I understand experiences can vary from one asexual person to the next. But I'm writing a book (a sequel to another novel I've written) and one of the characters is asexual -- I won't explicitly state this in the book as of yet, since I generally don't make much of a show out of LGBT+ people in my books. I simply want to be sure that my representation of asexuality is accurate. So here are some questions concerning attitudes, experiences and possible scenarios from the point of view of an asexual person; responses would be much appreciated. If non-asexual people have any input, feel free to join in as long as you're sure that what you're saying is correct. Excuse me if some of these questions seem a bit off (?), as a writer I simply need to develop an in-depth understanding of all the facts that are relevant to my book. 1) Can asexual people experience romantic attraction, or do they feel no romantic OR sexual attraction? 2) As an asexual person, how would you feel/what would you do if somebody hit on you? Would your reaction differ if the one hitting on you was the same or opposite gender? (speaking with binary terms, here. I'm aware that not everybody fits either as a male or female) 3) What would you do if somebody asked you out? Would you feel confused at all, or anything else? 4) What goes through your mind when somebody talks about romantic and/or sexual attraction? Eg. are you repulsed or indifferent? 5) What is your understanding of romantic and/or sexual attraction? Does it make much (if any) sense to you? I may add more questions in the future, but those are the only ones that I can think of as of yet. Thanks again.
I'm not technically asexual, but I have a friend + sister who is. So, I might be able to answer your questions. 1) Yes, they can feel romantic attraction and may label themselves as heteromantic, homoromantic, bi/panromantic, or aromantic (no romantic attraction) depending on what genders they find attractive. 2) This will strongly depend on the person. My best friend is asexual aromantic, and she's had people hit on her before, but she just shrugs it off. It's only annoying when it gets rude or pushy, she says. 3. This will depend on person and on romantic orientation. I have asked my aromantic asexual friend out before, and so have many of her guy friends. She rejected all of us, but was very indifferent, calm and caring about it. There was no confusion or disgust involved. The heteromantic asexual girl I know might be thrilled if a guy asked her out, as long as he doesn't want a sexual relatonship. 4. This very strongly depends on the person. My asexual best friend is not disgusted by romance or sex, she just doesn't feel attracted to people that way. She's a writer like me and she LOVES to write romance despite not wanting to be in a relationship herself. We are also roleplaying a graphic sex scene together with our characters. She views sex as natural, therefore the RP is natural to her, It's just that she would never do such a thing herself in real life. So I would call her sex-indifferent. Also, sex-repulsion is not exclusive to asexual people! I'm non-asexual and extremely sex-repulsed! I'm able to do the RP with my friend because I love and trust her, but when other people talk to me about their sexual attractions I feel disgusted/turned-off and ask them to stop. Sex repulsion in allosexual/sexual people is different, because we actually feel sexual attraction and therefore we face a lot of self-hatred toward our own urges. You can be asexual and sex repulsed too, but the two don't have a complete correlation. 5. I don't think it makes much sense to my friends because they haven't experienced it, and thus I have to explain. Sometimes asexuals have the definition of sexual attraction wrong, since I see some people define it as feeling physical attraction and wanting to have sex immediately, but that's not true for all sexuals as we're varied people. Other asexuals understand this and argue about the definition among their community. Hope this helps.
It depends on whose definition you're using. If you're using the widely accepted definition, based on study and research, understood by practically everyone in the psychology field, and used for decades, here are the answers: Using the wldely-used definition, asexuality is a sexual orientation, no different than hetero or homosexuality. So no, someone asexual does not feel attraction. There's no credible evidence, nor broad acceptance among therapists or professionals in the field to support the idea that there is a separation between romantic and sexual orientation, so the answer would be no there as well. It would be pretty similar to how a heterosexual feels if a homosexual hits on them; there would be no interest. That would likely depend on whether the person fully understands and accepts who s/he is. If the person fully understands and accepts him or herself, then there'd be no confusion, because they'd feel no attraction and have no interest. Again, if the person has fully accepted him or herself, and is truly asexual, the response would likely be one of indifference, though that could be filtered by early life experiences. As stated above, I take the position (as does nearly every credible professional in the field) that there's no separation. Given that, I think it's safe to say that sexual attraction is a natural, enjoyable part of life that the overwhelming majority of people are hardwired to experience. It's also true that "falling in love" isn't always "rational" for many people. And again, early childhood experiences and family-of-origin issues can significantly impact how someone experiences love. We must be capable of vulnerability and, in turn, deep connection in order to be able to truly experience love. ----- If you are using the unrecognized definition of asexual, then you can get almost any answer, and there's no consisitency between answers, because the word has, within the last few years, been subject to so many varying definitions (none of which are grounded in anything measurable or reliably re-testable) that it's almost meaningless.
As an asexual, I'll answer these the best as I can. 1) Yes, asexuals can experience romantic attraction, but no to sexual attraction. Hence the term "(a)sexual". I have experienced romantic attraction in the past, but never sexual attraction. 2) It would just depend on the person, if the person was romantically into them, then it wouldn't be a problem. But vice versa, no interest would be shown. But for me personally, I would be indifferent to it as I'm not into relationships. 3) I would probably be confused and would also probably decline. As stated before, I'm not a very relationship-type person, and prefer being alone. 4) I'm indifferent to romance talk but very repulsed by sexual talk. There is a limit people has to breach before I'm literally just disgusted. But in general, it just depends on the person. Everyone takes this kind of talk differently. Some people are indifferent, and some just hate it. 5) I have met a lot of people who don't understand it. But for me, I don't think sexual attraction is wrong, I just think the minority of us is either just repulsed by it or just has no interest in it what so ever. It makes perfect sense to me, not everyone is going to feel the same way about everything including sexual attraction.
