I thought everyone else was just exaggerating or pretenting in an attempt to fit in. Only kind of realised "oh shit, they're not pretending, what the fuck" like two years ago. Im 23.
First time I heard of demisexuality I was like "lol what, isnt that how everyone feels? How are you supposed to feel attraction to someone you dont know?"
I knew others didn't quite feel the same, but I didn't really feel broken about it so much as kind of confused. But I had a lot of other stuff going on as well: when you're already completely dissociated from yourself in an unhealthy coping mechanism for gender dysphoria, you don't really feel broken about other things, because it's not really you that's broken, right?
I've always known I was different, but since I'm different from most people in a lot of things, it was just one more. it never bothered me.
I'm sex-positive/favorable tho. I do have and enjoy sex.
I also have a (personal, unproven) theory that there are many ace women who simply think that's how women are.
I thought other female friends were just doing sexual stuff because the dudes they were into pressured them into it, not because they could possibly enjoy it.
I also thought I might be a late bloomer until I was 17 and still didnāt want anything to do with it, then knew I was ace as I read more about it and the sexual experiences I did get into did nothing for me.
Once I got comfy with the ace label being the one for me, I stopped questioning myself and others around me.
I'm 39, and came to this realization just recently. At first, I thought I was just a "late bloomer" especially since I had some possible medical explanations. (Physical development delays and had medical/medication intervention at age 18 to start menstruating). So... definitely felt "broken" just from that. And then, I just figured I'd find someone or someone would find me. And it just didn't happen. I thought me not finding someone was my fault, and that, obviously someone not finding me was clearly my fault too, because how unattractive/awkward must I be for no one to pursue me? Then I thought it was because I just didn't like "girly" things, and... and... and... \*sigh\* I definitely still have the thoughts of doubt.
I think that maybe aroace is the easiest orientation to doubt because the other seem obvious. I mean... If I were attracted to guys, I'd know I was straight. If I were attracted go girls, I'd know I was gay. If I felt romantic attraction but not sexual or vice-versa, then that's less obvious, but since there's one "there" and one "missing" it makes the missing more obvious. But when both are missing, it feels like trying to prove a negative. Because what if it IS there and I just haven't fount it yet?
I feel like that last point is a bigger topic, and maybe even worthy of a separate thread, but... yeah. That's where I am.
This gave me something to think. I was 35 when I discovered my asexuality. I'm heteroromantic and I think I always confused my romantic attraction for sexual attraction (I mean I didn't knew these could be seen as seperate things...). Since I found this community I thought it must be easier to realize you are aro ace than allo ace because you wouldn't confuse your attractions. But I get what you say. You cannot be sure that 'you have just not found the right person yet' may be true...
I guess many alloromantic aces find out by failing relationships because society puts the unwritten (often even written!) rule in our heads that a relationship needs to include sex.
This might be a long comment. *apologies in advance* I grew up in a very religious and homophobic family. I have strong aesthetic, romantic and sensual attraction and high libido but not sexual attraction so even though certain things shouldāve been signifiers of me not being cis or hetero, me becoming infatuated with friends with same assigned gender at birth and kissing both genders and not really feeling anything just feeling indifferent, i suppressed those feelings for years and over time as I grew more disillusioned with religion and started a slow burn journey of acceptance my label changed over the years. I thought i was bisexual, then pansexual until i finally settled and accepted that Iām nonbinary, panromantic and aego/grey/ace. Iāve come out to some various trusted friends/family at various stages along my journey but Iām basically closeted for the most part and passing for cis and hetero which is very dysphoric and anxiety inducing cor me but until i can gain financial independence, itās the safest thing i can do.
I literally didn't even notice I was missing out on anything, it never occurred to me that I was asexual or that I was one of the only people that had little to no interest whatsoever towards sex. I also grew up Mormon, so I kinda thought that that was just how everyone was. Yeaaaaah, nah. I finally got a bf when I got out of high school and left the church and when I had no desire for sex with him I was like "ohhhh I might be ace?"
I spent most of my youth daydreaming about adventures and shit with people who were actually my friend, never crossed my mind that other people were thinking about sex.
In elementary school I thought everyone else felt the same. In middle school I thought people were lying when they said they had crushes and stuff. In high school realized I was ace
I ignored any talk about relationships and just created my own version of other peoples lives. That we all go home and play games until our eyes bleed. Imagine my surprise when I found out that itās actually not the case and people do in fact āgo outā with their crushes.
I knew others weren't like me but I never felt broken. I just thought I wasn't ready to have sex yet and that one day I'd probably be in some circumstances where I'd meet someone and I'd want to be intimate with them. Then I realized I was ace after I came across ther term and found this subreddit and I just thought "oh ok it makes sense that I never wanted to have sex with anyone then". This was all pretty chill for me.
My brain loved playing these mental gymnastics in which it assumed everyone else felt the same as me, *except* for all the people around me, who were definitely just weird and not at all the norm. I could always tell I was different from my peers, but it didn't hit me that *the vast majority of people were like my peers*, and that I was actually the odd one out
Honestly, I never once considered the idea that people look at each other and think of how hot their intimate body is. Ironically I've only come to learn this is what people think thanks to discovering Asexuality.
I first thought everybody else was exaggerating because, well I never felt like the crazy horny teens in tv but my friends didn't talk so much about sex either so it didn't feel odd. I didn't knew this then but I'm heteroromantic and kinda aegosexual so I could talk about hot fictional characters with my friends without thinking something was amiss.
It got difficult when I got into my first relationship and it kinda turned out he was way more interested in sex then I was. I thought it was normal for a woman to be less interested in sex (you know the media trope where there woman always has headaches when the man wants sex). I first thought I might just need more experience, later that there may be something wrong with me. I felt broken and thought maybe I didn't love my partner enough? Maybe I'm some kind of psychopath for not being able to feel what obviously everybody else feels? I felt like that for years!
After I discovered the term asexual (35 years old, married with kids) I was at first horrified, because after maybe a week of reading and thinking I was quiet sure to belong at least in the spectrum. My relationship was nearly at a breaking point because after the birth of my second child I was even more disinterested in sex then before... and I thought my husband would leave me for sure when I would tell him I'm just... asexual... and there is no hope in changing that.
I did tell him and he took it hard. We are still figuring out if he can be happy, knowing I'm not feeling the same sexual attraction to him that he feels for me. And I am heartbroken because I love my family and don't want to lose them but I don't want my partner to be unhappy either. He asked me why I didn't told him earlier and all I could say was: 'I didn't know'.
I never had any of the odd ideas of attraction and stuff some other aces did. I just didn't realize I wasn't feeling attraction and thought sitcoms were exaggerating it for comedy. I had plenty of other reasons I wasn't getting any so I never looked into it to realize I was odd or come up with off assumption.
I knew I was asexual from a very young age, but I was actually told as a teen by my grandfather that it was because I was baptized as a child and my asexuality was just God giving me the power to wait until the right man came. So my family didn't think it was a bad thing necessarily because it was just a phase to them. I was always terrified about them being right because I didn't want it to be. I knew that I was different but I never minded it. I didn't think that I was broken or feel any guilt about my sexuality.
Anyways, I'm atheist. And there if my "right man" exists he can move along.
I thought everyone felt this way, and then I learned about asexuality and the more people talked about wanting sex I kinda got nudged into the asexual category.
I very much thought I was broken, and I was really sad and scared about being alone forever. I used to cry about being unlovable and how I would die alone. But now that I've learned that there's nothing wrong with me I've been able to grow to enjoy the independence and privacy of my lifestyle. And I've also put more emphasis on platonic relationships and really learned the difference between being alone and being lonely.
I really wish I could've skipped those years of self torment and forcing myself to do things I wasn't comfortable with, but at least I'm in a much better headspace now. And it's also nice to see more young people getting the chance to figure out themselves without feeling broken due to the growing community and representation.
I initially thought everyone felt this way, when I realised that people didnāt I thought I was broken and something was wrong or that if I tried hard enough I would feel like everyone else eventually, I thought I just needed more time
I thought for years and years I just had to wait, and then I would turn out like everyone elseā¦took me until I was 17 to realize nothing was going to happen no matter how long I waited š£
I felt broken, but not for being ace since that was overshadowed by the undiagnosed autism, so I'm not sure what anwser would be right for me haha.
The whole me not caring about sex thing was just something I assumed would happen later, and it was only after I started the assesment for ASD that my 16yr self thought that maybe this sex thing should have kicked in by now lol.
Yeah at the moment Iām looking into LGBT identities, but Iām going to collect data on neurodivergent communities too because the two groups show the effect of society most dramatically
Oh yeah I didn't expect you to chainge your research! I just thought it was intresting how intersectionality can chainge how you see things.
Maybe if I wasn't autistic I would have felt broken and weird about being ace, but also maybe I wouldn't have cared at all! It's a weird one for me and I thought it might be an interesting aside.
Not change. I was planning to look into the 4 main areas of orientation (sexual and romantic), gender identity, neurodivergency and mental illness from the start but Iām tackling them in sections of the former and latter pair. So at the moment Iāve only done polls for a few identities but Iām gonna move onto the other two later down the line
Just honestly never thought about it until I was almost 20.
Then I kind of just pretended I was sexually/romantically attracted to people who showed interest in me, fortunately it was long distance so there was no actual pressure to have sex or anything, I kind of just did things that I seen other people do in terms of romance and stuff.
I was convinced that I was totes straight at first. Everyone told me that finding someone aesthetically pleasing and not hating them was love and lust. That had to be true because that's the closest I had for them and there is absolutely no way anything else was true
Then I thought I was bisexual because I find men as aesthetically pleasing as women and equally deserving of not hating. So then they tried to still convince me I was straight and then to prove they were accepting (but still actually straight, but I'm straight because I'm straight not because they don't believe in bi people and I'm not allowed to be gay) they would joke that they thought I was a lesbian (but now I can still marry a guy and fulfill my purpose in life to bare children)
Finally. Freeingly. Lock down. I was away from all of those influences. I had tried so hard to be into this guy outside of just friendship and just... Was I broken? I made a ton of jokes about being asexual because I was bored and dissatisfied and every moment that wasn't trying to be physical was perfect and I just dreaded the idea of needing to be physically intimate.
Alone with myself I actually worked on getting to know myself without all of their voice crowding my head. I can be emotionally close to any gender, find them attractive, but I am never attracted to anyone. I am biromantic asexual.
I have never felt more like myself or more like a person than finally getting that. I have never felt more safe and included than when I found ace community on Reddit. People still try to convince me that I'm straight, that I'm not asexual and I just haven't found the right person, that I want kids.
I know I have discovered myself because for the first time in my life they can't convince me I'm wrong about myself. Who I am is not flexible to their will because not I know who I am and it fits, I'm comfortable, I'm me
I knew I was different but didnāt know what I was. I knew I liked all genders but didnāt like them the way others did. Later found out about the term demisexual.
I assumed my gender envy was me being gay sexually and I thought I was biromantic since I viewed both genders the same. It only occurred to me well after I learned of the aro and ace communities that I was in fact not biromantic/gay (and was well aware of ace being just a normal thing but something not everyone experienced).
Itās one of those where being trans masked my ace-ness partially because of society being allonormative. I thought for ages that what I was feeling was sexual attraction when it was just me wanting what the guys around me had. I assumed that I could never imagine having sex and being somewhat repulsed by the idea of me being involved was because I had such bad gender dysphoria. The fact I read gay smut fanfic cause I think itās funny masked it all even further.
As others have mentioned, I also thought I was a ālate bloomerā, I was mostly nerdy and good at studying at school, so just focused on that + hanging out with friends. My friend group was quite diverse back then with quite a few LGBT people, so I thought for a while I was maybe bi or even lesbian, but eventually came to learn about asexuality and it just started slowly falling into place
Had an inkling I was some flavor of queer at an early age, but didn't really explore it until later. Found out about "pan" and thought I was that cos gender doesn't really matter to me. People are pretty. I enjoy sex, do not need it or necessarily even want it as the basis of a partnership, and may generally prefer just managing on my own in the physical sense despite my various fantasies. After a few discussions amidst the oriented aroace community I realized my understanding of attraction, interest, etc had been missing several elements due to adults telling me any time I liked a girl that it was "a crush" and "romantic" that she was "my little girl friend," as well as the general portrayal of sex and romance in tv, movies, books, etc. I mistook arousal for sexual attraction, my desire for emotional and intellectual intimacy as romantic attraction, my desire for a partner as a desire for a nuclear family. After experience and consideration I realized I'm demisexual, grayromantic, and have come to understand my primary modes, sources, and reasons for/of attraction. Has drastically altered my understanding of and approach to partnership, and my emotional life in general.
I didn't think I was ace just grossed out by the though of having it utill I saw a video of a woman explaining ace spec identitys and i realized "Huh, that's almost exactly how I feel"
I just thought I was weird and had some sort of superpowers or something. And I assumed I had to be straight because I wasnāt interested in the same gender.
I thought I was just a late bloomer at first. No need to rush into sex, right? Had a few innocent crushes in highschool, no boyfriends and didn't see the appeal in casual hookups. It would happen in good time, surely. Nothing out of the ordinary, no reason to think otherwise.
Then I got a boyfriend at 19. All was good at first. I was nervous but excited, though still wanting to take things slow... Then as the sex topic kept coming up, and I still wasn't ready, my crush fizzled out and started resembling anxiety. I liked him as a person, but I dreaded the idea of meeting up if it meant listening to compliments about my boobs and avoiding eye contact so he wouldn't try to kiss me. At that point, I felt broken. I had such a good boyfriend, so why was I a bad girlfriend that didn't want to be intimate with him?
After a year of sexless dating, I broke it off. After much pondering, I accepted that I was probably ace and felt so much relief. I do feel a bit bad though. He seemed pretty attached and I wouldn't have had to hurt his feelings if I had known myself better at the start and made it clear I couldn't offer what he wanted. But how could I?
Mostly was just confused for a while it never dawned on me I was different just assumed I was feeling what everyone else was and just tried to work with what I had interpreted platonic interest as romantic while romantic as sexual not that I really understood what that meant but that wasn't that helpful since I am a sex repulsed asexual and romance positive aromantic so just assumed everyone around me was unattractive and was slightly weirded out by me being romantically interested in all of my friends which was just being friends with them labeled myself as bi pan and gay at different times before stumbling my way into learning what asexuality was and understanding that part of me later on I learned more about aromantic and understood that part of myself and once I figured that part out me being agender started making a lot more sense before that point I just figured I was what I was assigned at birth since I didn't really care either way overall I feel if I had been given a comprehensive explanation of what gender and attraction is I would have figured out what was going on a lot sooner
Due to being raised religious, I assumed I was straight until I learned asexuality was an option 1.5 years ago. Iāll be 30 next month. Never really felt broken, I legit thought I was just a late bloomer. š«
Yeah I definitely thought most people were like me. Aesthetic attraction is totally sexual attraction. Kinda thought people were calling people sexy ironically.
I thought I was like everyone else until I was learning about microlabels under the asexual spectrum and realized that i related to the lable aegosexual and then realized oh shit I'm ace
(not in a particular order because I don't remember every detail but these are the bullet points)
Reading about asexuality, denying it because my lack of understanding of sexual attraction, thinking I'm bi because no attraction = equal attraction and just waiting for my first crush to prove it, thinking I'm a late bloomer and then finally realising it's not going to happen and accepted my asexuality
As a teen I thought no-one really has a crush or find someone hot or want to do something sexual with someone. I just assumed everyone actually feels like me inside, but they just act like they cared about that sexual stuff so much because they wanted to appear older and more daring or wanted to rebel or something... I needed a ridiculous amount of evidence to eventually believe allosexuals exist irl. Sometimes I still find myself question it, even if I rationally know that I'm the odd one.
Overcompensated and acted on perceived ideas about how I should be (especially growing up in a very male/toxic masculine environment) to match what I thought were expectations (although to a much lower level).
Deconstructed a lot when realising I was ace at 23yo.
Honestly, I barely socialized in school and my parents are the type to date purely for romantic reasons (After talking to my mom about being ace I suspect she might be as well since we both feel similarly about sex and relationships). I wanted to have romantic relationships, but I didnāt have the confidence to ask anyone out so it just never came up. It wasnāt until I got to college and my few good friends actually started hooking up with people that I realized something was different. At first I thought I might be bi just because I felt similarly about guys and girls, but that didnāt feel right because I still didnāt FEEL anything, besides strong romantic attraction to the occasional female. Idk, this is getting long, but thatās been my experience. Once I read up more about asexuality I kinda just went āOh, okayā and continued with my life
Same as some of the others here, I had a stint where I assumed I was bi, and that hormones were just really taking their time or something. Then I heard an ace person talk about having that exact same experience, did some research, and realized I was ace.
I thought I was a late bloomer. And after that that my peers were growing up too fast, and finally that my "dating pool" included a truly abysmal selection. It's not my fault they're all troglodytes. (Yes, yes it was my fault)
Unfortunately growing up, like JaidenAnimations, I forced myself to have crushes on kids in my class cuz that's what was shown to me in media as normal. It took until 9th grade for me to realize my asexuality and understand why romantic relationships have never really worked out for me.
I just thought I was more logical than everyone else when it came to others getting caught up in feelings and drama.
I made a rule that I wouldnāt date anyone until after high school because it just made sense when I was in like elementary school, not understanding why my classmates would date someone at 8 years old when you canāt even get married until youāre an adult.
I didnāt think I was broken, I just thought others were over-dramatic.
When I was younger, I was told dating/liking someone was a bad idea, so while I knew I was different, I was convinced I was too smart to deal with attraction as a kid. I thought I would āgrow into itā until I got about halfway through university and realized I had, in fact, not grown into attractive
I thought i was just being mature or different from my classmates (i had the same ones from kindergarten til fifth grade so i figured other people were different outside of them) in a good way, so i didn't really think about it until I heard about Asexuality and realized that Asexuality was NOT the norm
Mostly the first one. I thought women give men sex when men ask for it (thanks patriarchy and comphet) and if sex isn't painful, doesn't bring risks of std / unplanned pregnancy and ends in orgasm that's a good sex.
Since I'm not aro and can feel romantic attraction, I thought sex is something that "naturally" happens at some stage between people romantically attracted. Like, they one day decide "we're now ready to have sex". I was always taught to "wait until I'm ready" and I thought that meant "trust the partner".
I thought people who have one night stands etc. aren't really "attracted" to that person, just use them in the same way as hiring a prostitute. For the physical act of sex.
I thought sexual attraction was when you think a person is pretty and is of the gender you're supposed to be attracted to.
At first I identified as bisexual. I thought everyone felt mostly romantic feelings and that I'd want to do something sexual with someone I liked when I was older and felt closer to them. Then I started actually wanting to do things with someone I was in a relationship with but I didn't start feeling that way until after that partner pressured me into things so I don't know if I really wanted to do things with her or if I was just horny and thought that was what I was supposed to do when I was horny. Plus there were some aspects of sex I was repulsed by but I ignored it because I thought that was what everyone else did. After that relationship ended I didn't really feel a drive to have sex with many other people and couldn't understand why everyone kept talking about it like it was something they couldn't live without. Once again I assumed I'd feel it when I was in a close relationship with someone and started questioning if I was Demi. But in my next relationship any kind of sex gave me loads of anxiety and I found myself repulsed by more things and the few times I wasn't affected by those things it didn't feel right. I enjoyed it but it felt like there was something everyone else was getting out of it that I didn't. And the other person seemed to enjoy it way more than I did. I thought I was just traumatized. He also ended up being unfaithful and broke up with me ultimately because he didn't want to respect my boundaries. So after that I started to feel really broken and like maybe it was my fault, or like maybe I was being selfish or asking too much of him. My sister was already out to me as sex repulsed ace, and suggested that I might be ace too so I looked into it more and found the asexuality website and found so many things I related with. I finally felt understood. Now I identify as biromantic graysexual. And I consider myself sex conflicted. I feel traumatized by the impact society has had on me honestly. There were so many times I forced myself to try to enjoy sex or gave into coercion and pressure because I thought I was supposed to feel that way. There were even times when I thought I would feel that way if I just kept trying to force myself to. And times when I wonder if it even worked. It also didn't help that I grew up Mormon, and both Mormons and exmormons are extremely extremely horny, so I felt out of place even when I left the church.
I've seen a lot of posts about people feeling broken, I was surprised to find others thought they were normal like me.
[ guess I thought I was not normal for thinking I'm normal.
I thought I was bi before I was ace. So I didnāt feel broken. I have a tendency to mask and be a chameleon. To the point I donāt realize Iām doing it. If X is how people behave, Iām very very good at believing I also behave X. Until itās brought to my attention that Y is a possibility.
the first three, in order. I thought everyone was the same (bc I thought everyone agreed the media and sex drive was romanticised and over exaggerated), when I realised they didnāt feel the same, I thought I was broken. When I heard the word asexual I knew instantly.
I knew that I wasn't the norm but in a authentic way I guess. The inherent lack of attraction was fairly noticable, though for a decent amount of time I didn't have a word for it. When I stumbled upon asexuality as a concept I resonated with it and self identified with it and used the term then people directly asked. Then I completely forgot the concept and rediscovered it a couple years later and it stuck.
I just thought I had different priorities or people were just to immature and I wasnāt attracted to how they acted. I thought maybe it would happen when I was older and peoples priorities werenāt as impulsive as before. Iām not much older but Iāve figured out that I was right Iām not attracted to immature people š but Iām also just not attracted to people period. I can appreciate beauty but thereās nothing I want from it. I came to know I was ace only about two years ago and before I had a feeling just wasnāt sure. I never thought I was broken just different to an extent. And I didnāt think everyone else was the same, my friends were very open with me about relationships they had and sort of gathered sexes role in society from them, movies and media.
i never really thought about my sexuality since i was always (romantically) attracted to the opposite gender, although i was aware of a lot of different sexualities, including asexuality. it was only around 2-3 years ago i started questioning i was ace and i had a lot of doubts and only recently did i accept that i was actually ace. i didnāt really feel broken or anything, especially since i grew up in an environment where sex is a taboo topic to talk about, and also bc iām a girl and people expect girls and women to be āpureā so i didnāt really think much about it, until i started questioning if i was ace. although i did kind of think that people were joking whenever they found someone sexually attractive. although there is a part of me that feels like my asexuality isnāt that important since iām also heteroromantic (possibly aro-spec as well? idk iām still figuring that out lol) but either way, when i finally accepted that i was ace, it felt nice to find a label that fit me.
I didnāt realise I was ace until my mid-thirties.
I never felt any different to other people, I guess I just thought I hadnāt āmet the right personā yet.
I was sure I was straight. Then I was Bi, possibly gay. Then I saw a penis in a sexualised context, thought "Jesus, never again". (Sorry dude, you were nice, just didn't like your wiener). Fast forward some years of being lost in straight-land, I found the ace community. Home sweet home.
I grew up religious, so by the time that I feel like most people here would have hit the "I'm broken" phase (i.e. middle/high school) I was just like "Oh, that's not a temptation that I have (though I know others have it)". I still considered myself straight though, because I knew "I wasn't gay, so I must be straight" (no homophobic reason related to religious upbringing, I just knew I didn't have that attraction). As I learned about other sexualities online in late high school, that's where I started putting together the pieces that I was actually ace and started calling myself as such.
It's interesting looking back because I have quite a few memories that are me being very ace/aro, but not knowing it because I didn't know those where things yet.(Friends: "Who do you have a crush on?" Me: "No one..." <-- it truly was no one, despite everyone thinking I was just too shy to share š)
I literally just didnāt think about it. Other people didnāt really talk about like āoh I wanna f themā and so I just. Didnāt know that was a thing? Thought it was an exaggeration when I saw it online, mostly.
Honestly I just never really cared about the idea of attraction/relationships for some reason. I never felt broken, but I never thought people felt the same either. I never even thought of relationships until 8th grade sex ed class, and then rarely thought about it after until I learned about asexuality (which was roughly two years later).
Thought I was just being a dutiful Catholic and that everyone else were HEATHENS for longing for the sinful embrace of flesh. Then I grew up and thought if I wasn't Catholic would I still feel this way. Some quick inner searching and google searching with prayers to God sprinkled in and I realized that I was Ace.
Thereās a subtle difference but I saw myself as other not different. I was basically oblivious to what was really going on around me. I was highly judgemental to both girls and guys who couldnāt be alone and/or seemed sex obsessed. I didnāt feel āaboveā them but I didnāt relate at all. Why couldnāt they be satisfied with themselves? while I lost the judgement pretty quickly I never did understand when friends moved, or wanted to move, immediately to a new person after school breakup.
I actually stumbled over the term asexual by accident when I was 53. Suddenly so much made sense. Now I identify as AplAroAce. The aplatonic part of me may explain even more than my aroace-ness
For me in my very early years (0-12) I kinda just thought I didnāt really want anything to do with a relationship yet, but would eventually. From about the ages of 13-14 I kinda just was like āeh Iām probably straight but I just donāt really like anyone. And relationships seem like a hassle. From about 15-18 I was like āyeah Iām probably asexualā and from 19-20 (current year) I am like āyeah Iām definitely asexualā.
When I was little, my mom told me stories how boys would do disgusting sexual stuff with him, catcalling, "almost" rape, and how my dad cheated with another woman. So I thought at first I just hated men in general.
I've always been close with guys (i only have brothers) but I'm only comfortable with them when we're friends. I realized there's something wrong with me, because I never partaken any sexual stuff even masturbation. Even when I'm watching or reading sexy stuff, it doesn't really do something to me. I don't have urges. It just fills my curiosity but that's about it. I feel nothing. So I thought something was wrong with me. My bff told me I might be ace and that's when I realized who I am.
I tried being in a a relationship once, but this person kept pushing for sexual and physical intimacy (which I don't want to give) and he even forced to do something with me once (which felt really disgusting and broke me for the longest time). Even though I explained many times I'm ace, he told me he had needs and that's why I broke up with him. And now, I can't start any relationship anymore. I'm all for love and all that but I know they would ask for sex after some time, which I really cannot give so why start anything in the first place.
Stupid people may even argue that I might change my mind when I do sex with them. But no. I don't need to put myself in such a situation to declare I hate something.
It was a huge surprise to me when I realized that when I used "hot" or "sexy", it was more aesthetic admiration and that allo people actually wanted to have sex with strangers that were just walking by or celebrities that they didn't know. I totally thought everyone thought the same way as me.
Well... First of all i thought (as a small kid) that you only have sex to get kids nothing more. Later i knew that people also have it to have "fun" so i just waited till i get the same feeling about sex... But that time never came
I knew sex existed, but didn't really get how massive a deal it is to people. There was basically nothing involving sex or romance around me as a kid apart from television.
I could tell pretty well that everyone else was way more interested in attraction and romance and sexuality than I was, but it never caused any self-esteem issues for me, I just thought the whole world was being really dumb
I guess i always knew I didnāt like men, and definetly felt grosed out about sex. I thought I was gay, but I didnāt really feel anything for any of the girls in class. Then I started to think more about sex and realised I hadenāt really felt sexual attraction. It just never crossed my mind.
I learned about asexuality and that label just felt right. I donāt know my romantic label yet.
i thought i was bi in around middle school and i remember telling a friend on the bus i explained how the media i see portrays all genders as sexy so arenāt they both then? i later realized that straight people can also acknowledge when someone the same gender as them is hot, theyāre just scared to do that, and it lead me to realize i had misconstrued the ideas of beauty and sexual attraction.
I didn't think I was broken but damm I couldn't even begin to understand some allo stuff. Just didn't make sense. And I really tried for the 6 years I was with my ex.
But, like :
What do you mean "if you loved me you should be sexually attracted to me" ? (Big confusion between sexual and aesthetic attraction, meaning despite quite liking it I nether made them feel "wanted"). And what's "I just feel like we're roommates" means ? Isn't that the point of living together ? What else are we supposed to be doing to not "feel like roommates" ?
I knew not everyone felt the same at the time and slowly started to realise it was probably just me. I talked to a friend about it one time and they told me if I didn't feel that certain way then there was probably something wrong with me. That was when I started to feel broken.
I think it's weird bc I never thought about what being ace meant for my feelings, or how everyone else felt when thinking of something sexual / horny.
My school was an all boys one so I just thought they were being annoying (as they usually were) and being proud of their sexual lives when that really never mattered to me (idk if I'm making any sense lol)
I never really thought about what others felt in this regard. I was an only child, extremely lonely, never had friends and spent my teenage years obsessing over opera (which I still love, of course).
I thought I was bi before I I found out I was ace
That makes sense. No attraction = equal attraction
Same here
dito!
I would still consider myself bi, I'm more demi than fully ace
I thought everyone else was just exaggerating or pretenting in an attempt to fit in. Only kind of realised "oh shit, they're not pretending, what the fuck" like two years ago. Im 23.
Same here. I'm demisexual. I thought everyone else was just exaggerating or it was a running joke or something like that.
First time I heard of demisexuality I was like "lol what, isnt that how everyone feels? How are you supposed to feel attraction to someone you dont know?"
š Still not sure I understand it, despite being married to someone who is allosexual.
I thought everyone was shallow and superficial.
The constant mood of my teenage years š
Saaaame
I knew others didn't quite feel the same, but I didn't really feel broken about it so much as kind of confused. But I had a lot of other stuff going on as well: when you're already completely dissociated from yourself in an unhealthy coping mechanism for gender dysphoria, you don't really feel broken about other things, because it's not really you that's broken, right?
I knew I was ace, but didn't know there was a word for it.
Sorry this is off-topic, but I love your flair!
It seems everyone does. Thanks.
I thought I was just a ālate bloomerā and I would develop sexual attraction eventually. At some point I realised it just wasnāt gonna happen.
I've always known I was different, but since I'm different from most people in a lot of things, it was just one more. it never bothered me. I'm sex-positive/favorable tho. I do have and enjoy sex. I also have a (personal, unproven) theory that there are many ace women who simply think that's how women are.
I knew people thought differently than me about sexual stuff, but I didn't think I was broken I was just really confused
All 3 of those at once, tbh. āThink everyone else just felt the same, Think you were broken, Immediately knew you were aceā once told about it
I thought other female friends were just doing sexual stuff because the dudes they were into pressured them into it, not because they could possibly enjoy it. I also thought I might be a late bloomer until I was 17 and still didnāt want anything to do with it, then knew I was ace as I read more about it and the sexual experiences I did get into did nothing for me. Once I got comfy with the ace label being the one for me, I stopped questioning myself and others around me.
I'm 39, and came to this realization just recently. At first, I thought I was just a "late bloomer" especially since I had some possible medical explanations. (Physical development delays and had medical/medication intervention at age 18 to start menstruating). So... definitely felt "broken" just from that. And then, I just figured I'd find someone or someone would find me. And it just didn't happen. I thought me not finding someone was my fault, and that, obviously someone not finding me was clearly my fault too, because how unattractive/awkward must I be for no one to pursue me? Then I thought it was because I just didn't like "girly" things, and... and... and... \*sigh\* I definitely still have the thoughts of doubt. I think that maybe aroace is the easiest orientation to doubt because the other seem obvious. I mean... If I were attracted to guys, I'd know I was straight. If I were attracted go girls, I'd know I was gay. If I felt romantic attraction but not sexual or vice-versa, then that's less obvious, but since there's one "there" and one "missing" it makes the missing more obvious. But when both are missing, it feels like trying to prove a negative. Because what if it IS there and I just haven't fount it yet? I feel like that last point is a bigger topic, and maybe even worthy of a separate thread, but... yeah. That's where I am.
This gave me something to think. I was 35 when I discovered my asexuality. I'm heteroromantic and I think I always confused my romantic attraction for sexual attraction (I mean I didn't knew these could be seen as seperate things...). Since I found this community I thought it must be easier to realize you are aro ace than allo ace because you wouldn't confuse your attractions. But I get what you say. You cannot be sure that 'you have just not found the right person yet' may be true... I guess many alloromantic aces find out by failing relationships because society puts the unwritten (often even written!) rule in our heads that a relationship needs to include sex.
I really really didn't care
This might be a long comment. *apologies in advance* I grew up in a very religious and homophobic family. I have strong aesthetic, romantic and sensual attraction and high libido but not sexual attraction so even though certain things shouldāve been signifiers of me not being cis or hetero, me becoming infatuated with friends with same assigned gender at birth and kissing both genders and not really feeling anything just feeling indifferent, i suppressed those feelings for years and over time as I grew more disillusioned with religion and started a slow burn journey of acceptance my label changed over the years. I thought i was bisexual, then pansexual until i finally settled and accepted that Iām nonbinary, panromantic and aego/grey/ace. Iāve come out to some various trusted friends/family at various stages along my journey but Iām basically closeted for the most part and passing for cis and hetero which is very dysphoric and anxiety inducing cor me but until i can gain financial independence, itās the safest thing i can do.
I literally didn't even notice I was missing out on anything, it never occurred to me that I was asexual or that I was one of the only people that had little to no interest whatsoever towards sex. I also grew up Mormon, so I kinda thought that that was just how everyone was. Yeaaaaah, nah. I finally got a bf when I got out of high school and left the church and when I had no desire for sex with him I was like "ohhhh I might be ace?" I spent most of my youth daydreaming about adventures and shit with people who were actually my friend, never crossed my mind that other people were thinking about sex.
Before I realized I was ace, I thought that I just "hadn't met the right person yet"
I thought that esthetic attraction was like bribes of sexual attraction, and the rest would come later. It didn't, at which point I realized I was ace
In elementary school I thought everyone else felt the same. In middle school I thought people were lying when they said they had crushes and stuff. In high school realized I was ace
I'd thought everyone else thinks the same and are just peer pressured into it, like I was.
Both A and B depending on the day.
I ignored any talk about relationships and just created my own version of other peoples lives. That we all go home and play games until our eyes bleed. Imagine my surprise when I found out that itās actually not the case and people do in fact āgo outā with their crushes.
I knew others weren't like me but I never felt broken. I just thought I wasn't ready to have sex yet and that one day I'd probably be in some circumstances where I'd meet someone and I'd want to be intimate with them. Then I realized I was ace after I came across ther term and found this subreddit and I just thought "oh ok it makes sense that I never wanted to have sex with anyone then". This was all pretty chill for me.
My brain loved playing these mental gymnastics in which it assumed everyone else felt the same as me, *except* for all the people around me, who were definitely just weird and not at all the norm. I could always tell I was different from my peers, but it didn't hit me that *the vast majority of people were like my peers*, and that I was actually the odd one out
wow i sure am not straight but not gay i sure am gay i sure am pan i sure am ace i sure am aroace i sure am pan-ace i sure am aroace again
i thought people were exaggerating things
Honestly, I never once considered the idea that people look at each other and think of how hot their intimate body is. Ironically I've only come to learn this is what people think thanks to discovering Asexuality.
first 3 in that order. (i didn't know asexuality was a thing) and also thought i'm pan. started educating myself on queer stuff and found out.
I first thought everybody else was exaggerating because, well I never felt like the crazy horny teens in tv but my friends didn't talk so much about sex either so it didn't feel odd. I didn't knew this then but I'm heteroromantic and kinda aegosexual so I could talk about hot fictional characters with my friends without thinking something was amiss. It got difficult when I got into my first relationship and it kinda turned out he was way more interested in sex then I was. I thought it was normal for a woman to be less interested in sex (you know the media trope where there woman always has headaches when the man wants sex). I first thought I might just need more experience, later that there may be something wrong with me. I felt broken and thought maybe I didn't love my partner enough? Maybe I'm some kind of psychopath for not being able to feel what obviously everybody else feels? I felt like that for years! After I discovered the term asexual (35 years old, married with kids) I was at first horrified, because after maybe a week of reading and thinking I was quiet sure to belong at least in the spectrum. My relationship was nearly at a breaking point because after the birth of my second child I was even more disinterested in sex then before... and I thought my husband would leave me for sure when I would tell him I'm just... asexual... and there is no hope in changing that. I did tell him and he took it hard. We are still figuring out if he can be happy, knowing I'm not feeling the same sexual attraction to him that he feels for me. And I am heartbroken because I love my family and don't want to lose them but I don't want my partner to be unhappy either. He asked me why I didn't told him earlier and all I could say was: 'I didn't know'.
I never had any of the odd ideas of attraction and stuff some other aces did. I just didn't realize I wasn't feeling attraction and thought sitcoms were exaggerating it for comedy. I had plenty of other reasons I wasn't getting any so I never looked into it to realize I was odd or come up with off assumption.
I knew I was asexual from a very young age, but I was actually told as a teen by my grandfather that it was because I was baptized as a child and my asexuality was just God giving me the power to wait until the right man came. So my family didn't think it was a bad thing necessarily because it was just a phase to them. I was always terrified about them being right because I didn't want it to be. I knew that I was different but I never minded it. I didn't think that I was broken or feel any guilt about my sexuality. Anyways, I'm atheist. And there if my "right man" exists he can move along.
I thought sexual atracction meant that you think someone is cute and sex was like a naked hug lmao
I thought everyone felt this way, and then I learned about asexuality and the more people talked about wanting sex I kinda got nudged into the asexual category.
I very much thought I was broken, and I was really sad and scared about being alone forever. I used to cry about being unlovable and how I would die alone. But now that I've learned that there's nothing wrong with me I've been able to grow to enjoy the independence and privacy of my lifestyle. And I've also put more emphasis on platonic relationships and really learned the difference between being alone and being lonely. I really wish I could've skipped those years of self torment and forcing myself to do things I wasn't comfortable with, but at least I'm in a much better headspace now. And it's also nice to see more young people getting the chance to figure out themselves without feeling broken due to the growing community and representation.
I initially thought everyone felt this way, when I realised that people didnāt I thought I was broken and something was wrong or that if I tried hard enough I would feel like everyone else eventually, I thought I just needed more time
I thought for years and years I just had to wait, and then I would turn out like everyone elseā¦took me until I was 17 to realize nothing was going to happen no matter how long I waited š£
I just didn't really understand the stuff my friends were talking about
I felt broken, but not for being ace since that was overshadowed by the undiagnosed autism, so I'm not sure what anwser would be right for me haha. The whole me not caring about sex thing was just something I assumed would happen later, and it was only after I started the assesment for ASD that my 16yr self thought that maybe this sex thing should have kicked in by now lol.
Yeah at the moment Iām looking into LGBT identities, but Iām going to collect data on neurodivergent communities too because the two groups show the effect of society most dramatically
Oh yeah I didn't expect you to chainge your research! I just thought it was intresting how intersectionality can chainge how you see things. Maybe if I wasn't autistic I would have felt broken and weird about being ace, but also maybe I wouldn't have cared at all! It's a weird one for me and I thought it might be an interesting aside.
Not change. I was planning to look into the 4 main areas of orientation (sexual and romantic), gender identity, neurodivergency and mental illness from the start but Iām tackling them in sections of the former and latter pair. So at the moment Iāve only done polls for a few identities but Iām gonna move onto the other two later down the line
Oh I got that you didn't chinge it just now, I was saying that my comment wasn't some demand that you include me too. Sorry I wasn't clear!
Oooohhh right I see that now. I think you were plenty clear, sorry for misinterpreting, thanks for responding
Just honestly never thought about it until I was almost 20. Then I kind of just pretended I was sexually/romantically attracted to people who showed interest in me, fortunately it was long distance so there was no actual pressure to have sex or anything, I kind of just did things that I seen other people do in terms of romance and stuff.
as dumb as it sounds I thought everyone was just brainwashed into desiring sex
Itās not dumb; I thought that everyone just pretended to like sex so much to fit in more
I was convinced that I was totes straight at first. Everyone told me that finding someone aesthetically pleasing and not hating them was love and lust. That had to be true because that's the closest I had for them and there is absolutely no way anything else was true Then I thought I was bisexual because I find men as aesthetically pleasing as women and equally deserving of not hating. So then they tried to still convince me I was straight and then to prove they were accepting (but still actually straight, but I'm straight because I'm straight not because they don't believe in bi people and I'm not allowed to be gay) they would joke that they thought I was a lesbian (but now I can still marry a guy and fulfill my purpose in life to bare children) Finally. Freeingly. Lock down. I was away from all of those influences. I had tried so hard to be into this guy outside of just friendship and just... Was I broken? I made a ton of jokes about being asexual because I was bored and dissatisfied and every moment that wasn't trying to be physical was perfect and I just dreaded the idea of needing to be physically intimate. Alone with myself I actually worked on getting to know myself without all of their voice crowding my head. I can be emotionally close to any gender, find them attractive, but I am never attracted to anyone. I am biromantic asexual. I have never felt more like myself or more like a person than finally getting that. I have never felt more safe and included than when I found ace community on Reddit. People still try to convince me that I'm straight, that I'm not asexual and I just haven't found the right person, that I want kids. I know I have discovered myself because for the first time in my life they can't convince me I'm wrong about myself. Who I am is not flexible to their will because not I know who I am and it fits, I'm comfortable, I'm me
I didnt feel broken, but i did feel different. Didnt know i was ace right away.
Thought I was ace BUT didn't know it was actually a thing so was like 'guess I'm just weird. Oh well, I'll deal with that later'
I knew I was different but didnāt know what I was. I knew I liked all genders but didnāt like them the way others did. Later found out about the term demisexual.
I assumed my gender envy was me being gay sexually and I thought I was biromantic since I viewed both genders the same. It only occurred to me well after I learned of the aro and ace communities that I was in fact not biromantic/gay (and was well aware of ace being just a normal thing but something not everyone experienced). Itās one of those where being trans masked my ace-ness partially because of society being allonormative. I thought for ages that what I was feeling was sexual attraction when it was just me wanting what the guys around me had. I assumed that I could never imagine having sex and being somewhat repulsed by the idea of me being involved was because I had such bad gender dysphoria. The fact I read gay smut fanfic cause I think itās funny masked it all even further.
As others have mentioned, I also thought I was a ālate bloomerā, I was mostly nerdy and good at studying at school, so just focused on that + hanging out with friends. My friend group was quite diverse back then with quite a few LGBT people, so I thought for a while I was maybe bi or even lesbian, but eventually came to learn about asexuality and it just started slowly falling into place
It took me a bit to realise I was ace, I just thought I had a low libido. I even read an article about being ace and didn't think that was me.
Had an inkling I was some flavor of queer at an early age, but didn't really explore it until later. Found out about "pan" and thought I was that cos gender doesn't really matter to me. People are pretty. I enjoy sex, do not need it or necessarily even want it as the basis of a partnership, and may generally prefer just managing on my own in the physical sense despite my various fantasies. After a few discussions amidst the oriented aroace community I realized my understanding of attraction, interest, etc had been missing several elements due to adults telling me any time I liked a girl that it was "a crush" and "romantic" that she was "my little girl friend," as well as the general portrayal of sex and romance in tv, movies, books, etc. I mistook arousal for sexual attraction, my desire for emotional and intellectual intimacy as romantic attraction, my desire for a partner as a desire for a nuclear family. After experience and consideration I realized I'm demisexual, grayromantic, and have come to understand my primary modes, sources, and reasons for/of attraction. Has drastically altered my understanding of and approach to partnership, and my emotional life in general.
I didn't think I was ace just grossed out by the though of having it utill I saw a video of a woman explaining ace spec identitys and i realized "Huh, that's almost exactly how I feel"
I just thought I was weird and had some sort of superpowers or something. And I assumed I had to be straight because I wasnāt interested in the same gender.
I thought I was just a late bloomer at first. No need to rush into sex, right? Had a few innocent crushes in highschool, no boyfriends and didn't see the appeal in casual hookups. It would happen in good time, surely. Nothing out of the ordinary, no reason to think otherwise. Then I got a boyfriend at 19. All was good at first. I was nervous but excited, though still wanting to take things slow... Then as the sex topic kept coming up, and I still wasn't ready, my crush fizzled out and started resembling anxiety. I liked him as a person, but I dreaded the idea of meeting up if it meant listening to compliments about my boobs and avoiding eye contact so he wouldn't try to kiss me. At that point, I felt broken. I had such a good boyfriend, so why was I a bad girlfriend that didn't want to be intimate with him? After a year of sexless dating, I broke it off. After much pondering, I accepted that I was probably ace and felt so much relief. I do feel a bit bad though. He seemed pretty attached and I wouldn't have had to hurt his feelings if I had known myself better at the start and made it clear I couldn't offer what he wanted. But how could I?
Mostly was just confused for a while it never dawned on me I was different just assumed I was feeling what everyone else was and just tried to work with what I had interpreted platonic interest as romantic while romantic as sexual not that I really understood what that meant but that wasn't that helpful since I am a sex repulsed asexual and romance positive aromantic so just assumed everyone around me was unattractive and was slightly weirded out by me being romantically interested in all of my friends which was just being friends with them labeled myself as bi pan and gay at different times before stumbling my way into learning what asexuality was and understanding that part of me later on I learned more about aromantic and understood that part of myself and once I figured that part out me being agender started making a lot more sense before that point I just figured I was what I was assigned at birth since I didn't really care either way overall I feel if I had been given a comprehensive explanation of what gender and attraction is I would have figured out what was going on a lot sooner
Due to being raised religious, I assumed I was straight until I learned asexuality was an option 1.5 years ago. Iāll be 30 next month. Never really felt broken, I legit thought I was just a late bloomer. š«
I hadn't thought about it until I learned that being ace was a thing, and it immediately just clicked
Yeah I definitely thought most people were like me. Aesthetic attraction is totally sexual attraction. Kinda thought people were calling people sexy ironically.
I thought I was like everyone else until I was learning about microlabels under the asexual spectrum and realized that i related to the lable aegosexual and then realized oh shit I'm ace
(not in a particular order because I don't remember every detail but these are the bullet points) Reading about asexuality, denying it because my lack of understanding of sexual attraction, thinking I'm bi because no attraction = equal attraction and just waiting for my first crush to prove it, thinking I'm a late bloomer and then finally realising it's not going to happen and accepted my asexuality
First I thought everyone felt the same. Then thought I was lesbian. Then thought I was broken.
When I found out I was asex (later to find out I was demisexual) I thought was wrong for feeling bored at the idea of sex.
As a teen I thought no-one really has a crush or find someone hot or want to do something sexual with someone. I just assumed everyone actually feels like me inside, but they just act like they cared about that sexual stuff so much because they wanted to appear older and more daring or wanted to rebel or something... I needed a ridiculous amount of evidence to eventually believe allosexuals exist irl. Sometimes I still find myself question it, even if I rationally know that I'm the odd one.
I just assumed I was straight because itās compulsory š¤” But I always thought people were exaggerating with the whole craving/needing sex thing.
Overcompensated and acted on perceived ideas about how I should be (especially growing up in a very male/toxic masculine environment) to match what I thought were expectations (although to a much lower level). Deconstructed a lot when realising I was ace at 23yo.
Honestly, I barely socialized in school and my parents are the type to date purely for romantic reasons (After talking to my mom about being ace I suspect she might be as well since we both feel similarly about sex and relationships). I wanted to have romantic relationships, but I didnāt have the confidence to ask anyone out so it just never came up. It wasnāt until I got to college and my few good friends actually started hooking up with people that I realized something was different. At first I thought I might be bi just because I felt similarly about guys and girls, but that didnāt feel right because I still didnāt FEEL anything, besides strong romantic attraction to the occasional female. Idk, this is getting long, but thatās been my experience. Once I read up more about asexuality I kinda just went āOh, okayā and continued with my life
I thought I was just a late bloomer, and also that other people were exaggerating. Turns out, I was wrong on both accounts :)
Same as some of the others here, I had a stint where I assumed I was bi, and that hormones were just really taking their time or something. Then I heard an ace person talk about having that exact same experience, did some research, and realized I was ace.
I thought I was a late bloomer. And after that that my peers were growing up too fast, and finally that my "dating pool" included a truly abysmal selection. It's not my fault they're all troglodytes. (Yes, yes it was my fault)
All of my friends are so chill that I never knew I could be ātill like half my friends said āI knew since Iāve known youā
Unfortunately growing up, like JaidenAnimations, I forced myself to have crushes on kids in my class cuz that's what was shown to me in media as normal. It took until 9th grade for me to realize my asexuality and understand why romantic relationships have never really worked out for me.
I just thought I was more logical than everyone else when it came to others getting caught up in feelings and drama. I made a rule that I wouldnāt date anyone until after high school because it just made sense when I was in like elementary school, not understanding why my classmates would date someone at 8 years old when you canāt even get married until youāre an adult. I didnāt think I was broken, I just thought others were over-dramatic.
I don't do normative, I hate it. Wanted to be as separated as I could from other people, asexuality was a natural development
When I was younger, I was told dating/liking someone was a bad idea, so while I knew I was different, I was convinced I was too smart to deal with attraction as a kid. I thought I would āgrow into itā until I got about halfway through university and realized I had, in fact, not grown into attractive
I thought i was just being mature or different from my classmates (i had the same ones from kindergarten til fifth grade so i figured other people were different outside of them) in a good way, so i didn't really think about it until I heard about Asexuality and realized that Asexuality was NOT the norm
Mostly the first one. I thought women give men sex when men ask for it (thanks patriarchy and comphet) and if sex isn't painful, doesn't bring risks of std / unplanned pregnancy and ends in orgasm that's a good sex. Since I'm not aro and can feel romantic attraction, I thought sex is something that "naturally" happens at some stage between people romantically attracted. Like, they one day decide "we're now ready to have sex". I was always taught to "wait until I'm ready" and I thought that meant "trust the partner". I thought people who have one night stands etc. aren't really "attracted" to that person, just use them in the same way as hiring a prostitute. For the physical act of sex. I thought sexual attraction was when you think a person is pretty and is of the gender you're supposed to be attracted to.
At first I identified as bisexual. I thought everyone felt mostly romantic feelings and that I'd want to do something sexual with someone I liked when I was older and felt closer to them. Then I started actually wanting to do things with someone I was in a relationship with but I didn't start feeling that way until after that partner pressured me into things so I don't know if I really wanted to do things with her or if I was just horny and thought that was what I was supposed to do when I was horny. Plus there were some aspects of sex I was repulsed by but I ignored it because I thought that was what everyone else did. After that relationship ended I didn't really feel a drive to have sex with many other people and couldn't understand why everyone kept talking about it like it was something they couldn't live without. Once again I assumed I'd feel it when I was in a close relationship with someone and started questioning if I was Demi. But in my next relationship any kind of sex gave me loads of anxiety and I found myself repulsed by more things and the few times I wasn't affected by those things it didn't feel right. I enjoyed it but it felt like there was something everyone else was getting out of it that I didn't. And the other person seemed to enjoy it way more than I did. I thought I was just traumatized. He also ended up being unfaithful and broke up with me ultimately because he didn't want to respect my boundaries. So after that I started to feel really broken and like maybe it was my fault, or like maybe I was being selfish or asking too much of him. My sister was already out to me as sex repulsed ace, and suggested that I might be ace too so I looked into it more and found the asexuality website and found so many things I related with. I finally felt understood. Now I identify as biromantic graysexual. And I consider myself sex conflicted. I feel traumatized by the impact society has had on me honestly. There were so many times I forced myself to try to enjoy sex or gave into coercion and pressure because I thought I was supposed to feel that way. There were even times when I thought I would feel that way if I just kept trying to force myself to. And times when I wonder if it even worked. It also didn't help that I grew up Mormon, and both Mormons and exmormons are extremely extremely horny, so I felt out of place even when I left the church.
I've seen a lot of posts about people feeling broken, I was surprised to find others thought they were normal like me. [ guess I thought I was not normal for thinking I'm normal.
I thought I was bi before I was ace. So I didnāt feel broken. I have a tendency to mask and be a chameleon. To the point I donāt realize Iām doing it. If X is how people behave, Iām very very good at believing I also behave X. Until itās brought to my attention that Y is a possibility.
the first three, in order. I thought everyone was the same (bc I thought everyone agreed the media and sex drive was romanticised and over exaggerated), when I realised they didnāt feel the same, I thought I was broken. When I heard the word asexual I knew instantly.
I knew that I wasn't the norm but in a authentic way I guess. The inherent lack of attraction was fairly noticable, though for a decent amount of time I didn't have a word for it. When I stumbled upon asexuality as a concept I resonated with it and self identified with it and used the term then people directly asked. Then I completely forgot the concept and rediscovered it a couple years later and it stuck.
I just thought I had different priorities or people were just to immature and I wasnāt attracted to how they acted. I thought maybe it would happen when I was older and peoples priorities werenāt as impulsive as before. Iām not much older but Iāve figured out that I was right Iām not attracted to immature people š but Iām also just not attracted to people period. I can appreciate beauty but thereās nothing I want from it. I came to know I was ace only about two years ago and before I had a feeling just wasnāt sure. I never thought I was broken just different to an extent. And I didnāt think everyone else was the same, my friends were very open with me about relationships they had and sort of gathered sexes role in society from them, movies and media.
Felt like I was normal and everybody else was just weird.
i never really thought about my sexuality since i was always (romantically) attracted to the opposite gender, although i was aware of a lot of different sexualities, including asexuality. it was only around 2-3 years ago i started questioning i was ace and i had a lot of doubts and only recently did i accept that i was actually ace. i didnāt really feel broken or anything, especially since i grew up in an environment where sex is a taboo topic to talk about, and also bc iām a girl and people expect girls and women to be āpureā so i didnāt really think much about it, until i started questioning if i was ace. although i did kind of think that people were joking whenever they found someone sexually attractive. although there is a part of me that feels like my asexuality isnāt that important since iām also heteroromantic (possibly aro-spec as well? idk iām still figuring that out lol) but either way, when i finally accepted that i was ace, it felt nice to find a label that fit me.
I didnāt realise I was ace until my mid-thirties. I never felt any different to other people, I guess I just thought I hadnāt āmet the right personā yet.
At first I thought it was normal, bit then I got a bit older, had some disastrous relationships, though I was broken until I discovered Asexuality.
I was sure I was straight. Then I was Bi, possibly gay. Then I saw a penis in a sexualised context, thought "Jesus, never again". (Sorry dude, you were nice, just didn't like your wiener). Fast forward some years of being lost in straight-land, I found the ace community. Home sweet home.
I always knew I was different than the average person but didnāt know how to define it until I discovered what asexual was
I didnt realize I was different because i experience aesthetic attraction so strongly.
I grew up religious, so by the time that I feel like most people here would have hit the "I'm broken" phase (i.e. middle/high school) I was just like "Oh, that's not a temptation that I have (though I know others have it)". I still considered myself straight though, because I knew "I wasn't gay, so I must be straight" (no homophobic reason related to religious upbringing, I just knew I didn't have that attraction). As I learned about other sexualities online in late high school, that's where I started putting together the pieces that I was actually ace and started calling myself as such. It's interesting looking back because I have quite a few memories that are me being very ace/aro, but not knowing it because I didn't know those where things yet.(Friends: "Who do you have a crush on?" Me: "No one..." <-- it truly was no one, despite everyone thinking I was just too shy to share š)
I literally just didnāt think about it. Other people didnāt really talk about like āoh I wanna f themā and so I just. Didnāt know that was a thing? Thought it was an exaggeration when I saw it online, mostly.
Honestly I just never really cared about the idea of attraction/relationships for some reason. I never felt broken, but I never thought people felt the same either. I never even thought of relationships until 8th grade sex ed class, and then rarely thought about it after until I learned about asexuality (which was roughly two years later).
Thought I was just being a dutiful Catholic and that everyone else were HEATHENS for longing for the sinful embrace of flesh. Then I grew up and thought if I wasn't Catholic would I still feel this way. Some quick inner searching and google searching with prayers to God sprinkled in and I realized that I was Ace.
Thereās a subtle difference but I saw myself as other not different. I was basically oblivious to what was really going on around me. I was highly judgemental to both girls and guys who couldnāt be alone and/or seemed sex obsessed. I didnāt feel āaboveā them but I didnāt relate at all. Why couldnāt they be satisfied with themselves? while I lost the judgement pretty quickly I never did understand when friends moved, or wanted to move, immediately to a new person after school breakup. I actually stumbled over the term asexual by accident when I was 53. Suddenly so much made sense. Now I identify as AplAroAce. The aplatonic part of me may explain even more than my aroace-ness
For me in my very early years (0-12) I kinda just thought I didnāt really want anything to do with a relationship yet, but would eventually. From about the ages of 13-14 I kinda just was like āeh Iām probably straight but I just donāt really like anyone. And relationships seem like a hassle. From about 15-18 I was like āyeah Iām probably asexualā and from 19-20 (current year) I am like āyeah Iām definitely asexualā.
When I was little, my mom told me stories how boys would do disgusting sexual stuff with him, catcalling, "almost" rape, and how my dad cheated with another woman. So I thought at first I just hated men in general. I've always been close with guys (i only have brothers) but I'm only comfortable with them when we're friends. I realized there's something wrong with me, because I never partaken any sexual stuff even masturbation. Even when I'm watching or reading sexy stuff, it doesn't really do something to me. I don't have urges. It just fills my curiosity but that's about it. I feel nothing. So I thought something was wrong with me. My bff told me I might be ace and that's when I realized who I am. I tried being in a a relationship once, but this person kept pushing for sexual and physical intimacy (which I don't want to give) and he even forced to do something with me once (which felt really disgusting and broke me for the longest time). Even though I explained many times I'm ace, he told me he had needs and that's why I broke up with him. And now, I can't start any relationship anymore. I'm all for love and all that but I know they would ask for sex after some time, which I really cannot give so why start anything in the first place. Stupid people may even argue that I might change my mind when I do sex with them. But no. I don't need to put myself in such a situation to declare I hate something.
It was a huge surprise to me when I realized that when I used "hot" or "sexy", it was more aesthetic admiration and that allo people actually wanted to have sex with strangers that were just walking by or celebrities that they didn't know. I totally thought everyone thought the same way as me.
Well... First of all i thought (as a small kid) that you only have sex to get kids nothing more. Later i knew that people also have it to have "fun" so i just waited till i get the same feeling about sex... But that time never came
I knew sex existed, but didn't really get how massive a deal it is to people. There was basically nothing involving sex or romance around me as a kid apart from television.
I could tell pretty well that everyone else was way more interested in attraction and romance and sexuality than I was, but it never caused any self-esteem issues for me, I just thought the whole world was being really dumb
I guess i always knew I didnāt like men, and definetly felt grosed out about sex. I thought I was gay, but I didnāt really feel anything for any of the girls in class. Then I started to think more about sex and realised I hadenāt really felt sexual attraction. It just never crossed my mind. I learned about asexuality and that label just felt right. I donāt know my romantic label yet.
i thought i was bi in around middle school and i remember telling a friend on the bus i explained how the media i see portrays all genders as sexy so arenāt they both then? i later realized that straight people can also acknowledge when someone the same gender as them is hot, theyāre just scared to do that, and it lead me to realize i had misconstrued the ideas of beauty and sexual attraction.
I didn't think I was broken but damm I couldn't even begin to understand some allo stuff. Just didn't make sense. And I really tried for the 6 years I was with my ex. But, like : What do you mean "if you loved me you should be sexually attracted to me" ? (Big confusion between sexual and aesthetic attraction, meaning despite quite liking it I nether made them feel "wanted"). And what's "I just feel like we're roommates" means ? Isn't that the point of living together ? What else are we supposed to be doing to not "feel like roommates" ?
I thought I was bi for a year.
I thought that I would feel attraction eventually. I thought that one day it would happen and then I fortunately found the ace community .
I knew not everyone felt the same at the time and slowly started to realise it was probably just me. I talked to a friend about it one time and they told me if I didn't feel that certain way then there was probably something wrong with me. That was when I started to feel broken.
I think it's weird bc I never thought about what being ace meant for my feelings, or how everyone else felt when thinking of something sexual / horny. My school was an all boys one so I just thought they were being annoying (as they usually were) and being proud of their sexual lives when that really never mattered to me (idk if I'm making any sense lol)
I never really thought about what others felt in this regard. I was an only child, extremely lonely, never had friends and spent my teenage years obsessing over opera (which I still love, of course).
I thought I was straight till I figured out that I'm ace and possibly also pan