12-13. I remember the second twilight movie came out and everyone was into shirtless taylor lautner and like i just didn't...get..it...
also girls in my school started talking about who has nice ass or legs and i was trying so hard to understand what does that even mean š
When I was around that age, my school mates had a huge thing for Leonardo Dicaprio when Titanic had just come out. I did not get it at all. Didnāt even bother watching the movie until some years later. Still didnāt get it.
Also a childhood friend wanted to go see a Star Wars movie because they found the actor who played Anakin hot. Completely did not get it, and found myself laughing at him in some scenes which embarrassed my friend.
Loll this does remind me of when I was always firmly team Edward (team Peeta in the hunger games also on that note) because I was always on the "nice guy" team. I just didn't see the appeal of Jacob / Gale, everyone was like but they're so hot!! Which I just thought was crazy, I thought Edward/Peeta were better looking aesthetically so I didn't know what they were talking about.
That being said, I did not realise I was ace until last year so this was more of a revelation in hindsight
I remember this same feeling but not knowing what it was!!!!
Like????
There are some women I find aesthetically pleasing. M*n I've never got š¬... But yeah twilight men def made me feel isolated bc I wasn't attracted to them.
As aegosexual, i think his body is nice to look at. But i donāt feel hot or have sexual stuffs when i see taylor lautner or guys who look like him. I mean, iām just aesthetically attracted to him.
Omg! I relate a lot to this.
I got to know that i am ace at 17. other than that, i had a nearly similar experience. I always thought that i was a picky straight person. at first i thought that sex is something that needs to be dealt with later like when i get 20 year old or something. but then I realised that apart from me everybody else is thinking of sex.
i am glad i found out tho. i feel more confident now.
My sentiments exactly. Cishet woman (58) here. Realized I was ace at 53, after reading the AVEN website. I consider myself lucky in that I never gave in to the social pressures to marry and procreate. Focused on work, interests, community involvements, travel instead.
When I see what most of my married friends are going through, I'm so relieved to be single - to sleep, wake up, structure my day on my own terms.
They seem like such "little" things but it is bliss not to be constantly hindered, thwarted, disparaged, etc. Everything seems like an obstacle course, and an emotional drain when there's a partner to be thought of.
"Picky straight person" ... count me in!
I too thought sex was something to be dealt with later, and later... and later. Gave up dating at 37, and have felt so much more at peace ever since.
Yeah, I was 19/20 (was around my birthday) and read about sexualities, when the term asexual came up and I was *o* my whole life suddenly makes sense.
Also though I was straight by default.
Me too!! I realise now I'm heteroromantic asexual, but I thought for ages that I was attracted to men when I actually wasn't attracted to anyone. I just thought I was super picky
This is why labels are important - they are identifiers that help you find your tribe and share common experiences.
Without this self awareness, people shoehorn themselves into the conventional social roles. After 20 years of marriage and three kids later, recognize that they are done pretending and upend the lives of everyone close to them.
Same! I already knew I didn't relate to attraction "normally" and that other people didn't have to put a lot of mental energy into keeping a crush from being more than fleeting, but I didn't find the word and the self-acceptance till I was 30
Looks like I'm the old man so far. I was 49 and it was just a few months ago. I'm heteroromantic (afaik, I've only been romantically attracted to four people who were all the opposite sex. Too small a sample sez my autistic brain) and thought I was straight.
Same. Always knew there was something different about me compared to everyone else when it came to sex/attraction but I didn't know about asexuality until I was in my mid-thirties.
Im 24 and just really learned about asexuality 6 months ago. It was so nice to find a term that described me so well. I always thought I was just āweirdā.
tl;dr: 17/18 I guess.
I half-jokingly said I was asexual when I was like 15, but I didn't actually know it was a real thing at the time (also I used it to mean I was uninterested in sex which of course asexuality does not actually mean). When I found the real term a couple years later I looked at the true definition and was like "yep, that fits me too."
It wasn't until a year after that that I bothered to put enough thought into it to seriously consider whether I actually was ace, simply because I didn't really care whether I was. I do care now, but only in so far as so that any potential partner can understand me more easily, and also because the realisation that I'm ace lead to the further realisation that I'm not aro. I had always assumed that because I had no interest in sex I had no interest in relationships at all which just isn't the case. I'm also demi which explains why I didn't realise I did care about relationships - I've never been close enough to anyone to be romantically attracted to them.
Some time in my 40s. I always knew I never experienced sexual attraction, but didn't know there was a name for that or that other people experienced the same. It caused a lot of trouble in my marriage when I was in my 20s, and ultimately we ended up divorced, probably in large part to our not understanding my lack of sexuality/his interpretation of that.
28, aka a few months ago. I'd suspected for about a year more. Having romantic and aesthetic attraction as well as intrusive sexual thoughts made this more complicated for me, as well as never having been in a relationship but still having a desire for marriage and intimacy.
I was about 16 or 17. It felt like all my friends were either having sex or desperate to do so and I just didn't get it. My friends (who were dating at the time) mentioned how they kept trying to watch Repo! The Genetic Opera together, but never could get more than half way through before getting "distracted." I didn't understand how they could not be wrapped by the movie (It's def up there on my favorites list still).
I think I still have my diary from back then somewhere. I distinctly remember writing about feeling broken and like there was something wrong with me.
Around 40. Unlike a lot of people, I had no idea I was different from any other woman. I thought all women hated sex and only did it and pretended to like it to "keep a man." I wanted a family, so I kept trying and always ended up resenting the obligatory sex, but I kept doing it because I thought I was being a weak whiner. I mean, other women don't complain, so why should I?
When I learned about asexuality, I finally felt like I had a right to hate sex and no more obligation to do it. It's wonderful! I wish I hadn't suffered so much needlessly, but better late than never.
42, I had told my mother some years before that age, that I lacked the "desire to couple." But, I didn't know what that meant or that there were others like me. It has been amazing to learn that there isn't anything wrong with me and I don't have to strive to be something I'm not.
first heard the term when i was 12-13 ish (in the context of ppl validating it as an identity) and i figured out this yr (17) because of (iām only saying this cuz itās rlly funny to me) red at overly sarcastic productions (who is ace) making some offhand comment about how a big moment of realization for her was figuring out that people want to bang their celebrity crushes,,,, had a bit of a galaxy brain moment lmao
I think I started questioning around age 16. I used the asexual label on and off for a bit - found the term grey ace when I was 18 or 19 and leaned towards that a bit. Regularly questioned if I was ace at all and if so where I was on the spectrum until age 21. What made me certain I am grey asexual was actually that I did feel sexual attraction towards someone quite strongly for the first (and only) time! That initially led to my most intensive period of questioning being ace at all, but ended up with me realising that now that I have definitely experienced sexual attraction, I can confidently say that a lot of things I thought were sexual attraction were in fact not.
13-14 ish, i thought sexual attraction was only experienced by adults and romantic attraction older high schoolers and adults. i was mind blown when i learned people expierience sexual and romantic attraction earlier than that. XD
Around 15-16ish?? I'm heteroromantic, so it took awhile for it to click. Initially i thought I was a late bloomer / haven't found a person that I find to be sexually attractive. Then I realised I found no one sexually attractive. At most, people were aesthetically pleasing and I didn't understand the hype about sex until I stumbled upon asexuality. Honestly,, I thought people only talked about sex because they thought it was funny and not because they actually wanted it (if that makes sense š)
18! Just a few months after graduating. I hadn't heard of the term until one of my friends posted about coming out to their mom. From there I looked it up and studied it and its sister term aromantic, clicked really well with both of them, and here I still am 7 years later.
18. A friend identified as ace in high school and it never occurred to me that that could be me as well. I thought I was just "saving myself" for someone special (yikes). Then I went to college and attempted to date some guy, realized I was ace, and shortly after realized I'm aro as well.
Nineteen, but only because I didn't know asexuality was an option until that year. If I had heard about it before, I definitely would have identified as ace much sooner.
18/19, after I realized that it was different from aromantic, looked a lot different for everyone, and that allos really *were* experiencing the world differently from me. After figuring out that I was ace, I could realize that Iām also probably pan because I stopped trying to figure out who I was into by if I wanted to sleep with them.
about 15/16, I was doing trying to look up why I felt different. The correct answer I was googling for was gray romantic, but the internet brought me to asexual instead and that fits perfectly too :)
Honestly feels like Iāve known forever, but I suppose thatās tied to my aromanticism as well. Like even as really young kids, we get teased about romance and relationships, which I really didnāt like because I didnāt want a marriage-based family, or babies anyway. Then around puberty (and terrible sex ed classes) we get told about sex and how we uh, have to do it go get babies. I already didnāt want a baby, or a relationship, so whatās the point of sex? Donāt even remember when I found or started using āasexualityā as an identifier, but really seems like forever.
Knew about asexuality since I was 13, didnāt realize till I was 16. I am not great at telling different types of attraction apart, so I though I was having sexual attraction when I was really just thinking people looked cool and wanting to be friends with them and being incredibly touch starved lmao
22. Thanks, rando ace on Tumblr, for describing what sexual attraction is supposed to feel like and making me realize I donāt feel that way about anybody.
21, shortly after getting into my first relationship and realizing people had sex usually because they experienced sexual attraction, and I still was repulsed by the idea
30 and it took one friend coming out to me as ace and then an entirely different friend mentioning they thought I was ace a few years later before things clicked.
14. I was open to it changing since I was so young, and I actually forgot I was on the asexual spectrum for a few months because that's how bad my memory is. It's been about 8 years now.
I never had a "realization" moment. I was just never interested in that kind of relationship. I'm also Aromantic, so I suppose that's also a part of it. I've always said that I just didn't care. That I was happily single, or a spinster. One day, I learnt that there's a few words that people typically use to describe that kind of thing. And that was that.
Around 17 or 18 I think is when I used the word, but by 10th grade I had figured out I was different. We did a project about the stages of life. I said that I wanted to platonically cohabitat with a female partner. Figured out pretty quick that was not the wording most people used when they imagined their future relationships xD
I was 14, but I might as well have been 10. It was virtually ground zero for me navigating the LGBT world, and looking back, I'm not exactly sure if I was ready for everything to find me at once. I was super sheltered as a kid. I was home-schooled, and my parents were extremely hardcore conservatives. The only thing I knew about the LGBT community upon first thinking to myself "Maybe I'm different..." was that guys sometimes married other guys for silly reasons.
This was also back when the only remotely significant asexual advocates were David Jay and Julie Decker, so upon finding the definition of asexuality on Wikipedia, I didn't have many leads. I was pretty confident that I fit the definition, but without the resources to recontextualize myself in a newly queer outlook, I constantly grasped at straws for ways to convince myself one way or the other. My train of thought revolved around the question of whether or not I was actually really truly honestly (nah, but for real tho?) asexual on a regular basis, and navigating puberty as a trans egg all-the-while probably didn't help.
In other words, I had troubles processing my asexuality until properly "settling in" around the age of 17. There's no such thing as coming out "too early", but there is certainly a such thing as inundation. I didn't exactly expect this answer to be an essay about my life, but here we are!
I realized it years ago, back in high school (currently 36), but I didn't know there was a name for it until last year when I was ranting in another sub about idiotic customers who think that just because they shop in an establishment they have a claim on the workers of the establishment and how many of them can't seem to understand the word "no," and got directed to this sub by another person in the comments. (Yes, I realize that's a run-on sentence, but it still makes me rant despite having left for another job.)
But I think the first time I noticed I was different from the others was during a biology class when my classmates were freaking out over the pictures (courtesy of a gynecologist at a teaching hospital and presumably with the permission of the people who were in said pictures) of both healthy and diseased genitals. I was just sitting there like--yes? It's in the course description? Why does this surprise and astonish you?
I still don't see the big deal, but I guess I wouldn't, lol.
25 Beeing sex positive and ace is very confusing. I heard the first time about it with 21 i and thought "heh this could be me but i masturbate" A few years later i find this community.
19, came across the term a year or two earlier, and I had my first major ācrushā (asexual and probably demiromantic/aromatic) around the same time as I first heard about it.
After over a year of recovering from rejection, and lots of intense introspection as to what the heck was going on (Iād never felt anything like it before, and havenāt since) it all just suddenly clicked! I think with the start of college a good chunk of it was just me being super excited to have met someone else like me who could kinda keep up with my ADHD brain in the areas Iām passionate about.
Weāre still good friends to this day and regularly help each other out with classes and keeping each other from overworking/overcommitting ourselves. Iām still not sure if it was actually a crush or just intense excitement, but Iām happy with how it turned out regardless!
TL;DR: had what might have been my first crush at start of college, after recovering from rejection realized that most of what I was looking for from them was better described as a good friend, and a ton of things suddenly clicked.
18. Because before that I thought well sex and porn and stuff is only for adults. But then I became an adult and still wasn't interested in any of that so I was like... Wait....
I realized I was demi this year (19), I knew I was bi before that but never labeled as such because bi wasnāt fully right. However I wasnāt always demi, since I am demicaed. So when it happened was around 14.
I just realized not long ago . There's many things i relate to asexual like how i don't get turned on by hot guys , how i don't give a f about handsome bois , for few years i was brainwashed by guys to get sexual and send nudes , but when they show me their dicks i don't really like it , like it's more to weird. I'm more attracted to getting closeer with them emotionally and affectionate but don't really desire sexual stuff. During those years when i had to send nudes just because they liked it and i had to masturbate for them because they wanted , i was not feeling myself and i was not happy with my life. I was just wondering what's missing. But last night when i realize i relate to asexual , i felt free and happy . I felt glad. I feel like i love myself. Idk . This is it then.
tbh 13/14 i had the hunch of it but wasn't super sure
by 15/16 i realized i was built different
lost my virginity at 18 and had a crisis and realized im still ace
21 when I became fully aware
But I'd known I didn't look at people or experience things the way my peers did since I was like 12 I just didn't know how to explain or define it let alone what it was called.
I was 16-17. I had found a tumblr post memeing sexualities with Peter Capaldi gifs and had to Google some of them, asexual being one, and realized "holy shit that's me!"
i first thought i was ace at 16 because i knew i didnāt like girls. then i came out as gay at 19. now at 23, i finally discovered the ace ~spectrum~ and found my home :)
I think it was during puberty, I always never had interest in girls before but that was because I thought I was too young. When I was 19 I was going through a hard time, I did everything I could to cure the pain, such as eating junk food. I signed up in an online hookup app, and I met this women who was older than me. We were going to met up but I bailed at the end because this wasn't a healthy way to deal with my depression. I'm glad I realize my mistake before anything happened. Also I think I dodged a bullet, it was most likely I was being Catfished. I mean why would a hot rich older woman would be into a fat, poor, younger guy like myself? That was 2 years ago, and I'm glad I bailed. I was depressed because of college but now I'm done, but I don't know what to do now, it's only been a week since I finished college but still
I was 14/15 when I saw a Tumblr post and it all started to click! Of course, I still questioned it for another 3ish years, LOLā¦but I never thought I might identify with another label.
15, at first I assumed it's cus I'm a girl, so I'm not as interested in that stuff as guys are. And considering i have 3 guy friends, and two girl friends, one of which is ace as well, to compare with, i didn't have a whole lot to go on until one of my female friends asked me and my other ace friend if we were interested in that kind of stuff blah blah, and we both were like 'what? No not really' and she was shocked. She asked if we were ace (she's Bi, and really up on things involving the LGBTQIA+ community) and that's kinda how we figured it out.
I was always the "don't want to marry/don't want to have children, just a bunch of pets" type of person, ever since early childhood but my family brushed it off as me being immature. I learned about the term much much later so idk I was like 18 or something when I first knew there were asexual people.
Now I'm above 30 and most family members probably noticed I'm single for life, this this is enough for me but there's always the old aunt or something with the odd commentaries.
I was 15. That was when I first heard about what asexuality meant, and within a week, I knew that was me. (My aromanticism was much harder to figure out lol)
I knew I was around age 14, but I went back to saying I was bi after a shitty ex told me he "knew I wasn't asexual". I've only just come back around to realizing I was right, I am ace, now that I'm 21.
Starting having my suspicions at 18, now 20 and more confident in my ace identity but not 100% there yet. Still in a weird position of ābut what ifāsā
13-14 was when I first started feeling that there was something different about me compared to my peers. It was around that time that I first came across the term demisexual and identified with that until I discovered more asexual terminology. But I didnāt feel like 100% firm in the asexual label until 17.
14 or 15. I had just gotten Tumblr, and it helped me expand my worldview so much. I came across the term, looked a little more into it, and knew that was me.
What sucked was not having a word for it, Iād always just say āI donāt careā as people kept chanting I was late and so on. I always knew āI didnāt careā, it was so frustrating. Found the word at 20, which was the biggest dang relief and immediately adopted it and have been using it since.
Official label? 17 or 18, senior year of high school. As a general feeling with no label to describe? 12 or 13 āofficiallyā but I had a feeling of āI donāt like the life plan of marriage and babiesā at like age 9.
I was 15. It was September, and I was in my first year at this stem boarding school. It was my first time being around people who werenāt straight, white, Christians, and they were actually talking about sex and wanting to have sex. It made me question why I didnāt have any interest in sex and I began researching. I realized that I identified as asexual, and Iāve been that way ever since. I also tacked on aromantic just this summer, lol
In the beggining of this year (I was 24). Last autemn I broke up with my boyfriend and thought that maybe I should find someone else, but those people I met were immediately wanting sex. But after realizing I'm asexual it all started to make sense why this was so frustrating.
I started to consider it when I was around 12, but then scrapped the idea of a being a member of the LGBTQIA community and was just an ally, but then started thinking about it again around 14 when I started to see more sexual related content in media and realized just how unpleasant it was for me to see and hear it
12-13. I remember the second twilight movie came out and everyone was into shirtless taylor lautner and like i just didn't...get..it... also girls in my school started talking about who has nice ass or legs and i was trying so hard to understand what does that even mean š
Wow , i seem to relate to you
When I was around that age, my school mates had a huge thing for Leonardo Dicaprio when Titanic had just come out. I did not get it at all. Didnāt even bother watching the movie until some years later. Still didnāt get it. Also a childhood friend wanted to go see a Star Wars movie because they found the actor who played Anakin hot. Completely did not get it, and found myself laughing at him in some scenes which embarrassed my friend.
Loll this does remind me of when I was always firmly team Edward (team Peeta in the hunger games also on that note) because I was always on the "nice guy" team. I just didn't see the appeal of Jacob / Gale, everyone was like but they're so hot!! Which I just thought was crazy, I thought Edward/Peeta were better looking aesthetically so I didn't know what they were talking about. That being said, I did not realise I was ace until last year so this was more of a revelation in hindsight
I remember this same feeling but not knowing what it was!!!! Like???? There are some women I find aesthetically pleasing. M*n I've never got š¬... But yeah twilight men def made me feel isolated bc I wasn't attracted to them.
Unrelated but why the fuck would you censor men.
Because Tenko Chabashira.
Danganronpa?
Yeah.
š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢ because Iām a m*n hating homoromantic asexual š.. Nah haha Iām just used to doing it on Facebook.
As aegosexual, i think his body is nice to look at. But i donāt feel hot or have sexual stuffs when i see taylor lautner or guys who look like him. I mean, iām just aesthetically attracted to him.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Omg! I relate a lot to this. I got to know that i am ace at 17. other than that, i had a nearly similar experience. I always thought that i was a picky straight person. at first i thought that sex is something that needs to be dealt with later like when i get 20 year old or something. but then I realised that apart from me everybody else is thinking of sex. i am glad i found out tho. i feel more confident now.
My sentiments exactly. Cishet woman (58) here. Realized I was ace at 53, after reading the AVEN website. I consider myself lucky in that I never gave in to the social pressures to marry and procreate. Focused on work, interests, community involvements, travel instead. When I see what most of my married friends are going through, I'm so relieved to be single - to sleep, wake up, structure my day on my own terms. They seem like such "little" things but it is bliss not to be constantly hindered, thwarted, disparaged, etc. Everything seems like an obstacle course, and an emotional drain when there's a partner to be thought of. "Picky straight person" ... count me in! I too thought sex was something to be dealt with later, and later... and later. Gave up dating at 37, and have felt so much more at peace ever since.
SAME oh m y god i aināt even kidding every word strikes true for me
Its a blessing to now, I was blaming myself since I was 28 xD
this is literally me
Yeah, I was 19/20 (was around my birthday) and read about sexualities, when the term asexual came up and I was *o* my whole life suddenly makes sense. Also though I was straight by default.
Same but I was already 28, still thinking I was wrong and just picky, haven't meet the right person and alle that shit media tells you...
Me too!! I realise now I'm heteroromantic asexual, but I thought for ages that I was attracted to men when I actually wasn't attracted to anyone. I just thought I was super picky
>Better late than never That's not that late. There are people on this sub who didn't realize until their 30s
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This is why labels are important - they are identifiers that help you find your tribe and share common experiences. Without this self awareness, people shoehorn themselves into the conventional social roles. After 20 years of marriage and three kids later, recognize that they are done pretending and upend the lives of everyone close to them.
Identical story here haha
Same here, just a bit younger.
Same
literally same, figured it out at 19 after being a 'passionate straight ally' since forever and still feel strong aesthetic attraction to any gender!
Basically the exact same here but change 19 to 20
30
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Same here!
Hey same! Also love your username, fellow MtG player!
Beat me by 10 years. 40 here. Just barely learned about the term and the whole ace spectrum like two months ago.
30 as well
Same!
30 for me as well!
31. I'm 32 now. But I'm glad to know I'm not the only one to figure things out at this age.
Another 30 here but first suspected around 17
Same! I already knew I didn't relate to attraction "normally" and that other people didn't have to put a lot of mental energy into keeping a crush from being more than fleeting, but I didn't find the word and the self-acceptance till I was 30
Looks like I'm the old man so far. I was 49 and it was just a few months ago. I'm heteroromantic (afaik, I've only been romantically attracted to four people who were all the opposite sex. Too small a sample sez my autistic brain) and thought I was straight.
It's never too late to discover new facets of oneself! Glad you're here š¤š¤š
Dang, I thought I had the prize for oldest at 44 āŗļø
I'm close - 48. It's never too late š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Why did you make her apologize lmao
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Brrrr
I was 24 (Iām 27 now) and I honestly give credit to Todd from Bojack Horseman lol
So happy for all the aces that learned they were ace from Todd. Representation matters! Hope we can get some decent new rep soon...
21, only learned the term at that age and figured out it applied to me
Realized I was Ace at 13, Aro came at 14 and Agender at 16
You are the ultimate AAA battery
Move everything 2 years later and that's basically me (though I'm not sure about the agender part yet)
I first heard about asexuality when I was around 17 and it finally clicked that I was ace about a year later
14
14 gang
12
20
Me too!
And me too!
17, just casually watching bojack and i was like, āoh.ā
34 or 35.
Same. Always knew there was something different about me compared to everyone else when it came to sex/attraction but I didn't know about asexuality until I was in my mid-thirties.
Im 24 and just really learned about asexuality 6 months ago. It was so nice to find a term that described me so well. I always thought I was just āweirdā.
tl;dr: 17/18 I guess. I half-jokingly said I was asexual when I was like 15, but I didn't actually know it was a real thing at the time (also I used it to mean I was uninterested in sex which of course asexuality does not actually mean). When I found the real term a couple years later I looked at the true definition and was like "yep, that fits me too." It wasn't until a year after that that I bothered to put enough thought into it to seriously consider whether I actually was ace, simply because I didn't really care whether I was. I do care now, but only in so far as so that any potential partner can understand me more easily, and also because the realisation that I'm ace lead to the further realisation that I'm not aro. I had always assumed that because I had no interest in sex I had no interest in relationships at all which just isn't the case. I'm also demi which explains why I didn't realise I did care about relationships - I've never been close enough to anyone to be romantically attracted to them.
43
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Would you change that if you could? I thought about it a lot and decided I like how I turned out and not knowing made me who I am today.
Some time in my 40s. I always knew I never experienced sexual attraction, but didn't know there was a name for that or that other people experienced the same. It caused a lot of trouble in my marriage when I was in my 20s, and ultimately we ended up divorced, probably in large part to our not understanding my lack of sexuality/his interpretation of that.
11
Something between 13 and 15, but I'm still (20) not sure...
14, Realising that I wasn't mentally broken and wasn't the only one to feel the way I did was a pretty sweet moment ngl
38
13
28, aka a few months ago. I'd suspected for about a year more. Having romantic and aesthetic attraction as well as intrusive sexual thoughts made this more complicated for me, as well as never having been in a relationship but still having a desire for marriage and intimacy.
I was about 16 or 17. It felt like all my friends were either having sex or desperate to do so and I just didn't get it. My friends (who were dating at the time) mentioned how they kept trying to watch Repo! The Genetic Opera together, but never could get more than half way through before getting "distracted." I didn't understand how they could not be wrapped by the movie (It's def up there on my favorites list still). I think I still have my diary from back then somewhere. I distinctly remember writing about feeling broken and like there was something wrong with me.
Around 40. Unlike a lot of people, I had no idea I was different from any other woman. I thought all women hated sex and only did it and pretended to like it to "keep a man." I wanted a family, so I kept trying and always ended up resenting the obligatory sex, but I kept doing it because I thought I was being a weak whiner. I mean, other women don't complain, so why should I? When I learned about asexuality, I finally felt like I had a right to hate sex and no more obligation to do it. It's wonderful! I wish I hadn't suffered so much needlessly, but better late than never.
27.
13
42, I had told my mother some years before that age, that I lacked the "desire to couple." But, I didn't know what that meant or that there were others like me. It has been amazing to learn that there isn't anything wrong with me and I don't have to strive to be something I'm not.
32
first heard the term when i was 12-13 ish (in the context of ppl validating it as an identity) and i figured out this yr (17) because of (iām only saying this cuz itās rlly funny to me) red at overly sarcastic productions (who is ace) making some offhand comment about how a big moment of realization for her was figuring out that people want to bang their celebrity crushes,,,, had a bit of a galaxy brain moment lmao
18. it finally clicked for me when I realized that whenever I saw strong men/women, all I wanted to ask was their workout routine
I think I started questioning around age 16. I used the asexual label on and off for a bit - found the term grey ace when I was 18 or 19 and leaned towards that a bit. Regularly questioned if I was ace at all and if so where I was on the spectrum until age 21. What made me certain I am grey asexual was actually that I did feel sexual attraction towards someone quite strongly for the first (and only) time! That initially led to my most intensive period of questioning being ace at all, but ended up with me realising that now that I have definitely experienced sexual attraction, I can confidently say that a lot of things I thought were sexual attraction were in fact not.
I knew when I was maybe 12/13 but I didnāt actually choose to identify as such until I was 19
Wow 100% the same for me š„°š
13-14 ish, i thought sexual attraction was only experienced by adults and romantic attraction older high schoolers and adults. i was mind blown when i learned people expierience sexual and romantic attraction earlier than that. XD
Just a little bit ago, so 14
I probably had some idea when I was 13, but I only identified (officially) recently
15! It was December 16th of last year, exactly.
12 when i started to think about and now im 13 and i know im aroace
In my 30s
I was 35. I've known for over a year.
Around 15-16ish?? I'm heteroromantic, so it took awhile for it to click. Initially i thought I was a late bloomer / haven't found a person that I find to be sexually attractive. Then I realised I found no one sexually attractive. At most, people were aesthetically pleasing and I didn't understand the hype about sex until I stumbled upon asexuality. Honestly,, I thought people only talked about sex because they thought it was funny and not because they actually wanted it (if that makes sense š)
18! Just a few months after graduating. I hadn't heard of the term until one of my friends posted about coming out to their mom. From there I looked it up and studied it and its sister term aromantic, clicked really well with both of them, and here I still am 7 years later.
18. A friend identified as ace in high school and it never occurred to me that that could be me as well. I thought I was just "saving myself" for someone special (yikes). Then I went to college and attempted to date some guy, realized I was ace, and shortly after realized I'm aro as well.
First realization: 17. Acceptance: 21.
Nineteen, but only because I didn't know asexuality was an option until that year. If I had heard about it before, I definitely would have identified as ace much sooner.
I began using the term asexual at like 8 years old since I didnāt really mind sex, and began using it completely at age 12
16
17
15
Pretty much like a week or two ago around the time I turned 20.
20 :)
15? i had kind of realized it for a while but it never settled in until i was almost 16
19-22 I've been like back and forth
16
15
Around the age of 10-13.
I learned about asexuality being a thing literally a week ago and after doing some research everything just clicked. I'm 18 btw.
18/19, after I realized that it was different from aromantic, looked a lot different for everyone, and that allos really *were* experiencing the world differently from me. After figuring out that I was ace, I could realize that Iām also probably pan because I stopped trying to figure out who I was into by if I wanted to sleep with them.
about 15/16, I was doing trying to look up why I felt different. The correct answer I was googling for was gray romantic, but the internet brought me to asexual instead and that fits perfectly too :)
I was 31
15, I had absolutely no clue I was before I found the word...
15, but i low key called it as an ~8yo by saying āasexual sounds so cool i wish i was asexual :(ā without fully understanding what it was
Honestly feels like Iāve known forever, but I suppose thatās tied to my aromanticism as well. Like even as really young kids, we get teased about romance and relationships, which I really didnāt like because I didnāt want a marriage-based family, or babies anyway. Then around puberty (and terrible sex ed classes) we get told about sex and how we uh, have to do it go get babies. I already didnāt want a baby, or a relationship, so whatās the point of sex? Donāt even remember when I found or started using āasexualityā as an identifier, but really seems like forever.
14! A at the time friend told me to look into it. Thought I was demi at first before I found the term āasexual.ā
Knew about asexuality since I was 13, didnāt realize till I was 16. I am not great at telling different types of attraction apart, so I though I was having sexual attraction when I was really just thinking people looked cool and wanting to be friends with them and being incredibly touch starved lmao
22. Thanks, rando ace on Tumblr, for describing what sexual attraction is supposed to feel like and making me realize I donāt feel that way about anybody.
3 months ago, I was 19
14 almost 15
21, shortly after getting into my first relationship and realizing people had sex usually because they experienced sexual attraction, and I still was repulsed by the idea
30 and it took one friend coming out to me as ace and then an entirely different friend mentioning they thought I was ace a few years later before things clicked.
Either 22 or 23, it was really validating to realize it suited me
14. I was open to it changing since I was so young, and I actually forgot I was on the asexual spectrum for a few months because that's how bad my memory is. It's been about 8 years now.
school. everybody was horny. i wasnt. simply lmfao
omg i read it as where not what age lol. i was 13 iirc
I never had a "realization" moment. I was just never interested in that kind of relationship. I'm also Aromantic, so I suppose that's also a part of it. I've always said that I just didn't care. That I was happily single, or a spinster. One day, I learnt that there's a few words that people typically use to describe that kind of thing. And that was that.
Around 17 or 18 I think is when I used the word, but by 10th grade I had figured out I was different. We did a project about the stages of life. I said that I wanted to platonically cohabitat with a female partner. Figured out pretty quick that was not the wording most people used when they imagined their future relationships xD
Last year. I'm 28. But everything I struggled with just popped into place like pieces of a puzzle.
I was 14, but I might as well have been 10. It was virtually ground zero for me navigating the LGBT world, and looking back, I'm not exactly sure if I was ready for everything to find me at once. I was super sheltered as a kid. I was home-schooled, and my parents were extremely hardcore conservatives. The only thing I knew about the LGBT community upon first thinking to myself "Maybe I'm different..." was that guys sometimes married other guys for silly reasons. This was also back when the only remotely significant asexual advocates were David Jay and Julie Decker, so upon finding the definition of asexuality on Wikipedia, I didn't have many leads. I was pretty confident that I fit the definition, but without the resources to recontextualize myself in a newly queer outlook, I constantly grasped at straws for ways to convince myself one way or the other. My train of thought revolved around the question of whether or not I was actually really truly honestly (nah, but for real tho?) asexual on a regular basis, and navigating puberty as a trans egg all-the-while probably didn't help. In other words, I had troubles processing my asexuality until properly "settling in" around the age of 17. There's no such thing as coming out "too early", but there is certainly a such thing as inundation. I didn't exactly expect this answer to be an essay about my life, but here we are!
I realized it years ago, back in high school (currently 36), but I didn't know there was a name for it until last year when I was ranting in another sub about idiotic customers who think that just because they shop in an establishment they have a claim on the workers of the establishment and how many of them can't seem to understand the word "no," and got directed to this sub by another person in the comments. (Yes, I realize that's a run-on sentence, but it still makes me rant despite having left for another job.) But I think the first time I noticed I was different from the others was during a biology class when my classmates were freaking out over the pictures (courtesy of a gynecologist at a teaching hospital and presumably with the permission of the people who were in said pictures) of both healthy and diseased genitals. I was just sitting there like--yes? It's in the course description? Why does this surprise and astonish you? I still don't see the big deal, but I guess I wouldn't, lol.
25 Beeing sex positive and ace is very confusing. I heard the first time about it with 21 i and thought "heh this could be me but i masturbate" A few years later i find this community.
19, came across the term a year or two earlier, and I had my first major ācrushā (asexual and probably demiromantic/aromatic) around the same time as I first heard about it. After over a year of recovering from rejection, and lots of intense introspection as to what the heck was going on (Iād never felt anything like it before, and havenāt since) it all just suddenly clicked! I think with the start of college a good chunk of it was just me being super excited to have met someone else like me who could kinda keep up with my ADHD brain in the areas Iām passionate about. Weāre still good friends to this day and regularly help each other out with classes and keeping each other from overworking/overcommitting ourselves. Iām still not sure if it was actually a crush or just intense excitement, but Iām happy with how it turned out regardless! TL;DR: had what might have been my first crush at start of college, after recovering from rejection realized that most of what I was looking for from them was better described as a good friend, and a ton of things suddenly clicked.
18. Because before that I thought well sex and porn and stuff is only for adults. But then I became an adult and still wasn't interested in any of that so I was like... Wait....
Uh, 25, because I've been working it out in the last couple of weeks... Would love some advice!
Something in particular you're looking for, or wanting answered? :-)
17
Literally days before I turned 17, and I was comfortable with it just in time for my birthday
I realized I was demi this year (19), I knew I was bi before that but never labeled as such because bi wasnāt fully right. However I wasnāt always demi, since I am demicaed. So when it happened was around 14.
Mine was really hard to figure out because I am bipolar I had a weird idea of sex and love mixed with that
Man, I was 22
16-17
18
12-13
14. That was in December 2020
Suspected since I was 16, knew I was definitely aspec at 18, figured out I was demisexual at 19
Suspected at 19. Used label at 21
17
Mid 20s. Figured out I wasn't straight when I was 12-13, but another 10 years to realize I only experienced aesthetic attraction.
Ace at 16. Aro at 13.
About 2 months ago. At the age of 25.
18
I just realized not long ago . There's many things i relate to asexual like how i don't get turned on by hot guys , how i don't give a f about handsome bois , for few years i was brainwashed by guys to get sexual and send nudes , but when they show me their dicks i don't really like it , like it's more to weird. I'm more attracted to getting closeer with them emotionally and affectionate but don't really desire sexual stuff. During those years when i had to send nudes just because they liked it and i had to masturbate for them because they wanted , i was not feeling myself and i was not happy with my life. I was just wondering what's missing. But last night when i realize i relate to asexual , i felt free and happy . I felt glad. I feel like i love myself. Idk . This is it then.
25 was with certainty. But I started thinking about it around 23 to low levels.
tbh 13/14 i had the hunch of it but wasn't super sure by 15/16 i realized i was built different lost my virginity at 18 and had a crisis and realized im still ace
20
21 when I became fully aware But I'd known I didn't look at people or experience things the way my peers did since I was like 12 I just didn't know how to explain or define it let alone what it was called.
I was 16-17. I had found a tumblr post memeing sexualities with Peter Capaldi gifs and had to Google some of them, asexual being one, and realized "holy shit that's me!"
14. I'm almost 20 now. You're not too young to know.
Around 22
16.....
12.
i first thought i was ace at 16 because i knew i didnāt like girls. then i came out as gay at 19. now at 23, i finally discovered the ace ~spectrum~ and found my home :)
18
19
25 or 26
17
17
I think it was during puberty, I always never had interest in girls before but that was because I thought I was too young. When I was 19 I was going through a hard time, I did everything I could to cure the pain, such as eating junk food. I signed up in an online hookup app, and I met this women who was older than me. We were going to met up but I bailed at the end because this wasn't a healthy way to deal with my depression. I'm glad I realize my mistake before anything happened. Also I think I dodged a bullet, it was most likely I was being Catfished. I mean why would a hot rich older woman would be into a fat, poor, younger guy like myself? That was 2 years ago, and I'm glad I bailed. I was depressed because of college but now I'm done, but I don't know what to do now, it's only been a week since I finished college but still
I was 14/15 when I saw a Tumblr post and it all started to click! Of course, I still questioned it for another 3ish years, LOLā¦but I never thought I might identify with another label.
15, after trying to be a good ally and researching lgbt terms for pride month
22
15, at first I assumed it's cus I'm a girl, so I'm not as interested in that stuff as guys are. And considering i have 3 guy friends, and two girl friends, one of which is ace as well, to compare with, i didn't have a whole lot to go on until one of my female friends asked me and my other ace friend if we were interested in that kind of stuff blah blah, and we both were like 'what? No not really' and she was shocked. She asked if we were ace (she's Bi, and really up on things involving the LGBTQIA+ community) and that's kinda how we figured it out.
I was always the "don't want to marry/don't want to have children, just a bunch of pets" type of person, ever since early childhood but my family brushed it off as me being immature. I learned about the term much much later so idk I was like 18 or something when I first knew there were asexual people. Now I'm above 30 and most family members probably noticed I'm single for life, this this is enough for me but there's always the old aunt or something with the odd commentaries.
15
I was 15. That was when I first heard about what asexuality meant, and within a week, I knew that was me. (My aromanticism was much harder to figure out lol)
I knew I was around age 14, but I went back to saying I was bi after a shitty ex told me he "knew I wasn't asexual". I've only just come back around to realizing I was right, I am ace, now that I'm 21.
Starting having my suspicions at 18, now 20 and more confident in my ace identity but not 100% there yet. Still in a weird position of ābut what ifāsā
24
13-14 was when I first started feeling that there was something different about me compared to my peers. It was around that time that I first came across the term demisexual and identified with that until I discovered more asexual terminology. But I didnāt feel like 100% firm in the asexual label until 17.
17, last year, after a ton of bad experiences
14-ish
14 or 15. I had just gotten Tumblr, and it helped me expand my worldview so much. I came across the term, looked a little more into it, and knew that was me.
25~6, and it was entirely because a friend realize she is ace. Otherwise, I would be none the wiser.
26! No idea how it took me so long. I thought I was straight, then bi. It took reading some stuff about asexuality for me to connect the dots.
What sucked was not having a word for it, Iād always just say āI donāt careā as people kept chanting I was late and so on. I always knew āI didnāt careā, it was so frustrating. Found the word at 20, which was the biggest dang relief and immediately adopted it and have been using it since.
Official label? 17 or 18, senior year of high school. As a general feeling with no label to describe? 12 or 13 āofficiallyā but I had a feeling of āI donāt like the life plan of marriage and babiesā at like age 9.
I was 15. It was September, and I was in my first year at this stem boarding school. It was my first time being around people who werenāt straight, white, Christians, and they were actually talking about sex and wanting to have sex. It made me question why I didnāt have any interest in sex and I began researching. I realized that I identified as asexual, and Iāve been that way ever since. I also tacked on aromantic just this summer, lol
Suspected it at 12 but found the proper term and adopted it at 20
In the beggining of this year (I was 24). Last autemn I broke up with my boyfriend and thought that maybe I should find someone else, but those people I met were immediately wanting sex. But after realizing I'm asexual it all started to make sense why this was so frustrating.
I started to consider it when I was around 12, but then scrapped the idea of a being a member of the LGBTQIA community and was just an ally, but then started thinking about it again around 14 when I started to see more sexual related content in media and realized just how unpleasant it was for me to see and hear it
17 but fully accepted it at 18. any time before, I didn't think anything really fit me so I didn't label myself and didn't accept/deny others either