asexuality - does anyone else feel this way?

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You are doing far better than most NT guys then! what is your secret?

I feel some attraction to women, but it's only superficial and sex-fixated, almost pornographical.

I'm an asexual myself. Like Flea I thought I was bi because I liked both genders the same. But sometime in November I was getting these Ellegirl magazines that I didn't particulary like but I was borid in my room so I decided to flip through it. Then I saw a picture of a girl in a shirt that said "No sex please" and it talked about the subject and I found out that there was a name for those like me. It talked a lot about the Asexuality Visibility Education Network (AVEN) and there website www.asexuality.org . From there I joined the community (I'm Shadow girl on there too) and it's been great to talk with other asexuals as we do here about disabilitys. Check out the site and look me up if you'd like too.

You do look familiar! I'm "Ily" over there...

???

I am asexual as well.

It was my understanding that it was part of WrongPlanet's policy that we couldn't plug other forums...but I'm an avid AVEN member too (hi Shadowgirl!) and absolutely adore the site. It's helped me a lot with the issues that come with asexuality; which BTW for me is just an extension of my aspie difficulties in relating to others.

College is a big time for sexual experimentation. A large part of my sex life at that time was hooking up with guys at the end of parties who wanted to try gay sex for the first time. Afterwards, it was fairly evenly split: some were now certain they were straight, some thought of themselves as bi, and some realized they were actually gay. Definitely--there is NO DOUBT in my mind on this point--some of the guys were surprised by what they learned about themselves!

I think you can see where I'm going with this. Keep in mind that some of these guys had been experiencing sexual urges for TEN YEARS at this point, but had never (or almost never) met a gay man, seen gay pornography, fantasized about gay sex, or even tried sticking their own finger... well, anyway, my point is that even though you may think you know beforehand what your sexual identity is, you can't be certain you know if you don't have any life experience in these matters.

A big part of the problem is that it is massively socially unacceptable to tell people your sexual identity is "unknown." It's very rarely an option on written polls, and is met with incredulity and outrage in conversation by gays and straights alike. People who honestly don't know what their sex role is get forced to identify with what may later prove to be the wrong group. Then, when some actual experience leads to the realization that you're in the wrong group, there's usually a backlash of rejection from your former peers.

If you've tried sex with both men and women, and you want to identify yourself as "asexual," fine. If you honestly don't know, stand up for yourself and tell people you don't know! At the very least, if peer pressure forces you to prematurely accept a label and social role for yourself, try not to believe your own lies.

Thinking sex is disgusting and ridiculous is not, in and of itself, grounds to accept a label of "asexual." All sex (gay, straight, between two leggy supermodels or whatever) REALLY IS disgusting and ridiculous. It is also sexy and sensible. The drawbacks are mostly quite obvious, the benefits can be invisible to the uninitiated....

In school I was the 15-year old who still collected Transformer and Star Wars action figures (and I still do). I only knew girls as bullies. I still only know women as bullies.
I'm mindblind, so I can't understand the tone of their voice or their expression. I feel like a sick bastard for staring down cleavages. I even got prescribed Cipralex, officially against social anxiety, I actually wanted it as chemical castration. After 3 days without sleep and extreme anxiety I quit taking it. I'm fixated on porn.

I wish I could be really asexual.

I agree with a lot of your points-- being able to identify as "unknown" would definitely save some people a lot of grief. I hope I'm not misinterpreting your post, but I think your sexuality isn't based on the experiences you've had (I'm a straight woman, would having sex with a woman make me a lesbian?), but about the desire you experience. If you've never been sexually attracted to anyone, why would you ever have sex? Sexual drive is a bell curve: most people are in the middle, there's some total sex fiends on one end, and asexuals at the extreme low end. I think it's normal.

They can! They should! Stop waiting for someone else's permission, people! Start immediately!



Afraid that isn't quite what I was aiming for. More like you're an unknown until you've had sex with a woman, and then you can make an informed decision about your sexuality instead of one based on just your ideas about lesbian sex.

Now, I should admit that I self-identify as gay, though I have never had sex with a woman. Let me explain. I feel a stronger emotional/intellectual/spiritual bond with men than I do with women. I have asked straight men what it is they like about women that they can't get from men, and the ones who don't just list physical attributes all seem to wax poetic about "The Mystery of Women." Well, I don't particularly like enigmas in the sack. I like how I can often instantly pick up on what other gay men are thinking and feeling, how much easier it is to relate to them, read their body language and such. So I don't know the actual pleasure of vaginal insertion, and yes, perhaps I actually am straight; it remains a statistical possibility. But it would have to feel pretty frickin' incredible to compensate for what I feel I would lose with an average woman.

Similarly, if you feel that men have something in their personality that makes them inherently preferable to women in bed, there would be little point in your experimenting. But if you truly feel that men and women are basically equal, or if you actually prefer the company of women, I would say go for it once.

I mean, there ARE men who think they are straight but basically only like women for sex, and otherwise would prefer to hang out with men, talk to them, etc. They quite often have messed-up ideas about what sex with a man would be like, which keep them from trying gay sex. Until I come along. Again, trust me, MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE.

Here's one of my favorite arguments when trying to bed a straight man:

"You've had sex with a woman before, right? And you know how good that feels, right? Well then, logically, if you are gay... which, okay, I grant you, is pretty unlikely, but if you are... then sex with a man should feel even better, right? So now all you have to do is figure out the possible good outcomes, times their likelihood, and compare this to the possible bad outcomes, times their likelihood, and common sense will tell you what you should do."

It's perhaps not the most logically sound argument, but it seems to sound real good to straight guys after a night of drinking. Readers, feel free to use or modify this argument as you see fit.



Intellectual curiosity. Or morbid curiosity. Or because it would make a funny story to tell your friends. Maybe Reader's Digest would buy it for fifty bucks. Lots of reasons.



Sure. I'd argue that the same is true of sexual identity: a few straights and gays at the ends, with most people in the middle. If I had my druthers, instead of gays and straights being people who are SUPPOSEDLY at the very ends of the curve, and bisexuals being anyone who identifies anywhere in the middle, the terms "gay" and "straight" would just be indicative of a tendency, and "bisexual" would be reserved only for those who are completely incapable of forming a preference.

This has nothing to do with sexual experience. It's related to neurology and social experience.

I am, I think Ive always been that way...although I can find a guy attractive (or more often with my case a fictional character like from anime) I have never been interested in the actual physical act of sex & actually find the idea repulsive...

I definitely know I have a drive but all the BS I see IRL just kills it when it comes to actually having enough drive for me to merit really going out and trying to play the field. I think it's also because I tend to just be low energy in a lot of other ways as well and actually trying to go out and get a piece would leave me so sapped that I really wouldn't even care about the pay-off by the time I'd done what I needed to.

Lonermutant, I think the single best thing you can for yourself is stop looking at porn! I think once you do that you can start to develop your own sexuality.

I've heard before that porn can desensitise a person to sexual cues that many people not exposed to porn are usually highly aware of. The fact that you notice yourself looking at women's breasts all the time and not taking in the full social/sensual experience is an indication of that, I think. Not that I'm saying it's bad to do that occassionally, because many people do that sort of thing - but if it's excessive in your case maybe trying to get porn out of your life will really help you.

What you could do to 'retrain' your sexuality is watch romance movies or something else you enjoy. It should ideally be something that elicits an emotional reaction as well as a sexual one. Personally, my guilty pleasure is watching teen romances, because they seem more relevant and real to me - awkwardness, first time, idealistic, etc. Even though I'm 20, it doesn't matter - likewise, you should try to find something that works for you.

Regarding the subject of sexual orientation, I used to be confused about my sexuality in high school too. When someone would ask me what team I was playing for, I would say 'I don't know' and people would assume therefore that I was gay. So after a while I just got tired of it and the next time someone asked me I told them I was gay, just to get them off my back. It seems that anyone who says they're confused about their sexuality is automatically assumed to be gay, because they think you must be scared to say the 'truth'.

Unless the person asking is gay themselves - I once encountered this gay fellow who wanted to all sorts of nasty things to me. But when he asked me whether I was gay or not (this was at a theatre camp, so many of the guys there were), I told him I didn't know. Years later we met up again and he told me that back then he assumed I was asexual. That was weird because at that time I didn't even know what asexuality was - I thought that was for earthworms and the like.

Of course, his conclusion might've had something to do with the camp having been extremely horny all week, with a few really, really blatant flirts looking in my direction and me totally not noticing until years after. Everyone saw how clueless I was, and they must've guessed my disinterest. (Actually I was interested, I just didn't realise at the time that girls crawling into bed with me at night could be considered 'flirting' back then').

The girls I look at in porn are better than the women I would be able to get in the real world.

[quote="flea"]i thought i was (and came out) as being bisexual almost 2 years ago... and i thought that i was beacuse i didn't like guys more than girls or vice versa, but wasn't really attracted to eaither on a sexual level. i didn't know there was such a think as asexuality. i still consiter myself bisexual because i could look at either a guy or a girl and think that they "look good" but also i consiter myself asexual beacuse i have no intrest what so ever in dating or sex or anything like that.
does anyone else on the spectrum feel this way, or is this not related to that at all


Maybe you just haven't found the wright person yet. There are so many different standards for each person it might take some one years before they even begin dating after leaving high school were as some one else might have started dating in middle school. It all depends on the individual and not knowing you personally or anything. You just might have a change of heart if you were to meet the right guy or girl.....