Asexuality: A Brief Introduction

It’s a bit like saying there are people who like chicken, people who like steak, and people who like both. You come across a vegetarian and you try to fit them into this limited worldview. “Do you like chicken?” “No.” “Well, therefore you like steak by default.” “No, I’m—” “You have to like steak, because most people like steak, and you said you don’t like chicken.” “But—” “YOU LIKE STEAK. END OF DISCUSSION.” There’s clearly a “none of the above” option here which needs to be recognized. Some people don’t like steak or chicken, and some people don’t like men or women.

Sex and Sexual Activities

In this second part, I’m going to talk about how you might view having sex and engaging in other sexual activities.

You’d much rather do X than do sex.

When you think about sex, you realize that there are dozens of things you’d much rather do. I’d rather read a book, I’d rather watch TV, I’d rather play a video game, I’d rather go to a movie, I’d rather stargaze, I’d rather walk the dog, I’d rather go shopping, I’d rather organize the books on the bookshelf by date of author’s birth, I’d rather go bird watching, I’d rather build a Lego tribute to the Prime Ministers of Canada, I’d rather work on the car, I’d rather mow the lawn, I’d rather learn Esperanto, I’d rather fly a kite, I’d rather eat cake…

Your sex dreams don’t really have sex.

I had a dream with a warning for “adult content and mature themes”. It was about mortgage payments. I’ve had dreams where naked women throw themselves on me, and I tell them that I’m really busy and I’m supposed to be somewhere. I’ve had dreams where women are very obviously coming on to me, and I completely miss it. I’ve told women in dreams to put their clothes back on, because they look cold. It’s like the part of my brain that generates dreams didn’t get the memo that I’m asexual, so it’s still sending out these prompts for sex dreams, but the rest of my brain doesn’t process them, so they always end up weird.

Many asexuals say that they’ve never had sex dreams of any kind.

You think that “sexy” clothes just look uncomfortable or cold and can’t understand why anyone would wear them.

Tight pants look like they’re going to squeeze the life out of someone, and if it’s a guy wearing them, you know he’s gotta be in pain. Heels look like a broken ankle waiting to happen. Shirts that expose the midriff have to be freezing in this weather. All that lace is just going to leave a weird pattern in your skin. Thongs seem like they’re going to cut you in half like a wire saw.

And I never got the point of make-up, either.

You don’t really fantasize.

Everyone else seems like they undress people with their eyes.

Everyone else seems like they dream about having their way with the quarterback or the head cheerleader.

Everyone else seems like they would “hit that”.

But not you. It’s not that you won’t, because you think it’s sinful or something like that. It’s that you don’t. Your mind just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t spontaneously imagine leaping into bed with someone. Maybe it’s even that you can’t. Maybe you’ve tried to devise erotic fantasies and have failed. You tried to undress someone with your eyes once, but you couldn’t even figure out how to get their bra off. And if you can make it to the hot & heavy, rather than picturing the perfect mix of ecstasy and passion, you get bogged down in the details and end up distracted. You spend so much energy trying to maintain the fantasy that you lose whatever pleasure you were hoping to get from it.

You don’t like sex.

Some asexuals don’t like sex. They don’t want to do it, they don’t want to see it, they don’t want to hear it, they don’t want to think about it. At the age when most people were hearing about sex and thinking “I’d like to try that”, they were thinking “You want me to do what with WHAT? No. Just. No.”

While not liking sex doesn’t necessarily mean one is asexual, many asexuals don’t like sex and discover that they’re asexual when they’re trying to find out why they don’t like sex.

A lot of non-asexual people feel this way, too, when they first hear about sex. Let’s face it, the whole process is a bit icky, after all. However, for most people who feel this way, those thoughts are pushed aside once sexual attraction kicks in. But for the aversive asexual, sexual attraction never comes along to override these feelings.

The “ick factor” isn’t the only reason people don’t like sex. Some asexuals don’t like sex because they find it uncomfortable or boring. There are thousands of reasons that someone might not like sex.

You like sex, but it doesn’t feel “right”.