OKAY,SO. i know labels are for canned food. BUT. they're nice to have sometimes. aaaannnndddd i have a feeling that this label will be complicated. you know, those ones that are multiple word, like pan-romantic-homo-sometimes-physically-hetero-depending-on-the-time-of-day-but-usually-bisexual? that kinda thing. so. my friend is a woman. and she's dating a woman. And that woman she's dating, is me. but she also likes men. she's dated two of them. she's more romantically attracted to them, because they're all strong and masculine and protective and all that. but physically, she like men and women equally. BUT. but. she has no sexual attraction to either gender. now, would this make her asexual? she says that she doesn't really like touching people. she likes being touched, but sometimes even holding hands is weird. but sometimes, she thinks it's fun. the other thing is, she was pressured (bullied, even) into having sex with a guy when she was fourteen. so that may have messed things up a little. i think that her idea of sex has been tainted because of what he did to her. she's placed an emphasis on dating people for the personality, not the gender. so i'm thinking pansexual, or even bisexual, which she's ok with but doesn't feel like it fits perfectly because of the word "sexual" inside of it. but does the "sexual" part matter, for her to be considered pan? or does all of this make her asexual? THANKS FOR READING, YOUR OPINIONS ARE APPRECIATED
Sounds like shes asexual to me. Also, you may be right about the whole, her being force into sex when she was 14 puting her off it. She may change her mind though in time and if shes with the right person which, in this case, could be you.
I believe the chances that she's been traumatized and copes with it by sexual avoidance is much higher than her being asexual. People who have been sexually molested are plagued with a sense of powerlessness, and her rather being touched than touching indicates, to me, that she is reliving her experience at 14. Many times, a victim will combat this by trying to be in complete control of the situation. I'm guessing she prefers difference levels of control between male and female?
If I were in charge of the names of things, every identity would have a name that did not include "sexual" as a suffix. I hate it. I think your friend can use bi or pan, or biromantic, or panromantic. When talking to people outside the community, who will never have heard of these kinds of words, she might be best off sticking with bi, unless she wants to make long explanations all the time. If she likes, she can add "asexual" to either of the "romantic" words. If your friend has never had counseling for the trauma of the rape that happened when she was 14, she should look into that. When someone is coerced into having sex, it's rape. It's very common for people to present it in another way like that, like because she eventually gave in to the coercion that that counts as consent, but it doesn't. Consent means choosing freely. She did not choose freely, so it was rape. Even if she had an orgasm in the end, it was rape. Whether it is rape is determined by whether she consented, not whether she experienced pleasure. It would not be very surprising if a trauma like that caused her to repress her sexual feelings. Some people are naturally asexual, but there are also a lot of people who repress their feelings. It would be very good for her to address the trauma in therapy if she has never done so. It's also possible that she was asexual anyway, before the rape. But it is difficult to know that, because I don't think 14-year-old girls necessarily have a lot of overtly sexual feelings anyway. If she has repressed her feelings because of the trauma of the rape, I think it's very unlikely that it will be resolved just be being with the right person. She would really need to address it in therapy, I think.
There are times when people feel that carrying on a relationship is a norm in their fantasy world when they're not really sexually hungry for the person they are dating. The idea of indulging in a close relationship with someone other than a family member, being lavished with more attention they will ever get from any other friends and family, being given their heart and mind, whether you're sexual, asexual, all fits into the big grand picture of happiness. When I feel this way with someone, I typically use labels, example situations, whatever verbal tools to help the other person associate and understand my state of mind, when it is something so complex that even I can't believably understand it myself. So, given the evidence you've put forth, I think that you should leave the labels alone and just believe in one thing and only one thing: that you're, for sure, the object of her affection and attention right now. It is dangerous to place a label on her when she isn't ready to label herself that way with you, it might change with you, it might change in the future. But don't be the one who causes the change that you would not necessarily want to see with words that may be best left unsaid.
