Worried about asexuality...

I know that feeling. I'm not a very sexual person, but I'm still gay. You'll have to experiment and see how you feel about it.

 

i can very much identify with everything that you've said, minus the "want" part.

i first suspected that i might be asexual when i was 17/18 but when i fell madly in love for the first time at 18 i turned my back on the possibility of being asexual and didn't look back until 10 years later. denial's a bitch. which isn't to suggest that you may be in denial, i'm just saying that i definitely was. it wasn't that i didn't WANT to be asexual, i just didn't fully understand what asexuality was when i first looked into it (there was hardly anything online about it in 2003) and i sincerely believed that the love i felt for my partners during those 10 years did involve sexual attraction. once i realized and accepted that sexual attraction wasn't something that i've ever experienced, accepting my sexuality for what it is was easy.

...and it took me 10 fin years to get to that point.

...anyway, i should stop venting and get back to you, OP. i completely understand wanting to know your sexuality so you can be done with it and i also completely understand the fear of the unknown and the possibility of loosing your partner due to your sexuality. keep in mind, though, that these things can take time to fully understand and no matter how much you stress out over it or try to will yourself to be X instead of Y, it just wont help matters. just try to tune into yourself mind, body and soul and see what you discover. this probably isn't what you really want to hear, but things really will become clear in time and things like relationships WILL work themselves out if you follow your heart. try not to stress yourself out when doing so wont help any. a cool head will get you a lot farther in life.

also, you may want to look into asexuality more, whether you really think you may be asexual or not. just a thought.

 

I know exactly how you feel.. I kinda feel it inhibits my confidence to "go, get her" as it were. I mean, I still think that a girl looks hot, sometimes want to grab their boobs or kiss them and have to really focus on their face, but going as far as sex never really crosses my mind. It's kinda annoying cause I want to be as sexual as everyone else, I would have a stronger connection with my relationships. I don't mind sex and sexual activities. I kinda thought it was inevitable in a relationship (let alone a teenage relationship where hormones are apparently raging) I just feel it isn't entirely necessary and would rather have a relationship based around talking to each other and showing affection than mindlessly having sex because it feels nice.... I dunno, that's just me

End of Ramble

 

I know how you feel. I don't mind sex and can actually enjoy it a lot if I can get in the right mindset and "get off" but it feels more like masturbation with someone helping along then a mutual sexual experience. See, we can all have relationships based around talking to each and enjoying each others company ect. I can and have. But I don't like settling and what I really want is to have those things and have these kinds of feelings for another person also:

blink-182 - Feeling This - YouTube

Keep experiementing (not the same as being slutty, you just have to go about it more responsibily and understand your priorities). The one thing that I think is wrong with the "asexual label" is that it discourages people from exploring their feelings more. "Oh I am asexual and comfortable, so I will never try anything else because thats not me". I think that mindset is detrimental, life is a journey and you shouldn't box yourself in that easily.

But sex isn't everything, its just a part of things for most people.

 

....i really dont get why people seem to be of the idea that asexuality as a label is somehow more limiting/restrictive than any other label. if someone is considering it to describe themselves, obviously they feel that they have just as much reason to as someone who is considering any other label and i think it silly for someone else to come along and suggest "hey, that label is kind of narrow, you sure you wanna do that?" why is it that it's ok to say this to someone questioning asexuality but i never see it said to someone questioning homosexuality?

sguyc, i'm not strictly pointing the finger at you for what you said. i see this said to someone who is questioning the possibility of being asexual ALL the time both in and outside EC and it just really annoys me how seemingly ok it is to say "maybe you just haven't found the right person/haven't had good enough sex yet" to an asexual or someone who is questioning whereas it's considered rude or ignorant to suggest something similar to a homosexual re: the opposite sex. i never see anyone in the LGBT community suggest a thing to a homosexual.

just sayin'.

obviously it's the OP's call as to whether or not sguyc's suggestion applies to them, i am just speaking generally.

 

People can live however they want if they are comfortable with themselves, but sometimes quality of life isn't determined by how comfortable your life is. I agree that my comment is a little aggressive and not accurate for many asexuals, however there seem to be a lot of people who consider themselves asexual that are afraid of sex or develope this complex where they attack everything sexual, and that is putting yourself in a box in my opinion and is restrictive (just as restrictive as the bisexual guy who only dates girls because that is what he is comfortable with).

I don't see why sex should be "uncomfortable". Yes maybe it is not very fun for you, maybe you just don't get the right kind of stimulation from it, but if its something you fear or makes you uncomfortable then there are underlying issues that should be inspected further. I don't think the situations of a questioning gay person and a questioning asexual are identical. Most of my comments are based on the idea that a person is more grey rather than the "never masturbate, never have sexual thoughts" kind of asexual. They seem less complicated to me and I get their motivations more. But if you can have inklings of sexual desire at times with certain people you should make yourself open to that in your life rather than assume that attraction can't be nurtured with a person just from looking at them.

 

while i do admit to having come across some elitist asexuals in the asexual community who frown upon or even attack sexual things, what you are describing are antisexuals, not asexuals. there can be and sometimes is some overlap between these two groups, but asexuality has nothing to do with a fear or dislike of sex.

again, asexuality has nothing to do with finding sex uncomfortable and i would hope that one (ie. everyone, including people who identify as asexual) would use the term asexual correctly. i agree with you when you say that there may be underlying issues beyond sexuality when it comes to discomfort re: sex, but again that has nothing to do with asexuality.

...mmmm, that last part was odd. labels describe reality, they don't dictate it. labels shouldn't make anyone dismiss anything, whether that label be "asexual" or anything else, which is why "asexual" as a label is no more restrictive than any other label.

edit: to Oblivion who posted as i was typing this, i wish you the best with it all. i'm sure it wont take you anywhere near as long as it took me, my situation was just.... complicated. like you, though, i was in the middle of a relationship when i started reexamining my sexuality and i worried about what would happen between me and my partner as a result. i'm happy to say that things worked out between us in the end and i hope the same for you.

 

I only mentioned that because I was very uncomfortable with sex when I became active and am still uncomfortable with some acts, but some of it I have gotten over and other things I have begun enjoying a lot. Granted this has nothing to do with attraction, but I think knowing that you can enjoy sex to some extent even without a strong attraction (usually other attractions are present or why would you be with that person?) helps you relax. There are never any garauntees with anything, but I think pushing your boundaries in these areas helps figure things out faster than just grabbing the most comfortable label and sticking with it.

---------- Post added 21st Apr 2013 at 07:00 PM ----------

Well, she did describe some uncomfortableness which I am in no way judging. Secondly the last bit was worded incorrectly, I was trying to describe that attraction can build from other areas into sexual attraction and that just because you don't get a boner from looking at someone doesn't mean that there is no potential of sexual attraction.

Also, your ideal of what labels "should be" doesn't mean they don't have serious consequences nor that people can't mislabel themselves. My point was that labelling yourself asexual might cause you to dismiss things, not that it should. Not everyone internalizes labels as they should. Why do you think we have all these threads from kids feeling bad about themselves for not being pansexual and stupid stuff like that.

 

point taken.

 

It could be psychological issues, true.

But if you describe anything about what sex is like to a pre-pubertal kid, the typical reaction is 'eww!'.

Think about it: we live in a society concerned with cleanliness.

We poop and pee in a special device that carries it far away from us almost immediately, and then we wipe the area off thoroughly. Then, we wash our hands, to get rid of the residue.

We also don't share food. Most people would consider the thought of eating food that another person has been chewing on to be disgusting. We don't even want to use a plate that could have residue of another person's saliva on it, so we wash it off.

And then most of us go and throw all that cleanliness out the window when we have sex. If it's regular vaginal intercourse, a man sticks the part that he pees with inside a part of a woman that is very close to where she pees. In anal sex, a man sticks the part he pees with inside another person's poop hole. In oral sex, one person puts their mouth on or near another person's exit for pee or poop. Even kissing involves the exchange of saliva.

If you don't have a powerful urge to do that sort of thing, and you've been raised to be clean, it makes sense that you'd find it pretty gross.

 

And those are conditionings. Some people are fine living in shit because they have been conditioned to, they are used to it.