Asexuality: A Brief Introduction

Sometimes, because of this, you may forget that others typically don’t look at sex as an intellectual curiosity, and you may talk about things in a context where other people are shocked or embarrassed by your openness.

You don’t understand what the big deal is. You haven’t had sex for [insert significant amount of time here], so why are other people so worked up about going without for two weeks?

In general (although not universally speaking), asexual people don’t have a problem going without sex for long periods of time. If you told an asexual person that they couldn’t have sex for ten years, their response will often be something along the lines of “Okay, whatever.” If you told a non-asexual person that, their response will often be something along the lines of “That’s impossible! I’d explode!” (And again, not universally speaking.)

I’ve felt this way before. I’ve seen people moan about how terrible it is that they haven’t had sex in two months. There was a big story about a DJ who went without sex for a whole year as a publicity stunt, and everyone was shocked. I’ve seen men make it sound like their genitals will literally explode under pressure if not emptied in, on, or by someone else within a timely manner. But I haven’t had sex in years and I don’t miss it at all. The concept that someone could be so affected by a lack of sex is totally alien to me.

So…

Sex is totally alien to you.

There’s this thing that everyone else does. It’s on TV, it’s in movies, there are magazines devoted to it, songs about it, books about it. It’s everywhere, all the time. Some people are obsessed by it. They can spend their whole lives chasing it, and sometimes it ruins them.

And you just don’t get it at all.

It’s not that you’re naive, it’s not that you’re sheltered, it’s not that you’re uninformed. It’s just that it’s impossible to fathom why this thing is so important to pretty much everyone else in the world.

And whenever people talk about sex, they might as well be speaking in a foreign language or talking about the intricacies and nuances of macroeconomic theories or 17th Century French literature for all you care.

It’s a bit like everyone else is a fan of a sport you’re not interested in. You can watch a game, you can read the rules, you might even try playing once or twice, but in the end, it still doesn’t make any sense why people are so excited about getting to third base or scoring a touchdown.

You’ve thought, “I’m straight (/gay/bi/etc.), but not very good at it”.

I felt this way for years before I discovered asexuality. I’d had a girlfriend, and the occasional persons of vague interest had been women, so clearly that means I’m straight, right? But at the same time, I never really thought about sex. I never went looking for it, I never felt like I needed it. Whenever I thought about these women, I thought about things like going on vacation or scouring the local thrift stores for retro video games with them, but I never really thought about taking them to bed. One day, I decided that meant that I was straight, but I just wasn’t very good at it.

Later, when I discovered asexuality, I mentioned this on an asexuality forum. I was surprised by the number of other people who said that they had felt the same way. Some of them had even used the same phrase to describe themselves.

You’ve thought, “I must be straight by default”.

I’ve seen a couple of people say that they felt this way before they discovered asexuality. The assumption is that someone has to be straight, gay, or bi, no exceptions, no alternatives. Everyone has to get placed in one of those buckets, there are no other options. Clearly, since they didn’t experience attraction to the same sex, they couldn’t be gay or bi, therefore they had to be straight by default, since, through the process of elimination, that was the only bucket left.

I think this makes a good thought exercise for people who don’t believe in asexuality. If those three groups are the only options, where do you put someone who knows they’re not gay, because they’re clearly not attracted to the same sex, but at the same time, there’s not any evidence that they’re straight, either? The only reason you’d put someone in the “straight” bucket is because “that’s what most people are”, which is a ridiculous reason to assign an identity to someone.