November 7th, 2013…

Caitlin, 17, female, United States

At lunch one day of my senior year, my friend was explaining the drama of some boy. She mentioned a girl was asexual and how she didn’t want to date because she didn’t like people. Now I’m one of those people who will wait until they get home to google something rather than look dumb in front of a friend.

So that night I googled asexual. The first website that came up was AVEN. After reading explanations, FAQs, and reading all I thought would help me understand, I couldn’t believe it. The concept of asexuality was so different, but so comforting.

I spent every night for the rest of the week reading and rereading the website, wanting to make sure if this was who I was. Then, on November 7th, 2013, I put all the pieces together. I am asexual. That moment, the moment of finally understanding why I was so different and knowing there was so many more who felt the same was I did, was one of the happiest moments I can remember.

I was nervous to tell my friends. I waited weeks before telling my best friend and when I told her she said “I kind of guessed. Your beliefs and reactions always made me think that, but I didn’t want to influence you.” I soon worked up the nerves to tell more friends. I told my sister a month later and she has been so incredibly supportive. She tries to understand, asks questions and never judges. I haven’t told my parent and won’t for a while, but there is more cost than benefit to telling them right now. I also can’t work up the nerves to tell the two people in the whole world who are supposed to love me no matter what that I am so different from what they expect me to be. So sure, some don’t understand or tell me its not a real thing, but I know who I am. And ever since November 7th 2013, I have been happier and more confident than I have ever been. I know who I am and I know that I am not alone.

On Being Invisibly Demisexual

Featured

purpleandgrey, 28, female, United States

For the past few years, my story has primarily been about being invisibly ace. I’m a cisgender demisexual woman in a committed relationship with a cisgender sexual man. To all outward appearances, our relationship is indistinguishable from a normative heterosexual relationship.

But this is the really strange part: to all inward appearances, our relationship doesn’t feel all that different from a heterosexual relationship, either. I’m sexually attracted to my partner, and he’s sexually attracted to me. I’m still not sexually attracted to anyone else, which is how I know I’m still demi. But sexual attraction is an everyday part of my life now, and the fact that it’s only directed at one person doesn’t make much of a difference to my internal experience of it. I continue to identify as ace, but I often don’t feel very much like an ace person anymore.

That makes me a lot more vulnerable to doubts about my orientation. I do a lot of visibility and education work, and every time someone asks me to explain how demisexual is different from plain old sexual, I experience a moment of panic. I know the standard answers to this question, and I know that the definition of demisexual is still objectively true of me. But it’s hard to believe in myself as demi when my demi-ness isn’t a constant presence in my life, the way it used to be. If even I can’t quite tell what distinguishes me from a straight woman at this point, am I really still demi?

The only thing that really helps with those doubts is reminding myself of all the times I’ve reassured my pansexual best friend that yes, she’s still queer, even though the person she’s decided to marry is a man. In many ways, I think my situation is analogous to hers. Like me, she will be perceived as heterosexual because of who she’s married to. Her real sexual identity will be ignored by society. Bi- and pansexual erasure is a real thing and it sucks. And I think it has a lot in common with asexual erasure.

The big difference between us, though, is that my friend will continue to find people of many genders attractive, and thus will retain an internal sense of her own queerness. All I have to reassure me of my own identity is absence: a lack of attraction to anyone other than my partner. The asexual side of myself has become the background in the portrait of my sexual orientation. And it’s hard to maintain an identity based largely on negative space.

The First Date

Featured

Stephany, 44, female

I never had a boyfriend in high school, not even a crush in middle school. I had my first date when I was twenty-one, although it was quite unintentional.

This guy and I worked together at our local grocery store. One day he asked if I wanted to go to the movies. We could see “What about Bob?” I liked Bill Murrey, I thought he was hilarious, so I said “sure”.

I though “Gary” just wanted to go to a movie like me and one of my other friends, a girl, often did. As I quickly found out, this was not the case. He came over to my house and I received a cute little stuffed bear in a gift bag. After a brief talk we were off to the movie theatre which was a short walk away.

I’m sorry to that that I was probably the worst date ever, or at least the worst one he ever had. It was so bad that Gary’s older sister called to talk to my mom. (I still lived at home.) The sister wondered if I was really twenty-one and told my mom some of the things that went on, like how I balked when her brother tried to kiss me, and how I had to be talked into holding hands with him. It was more than a little embarrassing for me and my mother had a bit of a laugh over it and told the sister I was “just shy”.

Her response ticked me off so much, because it was just stupid, that I replied “I am NOT shy!” loud enough for the sister to hear.

In the end, Gary, who was apparently broken-hearted that I had said “yes” to a date and then used him to see a movie, moved off to West Virginia about a week later. Our disastrous date had gotten around work too, so I guess he was too embarrassed to work there anymore. Last I heard, he had met a nice lady and had two kids.

I’ve often looked back sadly on my first date. And I swear, I had NO idea it was a date.

I never even thought about dates before, or even how guys and girls hooked up. When I would go through the hallways at school and notice them making out, (which disgusted me,) it never dawned on me how they got together. They just “were”.

Discovering that I am asexual was such a relief for me. Although my first date happened twenty-three years ago, I still feel awful about it because I knew I had hurt him pretty bad, unintentional as it was. I just couldn’t figure out how to explain why, exactly, I was so grossed out by the things he wanted to do, like when he wanted to make out.

But now that I know I am an asexual the puzzle pieces all fit. I can now explain why I don’t want to do this or why I don’t want to do that. And I know that there is a guy out there for me after all, somewhere, and even if I never meet my asexual Mr. Right, just having the knowledge of what I am is enough to make me happy.

All the World’s ‘A-Gray’ Stage

Featured

Hazel, 19, female, United States

“Are you okay with kissing?” our script writer asked.

All of us nodded. I could handle a bit of kissing, right?

“Good! I’ll see you all tomorrow!”

Our college was doing its annual 24 hour theatre project, where a writer would spend 12 hours writing a 10 minute play and then the actors/directors would practice it for the next 12 hours.

The next morning to my horror I found out what our play was about: a girl and her boyfriend were at a party and both really wanted to have sex with each other but every time they did so much as kiss their drunken friends would enter the room and cause shenanigans. I was to be the main girl.

“Umm, guys, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked the writer, director, and cast. I told them that I had never kissed anyone before (not that I was uninterested in kissing, but the candidates for whom I wanted to make out with did not feel mutual). I was a little embarrassed since I was 19, but they were really understanding. I kissed the boy who played my boyfriend, got the first kiss awkwardness out of the way, and we were all good… right? Wrong.

I felt SUPER awkward the entire time. Not really because it was about sex, but because I had to pretend that I wanted sex from someone. I had no idea how to get inside this mind frame and act this out. How was I supposed to act sexually attracted to someone?

“I’m so sorry, I’m doing a terrible job at this role! I’m just awkward.” I told our director during a break.
“Oh, you’re fine! Don’t worry about it.” My director said with an expression I couldn’t exactly read. To be honest, I think he was just happy that I had my lines down.

Having sex was something that didn’t often crossed my mind until that day. I spent the rest of the day contemplating this topic. During dress rehearsals I watched the rest of the other plays. I saw an old high school friend playing piano in one project. When I was 16, I feel madly in love with him. I swore I was going to marry him someday… until I found out he was gay. Funny, despite my strong romantic feelings, I never thought about having sex with him… ever.

I saw another play in which one of my friend’s boyfriends played a villain. Watching him play the calm yet utterly sinister villain was kind of turning me on. Ever since I had met him the semester before, I got a weird feeling every time I saw him. Was it sexual attraction? I’m guessing yes. But I know that even if the opportunity were to arise, I would never really want to have sex with him (even if he wasn’t dating my friend). Whatever feelings I had for him, they weren’t strong enough for me to do anything of the sort with him.

So what was my sexual orientation? I was very confused for the next month as I tried to grapple with my identity. When I was 16 I thought that I was bisexual, but that’s because I thought sexual attraction met you found people pretty, but I wasn’t romantically attracted to girls at all. I knew about asexuality, but I couldn’t be asexual since I had experienced mild sexual attraction. And yet, I experienced it so little that I didn’t feel like I fit in with the non-asexual people.

Finally I found a term that describes me: gray asexual. Now that I’ve discovered my sexual identity, I can now understand why I feel the way I do, both on and off the stage.

Discovering I’m a Bit More Different than I Originally Thought

Samantha, 17, United States

My discovery of my sexuality began in middle school, but I never could identify exactly what I was until very recently. I always got emotionally attached to friends, earning the title of the sap of the group. And my crushes only came after I befriended someone, but I thought this was normal. I thought that was how most relationships were forged, and the fact that I looked for the qualities of a best friend in a romantic partner was just me being an emotional person. I mean, who wouldn’t want a partner they could be best friends with as well?

I began to notice that I was different when high school hit, though. At 15, I had heard of porn and had seen a bit of it on the internet, but it repulsed me. It made me so uncomfortable, and it does to this day. Just typing this is making my stomach churn! I felt like it was immoral, and the idea of any partners looking at porn felt like betrayal. This was when my friends started saying I was different. Not only did I hate porn, but I didn’t want a partner to watch it… which my friends deemed weird and controlling.

As my friends matured, I felt almost left behind. They would discuss how much they wanted to bang celebrities, or their fantasies of threesomes and one night stands. All I could think of was how much I felt that went against every opinion I had on sex and love. I felt that sex meant nothing without love, and the idea of casual sex made me feel terrible, like it was tearing up my soul. There were a lot of times where I felt misunderstood and that I was weird and immature. People talked of high school and college like it was a place to experiment a bunch before finding that “right person” to settle down at age 28, but my thoughts on dating were never casual. I wanted an emotionally intimate relationship, not a new fling every other week.

From then on, I felt very insecure and started on a road to self discovery. I had already started to notice I was not heterosexual, so I identified as pansexual. My justification, though, was that I could fall in love with anyone. I did not realize that there was a difference between pansexual and panromantic. Like many, the great world of Tumblr opened my eyes to the myriad of orientations a person can identify as. I knew most of the terms by then, but I came across the term “demisexual” for the first time around one year ago.

After doing some research, the relief I experienced was unprecedented. It was like everything suddenly came into focus. I found people exactly like me. People who could tell me that what I felt was normal and not the product of sexual immaturity or being too emotional. I could finally embrace what I had always been: a panromantic demisexual. I was someone who felt differently from a sexually-charged society because I was not charged completely sexually.

Coming out was easy, although my family in particular just said I was trying to make myself into a special snowflake. They just didn’t understand that what I felt was significantly different from them, and they believed I was just sexually immature and would develop over a longer period of time. My friends and partner, however, have been much more accepting. My partner especially has been loving and supportive. Personally I feel my discovery of my identity has made our sex life much more fulfilling. He now understands why porn bothers me so much, and we can have a frankly open conversation on our sexualities. Being in a relationship with a partner who is not demisexual has its distinct issues, but I found that compromise and complete communication is the key to success like in most relationships.

While the great discovery has helped me quite a bit, my story does not end here. It’s still being told everyday as I run into the obstacles of being demisexual in a sex-oriented society. But now that I have a reason as to why I feel the way I do, I can now approach these challenges in a new light: that I can’t change. I am who I am, and what I feel is not wrong. While problems will arise in the near and distant future, I am so thankful for communities such as this telling me I’m not alone and that the troubles I will face are not isolated to my situation. I know I can pursue life comfortably in my demisexual identity.