Asexuality: A Brief Introduction

But that wasn’t it. That couldn’t be it. The rest of the world simply couldn’t be acting all the time in such a consistent manner. If everyone was just faking it, surely someone would have pointed out that the Emperor wasn’t wearing anything.

When I was 31, it finally became absolutely clear that there was something fundamentally different about me. Not necessarily wrong, not necessarily broken, just different. I was 31 years old, I hadn’t had sex in over eight years, and it didn’t bother me one bit.

So, if I was different, what was I? I embarked on a journey of discovery and very quickly came across asexuality, and instantly knew that’s where I belonged. Everything seemed to fit and everything in my life retroactively started to make sense when viewed with this new information.

How would I explain what asexuality is like to someone who’s not asexual? Well, even people who do experience sexual attraction aren’t sexually attracted to everyone.They know what it’s like to not be sexually attracted to someone. Asexuality means it’s like that for me all the time, no matter who I look at.

Or for those who may be more visual: Imagine a sunset. The beautiful dance of colors, the way countless hues mix together and constantly change as the light fades. Now picture that same sunset in black and white. You can’t see it. The sunset is effectively gone. Asexuality is like seeing a sunset in black and white. I know that other people can see the colors and they talk about how amazing and beautiful it looks and how their life wouldn’t be complete without seeing a sunset now and then, but I just can’t see the sunset. It’s not there for me. It looks the same as any other time of day. But I don’t feel like I’m missing out, because I’ve never seen it to know what it is that I’m missing out on.

Option D: None of the Above

[The following section was how I came out. I posted this up on my personal blog and let my friends and family discover it on their own time.]

There’s something I want to tell all of you, so I’ll get right to it:

I’m not exactly straight.

Now, that probably doesn’t really come as a huge surprise if you know me. After all, I never talk about women. Classic sign of being in the closet, right?

Except no, not gay, either.

I used to think that I was straight, but not very good at it. After all, I had a girlfriend once. Sort of. And in the rare event that I’ve found people pleasing to look at, they’ve invariably been women. I just never felt compelled to try to start a relationship with any of them, and if any of them ever tried to hit on me, I completely missed the signals. I just figured I was shy or insecure or something.

Then, a couple of months ago, it suddenly struck me with total clarity that my perception of sex was completely different from anyone else I’d ever encountered. The way other people describe sex and desire feels completely alien to me. Everyone else seems to look at sex as one of the most important things in their lives, just after air, water and food, while I generally rate it somewhere far less important than remembering to leave home with a paperclip in my pocket. Seriously. I always leave home with a paperclip in my pocket, and if I ever happen to lose it, I always get a replacement right away, while I haven’t had sex in almost nine years and I don’t miss it at all. When I looked at women, I didn’t imagine them naked, I imagined them playing Jeopardy. I didn’t think about taking them to my bed, I thought about taking them on vacation and letting them drive.

By now, you’re probably confused. I know I was. Not straight, not gay, and it pretty much goes without saying, not bi. So, what’s left?

It wasn’t shyness, it wasn’t insecurity, it wasn’t repressed homosexual tendencies, it wasn’t guilt. I’m just not interested in sex, that’s all.

It’s called “asexuality”. It’s sort of the fourth orientation, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality. Straight people are attracted to members of the opposite sex, gays are attracted to the same sex, bi people are attracted to both, and aces aren’t attracted to anyone.

That sense of stunned disbelief you’re probably feeling right now ain’t got nothing on what I went through when I found out myself. Gotta tell ya, it’s quite the experience to watch your entire life get rewritten by a single discovery. You know those movies with the twist endings, where there’s some big unexpected reveal that completely changes EVERYTHING that had happened up to that point? Yeah, my life did *that*.