are loading with sexual content, kind of making it seem like all teens wanting to have sex 24/7, but i was always like "people can't really be like that", but then i would hear rumors at school about stuff like that, and it seemed so bizarre. when you're supposed to feel something you don't actually feel, you make up excuses in your mind. it was always things like how no one was my type and stuff like that, and at times when i felt extra alienated, i would, like i said earlier, assume my platonic and aesthetic attraction (and i mean other kinds of attraction too) were the kinds of attraction i didn't feel. when i finally started thinking more about how i could be ace and aro, it felt like everything made sense and i found the missing pieces to the puzzle of my life. however, i would kind of just keep it to myself. i would question it 24/7, so i started looking tons of things up (which is how i found this site), and when i finally started telling people, it was like i was at peace with myself. the questioning myself as often kind of just stopped. i mean, it could all change in the future, for some people it does, but for now, i feel comfortable just labeling myself as aroace. it feels like reassuring myself that it's ok to not have sexual or romantic feelings, which tbh feels nice. coincidently, i started making more friends and opening up to people more around the same time i started thinking of myself as aroace :thinking: but so yeah that's me hi (i shouldn't have typed something so long because i definitely don't have the attention span to proofread this so i'm just gonna hope i didn't make any huge grammatical errors or say the wrong thing ;-;)

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  • 1 month later...

Hi everyone,

after struggling to understand what's "wrong" with me for a great deal of my life, I finally understood what I am and I happily came out as asexual at the age of 29. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And now that I found this community I feel like I'm finally not totally alone :)

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On 6/13/2022 at 1:19 PM, A purple cat said:

Hi everyone, I don't feel ready to share my whole story yet, but hopefully will start a new topic later.
I had known the term asexuality for a few years (I can't recall where I heard it, but remember I did a quick search for the definition). I felt I could partially relate to the concept, but didn't go deeper. I talked a few times with my boyfriend about it but he couldn't understand. I can't blame him, as I wasn't fully convinced myself!
Then very recently he looked for info about asexuality and told me he finally understood. I also started to read a lot about the topic and, though I find definitions still confusing sometimes, I can definetly identify with many of the stories and experiences that have been shared.
What a relief! I finally got to understand that's how I really am, that I'm not broken nor lacking anything. Then many contrasting feelings came too: happiness (now I know), fear (mainly for the future of our relationship), pride (I accept me for who I am), loneliness (yeah, that black-sheep feeling), love (my parter understands, now I feel even more connected to him), fault (why didn't I understand before? Will he continue to suffer because of me? Am I too selfish?)... It's still a work in progress!
I'm so glad to have found this community, you have already helped a lot, just by sharing your thoughts, doubts and advices. I hope I'll be able to return the favour.

I just read this and it totally resignated with me. The feeling of guilt is way to familiar to me, I had to break up with my ex, because I think, in the long run, neither of us would be happy with compromises (he's way too sexual). I don't think he ever fully understood asexuality, which is alright, since it took me quite some time to figure things out as well. He is an amazing person though and I felt very bad having to break things off with him. In a way, I did it so that he wouldn't have to suffer, but mostly I did it because even the thought of getting physical is unbearable to me. I used to do it, because I thought it's what you supposed to do when you're in the relationship, but everytime I felt like I lost a tiny piece of myself that I'll never get back. I just had to get out of that.
We remained good friends, but sometimes he texts me how much he misses me and that makes me feel overwhelmingly guilty. 

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4 hours ago, Dreina said:

Hi everyone,

after struggling to understand what's "wrong" with me for a great deal of my life, I finally understood what I am and I happily came out as asexual at the age of 29. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And now that I found this community I feel like I'm finally not totally alone :)

Welcome to AVEN! :cake: That is exactly how I felt when I found out about asexuality and AVEN. Others have said the same. I wasn't questioning my identity (I thought I was straight) even though I was perpetually single and not putting much effort into it.

 

And yes it is nice to find out there are others that have little or no interest in being sexually active.

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WizardGrayFire

Hi, y’all! I heard about asexuality a long time ago, but somehow I only realized I might be ace around a year ago and only started haphazardly looking everything up on the internet some weeks ago (maybe a month now idk time). Every new word I learned in this search came with a whole slew of realizations about past events, e.g. “aesthetic attraction, huh?… wait a minute yOU CAN THINK SOMEONE IS PRETTY AND THAT ISN’T NECESSARILY SEXUAL ATTRACTION?!” Just the fact that all these things had *names* was eye-opening. At this point, all the memories have clicked together (now with words to explain what was happening) and I’m definitely ace. Looking back, I can tell there were tons of clues that I might be ace which I just didn’t pick up on. I now think that I might’ve missed them in part due to a lack of words to differentiate what I was(n’t) feeling from being heterosexual.

 

Knowing I’m ace hasn’t actually changed much, nor did I expect it to. I’m gonna think and act the same way I did before I knew, it’s just nice that now I have an explanation for my thoughts and actions.
 

TL;DR: I had no idea how closely linked my sexuality was with my vocabulary.

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For me, it felt like what I always knew about myself finally had a name. I've never had any interest in sexual intercourse, though when I felt pressured to enter a relationship I also pressured myself to try it. Looking back, I wish I hadn't done it. Anyway, hearing that asexuality exists and that I wasn't just a terrible partner was like "Ha! I knew it!" and I'll forever be grateful for coming to terms with myself.

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12 hours ago, WizardGrayFire said:

Hi, y’all! I heard about asexuality a long time ago, but somehow I only realized I might be ace around a year ago and only started haphazardly looking everything up on the internet some weeks ago (maybe a month now idk time). Every new word I learned in this search came with a whole slew of realizations about past events, e.g. “aesthetic attraction, huh?… wait a minute yOU CAN THINK SOMEONE IS PRETTY AND THAT ISN’T NECESSARILY SEXUAL ATTRACTION?!” Just the fact that all these things had *names* was eye-opening. At this point, all the memories have clicked together (now with words to explain what was happening) and I’m definitely ace. Looking back, I can tell there were tons of clues that I might be ace which I just didn’t pick up on. I now think that I might’ve missed them in part due to a lack of words to differentiate what I was(n’t) feeling from being heterosexual.

 

Knowing I’m ace hasn’t actually changed much, nor did I expect it to. I’m gonna think and act the same way I did before I knew, it’s just nice that now I have an explanation for my thoughts and actions.
 

TL;DR: I had no idea how closely linked my sexuality was with my vocabulary.

Welcome to AVEN! :cake: On the bold, sounds like me as well, mind you I don't think I had a ton of clues... 😉

 

I always thought I was straight since I found girls attractive and had friends that were female.

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 Hi everyone 👋 So this is probably more of a ramble than anything, as I've never really fully articulated my journey. I only understood and came to terms with the fact that I was ace earlier this year. I'd known something was different for a while, but I didn't even really start to think that maybe something was 'wrong' with me until I was well into my 20s. It was like I'd just breezed through school and uni in my own little bubble not even thinking about relationships. I'd had crushes, but they were the sort where I liked them because of personality and aesthetic attraction, but I never wanted anything further. I was just happy to have a little crush if that makes sense? Any sense of reciprocation made me just nope right out of there 😅 ... which was probably me potentially being lithromantic, I think? Still learning all the terms. Every so often I'd be all "Huh, everyone else seems to be having certain experiences, should I be as well?", but the more I thought about it the more I didn't want to and then I'd start thinking there was something wrong with me, that I was broken, because this wasn't 'normal'. It was easier to just ignore everything and go back to being oblivious.

 

Sometimes I'd get lonely though. I'd download dating apps and then complain to my friends about how I couldn't find anyone and they were like "yeah, that's because you keep using it to try and find friends, and not in the way most people mean when they're looking for 'friends' on there!!", which was...yeah...not the best way to use those apps 😂 I DID make a friend on there though, haha, who was ace and at the time I'd only vaguely heard the term, but the more they talked about it the more it felt familiar. I still didn't fully look into it though. It was just one of those things where I thought "Oh, maybe I'm ace but who knows" and left it at that. 

 

Cue a year overseas, mental health issues, covid/several lockdowns, more mental health issues, and I finally got to a point where I really needed to figure out who I was... so the ace research I should have done back when I first fully came across the term finally happened! I can't even really explain how I felt when I realised that this was it, that I wasn't broken or defective, that there was a term for what I was, it was a real thing, and there were others like me!! 😌

 

It took me a while to get my head around the fact that aesthetic and sexual attraction were two completely different things, and that what I felt and what my friends felt when looking at people were not the same, but the understanding made me feel so much lighter, the weight of subconsciously (& consciously) feeling wrong had been lifted, and for the first time ever I was on the way to really understanding myself. I've figured out that I'm aegosexual and am currently in the process of working out where I fall on the romantic spectrum.

 

I'm happy, now that I understand myself better, and am looking forward to getting to know more aces 😊

 

Haha this was a bit of a long one, thank you for coming to my TEDtalk!! 💜

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On 8/13/2022 at 2:29 PM, WizardGrayFire said:

e.g. “aesthetic attraction, huh?… wait a minute yOU CAN THINK SOMEONE IS PRETTY AND THAT ISN’T NECESSARILY SEXUAL ATTRACTION?!” 

 

Looking back, I can tell there were tons of clues that I might be ace which I just didn’t pick up on. 

Yeah, these two points were me exactly 😂

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20 minutes ago, Izzybel said:

the understanding made me feel so much lighter, the weight of subconsciously (& consciously) feeling wrong had been lifted, and for the first time ever I was on the way to really understanding myself. I

 

I'm happy, now that I understand myself better, and am looking forward to getting to know more aces 😊

 

Haha this was a bit of a long one, thank you for coming to my TEDtalk!! 💜

Welcome to AVEN :cake: I felt the same when I read about AVEN the first time too. Don't worry about your post, nothing wrong with telling your story.

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6 hours ago, LeChat said:

@Izzybel Hi. Welcome! :cake:

 

Yep! Your story is relatable for some aces, here.

 

:) Also, I like your avatar.

Thank you! 😊

Haha, I lost it the first time I saw it, so now I have to use it for everything :D

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BaklavaGuardian

I felt as if a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. For too long I felt like I was crazy because I didn't want or enjoy sex. Once I did some research it was wonderful to know others were like me. 

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3 hours ago, BaklavaGuardian said:

I felt as if a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. For too long I felt like I was crazy because I didn't want or enjoy sex. Once I did some research it was wonderful to know others were like me. 

Welcome to AVEN! :cake: 

 

I know the feeling! I thought I was straight but not putting any effort into having a sex life.

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