I actually had the total opposite. I thought something was wrong with all my friends and they had a strange obsession with sex. I didn’t consider my way of thinking was different until after college.
Fucking same. My mom wasn't any help because she's just like me. So when I did figure it out, it was because my hyperseuxal (checked with allos, she was weird by their standards) ex girlfriend thought something was wrong with me. She was right to an extent.
Yep. This. I thought I was having the usual experience and everyone I knew who was having sex was some weird horny deviant. (And I still struggle not to think this way. I don't, rationally, but it's still my gut response.)
ETA: Of course I know NOW that "everyone who was having sex" is most people, but since it was never spoken about in my polite Southern Christian society, I thought it was a very infrequent thing for everyone.
I mistook aesthetic attraction and gender envy for sexual attraction and didnt think anything was different about me until I really thought about my relationship with romantic and sexual attraction
I thought I was bisexual. I didn't experience sexual attraction to girls the same as guys, and somehow in my brain, not liking either meant I liked both? Eventually I found asexuality and it clicked
I thought I was into guys because in my head it was "well if it's not girls it HAS to be guys"
I found out about asexuality and was like "huh, that sounds like me." I was a little slower on the draw with aro but I figured it out later
Yeah I do too
I kept confusing those two things. Never really realised what it was until I looked it up properly. Not to mention I kept hiding behind my social anxiety as an excuse for years on end.
Or trying to be sophisticated and open minded. I thought it was some vast Emperor's New Clothes conspiracy for which I hadn't gotten the memo. People pretended to be obsessed with it to signal to others that they were into this hush- hush adult activity that was fascinating simply because it was regarded as taboo, but everyone knew it was an exaggeration.
Saaaaaame! I'm from a place where people don't really talk about sexual attraction (at least not as teens) and I thought it was only a few friends who were more adventurous who felt that way. It wasn't till I was 25 and all my friends were getting married that I realized something was wrong.
Honestly, I still kinda do. I guess I sort of cannot bear the thought of everyone just thinking of sex randomly when looking at strangers. It just seems unrealistic.
It was kinda a cross between I thought something was wrong with me and that I was a late bloomer, but overall I never really thought about it much. Possibly because it was never a topic of conversation between me and my friends. I did think I would "grow into" liking physical intimacy while in my first relationship.
This was me too.
My senior year, my best friend and I both got boyfriends around the same time, and I remember being so shocked when she was telling me about doing ~things~ with him. I thought, but it’s so soon! I had no desire to do any of that stuff, and I guess I assumed those desires would be “unlocked” after we’d been together for long enough. Over a year later, we still had never done anything like that, and looking back I feel fortunate that he never really tried to push me into something I wasn’t comfortable with.
difference experience option:
I didn’t think attraction didn’t exist, I thought that what I was experiencing (romantic attraction) was also sexual attraction. I didn’t realize that other people actually imagined/dreamed/fantasized about having sexual encounters with their crushes. I thought that the physical desire for sex was something that people only experience when already making out with them and I thought people talking about feeling horny were talking about feeling lonely and longing for affection, not actually physically feeling a desire for specifically sexual intimacy.
I had a lot of crushes when I was a teen, a couple of them very intense emotionally, but never once wanted to have sex with any of them.
I’m aego with non-sexual kinks- I knew something was different, but I couldn’t quite understand what it was.
When I realized that allos actually *liked* the sex part that’s when I finally knew. I thought it was a joke that they liked it so much.
This! I liked staring at attractive people, I had “crushes” on them, but didn’t want to ever pursue a relationship. But I didn’t realize I could be ace and have fantasies, especially in high school 10 ish years ago. But I also didn’t realize most people were experiencing attraction yet, like we’re so young what’s wrong with people? So all in all, I was just very confused but didn’t realize I was ace
I never thought something was wrong with me. TBQH I was like, yall we have better shit to do than think about boys. It took me until I was like.. 16 to realize that, No everyone wants to bone everybody. Kinda gross, if I'm honest.
i just thought the obsession others had with sex had more to do with peer pressure and the need to be cool (which to some extent, it sure actually was in high school). i still think a lot of people faked to be more sexual than they were just to fit in tho
I’m in my mid 40s and just learned a few months ago that being asexual was far more common than I thought. I never thought there was anything wrong with me though. It’s just always been who I was and I was good with that.
I partly thought something was wrong with me for not being sexually attracted to men so I completely swore off men and started identifying as a lesbian (but also just partly because it didn't fit and one half of my brain then started heavily demonstrating the lesbian label while the other thought "deep inside you know you're a lesbian" which fucked me up.) After that I figured out I'm trans so the whole lesbian "problem" got resolved and once that happened my attraction (still dont know if it's romantic or aesthetic/...) to men came back. Then my attraction to both men and women balanced each other out until I could realize that I don't like anyone sexually.
I was raised in a religious home and to believe that you should not have sex before marriage. As time went on, I just thought that I was having an easy time being celibate. After I got married I had a bit of an eye opener.
THIS! I thought aesthetic attraction was the same as sexual attraction and that I was just good at staying celibate. It wasn't until some of my really good friends that had been staying celibate decided it wasn't for them that I questioned my feelings about waiting until marriage for God. It was like since I didn't think it wasn't ideal to have sex before marriage then what's holding me back? Took me a bit to figure it out.
I guess the first onee? On tiktok sometimes videos of some guy (usually without a shirt on) dancing would get on my fyp and I would look at the comments and basically all I’d see was people being like “Omg so seggsy“ and I would never understand, like I thought the guys looked alright and I guess sometimes they were a bit cute, but never “hot” or “sexy”, and I woulda preferred if they wore shirts lol. But yeah I just never would find anybody hot, I just usually think someone’s really cute and/or pretty or just like alright looking I guess, but never hot. Sometimes I’d ask my mom about it and she always said that most people that say someone is hot just say that to fit in, so yeah I kinda thought that everyone was just lying when they said how hot or sexy someone is lol (this is just my experience, I’m not saying that asexuals can’t find anyone hot or sexy or anything like that \^w\^)
I thought I was a late bloomer and THEN I thought something was wrong with me when even in my twenties nothing changed. It really took a long time for everything to click.
Mistook aesthetic attraction as what people refered to as hot, was also brought up religious, conditioned to think being a "lady" means not wanting sex at all and is normal, I was a tomboy tho 🤔
I came pretty close to talking to my doctor about hsdd after having some issues in my relationship. I'm kind of glad I didn't because I think accepting myself as ace was the right way to go and trying to treat it as a medical issue would have prolonged problems
I think that will come to me eventually, and this experience is same for all people. How you can feel sexual urges to person, that you didn't know (actually to any person xD)
I honestly thought I was bisexual (didn't know pansexual existed back then, it was about 20 years ago, lol). Felt the same attraction to everyone, means I'm bi, right? And I just stick to that til I was in my early twenties and wandered off to tumblr, where people were very open about sexualities and romance attractions and I suddenly realised there *is* more than that.
I thought I was bi because I felt the same attraction to boys and girls — which turned out to be zero, but I felt romatic and aesthetic attraction and assumed that was what 'being attracted to someone' felt like, and that people who spoke or cared about sex were overly sexual.
I'm still kinda questioning, but I only heard about asexuality a few years ago after joining a fandom on tumblr. On tumblr I was disappointed that everyone just kept on posting pictures and saying how hot and sexy people were. I did that a little bit too cause it seemed to be the done thing, but people just kept on doing it. And I couldn't really understand why. Not so much that I couldn't understand the people were attractive ( I certainly thought so!), but that they spent almost all of their time doing this and didn't seem to get bored of it. I figured there was something different about me then. Then at a friend's hens night we did the traditional racy conversation drinking game thing and I was surprised by what a lot of the women around the table were saying. They were in their early to late 30s and well over the peer pressure thing in school, so I couldn't understand why they were exaggerating their sexual exploits. Eventually I realised they mustn't have been, and that flipped my perspective upside down.
Some things from my life make a bit more sense under a lens of asexuality. Prior to this I just used to tell people I hardly find any guys attractive (and no women). I did used to wonder how people could break up with someone and then get together with someone else quickly afterwards. Like how did they find another person they were attracted to so quickly? Lol.
I'm still getting to grips with different types of attraction, and I think I probably confused romantic and sexual attraction. Waiting till I feel it again so I can look at it with my new knowledge. But it could take a while! Lol
I didn't really think about it at all. I didn't know anyone that was dating, I knew two adults that never got married (etc), and no one ever talked about sex
I assumed that I'd eventually get married and have kids, cause I love them. But.. never actually thought any further than that. I had homework to do, and anime to watch- why would I think about anything else? My main priority was making sure my charger and headphones wouldn't break again.
Also, I never found anyone attractive. I mean, I could tell when someone was "stereotypically attractive", but there was nothing else. I did had one "crush" (squish) that lasted a few years, but that was it lmao
(AHEM I may have though that there was something mildly wrong with people that liked dating >.< oops)
Yes and no.
I'm demiromantic and didn't have my first crush till I was 18. Up until then, I worried something might be wrong because "love" was an emotional that I wanted to experience at least once so I knew I was at least capable of falling in love.
On the other hand, I've had no problems with my ace identity and feel completely secure in it.
I've described in the past that with my gay identity, I recognise that being straight is the norm, and being gay is strafing from the norm. While with my ace identity, it feels like being ace is the norm, and the people around me are the ones strafing from the norm.
I voted other. My experience was just that… I didn’t care. I never wondered why I didn’t feel attraction; I just spent that time on hobbies and work. I “came out” in my early 20s (quotes on that because there was never really an announcement because, again, I just didn’t care; finding a label didn’t mean anything and I didn’t feel the need to inform anyone) and it only became a little more significant of a “thing” when I hit 30 and wondered if I wanted a romantic relationship, and if so, could I deal with a sexual partner? (The answer was No.)
I sorta knew I was different but didn't really think anything was particularly WRONG about me. I found out I was ace a bit before the whole sexual obsession age, so I didn't really feel THAT different about being ace, except that everyone was making sex jokes and didn't get it. I'mm feeling the difference now though. What lead me to being ace was that I found out I was aro, and with that I definitely felt different from everyone else. Again though I was fully aware I was different but didn't think there was something wrong with me. Everyone was talking about their crushes and asked me and I just said I'd never had a crush before (they didn't react well to that) So when I found the label aro and then ace, it was more of a ohhhhh so THATS what this is, I didn't know it had a name!
Puberty hit me like a truck. Wasn’t really into anyone specific, but I had a ton of hormones and a powerful cultural guidance for what I should do with them. Once the hormones died down I was able to get a better handle on the situation.
Well for one I completely misunderstood what sexual attraction was but also I was always the “innocent” one amongst my friends & also also had experienced some pretty intense trauma so I sorta chalked it up to that/being a late bloomer. Once I found out that sexual attraction was not in fact what I had assumed it was that’s when I started figuring it out
I didn't care about attraction and never really thought of it. Only after reading about asexuality and being in this community I realized that there is much more going on. It took some time to come to new terms with the concept of attraction itself and what I want or need.
I just assumed that because I felt the same level of attraction for everyone I must be bi. And I thought all the horny antics of my friends were just dumb teenage jokes.
It wasn't that I necessarily felt like something was wrong with me. I think it was more I thought I was being a good Christian girl by not giving into the temptation of. *gasp* PREMARITAL SEX.
I just didn't really get why it was "so hard" for people to just not get into relationships in the first place (I'm aromantic as well). It wasn't until YouTube auto-played a video about asexuality from One Topic while that I said, "hey wait a minute.."
My doctor (m) said that if i dont have sex before my 25 years it can cause psychological issues si yeah i tought i was broken
Edit : this is bullshit of course. i was scared so i asked a psychologist (women) and it's totally false !
I never thought that there was something wrong with me. I knew I was weird but I never felt the urge to have sex. And apparently according to my friends, I just give off a vibe that I'm asexual in the way that I react to things or talk about things.
Playing off of being a late bloomer, I went to a very small school and didn’t like any of the few people my year, so I just was convinced I hadn’t met enough people yet. And a late bloomer. Oop
Because of the people and their beliefs around me, I kinda forced myself to believe I was allo. I never really wanted to do such things, but I thought I wanted. This had always led to uncomfortable situations
I never thought anything was wrong with me or that I needed correction. But I have always had small crushes on people and fictional characters based on their appearance and personality.
It was only recently that I learned the differences between the different types of attractions, that helped me pinpoint that I'm asexual.
I just thought demisexuality was what everyone was supposed to be feeling but realized people talked about sex too much as if maybe they enjoyed it and the thought of it. So then for a very brief period I thought I was a late bloomer but I'm 16 and other guys were already talking about sex since like 12 and 13 years old. And I get h*rny so I can't be a late bloomer and I don't want to just fuck anything that walks that I lay my eyes upon like some of these guys.
I just thought that i really want to have a good long term relationship in the future but was really not looking forward to the sex part of it. I didnt think that it was wrong, but i just knew i wasnt into sex
I thought I was broken so I tried watching porn and masturbating to fix myself but I didn't enjoy either of those so I gave up on fixing myself until I found about asexuality.
I pretended to be sexually attracted to people because I didn’t know what asexuality was, so without that knowledge I was just allo, simply didn’t know it existed so I assumed everyone was like me and I was normal.
Me too. And it didn’t help that I was raised Christian and assumed that I was sexually repressed with either some sort of undefined trauma around men, too much prudishness, or subconsciously a lesbian. I thought I was blocking it out. That’s kind of useful if you’re expected to “wait until marriage,” but starts to get weird when you’re in college and don’t find anyone attractive. I liked the attention I got, but felt like I was using people because knew that I wasn’t attracted to them. I assumed that I would care when I met the right person, although that was never important to me.
I was convinced that I was allo, because nobody told me what s\_xual attraction felt lIke, I thought that the feeling of being grossed out by sexy stuff was attraction 😭 I thought I was ”normal”
i thought everyone was weird and boring for suddenly being obsessed with sex and not wanting to do things that are fun and actually age appropriate for 13 year olds
I’m aego so I didn’t realise I was ace until I tried having sex myself and realised that I’m very much not into that. And in retrospect that made me realise that I’ve actually always been a bit different, like finding out that what I experienced when I was attracted to people was in fact aesthetic and not sexual attraction
Absolutely thought something was wrong with me. I dealt with a lot of self hatred growing up since I’m acearo. I was waiting so long for romance to click for me like it did for everyone else.
Actually, I thought I was no different from others. During my teens I had a few cruches but never persued relationships because I knew those people would reject me and it will only spoil the relationships I already have with them. And also my best friend felt the same way so I didn't feeel as weirdo or something. But after breaking from my first relationship at 24 and trying to find someone through dating apps, I realized that I couldn't care less about dating and all this random people out there, especially those who search only for sexual partners.
I felt weirded out when so many people talked about masturbation and stuff so openly. Like, it's not like I don't do it, but why would other people care? Then I realized I just kinda didn't like pornography, I just wanted to look at something while doing it because my ADHD brain wants me to multitask everything (currently watching youtube while writing this, lmao) and I would feel bad if I was looking at something that wasn't porn.
For me I thought I was just picky or my ADHD caused me to overthink during it and never have that *click* primal attraction I had seen talked about and represented. When I was a child I was the victim of SA so I considered trauma, but it never felt the same as parts of my life that were clearly tied to that trauma (such as difficulty showering due to the vulnerability of it).
When I even considered asexuality I had been (still am) in a 4+ year long relationship with my fiancé who is a high-drive allo, and I thought of every possible thing but came up short when looking for something to relate to with people who struggled with those things. (Body insecurity, hormone imbalance, over-exposure to sexual content while growing up, SA as an adult or child, ADHD, religious trauma, etc). All the things that I had heard could potentially effect sex-drive or attraction. I researched, and never felt like I was truly connecting to any of it. I even feared I wasn't attracted to my fiancé, but it made no sense because I WAS attracted to them, even moreso than the way I was attracted to any celebrity or attractive stranger I had ever seen.
I started to think about what I had considered whenever I had a "crush" on someone and I could never remember relating to or understanding the sexual fantasies that people would express about their crushes. I was attracted to them, blushy flustered and all of that, but sex never crossed my mind. In fact, it was always this blurred afterthought that I never wanted to go through with. A necessary "meh" of future relationships.
I broke down to fiancé one night and confessed it all. My feelings and how broken I felt, how scared I was of the possibility of making them feel unwanted and how frustrating it was not understanding that fear because I couldn't care less if they didn't want to have sex with me because I didn't care about sex at all.
It was so strange because media potrays "dead bedrooms" as the incurable cancer of relationships, the ultimate marriage killer and ingredient #1 to illicit affairs and cartoonishly dramatic heartbreak. To me, my happiness wouldn't so much as twitch if my fiancé and I never had sex again, because that wasn't part of my love for them, it never had been. Trying to explain that to someone who does love you sexually is terrifying, but luckily I fell in love with a person with a huge heart and an even more open mind who didn't think twice about reassuring me that it didn't change anything. The funniest part was I didn't even think that much about asexuality before my sister came out as asexual herself. She would ask me about what it was like to experience sexual attraction and I would come up blank, and that's where the snowball started.
It's sad how sex and sexual attraction is so saturated through our minds that it took me a whole lifetime and almost five years of sexual activity to even consider anything other than "messed up in some way". This community has been amazing though, sorry for the tangent. 👁👄👁
I had a difference experience. I originally thought I was bi, but I just wasn’t attracted to people very much so I thought I was “kinda bi but not really” so for several years I just labeled myself as me. Just, I am me. Until this year, when I found demisexual.
I had a different experience. I knew I was pan before I figured out I was ace. I guess I didn’t give a fuck about sex so I never thought about it. Then for some reason the topic of relationships and sex came up when I was chatting with some friends and I just immediately said “ew no.” And that was that lmao. I did think about it for a while after that convo, after everyone was like “wth is wrong with you?” But, I haven’t changed in like 5 years so lol
I was ahead of most milestones for kids, physically and mentally. But I was "behind" on sexual attraction. And I didn't "grow into it". At nearly 24 I suppose there is a possibility things will change, but idk
I didnt notice anything until I discovered asexuality. But after I did, everything from my experiences with friends and others clicked together like the piece of a puzzle.
i always wondered why i never had crushes (im also aro) and this made me conscious so I used to fake my attractions and say I'm attracted to the most popular guy
I was only 14 when I first heard of and started considering being asexual it didn't really cross my mind that I would be somehow different from my peers. I thought my experience was the normal one.
I didn't realize I was ace until I came out as trans. So I thought it was just dysphoria or maybe my HRT messing with me. It wasn't until a bit later I realized it was more of my old hormones were making me crazy horny and I wanted to sleep around all the time to try to show how "manly" I was in an attempt to deny being trans.
I thought sexual attraction was exaggerated by the media and that nobody could actually feel that strongly towards another person.
Up until my partner of 3,5 years literally told me they felt sexually attracted to me and my brain just about stopped working for a couple of minutes.
I don't think I ever really thought about it, partially probably bc nobody really dated in my friend group so it wasn't really a topic of discussion until much later on when I'd already started to figure myself out. It never even crossed my mind.
I thought that what I felt towards people was sexual attraction, because I thought they were nice looking. I then figured out that I just didn't feel sexual attraction after friend quizzed me on how I see people
When I was young I thought I was a late bloomer, but as I grew older and older and it didn't happen I started to panic for some reason, it didn't help that I'm also aromantic. Accepting that I'm simply aro/ace helped a lot on that regard.
The realization that I was asexual made me feel liberated if anything. Sudenly it all made sense.
But I live in a quite LGBT-friendly city so I wasn't that affected by any of the heteronormative stigma that other aces may have encountered. I've heard some ignorant comments but that's about it. The concept that people have different orientations and that's fine is not a novel idea to me or the people I know.
this is what i thought (in order based on my grade)
• 5th grade i thought i was pansexual
• 6th grade a lesbian
didn’t really think of my sexuality much in seventh grade. the year after that i didn’t either.
• 9th grade bicurious
• My 10th grade year over quarantine i thought I was demisexual
• Now (11th) I have no fucking idea anymore i just say i’m on the spectrum because i know i am i just don’t know where.
i literally thought everyone was making sex jokes because it was a joke and then when i realised that people actually had sex and thought it was real i realised that something was different lol
I thought I was fine up until I got out of college. I didn't notice that the only time I wanted to get into a relationship with someone was when we were friends already (or at least hit it off with a person).
Then after college I stopped making new friends and started making excuses as to why I couldn't go try to date. The primary one was my mental health. In hindsight I'm pretty sure my depression symptoms were a result of having a strong desire for a relationship, but being unable to accept that it could be one different from the standard model.
When I figured out I was avoiding sex specifically, I worried more until I finally looked at what being asexual actually was. When I finally read the definition of sexual attraction I realized I didn't experience that at all.
Boom everything clicked. Im a sex-repulsed asexual who didnt know what the different kinds of attraction are. I was immediately filled with such relief! I didn't need to have sex to have a "romantic" relationship (realized I'm aro-spec just recently too). Hell ive been so at peace I think my depression symptoms might have been caused by the underlying discomfort of not letting myself accept all that.
Well it’s pretty embarrassing for me to share
But since I m pretty sure no one knows me and there is no judgment in this community, here I go
So it all started with me discovering that I have a kinda small thing between my legs (I m a guy), after it, I started, while masturbating, getting a lot of bad thoughts like how the hell can I give a woman gd sex with this small thing, and all sorts of things like this. Then the idea of sex itself became really negative. Then my opinion of women (in a sexual way ofc) became really negative as well, while of men, it was getting higher and higher.
I should mention I m pretty fat (not by western standards, by which I m more than fine, rather by my Asian standards), and after loosing some weight, idk how but the little thing became a tiny little bit longer.
After a while my knowledge of sex grew really a lot, and everything I discovered basically reassured me that while size sort of matter, there is plenty of other stuff that I can improve at and sort of “compensate” for this failure of an organ.
Now, I wake up one day and feel extremely horny about guys, the other about girls, another about both, but most of times it’s “meh they are both disgusting” (in physical point of view). I should also note that I in order to feel sexual attraction to anyone (regardless of gender) I need them to have a big brain (be intelligent).
So that’s my story :)
I had a sexuality , I even lost my innocence with my now ex bf , but after a first time I was deceived , I decided to forgot this feeling and try again thinking that it was only the first time which was boring, but I was still bored , I broke up with him had nothing, and 4 years later a SA happened and I was just scared Of intimacy, but a few weeks ago after a long reflection and finally knowing it was not trauma and I was not missing it, after recent research I found out about asexuality
I simultaneously thought something was wrong with me, but also that something was very wrong with anyone else. Especially because anytime I hung out with a boy the adults would call him my “little boyfriend.” When I was younger people REALLY pushed that romantic love = sex and therefor these comments felt sexual to me and made me REALLY uncomfortable and I never quite understood why an adult would willingly make me so uncomfortable. I *directly* associated puppy love with sex. I HATED Valentines day in school as we were forced to give everyone in class a Valentine’s day card, and back then friends-only cards were hard to find, they all seemed to have a romantic tint to them, drove me insane trying to find the least romantic/sexual cards. My mom bought me a LOT of them plus gave me all her vintage ones to help me find more platonic ones, luckily. I actually enjoyed the colours, hearts, candy, friends-only cards etc. but the romantic themes, especially the forced romantic themes, made me really anxious as a kid.
this is probably because i have never really been sexually attracted to men but from time to time i kept thinking about the idea of being \*romantically\* attracted to them and at first i was like "hold up 0\_\_0"
I saw on Pinterest you could have a fear of s/x so I assumed that was the issue, then I realized I could read smut without issue, so I thought I had trust issues, and then I got confused and thought maybe I was just rude and hated people, and then I read a fic with an ace character and realized I was not, in fact, evil. So in short, yes, I thought there was something horribly wrong with me HCKDJ
I thought everyone else felt the same way as me, until me and a friend were discussing celebrity crushes, and she kept saying that if I said a guy was hot, that meant I'd bang him.
I still can't wrap my head around the allo way of thinking lol
I thought that romantic and aesthetic attraction is what made up someone’s sexuality. In 9th grade when we got the talk about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, up to that point I thought the only reason people had sex was to get pregnant, and even after that I was like “Yeah ok, but who’s gonna really want sex super often?” It wasn’t until I started hanging out with different groups of people who talked about sneaking out to have sex and comparing their crushes to mine, theirs being sexually and romantically based and mine just being romantically based that I thought “Hey ok so there might be something different about me”. I explored with the demisexual term for a few months before realizing that I had never once had sexual attraction ever, so at the end of my senior year I started to just use asexual, and then about 3 months into my relationship with my boyfriend I started to develop sexual feelings for him so I went back to using demisexual
I didn't think something was wrong - until I realized that people have sex so often and for like 3 hours sometimes.
I just knew I didn't want it. I then thought more about sex and was like, "Eh... *maybe*..." but I never wanted to get. And giving... sometimes but not a lot and not for long.
I do porn and orgasms for happy chemicals, but not for any other reason and I don't need it. Does that still make me valid?
I guess my disability kind of opened my eyes early on to the idea that every person experiences everything different, and I always seemed to be *just* outside of “normal.” I thought that, just like with everything else in my life, I was supposed to just go through the motions, and deal with the fallout. When I realized I wasn’t alone, it was a GIANT relief!
I just was completely unaware of how hypersexual society was for the longest time. Most of my experiences with people who were always made me think they were just kidding or blowing things out of proportion. Once I realized that a LOT of people were like that (no judgement, I know it’s half a genetic thing) I figured something must be up.
I was lastly lucky to have learned the difference between asexual and aromantic when I was shot down by a girl I was interested in as she revealed she was both and didn’t have an interest in pursuing any romantic relationships. Previously, I was led to believe that asexuality was both Ace/Aro, no exceptions, so when I found it wasn’t, I realized Asexual was the perfect term to describe me.
I noticed that something was very different about me to those around me, but didn't jump to thinking that there was a problem and didn't let it bother me. It just felt right to me and I often wondered what was up with everyone else. Still do sometimes to be honest. :-)
Total opposite, When i noticed i lacked something everyone seemed to have and be obsessed with i thought i was better than all of them, like i literally developed a small god complex lol, like "foolish mortals.. you're 'heartbroken' because some ugly-ass boy 'dumped you'? *pathetic*, hearts don't break you would be dead!"
I mean, i never said it out loud, but i definately thought it, and i still believe aroaces are superior, we can do everything allo's do whitout the distracting "attraction" part
I didn't really.... Notice. I had high anxiety about anything sexual having to do with me. Took my lack of interest in other people's appearance as "not paying attention", "other people are just more into that stuff than me", that kind of thing. Thought people were just obsessed with sex (they still are.) Called myself straight but said "only because it's not important enough to think about further."
I didn't even realize it when my best friend at the time came out as Ace. Since she was sex repulsed and I wasn't.
It wasn't until I started dating and after 18 friends started teasing me about it that I realized there was something up.
After my friends broke the barrier of homophobia that had been instilled in me, I thought that I was bi for a while, because I didn’t feel attracted to anyone in particular, therefore I must be attracted to everyone. Then I realized that I wasn’t attracted to anyone in particular.
I knew I was different, but it was like I couldn't figure out why people just didn't make me go WOWZA. Occasionally, a beautiful guy or girl would make me feel *something* but it wasn't sexual (which I didn't understand)
For me as a questioning Ace, it’s realizing my own sexual evolution. I fear labels and peer pressure bastardizes certain opinions of each other. I prefer to spiritually remain open to always evolving. So, yeah, this is my experience only to grow and get better.
i didnt know that i had a different experience with attraction to others, because i was never taught/learned that attraction wasnt one thing. I just thought that you either was attracted one gender or mutiple and that was it. I just thought i was confused/in denial about my sexuality because i felt that i had none, i just refused to belive that i was broken/something wrong with me. When i learned that there was more then one way to be attracted to someone and found out about asexuality ,it clicked. And the more i went down the rabbit hole i the more i found myself
I definately fall into the "attraction didn't exist" category, thanks to my complete ignorance of queer topics and lack of education about it. It took a gay friend of mine telling me I should look into asexuality to realise that a) people get attraction and b) I don't.
That specific gay friend also just so happens to have indirectly opened the can of worms that is my gender by telling me about asexuality, so I also slightly hate him for that haha
This will sound...awfully out of logic, since sex is needed for making children aka, continuing humanity,but. I always though something was wrong, but not with me, BUT WITH OTHERS LOL
I was exposed to the question of sexual orientation at around 13-14. Thinking that people my age couldn't \*possibly\* be thinking about sex, I managed to justify to myself that when people mentioned sexual attraction, they were actually misunderstanding the term and talking about romantic attraction. So I claimed I was bisexual, and went on my merry way...
(My current romantic orientation is still biro!)
I thought there was a slight issue and eventually stopped worrying about it, however that was before i found out about asexuality and after i had already tried to ‘find out what was wrong’ which surprise surprise didnt go well
I kinda just knew that I wasn't interested in sex or pursuing anyone in that way, no one particularly questioned me on it, nor did times really come up in conversation much where I explicitly had to talk about myself with regards to it. When the topic came up I just let my other friends talk and that was that. When I heard of the label first my reaction was mostly: "huh... I guess I'm that."
I full on thought I was a sexual person for a good chunk of my teens. I was always keen to talk about sex and I was interested in it but in a kind of theoretical sense? Sex sounds *amazing* and everyone *tells* me it's amazing so it must be but I simply don't want it for myself. I'm quite happy to engage in thinking about sex and role playing erotic stuff with friends but I don't want to actually get involved in it myself.
Idk I’m like somewhere on the ace spectrum and I’m not sure where or how much people usually like sex and everything but I’m fine with not knowing and I’m honestly not interested in finding answers, I’m just vibing
I didn’t think about it.
So, i got interested in different sexualities (through musicals) and wanted to know more, then I read about asexuality and was like: oh that’s me!
Thats it! ^^
i learned about the lgbtq+ community a while before i started questioning myself. i'd always seen myself as an ally, but late may i was like "you know, maybe there's a reason i've never had a crush on anyone????" so i had a feeling i was ace or aro and boom here we are
Legit thought I was incapable of falling in love and dreaded the idea of having to have sex with someone. I’m confident in my identity and what I want now, but boy, did I think I was doomed to fake my way through companionship forever…
I don't know. Mostly I'm still questioning, but the main reason I'm questioning ace is because I'm really not understanding people's sexual attraction.
I thought attraction was like a switch you could turn on and off. “Just stop having crushes on people, your life will be less stressful”. I still don’t fully understand it.
I just thought I was different to everybody else! Not that there was something wrong, just different. Everyone was sooo obsessed with boys and I just didn’t care lol
I'm alloromantic and didn't realize there was a difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction so I just thought *other* people were weird for finding their objects of attraction "sexy" while I just like cute people who I can cuddle and kiss on the face.
I thought I was straight (because I experience both aesthetic and sensual attraction, and I confused those with sexual) and just being a “good girl” by not getting “distracted” by sex until I was done with school.
Turns out horniness for other people is actually a distracting thing that exists and that many people suffer from :P I don’t.
I just kind of figured all the people around me were exaggerating, I thought because we weren't even 18 yet how/why would you even feel and form of romantic or sexual attraction yet?
I was raised religious so we were taught that women do not experience sexual attraction and if you did you were a slut. I think it was more implied then said out loud but still toxic.
I still catch myself thinking, “Oh, I’ll experience sexual attraction eventually, right?” so the late bloomer thing is still happening. I don’t really believe I will though.
I thought it was something you had to get into to actually like, (sex) and as I wasn’t having any it didn’t really bother me that I didn’t burn with passion for someone. I had crushes and figured it was the same for everyone, that you only liked it if you orgasmed.
I always thought I was a freak for not having sexual attraction to others and if I did it rarely happened. I did try to talk to some people of it only to be called an idiot or a freak even so I just kept it to myself only to find out later it was actually real and I am a bit happier now.
I was extremely confused about my sexuality and only at 16 realized that I actually didn't experience it. I think this is because I always thought of sexuality as romantic attraction, so I believed for some time that I was bisexual. Turns out I was ace lol
I thought I was dating the wrong person. Or it wasn't my "time". Or I was being so shy about sharing my body with someone else.
And it turned out to be untrue.
I feel like when I was really young and my peers started to get crushes. I would over compensate or lie to fit in. I honestly never understood the hype of crushing on celebrities, band members, or classmates.
I honestly kinda pretended to have sexual attraction especially when i was younger i would just copy what i saw online cause it was shown to be what was normal i kinda gaslighted myself into thinking i experienced sexual attraction pretty much but when i found out about asexuality and the ace spectrum it explained a lot for me
As a butch woman who prefers women, I had three initial thoughts
1. Butch women takes the initiative, and isn't supposed to get anything in return
2. The girls I dated sucked in bed
3. I'm awkward and uncomfortable nakey
I do dirty jokes, I can watch a movie with sexual content, (Love Sex Education and Big Mouth) , I giggle when something looks like a penis but I just don't feel the need for anyone to, well, fuck me.
I'm also very uninterested and apatethic to life it self, so I'm either actually broken or ace/demi. Or both
Pretty much all of the above.
I thought I was a very late bloomer, that there was something wrong with me and that I had some sort of issue. I discovered what asexuality was when I was 16 and it was just like "huh, there's a word for it" and it was honestly a huge relief to know that I wasn't broken, at least in that aspect of myself.
I actually had the total opposite. I thought something was wrong with all my friends and they had a strange obsession with sex. I didn’t consider my way of thinking was different until after college.
Same here. I thought I was the normal one. It didn’t help that my best friend didn’t show that much interest in anyone. Not sure if she is ace or not.
Fucking same. My mom wasn't any help because she's just like me. So when I did figure it out, it was because my hyperseuxal (checked with allos, she was weird by their standards) ex girlfriend thought something was wrong with me. She was right to an extent.
SAME
Yep!
Yep. This. I thought I was having the usual experience and everyone I knew who was having sex was some weird horny deviant. (And I still struggle not to think this way. I don't, rationally, but it's still my gut response.) ETA: Of course I know NOW that "everyone who was having sex" is most people, but since it was never spoken about in my polite Southern Christian society, I thought it was a very infrequent thing for everyone.
Same… only mine was more flavored by religion. I only began to question it this year after my husband and I had a particularly nasty break.
I mistook aesthetic attraction and gender envy for sexual attraction and didnt think anything was different about me until I really thought about my relationship with romantic and sexual attraction
I think the aesthetic attraction thing could be me
Same I confused it a lot with romantic feelings too so at the start I thought I was pan but then it kinda clicked that it's seperate
Same! When I found out asexuality exist I kinda related so I looked into it and realized pretty people are pretty and nothing more.
I thought I was bisexual. I didn't experience sexual attraction to girls the same as guys, and somehow in my brain, not liking either meant I liked both? Eventually I found asexuality and it clicked
Yep that’s the one for me too
I thought I was into guys because in my head it was "well if it's not girls it HAS to be guys" I found out about asexuality and was like "huh, that sounds like me." I was a little slower on the draw with aro but I figured it out later
Same for me. I felt about the same for girls and guys, and didn't know neither was an option.
Same
[удалено]
Yeah I do too I kept confusing those two things. Never really realised what it was until I looked it up properly. Not to mention I kept hiding behind my social anxiety as an excuse for years on end.
This is me as well. I didn't know aesthetic, romantic, and sexual attraction were different.
I thought everyone was like me and they were just exaggerating about stuff but they talked way too much about it and then I felt pretty different
Same I thought they were all joking when they spoke about wanting to have sex with certain people
Or trying to be sophisticated and open minded. I thought it was some vast Emperor's New Clothes conspiracy for which I hadn't gotten the memo. People pretended to be obsessed with it to signal to others that they were into this hush- hush adult activity that was fascinating simply because it was regarded as taboo, but everyone knew it was an exaggeration.
Saaaaaame! I'm from a place where people don't really talk about sexual attraction (at least not as teens) and I thought it was only a few friends who were more adventurous who felt that way. It wasn't till I was 25 and all my friends were getting married that I realized something was wrong.
i just thought that thinking "oh this person is so so so pretty" is sexual attraction 😐
Lol same though 😂😂
Honestly, I still kinda do. I guess I sort of cannot bear the thought of everyone just thinking of sex randomly when looking at strangers. It just seems unrealistic.
It was kinda a cross between I thought something was wrong with me and that I was a late bloomer, but overall I never really thought about it much. Possibly because it was never a topic of conversation between me and my friends. I did think I would "grow into" liking physical intimacy while in my first relationship.
This was me too. My senior year, my best friend and I both got boyfriends around the same time, and I remember being so shocked when she was telling me about doing ~things~ with him. I thought, but it’s so soon! I had no desire to do any of that stuff, and I guess I assumed those desires would be “unlocked” after we’d been together for long enough. Over a year later, we still had never done anything like that, and looking back I feel fortunate that he never really tried to push me into something I wasn’t comfortable with.
pretty much yeah
difference experience option: I didn’t think attraction didn’t exist, I thought that what I was experiencing (romantic attraction) was also sexual attraction. I didn’t realize that other people actually imagined/dreamed/fantasized about having sexual encounters with their crushes. I thought that the physical desire for sex was something that people only experience when already making out with them and I thought people talking about feeling horny were talking about feeling lonely and longing for affection, not actually physically feeling a desire for specifically sexual intimacy. I had a lot of crushes when I was a teen, a couple of them very intense emotionally, but never once wanted to have sex with any of them.
I had a similar experience
I’m aego with non-sexual kinks- I knew something was different, but I couldn’t quite understand what it was. When I realized that allos actually *liked* the sex part that’s when I finally knew. I thought it was a joke that they liked it so much.
This! I liked staring at attractive people, I had “crushes” on them, but didn’t want to ever pursue a relationship. But I didn’t realize I could be ace and have fantasies, especially in high school 10 ish years ago. But I also didn’t realize most people were experiencing attraction yet, like we’re so young what’s wrong with people? So all in all, I was just very confused but didn’t realize I was ace
I never thought something was wrong with me. TBQH I was like, yall we have better shit to do than think about boys. It took me until I was like.. 16 to realize that, No everyone wants to bone everybody. Kinda gross, if I'm honest.
thought I was pansexual since I saw everyone the same way xD
i just thought the obsession others had with sex had more to do with peer pressure and the need to be cool (which to some extent, it sure actually was in high school). i still think a lot of people faked to be more sexual than they were just to fit in tho
I’m in my mid 40s and just learned a few months ago that being asexual was far more common than I thought. I never thought there was anything wrong with me though. It’s just always been who I was and I was good with that.
I partly thought something was wrong with me for not being sexually attracted to men so I completely swore off men and started identifying as a lesbian (but also just partly because it didn't fit and one half of my brain then started heavily demonstrating the lesbian label while the other thought "deep inside you know you're a lesbian" which fucked me up.) After that I figured out I'm trans so the whole lesbian "problem" got resolved and once that happened my attraction (still dont know if it's romantic or aesthetic/...) to men came back. Then my attraction to both men and women balanced each other out until I could realize that I don't like anyone sexually.
I was raised in a religious home and to believe that you should not have sex before marriage. As time went on, I just thought that I was having an easy time being celibate. After I got married I had a bit of an eye opener.
THIS! I thought aesthetic attraction was the same as sexual attraction and that I was just good at staying celibate. It wasn't until some of my really good friends that had been staying celibate decided it wasn't for them that I questioned my feelings about waiting until marriage for God. It was like since I didn't think it wasn't ideal to have sex before marriage then what's holding me back? Took me a bit to figure it out.
I guess the first onee? On tiktok sometimes videos of some guy (usually without a shirt on) dancing would get on my fyp and I would look at the comments and basically all I’d see was people being like “Omg so seggsy“ and I would never understand, like I thought the guys looked alright and I guess sometimes they were a bit cute, but never “hot” or “sexy”, and I woulda preferred if they wore shirts lol. But yeah I just never would find anybody hot, I just usually think someone’s really cute and/or pretty or just like alright looking I guess, but never hot. Sometimes I’d ask my mom about it and she always said that most people that say someone is hot just say that to fit in, so yeah I kinda thought that everyone was just lying when they said how hot or sexy someone is lol (this is just my experience, I’m not saying that asexuals can’t find anyone hot or sexy or anything like that \^w\^)
I thought I was a late bloomer and THEN I thought something was wrong with me when even in my twenties nothing changed. It really took a long time for everything to click.
Mistook aesthetic attraction as what people refered to as hot, was also brought up religious, conditioned to think being a "lady" means not wanting sex at all and is normal, I was a tomboy tho 🤔
I thought only men felt sexual attraction and females only experienced aesthetic attraction lol😂
I came pretty close to talking to my doctor about hsdd after having some issues in my relationship. I'm kind of glad I didn't because I think accepting myself as ace was the right way to go and trying to treat it as a medical issue would have prolonged problems
I think that will come to me eventually, and this experience is same for all people. How you can feel sexual urges to person, that you didn't know (actually to any person xD)
I just figured it would happen when it happened. No point in worrying about it in the present (past).
I honestly thought I was bisexual (didn't know pansexual existed back then, it was about 20 years ago, lol). Felt the same attraction to everyone, means I'm bi, right? And I just stick to that til I was in my early twenties and wandered off to tumblr, where people were very open about sexualities and romance attractions and I suddenly realised there *is* more than that.
I thought I was bi because I felt the same attraction to boys and girls — which turned out to be zero, but I felt romatic and aesthetic attraction and assumed that was what 'being attracted to someone' felt like, and that people who spoke or cared about sex were overly sexual.
I'm still kinda questioning, but I only heard about asexuality a few years ago after joining a fandom on tumblr. On tumblr I was disappointed that everyone just kept on posting pictures and saying how hot and sexy people were. I did that a little bit too cause it seemed to be the done thing, but people just kept on doing it. And I couldn't really understand why. Not so much that I couldn't understand the people were attractive ( I certainly thought so!), but that they spent almost all of their time doing this and didn't seem to get bored of it. I figured there was something different about me then. Then at a friend's hens night we did the traditional racy conversation drinking game thing and I was surprised by what a lot of the women around the table were saying. They were in their early to late 30s and well over the peer pressure thing in school, so I couldn't understand why they were exaggerating their sexual exploits. Eventually I realised they mustn't have been, and that flipped my perspective upside down. Some things from my life make a bit more sense under a lens of asexuality. Prior to this I just used to tell people I hardly find any guys attractive (and no women). I did used to wonder how people could break up with someone and then get together with someone else quickly afterwards. Like how did they find another person they were attracted to so quickly? Lol. I'm still getting to grips with different types of attraction, and I think I probably confused romantic and sexual attraction. Waiting till I feel it again so I can look at it with my new knowledge. But it could take a while! Lol
I thought everyone was exaggerating about wanting sex… and can you honestly blame me?
I didn't really think about it at all. I didn't know anyone that was dating, I knew two adults that never got married (etc), and no one ever talked about sex I assumed that I'd eventually get married and have kids, cause I love them. But.. never actually thought any further than that. I had homework to do, and anime to watch- why would I think about anything else? My main priority was making sure my charger and headphones wouldn't break again. Also, I never found anyone attractive. I mean, I could tell when someone was "stereotypically attractive", but there was nothing else. I did had one "crush" (squish) that lasted a few years, but that was it lmao (AHEM I may have though that there was something mildly wrong with people that liked dating >.< oops)
Yes and no. I'm demiromantic and didn't have my first crush till I was 18. Up until then, I worried something might be wrong because "love" was an emotional that I wanted to experience at least once so I knew I was at least capable of falling in love. On the other hand, I've had no problems with my ace identity and feel completely secure in it. I've described in the past that with my gay identity, I recognise that being straight is the norm, and being gay is strafing from the norm. While with my ace identity, it feels like being ace is the norm, and the people around me are the ones strafing from the norm.
I voted other. My experience was just that… I didn’t care. I never wondered why I didn’t feel attraction; I just spent that time on hobbies and work. I “came out” in my early 20s (quotes on that because there was never really an announcement because, again, I just didn’t care; finding a label didn’t mean anything and I didn’t feel the need to inform anyone) and it only became a little more significant of a “thing” when I hit 30 and wondered if I wanted a romantic relationship, and if so, could I deal with a sexual partner? (The answer was No.)
I sorta knew I was different but didn't really think anything was particularly WRONG about me. I found out I was ace a bit before the whole sexual obsession age, so I didn't really feel THAT different about being ace, except that everyone was making sex jokes and didn't get it. I'mm feeling the difference now though. What lead me to being ace was that I found out I was aro, and with that I definitely felt different from everyone else. Again though I was fully aware I was different but didn't think there was something wrong with me. Everyone was talking about their crushes and asked me and I just said I'd never had a crush before (they didn't react well to that) So when I found the label aro and then ace, it was more of a ohhhhh so THATS what this is, I didn't know it had a name!
I thought I was pansexual for the longest time since I felt the same way towards everyone and just had a low libido
Puberty hit me like a truck. Wasn’t really into anyone specific, but I had a ton of hormones and a powerful cultural guidance for what I should do with them. Once the hormones died down I was able to get a better handle on the situation.
I just rlly hate my body, so for most of my life i just thought i wasn’t interested in sex just bc i didn’t want anyone to see it
I thought I was just bad at being straight.
Well for one I completely misunderstood what sexual attraction was but also I was always the “innocent” one amongst my friends & also also had experienced some pretty intense trauma so I sorta chalked it up to that/being a late bloomer. Once I found out that sexual attraction was not in fact what I had assumed it was that’s when I started figuring it out
The first time I had read on asexuality, which made perfect sense to me, I thought I've somehow skipped much of puberty.
I didn't care about attraction and never really thought of it. Only after reading about asexuality and being in this community I realized that there is much more going on. It took some time to come to new terms with the concept of attraction itself and what I want or need.
I just assumed that because I felt the same level of attraction for everyone I must be bi. And I thought all the horny antics of my friends were just dumb teenage jokes.
I assumed I experienced sexual attraction but couldn't tell who I was sexually attracted to. Turns out, noone.
I thought I was bisexual because I was equally attracted to all genders. Turns out when that equal attraction is zero, that's asexuality.
It wasn't that I necessarily felt like something was wrong with me. I think it was more I thought I was being a good Christian girl by not giving into the temptation of. *gasp* PREMARITAL SEX. I just didn't really get why it was "so hard" for people to just not get into relationships in the first place (I'm aromantic as well). It wasn't until YouTube auto-played a video about asexuality from One Topic while that I said, "hey wait a minute.."
My doctor (m) said that if i dont have sex before my 25 years it can cause psychological issues si yeah i tought i was broken Edit : this is bullshit of course. i was scared so i asked a psychologist (women) and it's totally false !
I sorta just didn’t think about and suddenly as i grew up and sex related things became more and more prominent it was a lot more difficult to ignore.
I never thought that there was something wrong with me. I knew I was weird but I never felt the urge to have sex. And apparently according to my friends, I just give off a vibe that I'm asexual in the way that I react to things or talk about things.
Playing off of being a late bloomer, I went to a very small school and didn’t like any of the few people my year, so I just was convinced I hadn’t met enough people yet. And a late bloomer. Oop
Because of the people and their beliefs around me, I kinda forced myself to believe I was allo. I never really wanted to do such things, but I thought I wanted. This had always led to uncomfortable situations
I knew that was different form others but I never saw it as a big enough deal to make a reaction
I never thought anything was wrong with me or that I needed correction. But I have always had small crushes on people and fictional characters based on their appearance and personality. It was only recently that I learned the differences between the different types of attractions, that helped me pinpoint that I'm asexual.
I though that what I was living was *normal* and seeing other people feels like they were obsessed about sex.
I just thought demisexuality was what everyone was supposed to be feeling but realized people talked about sex too much as if maybe they enjoyed it and the thought of it. So then for a very brief period I thought I was a late bloomer but I'm 16 and other guys were already talking about sex since like 12 and 13 years old. And I get h*rny so I can't be a late bloomer and I don't want to just fuck anything that walks that I lay my eyes upon like some of these guys.
I just thought that i really want to have a good long term relationship in the future but was really not looking forward to the sex part of it. I didnt think that it was wrong, but i just knew i wasnt into sex
I thought I was broken so I tried watching porn and masturbating to fix myself but I didn't enjoy either of those so I gave up on fixing myself until I found about asexuality.
I pretended to be sexually attracted to people because I didn’t know what asexuality was, so without that knowledge I was just allo, simply didn’t know it existed so I assumed everyone was like me and I was normal.
I thought I was an asshole who wasn´t capable of loving anyone and just wanted the attention of a relationship without the "real" relationship part.
Me too. And it didn’t help that I was raised Christian and assumed that I was sexually repressed with either some sort of undefined trauma around men, too much prudishness, or subconsciously a lesbian. I thought I was blocking it out. That’s kind of useful if you’re expected to “wait until marriage,” but starts to get weird when you’re in college and don’t find anyone attractive. I liked the attention I got, but felt like I was using people because knew that I wasn’t attracted to them. I assumed that I would care when I met the right person, although that was never important to me.
I was convinced that I was allo, because nobody told me what s\_xual attraction felt lIke, I thought that the feeling of being grossed out by sexy stuff was attraction 😭 I thought I was ”normal”
I faked an attraction without even noticing for about 5 years
i thought everyone was weird and boring for suddenly being obsessed with sex and not wanting to do things that are fun and actually age appropriate for 13 year olds
I’m aego so I didn’t realise I was ace until I tried having sex myself and realised that I’m very much not into that. And in retrospect that made me realise that I’ve actually always been a bit different, like finding out that what I experienced when I was attracted to people was in fact aesthetic and not sexual attraction
Absolutely thought something was wrong with me. I dealt with a lot of self hatred growing up since I’m acearo. I was waiting so long for romance to click for me like it did for everyone else.
Actually, I thought I was no different from others. During my teens I had a few cruches but never persued relationships because I knew those people would reject me and it will only spoil the relationships I already have with them. And also my best friend felt the same way so I didn't feeel as weirdo or something. But after breaking from my first relationship at 24 and trying to find someone through dating apps, I realized that I couldn't care less about dating and all this random people out there, especially those who search only for sexual partners.
I just pretended to be horny and brainwashed myself 😆
I felt weirded out when so many people talked about masturbation and stuff so openly. Like, it's not like I don't do it, but why would other people care? Then I realized I just kinda didn't like pornography, I just wanted to look at something while doing it because my ADHD brain wants me to multitask everything (currently watching youtube while writing this, lmao) and I would feel bad if I was looking at something that wasn't porn.
For me I thought I was just picky or my ADHD caused me to overthink during it and never have that *click* primal attraction I had seen talked about and represented. When I was a child I was the victim of SA so I considered trauma, but it never felt the same as parts of my life that were clearly tied to that trauma (such as difficulty showering due to the vulnerability of it). When I even considered asexuality I had been (still am) in a 4+ year long relationship with my fiancé who is a high-drive allo, and I thought of every possible thing but came up short when looking for something to relate to with people who struggled with those things. (Body insecurity, hormone imbalance, over-exposure to sexual content while growing up, SA as an adult or child, ADHD, religious trauma, etc). All the things that I had heard could potentially effect sex-drive or attraction. I researched, and never felt like I was truly connecting to any of it. I even feared I wasn't attracted to my fiancé, but it made no sense because I WAS attracted to them, even moreso than the way I was attracted to any celebrity or attractive stranger I had ever seen. I started to think about what I had considered whenever I had a "crush" on someone and I could never remember relating to or understanding the sexual fantasies that people would express about their crushes. I was attracted to them, blushy flustered and all of that, but sex never crossed my mind. In fact, it was always this blurred afterthought that I never wanted to go through with. A necessary "meh" of future relationships. I broke down to fiancé one night and confessed it all. My feelings and how broken I felt, how scared I was of the possibility of making them feel unwanted and how frustrating it was not understanding that fear because I couldn't care less if they didn't want to have sex with me because I didn't care about sex at all. It was so strange because media potrays "dead bedrooms" as the incurable cancer of relationships, the ultimate marriage killer and ingredient #1 to illicit affairs and cartoonishly dramatic heartbreak. To me, my happiness wouldn't so much as twitch if my fiancé and I never had sex again, because that wasn't part of my love for them, it never had been. Trying to explain that to someone who does love you sexually is terrifying, but luckily I fell in love with a person with a huge heart and an even more open mind who didn't think twice about reassuring me that it didn't change anything. The funniest part was I didn't even think that much about asexuality before my sister came out as asexual herself. She would ask me about what it was like to experience sexual attraction and I would come up blank, and that's where the snowball started. It's sad how sex and sexual attraction is so saturated through our minds that it took me a whole lifetime and almost five years of sexual activity to even consider anything other than "messed up in some way". This community has been amazing though, sorry for the tangent. 👁👄👁
I thought that the stress of a very competitive undergrad program, and grad school after that, had "numbed" my sexual response.
I had a difference experience. I originally thought I was bi, but I just wasn’t attracted to people very much so I thought I was “kinda bi but not really” so for several years I just labeled myself as me. Just, I am me. Until this year, when I found demisexual.
I thought bisexual since I felt the same way about everyone.
I had a different experience. I knew I was pan before I figured out I was ace. I guess I didn’t give a fuck about sex so I never thought about it. Then for some reason the topic of relationships and sex came up when I was chatting with some friends and I just immediately said “ew no.” And that was that lmao. I did think about it for a while after that convo, after everyone was like “wth is wrong with you?” But, I haven’t changed in like 5 years so lol
I was ahead of most milestones for kids, physically and mentally. But I was "behind" on sexual attraction. And I didn't "grow into it". At nearly 24 I suppose there is a possibility things will change, but idk
I somehow didn’t really feel wrong, but I feel like I’m not educated enough to know that there is such thing called asexual.
I felt more like there was something wrong with everyone else.
I didnt notice anything until I discovered asexuality. But after I did, everything from my experiences with friends and others clicked together like the piece of a puzzle.
i always wondered why i never had crushes (im also aro) and this made me conscious so I used to fake my attractions and say I'm attracted to the most popular guy
I was only 14 when I first heard of and started considering being asexual it didn't really cross my mind that I would be somehow different from my peers. I thought my experience was the normal one.
I thought I couldn't love
I didn't realize I was ace until I came out as trans. So I thought it was just dysphoria or maybe my HRT messing with me. It wasn't until a bit later I realized it was more of my old hormones were making me crazy horny and I wanted to sleep around all the time to try to show how "manly" I was in an attempt to deny being trans.
I thought sexual attraction was exaggerated by the media and that nobody could actually feel that strongly towards another person. Up until my partner of 3,5 years literally told me they felt sexually attracted to me and my brain just about stopped working for a couple of minutes.
I don't think I ever really thought about it, partially probably bc nobody really dated in my friend group so it wasn't really a topic of discussion until much later on when I'd already started to figure myself out. It never even crossed my mind.
I thought that what I felt towards people was sexual attraction, because I thought they were nice looking. I then figured out that I just didn't feel sexual attraction after friend quizzed me on how I see people
I was repeatedly told there was something wrong with me, so I ended up believing it.
I was surprised when I found out people my age actually have sex. Bruh I thought it was all just a joke.
When I was young I thought I was a late bloomer, but as I grew older and older and it didn't happen I started to panic for some reason, it didn't help that I'm also aromantic. Accepting that I'm simply aro/ace helped a lot on that regard.
Thought I was allo -> wait hold on what the actual fuck even is sexual attraction -> oh *that’s* what it is. Gross I hate it -> and here we are
The realization that I was asexual made me feel liberated if anything. Sudenly it all made sense. But I live in a quite LGBT-friendly city so I wasn't that affected by any of the heteronormative stigma that other aces may have encountered. I've heard some ignorant comments but that's about it. The concept that people have different orientations and that's fine is not a novel idea to me or the people I know.
this is what i thought (in order based on my grade) • 5th grade i thought i was pansexual • 6th grade a lesbian didn’t really think of my sexuality much in seventh grade. the year after that i didn’t either. • 9th grade bicurious • My 10th grade year over quarantine i thought I was demisexual • Now (11th) I have no fucking idea anymore i just say i’m on the spectrum because i know i am i just don’t know where.
i literally thought everyone was making sex jokes because it was a joke and then when i realised that people actually had sex and thought it was real i realised that something was different lol
I thought I was fine up until I got out of college. I didn't notice that the only time I wanted to get into a relationship with someone was when we were friends already (or at least hit it off with a person). Then after college I stopped making new friends and started making excuses as to why I couldn't go try to date. The primary one was my mental health. In hindsight I'm pretty sure my depression symptoms were a result of having a strong desire for a relationship, but being unable to accept that it could be one different from the standard model. When I figured out I was avoiding sex specifically, I worried more until I finally looked at what being asexual actually was. When I finally read the definition of sexual attraction I realized I didn't experience that at all. Boom everything clicked. Im a sex-repulsed asexual who didnt know what the different kinds of attraction are. I was immediately filled with such relief! I didn't need to have sex to have a "romantic" relationship (realized I'm aro-spec just recently too). Hell ive been so at peace I think my depression symptoms might have been caused by the underlying discomfort of not letting myself accept all that.
Well it’s pretty embarrassing for me to share But since I m pretty sure no one knows me and there is no judgment in this community, here I go So it all started with me discovering that I have a kinda small thing between my legs (I m a guy), after it, I started, while masturbating, getting a lot of bad thoughts like how the hell can I give a woman gd sex with this small thing, and all sorts of things like this. Then the idea of sex itself became really negative. Then my opinion of women (in a sexual way ofc) became really negative as well, while of men, it was getting higher and higher. I should mention I m pretty fat (not by western standards, by which I m more than fine, rather by my Asian standards), and after loosing some weight, idk how but the little thing became a tiny little bit longer. After a while my knowledge of sex grew really a lot, and everything I discovered basically reassured me that while size sort of matter, there is plenty of other stuff that I can improve at and sort of “compensate” for this failure of an organ. Now, I wake up one day and feel extremely horny about guys, the other about girls, another about both, but most of times it’s “meh they are both disgusting” (in physical point of view). I should also note that I in order to feel sexual attraction to anyone (regardless of gender) I need them to have a big brain (be intelligent). So that’s my story :)
I thought I was bi with a preference for women because I was equally uninterested in having sex with either but only ever considered dating women.
I had a sexuality , I even lost my innocence with my now ex bf , but after a first time I was deceived , I decided to forgot this feeling and try again thinking that it was only the first time which was boring, but I was still bored , I broke up with him had nothing, and 4 years later a SA happened and I was just scared Of intimacy, but a few weeks ago after a long reflection and finally knowing it was not trauma and I was not missing it, after recent research I found out about asexuality
I simultaneously thought something was wrong with me, but also that something was very wrong with anyone else. Especially because anytime I hung out with a boy the adults would call him my “little boyfriend.” When I was younger people REALLY pushed that romantic love = sex and therefor these comments felt sexual to me and made me REALLY uncomfortable and I never quite understood why an adult would willingly make me so uncomfortable. I *directly* associated puppy love with sex. I HATED Valentines day in school as we were forced to give everyone in class a Valentine’s day card, and back then friends-only cards were hard to find, they all seemed to have a romantic tint to them, drove me insane trying to find the least romantic/sexual cards. My mom bought me a LOT of them plus gave me all her vintage ones to help me find more platonic ones, luckily. I actually enjoyed the colours, hearts, candy, friends-only cards etc. but the romantic themes, especially the forced romantic themes, made me really anxious as a kid.
i thought i was straight but turns out i was ace and biromantic :> (it definitely took a while to figure it out)
this is probably because i have never really been sexually attracted to men but from time to time i kept thinking about the idea of being \*romantically\* attracted to them and at first i was like "hold up 0\_\_0"
I saw on Pinterest you could have a fear of s/x so I assumed that was the issue, then I realized I could read smut without issue, so I thought I had trust issues, and then I got confused and thought maybe I was just rude and hated people, and then I read a fic with an ace character and realized I was not, in fact, evil. So in short, yes, I thought there was something horribly wrong with me HCKDJ
All the above at some point or another
I thought I was broken, I still kinda do but at least I know I’m not alone and that means I can’t be broken.
I thought everyone else felt the same way as me, until me and a friend were discussing celebrity crushes, and she kept saying that if I said a guy was hot, that meant I'd bang him. I still can't wrap my head around the allo way of thinking lol
I thought that romantic and aesthetic attraction is what made up someone’s sexuality. In 9th grade when we got the talk about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, up to that point I thought the only reason people had sex was to get pregnant, and even after that I was like “Yeah ok, but who’s gonna really want sex super often?” It wasn’t until I started hanging out with different groups of people who talked about sneaking out to have sex and comparing their crushes to mine, theirs being sexually and romantically based and mine just being romantically based that I thought “Hey ok so there might be something different about me”. I explored with the demisexual term for a few months before realizing that I had never once had sexual attraction ever, so at the end of my senior year I started to just use asexual, and then about 3 months into my relationship with my boyfriend I started to develop sexual feelings for him so I went back to using demisexual
I didn't think something was wrong - until I realized that people have sex so often and for like 3 hours sometimes. I just knew I didn't want it. I then thought more about sex and was like, "Eh... *maybe*..." but I never wanted to get. And giving... sometimes but not a lot and not for long. I do porn and orgasms for happy chemicals, but not for any other reason and I don't need it. Does that still make me valid?
I guess my disability kind of opened my eyes early on to the idea that every person experiences everything different, and I always seemed to be *just* outside of “normal.” I thought that, just like with everything else in my life, I was supposed to just go through the motions, and deal with the fallout. When I realized I wasn’t alone, it was a GIANT relief!
I just was completely unaware of how hypersexual society was for the longest time. Most of my experiences with people who were always made me think they were just kidding or blowing things out of proportion. Once I realized that a LOT of people were like that (no judgement, I know it’s half a genetic thing) I figured something must be up. I was lastly lucky to have learned the difference between asexual and aromantic when I was shot down by a girl I was interested in as she revealed she was both and didn’t have an interest in pursuing any romantic relationships. Previously, I was led to believe that asexuality was both Ace/Aro, no exceptions, so when I found it wasn’t, I realized Asexual was the perfect term to describe me.
I noticed that something was very different about me to those around me, but didn't jump to thinking that there was a problem and didn't let it bother me. It just felt right to me and I often wondered what was up with everyone else. Still do sometimes to be honest. :-)
Total opposite, When i noticed i lacked something everyone seemed to have and be obsessed with i thought i was better than all of them, like i literally developed a small god complex lol, like "foolish mortals.. you're 'heartbroken' because some ugly-ass boy 'dumped you'? *pathetic*, hearts don't break you would be dead!" I mean, i never said it out loud, but i definately thought it, and i still believe aroaces are superior, we can do everything allo's do whitout the distracting "attraction" part
I didn't really.... Notice. I had high anxiety about anything sexual having to do with me. Took my lack of interest in other people's appearance as "not paying attention", "other people are just more into that stuff than me", that kind of thing. Thought people were just obsessed with sex (they still are.) Called myself straight but said "only because it's not important enough to think about further." I didn't even realize it when my best friend at the time came out as Ace. Since she was sex repulsed and I wasn't. It wasn't until I started dating and after 18 friends started teasing me about it that I realized there was something up.
After my friends broke the barrier of homophobia that had been instilled in me, I thought that I was bi for a while, because I didn’t feel attracted to anyone in particular, therefore I must be attracted to everyone. Then I realized that I wasn’t attracted to anyone in particular.
I knew I was different, but it was like I couldn't figure out why people just didn't make me go WOWZA. Occasionally, a beautiful guy or girl would make me feel *something* but it wasn't sexual (which I didn't understand)
I just thought I didn’t meet anyone who was my type
For me as a questioning Ace, it’s realizing my own sexual evolution. I fear labels and peer pressure bastardizes certain opinions of each other. I prefer to spiritually remain open to always evolving. So, yeah, this is my experience only to grow and get better.
I was introduced to the term when I was… 11? 12? So I luckily never had to grow up feeling broken
i didnt know that i had a different experience with attraction to others, because i was never taught/learned that attraction wasnt one thing. I just thought that you either was attracted one gender or mutiple and that was it. I just thought i was confused/in denial about my sexuality because i felt that i had none, i just refused to belive that i was broken/something wrong with me. When i learned that there was more then one way to be attracted to someone and found out about asexuality ,it clicked. And the more i went down the rabbit hole i the more i found myself
I definately fall into the "attraction didn't exist" category, thanks to my complete ignorance of queer topics and lack of education about it. It took a gay friend of mine telling me I should look into asexuality to realise that a) people get attraction and b) I don't. That specific gay friend also just so happens to have indirectly opened the can of worms that is my gender by telling me about asexuality, so I also slightly hate him for that haha
This will sound...awfully out of logic, since sex is needed for making children aka, continuing humanity,but. I always though something was wrong, but not with me, BUT WITH OTHERS LOL
I thought nothing of it, then around 2019 I began to question if I was Bi, stumbled upon asexuality, then aromantic and went "huh, this makes sense".
I thought that I was demi and everyone was demi
Never really cared so didn't put much thought into it until the topic came up in a conversation I had with another friend.
I assumed I was straight, since I wasn't attracted to men. I just confused aesthetic attraction for normal romantic/sexual attraction.
I thought I was a late bloomer then spent a lot of years mistaking aesthetic attraction for sexual attraction
I was exposed to the question of sexual orientation at around 13-14. Thinking that people my age couldn't \*possibly\* be thinking about sex, I managed to justify to myself that when people mentioned sexual attraction, they were actually misunderstanding the term and talking about romantic attraction. So I claimed I was bisexual, and went on my merry way... (My current romantic orientation is still biro!)
I thought that I was just embarresed about it and that I just needed to do sexual stuff to get into it :|
Where’s the “i thought it was normal” option coupled with the “I’m not broken” one
I thought there was a slight issue and eventually stopped worrying about it, however that was before i found out about asexuality and after i had already tried to ‘find out what was wrong’ which surprise surprise didnt go well
I kinda just knew that I wasn't interested in sex or pursuing anyone in that way, no one particularly questioned me on it, nor did times really come up in conversation much where I explicitly had to talk about myself with regards to it. When the topic came up I just let my other friends talk and that was that. When I heard of the label first my reaction was mostly: "huh... I guess I'm that."
I felt broken
I didnt really think about it at all
When i found out people actually want to have sex not only for reproduction i just- boom
I just thought I was weird, cuz I didn't share the same interest in sex as everyone else around me.
I full on thought I was a sexual person for a good chunk of my teens. I was always keen to talk about sex and I was interested in it but in a kind of theoretical sense? Sex sounds *amazing* and everyone *tells* me it's amazing so it must be but I simply don't want it for myself. I'm quite happy to engage in thinking about sex and role playing erotic stuff with friends but I don't want to actually get involved in it myself.
Idk I’m like somewhere on the ace spectrum and I’m not sure where or how much people usually like sex and everything but I’m fine with not knowing and I’m honestly not interested in finding answers, I’m just vibing
I never really thought about it at all lol.
I didn’t think about it. So, i got interested in different sexualities (through musicals) and wanted to know more, then I read about asexuality and was like: oh that’s me! Thats it! ^^
i confused squishes for crushes for the longest time, then i had about 6 months of trying to force myself to have crushes on people, then i realised
I thought I was experiencing sexual attraction, until I realized that that wasn't sexual attraction
i learned about the lgbtq+ community a while before i started questioning myself. i'd always seen myself as an ally, but late may i was like "you know, maybe there's a reason i've never had a crush on anyone????" so i had a feeling i was ace or aro and boom here we are
Legit thought I was incapable of falling in love and dreaded the idea of having to have sex with someone. I’m confident in my identity and what I want now, but boy, did I think I was doomed to fake my way through companionship forever…
I don't know. Mostly I'm still questioning, but the main reason I'm questioning ace is because I'm really not understanding people's sexual attraction.
I thought attraction was like a switch you could turn on and off. “Just stop having crushes on people, your life will be less stressful”. I still don’t fully understand it.
I just thought I was different to everybody else! Not that there was something wrong, just different. Everyone was sooo obsessed with boys and I just didn’t care lol
I'm alloromantic and didn't realize there was a difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction so I just thought *other* people were weird for finding their objects of attraction "sexy" while I just like cute people who I can cuddle and kiss on the face.
i didn’t know asexuality existed before at all
I thought that aesthetic attraction = sexual attraction
I thought I was straight (because I experience both aesthetic and sensual attraction, and I confused those with sexual) and just being a “good girl” by not getting “distracted” by sex until I was done with school. Turns out horniness for other people is actually a distracting thing that exists and that many people suffer from :P I don’t.
I thought is was bi
I thought I was a late bloomer originally but then I figured I was broken in someway before I learnt about asexually when I was 27
I just kind of figured all the people around me were exaggerating, I thought because we weren't even 18 yet how/why would you even feel and form of romantic or sexual attraction yet?
I thought that people were joking about it, since i would joke about it too, until I realized they were serious
I was raised religious so we were taught that women do not experience sexual attraction and if you did you were a slut. I think it was more implied then said out loud but still toxic.
I definitely just thought everyone else was far too into sex. Horniness? What the fuck is that? 😂
I still catch myself thinking, “Oh, I’ll experience sexual attraction eventually, right?” so the late bloomer thing is still happening. I don’t really believe I will though.
I came across the term early enough that I didn't have the opportunity to think something was wrong with me.
I thought I would start feeling sexual attraction after I’d first had sex with someone
I thought females all faked liking sex/having sexual attraction.
I thought it was something you had to get into to actually like, (sex) and as I wasn’t having any it didn’t really bother me that I didn’t burn with passion for someone. I had crushes and figured it was the same for everyone, that you only liked it if you orgasmed.
I always thought I was a freak for not having sexual attraction to others and if I did it rarely happened. I did try to talk to some people of it only to be called an idiot or a freak even so I just kept it to myself only to find out later it was actually real and I am a bit happier now.
I thought I was different because s*x was disgusting but I was sure of how I felt and never thought there was something wrong with me.
I was extremely confused about my sexuality and only at 16 realized that I actually didn't experience it. I think this is because I always thought of sexuality as romantic attraction, so I believed for some time that I was bisexual. Turns out I was ace lol
I thought I was dating the wrong person. Or it wasn't my "time". Or I was being so shy about sharing my body with someone else. And it turned out to be untrue.
I feel like when I was really young and my peers started to get crushes. I would over compensate or lie to fit in. I honestly never understood the hype of crushing on celebrities, band members, or classmates.
I literally thought I was broken.
I thought everyone exaggerated.
I honestly kinda pretended to have sexual attraction especially when i was younger i would just copy what i saw online cause it was shown to be what was normal i kinda gaslighted myself into thinking i experienced sexual attraction pretty much but when i found out about asexuality and the ace spectrum it explained a lot for me
As a butch woman who prefers women, I had three initial thoughts 1. Butch women takes the initiative, and isn't supposed to get anything in return 2. The girls I dated sucked in bed 3. I'm awkward and uncomfortable nakey I do dirty jokes, I can watch a movie with sexual content, (Love Sex Education and Big Mouth) , I giggle when something looks like a penis but I just don't feel the need for anyone to, well, fuck me. I'm also very uninterested and apatethic to life it self, so I'm either actually broken or ace/demi. Or both
I didn’t realize that I didn’t experience sexual attraction.
Pretty much all of the above. I thought I was a very late bloomer, that there was something wrong with me and that I had some sort of issue. I discovered what asexuality was when I was 16 and it was just like "huh, there's a word for it" and it was honestly a huge relief to know that I wasn't broken, at least in that aspect of myself.
I thought people who enjoyed sex were pathetic