#AsexualProblems

[nerdperson777]

2 hours ago, Leti said:

In a relationship. Friends make sexual jokes about your relationship. You Squirm inwardly. #AsexualProblems

This happened to my ace friend.  She thought she was aro, but she was actually demi-romantic.  I didn't think she'd be the type of person to announce her relationship online when she hardly posted on Facebook anyway.  So she did, and people were commenting on it, normal.  Then this one guy starts writing comments about "They did it!"  My friend replied, "[Guy's name] NO".  He replied back, "[His own name] YES."  My friend really doesn't like those kind of comments because she's very sex-repulsed.

[iyote]

Asexual problem: friends doubt your identity
My friend questioned if I'm really asexual or just completely inexperienced at dating by pointing out that I could be one of the people who only develop sexual attraction if I'm already in a close relationship.  My response was that yeah, I can't refute that possibility, but why the hell would I try that?  I'm aromantic too, so I don't want a relationship in the first place, and I don't even want to date.  It would make me SO uncomfortable to even have someone interested in me, or referring to me as their significant other.  The labels "asexual" and "aromantic" have described my experience for my entire life and I have no intention of changing my behavior just to fit into society.  Luckily she seemed to accept that.  

She personally doesn't label herself because she doesn't like the idea of choosing a label and then feeling like she HAS to stick to that identity, she just wants to be herself.  So I think she's concerned that I'm labelling myself too early, essentially defining myself as aro-ace and then forcing myself to abstain from relationships/sex.  What she doesn't realize is that she literally implied that I should force myself to do what I don't want to do in order to see if I fit into what society views as the "normal identity," rather than just being my relationship-repulsed self.  I get where she's personally coming from, but my labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, and I use them to communicate how I legitimately feel.  

That conversation was somewhat aggravating but at least it resolved well.  :\

[naakka]

28 minutes ago, iyote said:

but my labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, and I use them to communicate how I legitimately feel.

Well said. Labels should be treated as tools for communication, not as guide lines. You can change the label (or simply not label yourself anymore) the moment you feel like so. For some people not labeling themselves is s good freeing decision - meanwhile others really need their labels to express who they are and become more visible. Neither is wrong.

[Firefly8]

32 minutes ago, iyote said:

my labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, and I use them to communicate how I legitimately feel.  

👆 This! 👆

[nerdperson777]

22 hours ago, iyote said:

Asexual problem: friends doubt your identity
My friend questioned if I'm really asexual or just completely inexperienced at dating by pointing out that I could be one of the people who only develop sexual attraction if I'm already in a close relationship.  My response was that yeah, I can't refute that possibility, but why the hell would I try that?  I'm aromantic too, so I don't want a relationship in the first place, and I don't even want to date.  It would make me SO uncomfortable to even have someone interested in me, or referring to me as their significant other.  The labels "asexual" and "aromantic" have described my experience for my entire life and I have no intention of changing my behavior just to fit into society.  Luckily she seemed to accept that.  

She personally doesn't label herself because she doesn't like the idea of choosing a label and then feeling like she HAS to stick to that identity, she just wants to be herself.  So I think she's concerned that I'm labelling myself too early, essentially defining myself as aro-ace and then forcing myself to abstain from relationships/sex.  What she doesn't realize is that she literally implied that I should force myself to do what I don't want to do in order to see if I fit into what society views as the "normal identity," rather than just being my relationship-repulsed self.  I get where she's personally coming from, but my labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, and I use them to communicate how I legitimately feel.  

That conversation was somewhat aggravating but at least it resolved well.  :\

I totally get that.  I haven't had friends doubt my identity but I was talking to one.  I was talking about the six official types of attraction, and that I was aro ace, but I could be demisexual.  I was probably not going to find that out though.  She said, yeah, usually people find that out by actually dating.  I had a total ace moment in my head thinking about that.

[nerdperson777]

So I got two things going on.  I'm playing my Japanese mobile games, the ones that objectify but I play for the plot.  The first one, they released a new character.  I was thinking, "that's a nice looking girl.  Her body is fully covered.  Wait a minute, this must be a guy then."  It turned out I was correct.  That was a young teen boy.  This feels like a sad standard that if the character looks like a girl but doesn't have any leg or torso skin reveal, it's actually a guy.

 

Then the second game, they find ways to use several of the characters and make a story out of it.  So I got triggered because one of the characters said a phrase that I hated.  I mentioned some years ago about some guy on my Steam friends list who suddenly started flirting with me.  He said that I was "easy on the eyes" even though I don't remember ever sharing a picture of myself.  If I did share a picture, then it was old and I no longer looked like that.  Even though I told this guy that I wasn't a girl anymore, he thought he was complimenting me by saying that I'm "a girl to him :)".  That's the total opposite of a comment.  Then he thought I had a boyfriend and hated sex because I tried it.  There were also questions about my (nonexistent) sex life.  But anyway, one of the characters in the game used "easy on the eyes" and I felt totally triggered and disgusted.  I don't care if you think I'm attractive.  I don't exist solely for you to look at.  I couldn't believe that they're making this character a toxic straight person.  The more I think about it, the more headaches I get.

[nerdperson777]

I don't think it's exclusively an ace thing as people can be totally opposites about this.  But I have an issue when people don't wear clothes.  The other night I heard one of my roommates screaming and freaking out for like a whole minute straight.  I thought after that, it must've been serious so I decided to leave my room to check out the commotion.  The layout of the room is that on my left is my roommates' room, the right is the bathroom, and straight in front is the living room.  So I come out and the other roommate is standing in their door.  I asked what's going on and they said not to worry about it.  If someone is shrieking for that long, it can't be that small.  To get me to go back to my room, they said that they weren't wearing underwear.  Why is it so hard for people to wear clothes?  It wasn't even that warm that night.

 

Then later I was with this teen girl and she had to get picked up by her older sister.  She was unsure how long our test was and didn't want her sister to wait too long for her.  I heard that the sister had an online meeting when they got back home so she needed to prepare.  I said that she could prepare here.  I didn't know if my suggestion was taken.  But when she got there, she couldn't come in the building because she wasn't wearing pants.  I told the girl about the above story and she made this generalized statement that girls didn't like wearing underwear.  I doubt that's true.  At the same time, I can see that a (cis) girl would not be comfortable with an assumed male like me seeing them without pants.  I don't want people to feel awkward, but I don't know how to reassure people that they don't have to worry about me perving on them without coming out as AFAB or ace.  Partially, I'm just thinking that I have the same kind of body so there's nothing interesting that I haven't already seen on myself.  When I was closer friends with my teacher, I would just turn around whenever she needed to change and I never had any inkling to turn around and look.  In fact, I'm more worried about myself.  I had gotten her t-shirts last week and she prefers V neck ones because she finds the round neck ones too tight so she would always pull on round collars.  I prefer round collars myself because I find V necks too revealing.  I'm the kind of person who wants to cover up every inch of my body.  Even showing my collarbone like that I can't handle.

[puffin74656]

So I once went to a dance performance where they gave a brief nudity warning, which was mentioned both when buying and picking up tickets. I was initially a little wary because my comfort with nudity is not something I have really thought about, but since I had to see the show for one of my classes, I went. The first act was a beautiful dance piece. The second act started with a man walking across the stage only wearing socks as if he had forgotten his clothing. After he put his clothing on, I thought that the second dance was going fine. And it was, until the other dancer 

Spoiler

put a microphone down her underwear and started banging it on the floor. And then the pair of them started crawling over each other in a manner that I can only imagine is representative of sex.

I didn't time it, but it probably would not be unfair to say that this part of the dance went on for ten minutes. Meanwhile, I was very uncomfortably trying not to watch the dance and looking around at the rest of the audience and seeing that no one else seemed as uncomfortable. (#AsexualProblems) Once the dance was finally over, I went back to my dorm and cried.

 

Honestly, what annoyed me the most was that there was a warning for brief nudity but no warning for content that would have been sexual if there was not clothing involved.

 

Nudity repulsed does not equal sex repulsed.

[Anommamous]

39 minutes ago, puffin74656 said:

Nudity repulsed does not equal sex repulsed

Nor vice versa

 

40 minutes ago, puffin74656 said:

 

Honestly, what annoyed me the most was that there was a warning for brief nudity but no warning for content that would have been sexual if there was not clothing involved.

I feel that. Unfortunately, for most people nudity is inherently sexual. This is irritating for me because I enjoy being naked and it has nothing to do with anything sexual. It is simply more comfortable for me than wearing clothes.

[MakeupJunkie4]

55 minutes ago, puffin74656 said:

..The second act started with a man walking across the stage only wearing socks as if he had forgotten his clothing. After he put his clothing on, I thought that the second dance was going fine. And it was, until the other dancer 

  Hide contents

put a microphone down her underwear and started banging it on the floor. And then the pair of them started crawling over each other in a manner that I can only imagine is representative of sex.

 

That....THAT doesn't sound like much of a dance performance to me. I mean...it definitely can't be dubbed as mainstream "dance". If they want to take things to bizarre extremes, fine - but at least warn people, be up front about it, you know? DEFINITELY not a classy dance show, IMO - and definitely bad communication to their audience about the content. 😕 Sorry you went through that.

[Skycaptain]

Nevermind Asexual problems, that sounds like "curriculum problems" if they're expecting a class to see performance art which is that graphic 

[Bronztrooper]

On 5/24/2020 at 3:56 AM, nerdperson777 said:

I don't think it's exclusively an ace thing as people can be totally opposites about this.  But I have an issue when people don't wear clothes.  The other night I heard one of my roommates screaming and freaking out for like a whole minute straight.  I thought after that, it must've been serious so I decided to leave my room to check out the commotion.  The layout of the room is that on my left is my roommates' room, the right is the bathroom, and straight in front is the living room.  So I come out and the other roommate is standing in their door.  I asked what's going on and they said not to worry about it.  If someone is shrieking for that long, it can't be that small.  To get me to go back to my room, they said that they weren't wearing underwear.  Why is it so hard for people to wear clothes?  It wasn't even that warm that night.

 

Then later I was with this teen girl and she had to get picked up by her older sister.  She was unsure how long our test was and didn't want her sister to wait too long for her.  I heard that the sister had an online meeting when they got back home so she needed to prepare.  I said that she could prepare here.  I didn't know if my suggestion was taken.  But when she got there, she couldn't come in the building because she wasn't wearing pants.  I told the girl about the above story and she made this generalized statement that girls didn't like wearing underwear.  I doubt that's true.  At the same time, I can see that a (cis) girl would not be comfortable with an assumed male like me seeing them without pants.  I don't want people to feel awkward, but I don't know how to reassure people that they don't have to worry about me perving on them without coming out as AFAB or ace.  Partially, I'm just thinking that I have the same kind of body so there's nothing interesting that I haven't already seen on myself.  When I was closer friends with my teacher, I would just turn around whenever she needed to change and I never had any inkling to turn around and look.  In fact, I'm more worried about myself.  I had gotten her t-shirts last week and she prefers V neck ones because she finds the round neck ones too tight so she would always pull on round collars.  I prefer round collars myself because I find V necks too revealing.  I'm the kind of person who wants to cover up every inch of my body.  Even showing my collarbone like that I can't handle.

My dad usually just wears underwear around the house which doesn't really bother me because I'm used to it, but anyone else I would prefer stay clothed as much as possible.  Hell, once I saw a woman walking around at a fairground-ish event wearing shorts and a bra (not even a sports bra- which, honestly, I feel is much more acceptable) and all I could think was "Does she know shirts are a thing?".

 

Honestly, I instinctively look away if there's an indication that a woman in my general vicinity isn't fully-clothed for whatever reason, though I'm not entirely sure why as I was never really taught that.  Sometimes I've had to get stuff out of the bathroom while my sister was takingna shower and I'd make sure to say "I'm not looking- just getting * insert item here *", and she has done the same, but I guess since we're siblings it doesn't matter as much.  Still, I get why women in general aren't keen on the idea of being around men/male-presenting people while wearing less than they'd normally wear in public.

 

15 hours ago, Anommamous said:

Nor vice versa

 

I feel that. Unfortunately, for most people nudity is inherently sexual. This is irritating for me because I enjoy being naked and it has nothing to do with anything sexual. It is simply more comfortable for me than wearing clothes.

I very much would prefer to remain clothed as much as possible, especially around others.  Like, even when I'm home alone for an entire day I'd rather stay clothed.  Not a fan of being naked unless it's necessary.

[nerdperson777]

On 5/24/2020 at 8:25 PM, puffin74656 said:

So I once went to a dance performance where they gave a brief nudity warning, which was mentioned both when buying and picking up tickets. I was initially a little wary because my comfort with nudity is not something I have really thought about, but since I had to see the show for one of my classes, I went. The first act was a beautiful dance piece. The second act started with a man walking across the stage only wearing socks as if he had forgotten his clothing. After he put his clothing on, I thought that the second dance was going fine. And it was, until the other dancer 

  Hide contents

put a microphone down her underwear and started banging it on the floor. And then the pair of them started crawling over each other in a manner that I can only imagine is representative of sex.

I didn't time it, but it probably would not be unfair to say that this part of the dance went on for ten minutes. Meanwhile, I was very uncomfortably trying not to watch the dance and looking around at the rest of the audience and seeing that no one else seemed as uncomfortable. (#AsexualProblems) Once the dance was finally over, I went back to my dorm and cried.

 

Honestly, what annoyed me the most was that there was a warning for brief nudity but no warning for content that would have been sexual if there was not clothing involved.

 

Nudity repulsed does not equal sex repulsed.

I totally had a very similar experience a couple years ago.  This probably has been repeated somewhere.  During my last term in college, I was working on a theatre production.  Since the school is known for their theatre, they usually have multiple shows going on at once.  The actors were usually MFA students.  So the show I was working on was going to be an evening show that Saturday.  There was another show going on early afternoon so I thought, why not watch one before I have to do my own?  Plus when we had rehearsal, I had to be in the area anyway around that time.  I ended up getting a free ticket because I came at the right time and someone had forfeited their ticket, giving it to the next person who came by.  I walked through the doors and also disregarded the nudity sign.  It was about a bunch of interesting people in an apartment building.  I don't remember if the main character was named, but it was supposed to be kind of autobiographical for the playwright, who was struggling with homosexuality.  There's this older pedophile guy who tried to seduce him.  When most of his tactics failed, he decided to go for the "big guns".  Normally he was wearing boxer briefs and a bathrobe.  That time, he took off the bathrobe but there was no underwear.  Me being unprepared for that, it took me a couple seconds to realize it.  He had to turn around so everyone could see it, not just one angle.  I told my mom and cousin about this and they just laughed at me because I saw my first "live dick".  There was another actor, who a classmate pointed out was shirtless in every play he's been in.  I had not noticed, even after watching several of them in the past year.  But that guy was also in this play.  We saw his butt but he never turned around.

 

On 5/24/2020 at 11:20 PM, Skycaptain said:

Nevermind Asexual problems, that sounds like "curriculum problems" if they're expecting a class to see performance art which is that graphic 

When I took my classes, we had several to choose from.  But not knowing a single thing about most of them, I just kind of picked whichever had an interesting plot.

 

On 5/25/2020 at 12:54 PM, Bronztrooper said:

My dad usually just wears underwear around the house which doesn't really bother me because I'm used to it, but anyone else I would prefer stay clothed as much as possible.  Hell, once I saw a woman walking around at a fairground-ish event wearing shorts and a bra (not even a sports bra- which, honestly, I feel is much more acceptable) and all I could think was "Does she know shirts are a thing?".

 

Honestly, I instinctively look away if there's an indication that a woman in my general vicinity isn't fully-clothed for whatever reason, though I'm not entirely sure why as I was never really taught that.  Sometimes I've had to get stuff out of the bathroom while my sister was takingna shower and I'd make sure to say "I'm not looking- just getting * insert item here *", and she has done the same, but I guess since we're siblings it doesn't matter as much.  Still, I get why women in general aren't keen on the idea of being around men/male-presenting people while wearing less than they'd normally wear in public.

 

I very much would prefer to remain clothed as much as possible, especially around others.  Like, even when I'm home alone for an entire day I'd rather stay clothed.  Not a fan of being naked unless it's necessary.

I'm probably used to my parents staying clothed.  My mom is sex-repulsed and hates sensuality, being vulnerable.  One time we were going to a gathering and it was a rare occasion that she wore shorts.  She never wears short sleeve shirts.  My dad decided to compliment her legs but that caused her to wear long pants again.  My cousin joked that he should've kept his mouth shut to enjoy the view.  So my family will always wear some shirt and some pants.  No one walks around in their underwear.  Occasionally my dad is only wearing a sleeveless shirt or tank.

 

Even after top surgery, I still wear shirts normally.  I'm not sure if it's just the testosterone in my body now or the weather has been getting warmer, but it's starting to get too warm for me to wear shirts.  At home, I've started only wearing my undershirt tank.  But I've never been really comfortable without sleeves.  It's partially because I don't shave my armpits and I don't want people to see that.  Then I go through a weird feeling of not knowing if I'm warm or cold because I'm not used to revealing my whole arm.  My roommates originally asked me what the minimum amount of clothing they could wear, and I said something on top and something on bottom.  Of course that could mean a hat and socks, but thankfully no one took it that way.  I wouldn't feel fair if I walked around without a shirt and I still required them to wear something either.  In my room, I'd at least be wearing underwear if it's going to be that hot that day.  But I don't leave my room without a top, unless it's like 2am and my roommates have already gone to bed.

[Rosa-m]

On 4/7/2020 at 3:36 AM, Licykk said:

Music is really annoying, because I don't like songs about sex (and not really romance), but you can't really filter that out. But if anyone has any song recs, please tell!

i’d highly recommend cavetown he is asexual and was/is aromantic (he said he was aro awhile ago but was in a relationship recently but they broke up) none of his songs have any sexual references and the majority are about platonic love or other stuff, hippo campus are another band i love none of there songs have sexual references as far as i know and most arent really romantic too 

[BurntLinguini]

When you realize not wanting sex at all isn't "normal" and you realize all your friends were being horny this whole time when you thought they were just joking about sexual attraction.

[Rontz]

A Gray-sexual / Autochorissexual problem: I have the urge to masturbate and do watch porn, but only as a catalyst for the chemical/hormonal reaction to get done. I don’t find the porn stars attractive or hyped by seeing them having sex as a supplement for a fun physical thing I could have done in reality.

From that reason, when I told my close friends about me masturbating and knowing about porn as an Asexual, they thought it was the ultimate proof for me “faking it”, which of course isn’t the case.

[ThePoint]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:54 PM, Bio 7 said:

Never google tossed salad!

I find it extremely amusing that this one example has survived 380 pages. (I read the first 5 before I realised those were from 2013.)

[Bio 7]

4 hours ago, ThePoint said:

I find it extremely amusing that this one example has survived 380 pages. (I read the first 5 before I realised those were from 2013.)

Do not google it if you don’t want to feel sick.

[Cee Fox]

1 minute ago, Bio 7 said:

Do not google it if you don’t want to feel sick.

You do realise I have to google it now.

 

(2 minutes later)

*Sigh* I really am my own worst enemy.

[Skycaptain]

11 hours ago, Bio 7 said:

Do not google

The most dangerous three words to post on the Internet 😋😋

[ThePoint]

11 hours ago, Bio 7 said:

Do not google it if you don’t want to feel sick.

I don't intend to. I have learned from watching Rec 3 that if someone says don't watch it, you don't watch it. (Seriously, don't watch it. it's so bad it's not even funny.)

Edited May 31, 2020 by ThePoint

[Destan]

.

[nerdperson777]

^earlier I was talking to a group about not knowing the term for a business area with a big parking lot surrounded by markets, restaurants, hair salons, and more.  Someone said strip mall.  I said I heard of it but I usually avoid it because I don't want people making jokes because I said strip.

 

The only thing I can think of is that a sword is a dick.  I heard teenage boys may engage in "swordfighting".  I think most older cishet guys would not do this because they don't want to be seen as gay.  But younger people are curious and experiment.

[Skycaptain]

Pork Sword is one of the many euphemisms for the penis 

[Homer]

6 minutes ago, Skycaptain said:

Pork Sword is one of the many euphemisms for the penis 

My tired brain thinks that this is hilarious.

[Janus the Fox]

I can only imagine an actual sword made out of meat

[Lifesaver]

1 hour ago, Janus DarkFox said:

I can only imagine an actual sword made out of meat

If that was used as a weapon one would say “ prepare to ‘meat’ your maker!”

[nerdperson777]

14 hours ago, Homer said:

My tired brain thinks that this is hilarious.

Homer would laugh about that..

 

12 hours ago, Janus DarkFox said:

I can only imagine an actual sword made out of meat

I thought of a ground meat kind, which is more like a sausage, but that leads to wiener jokes.

[Skycaptain]

My office (back bedroom) overlooks the back gardens of the terrace I live in. My computer desk means I can look out of the window, it also means that anyone in the gardens looking up can see me at the window. Next door neighbour decided to sunbathe topless in her garden. Cue awkward feeling, I didn't want her to look up and draw a wrong conclusion. #decided not to do any deskwork for a couple of hours 

[nerdperson777]

I don't know why my dad has to say things that I could do, when my entire life has said that I wouldn't ever do that.  When I first enrolled in university as a female engineering student, he said that I had to flirt with the guys to help me with the class and give me homework answers.  I've never shown interest in a guy, other than the time in middle school that I was daydreaming and he happened to be where my line of sight was, because I stare off into the void when I do that.  Acting class showed that the only way I can fake attraction is touching a shoulder three times, and I hate touching people. 

 

Second thing, my parents had apparently gotten me some exercise pants from Costco.  But they were more like tights.  My mom said that I wouldn't like it because it's too form-fitting.  My dad GUARANTEED that I would like it.  Nothing special happened.  I didn't like it, exactly as mom said.  Even after he lost this, he still tried to convince me.  He put the pants on himself to tell me "but it fits" and pointed his butt towards me to show the fit in the butt.  My mom and I unsuccessfully got him to understand that fitting isn't the same thing as comfortable.

 

So now, the third thing.  I started teaching my dad Tai Chi over Zoom.  I didn't want to go out in the living room and disturb my roommates (or show my parents the mess that isn't mine).  My room isn't very big so I teach from my bed.  I've pretty much mastered balancing so I can balance better on my unstable bed than my dad can on the kitchen floor.  I bought a mannequin for my costuming projects.  He just sits on the left of my bed past my plastic drawer that I use as a nightstand.  I've had it for at least 2-3 weeks but no one noticed him until this week.  My dad asked if I hug it when I go to sleep.  Are you kidding me?  I already felt awkward groping it whenever I put an outfit on it.  A mannequin isn't soft.  The arm can fall off if put the wrong way.  Since it's new, it still has a strong chemical smell.  Why would I ever sleep with a mannequin?  It could be that he thinks he's being funny but his words come out more creepy than funny.  Once I was arguing with him and suddenly he asked about sex.  Apparently he was referencing a Big Bang Theory episode where two people were arguing, one walked towards the other's door.  "Where are you going?"  "Isn't sex what we do after we argue?"  "True that."  Then they went to have sex.  But I'm not thinking about that when I'm arguing with someone, especially when sex isn't even on my radar.  And don't ask your kids for sex, even if it's a joke.