Did anyone else believe you were asexual for a considerable amount of time?

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[–][deleted] 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Kind of? I knew I had no interest in sleeping with men. Their bodies always looked either boring/plain to me, if not downright disgusting, especially in sexual contexts. But for a long time I had never heard of any other girls who wanted to be with girls so thought I was all alone.

Lesbian porn turned me off because it looked so fake, uncomfortable, and even painful. This lead me to the conclusion that even though I only had sexual desires for other girls I must not really want to have sex at all. All because the senual and romantic contact I wanted didn't look like actresses bouncing around unrealistically. Sex education was awful back then, so the cognitive dissonance between my clear sex drive and belief that I didn't want sex was bad. This was before I fully realized and accepted that I was a lesbian so there were extra layers of confusion.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lesbian porn is horrible. I’ve never seen any that had women who looked like they knew what they were doing. Also, the big focus on straps and vibrators is not really what my experience has been. Those things are not constantly in use. From what I remember, it was always very very unrealistic. I can see why someone who is actually into women would not relate

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

    Yep! I always knew I didnt want sex with men. I literally cried myself to sleep the night that I found out what sex was (heterosexual penis in vagina sex, naturally).

    Eventually as a teen I realized that I liked girls the way I was supposed to like boys, and other girl's bodies were just... perfection. But when I looked up lesbians I got a bunch of lesbian porn aimed at straight men, which grossed me out. At the time I assumed it was because I'm not into women sexually.

    Then I got together with my first girlfriend, and I was eager to explore with her... but the vigorous finger banging that we had both seen in lesbian porn didnt feel good at all, so I decided that I must be asexual. The relationship didnt last very long, so we didnt manage to get better at it or figure out what to do, and neither of us was smart enough to ask google how actual lesbians have sex, apparently. I didnt want sex with men, I thought I wanted sex with women but both the porn and the reality were a turn off.

    Luckily I later found a lovely woman who taught me a thing or two about lesbian sex, because I very nearly didn't give it another shot. I thought I should just look for a nice asexual woman who wanted to cuddle with other women and live together and go to home depot with me.

    [–]marigold 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I feel like I could have written a lot of this too! It’s great to hear my experience wasn’t unique. 😁

    I was horrified to learn in middle school sex ed what actually occurred in heterosexual sex. As a teenager, I never started liking boys like everyone else and thought I was weird and must be asexual. Then I started liking girls and fantasized about spending more time close to them and cuddling, but I refused to think of them in a sexual way because it felt dirty. I kept thinking I must be asexual. I convinced myself for awhile that I could choose not to be a lesbian, other people were gay but not me! I tried to convince myself I could date men and somehow use it to my advantage that I wouldn’t become attached or fall in love with them. Looking back I recognize how delusional I was, the crazy ideas and internal explanations I had come up with, all to avoid admitting to myself that I was a lesbian.

    [–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    This just triggered a memory for me. My mom handed me a booklet from Kotex (yeah, I’m that old) about periods and some other booklet about sex. No discussion whatsoever and I felt so sick to my stomach and cried for a long time that day.

    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

    [deleted]

      [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      I never knew about the existence of lesbians or gays until my 20’s. I saw one butch athlete-had no idea at the time what that even was- in HS and was madly interested in her (no idea why, of course) and I kept staring but my friends whispered to me that she was “queer”and “don’t look at her”.

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        I think that lesbians on the whole tend to be more... quiet about how we have sex (and also about our sexual misadventures). On the one hand, it keeps lesbian spaces less sex-focused than a lot of straight or gay ones which is nice. On the other hand, loneliness is already enough of an issue for us so why feel alone in our baby lesbian mistakes? Haha

        Looking back I do feel pretty dumb, because at some level I knew I wanted to go further with women and had access to google. You would think I would have been more curious buuuut apparently not haha. I grew up in a religious family, so it's not like I ever heard that porn is unrealistic or that lesbian porn is generally made for the enjoyment of straight men, so I never questioned it.

        I also think heteronormativity leads most straight people to realize they just had bad sex if they didnt enjoy it, but some lesbians (such as myself lol) assume that we must not be lesbians because we tried lesbian sex once or twice and it wasnt all rainbows and unicorns.

        [–]catsuneko 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        Yeah I did, which was kinda dumb since I knew at the time that I liked girls but since I wasn't sexually attracted to guys and didn't want anything to do with them I figured I was asexual. But tbf to my younger self I was really depressed and had a lot of internalized homophobia and would try to downplay my same sex attraction.

        [–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        I identified as asexual back when I was Christian because my mom couldn't accept that I was lesbian, and it really put a strain on our relationship. I sought out a relationship online with someone who was also asexual, and I met a woman who I thought was my soulmate. I endured 6 or 7 years of emotional blackmail before I ended it. It was a dark time.

        [–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

        Yes, though I only knew about asexuality because I listened to The Smiths as a teenager, it wasn't an organized cause at the time and I never publicly said "I'm asexual" out loud in real life though I used it anonymously on the internet frequently. I was diagnosed as having schizoid personality disorder around the same time, which sounds scary, but it mostly just means I like being alone, and asexuality is a symptom. I agree that labels are super-powerful, and I think shaping an identity around being asexual, even just mostly in my mind (though people definitely noticed I was never in a relationship), was super hard to break out of.

        In the end, I went through an asexual --> heterosexual? --> no, asexual --> bisexual? --> gay pipeline that lasted around 20 years.

        [–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

        Omfg. Morrissey made you asexual. Can you get that on a shirt? I love the smiths.

        [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

        Maybe I'll co-opt his "humasexual" next. Or not.

        [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

        You’ll get too many couples after you

        [–][deleted]  (7 children)

        [deleted]

          [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

          In my case, I don't think I have SPD, but the symptoms fit to a shocking degree at the time and it felt like I was understanding myself and being told that I was not broken or wrong, which is a powerful thing, especially for a teenager. And anytime I felt myself deviating from the symptoms, I would remind myself what I was and go back to conforming to them, like my psychiatric diagnosis was an astrology sign or something. I've since stopped trying to attach a lot of importance to labels and categories and just acknowledge whatever I was feeling at the time, even if it doesn't fit with my self image. Though it's made me really dislike a lot of the increasingly granular trends we have now, especially with regards to gender and sexuality.

          I agree that we should be able to talk bluntly about these things without having to tiptoe around people's feelings. I think there's actually been a study that transgender people have enormous overlap with certain personality disorders, with Narcissistic being the leading one, if I remember correctly. And even though I'm skeptical of psychiatry and DSM diagnoses, I do still believe in the patterns they're trying to categorize.

          [–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

          If you got diagnosed as a teen, that can “wear off” eventually because teens brains are still changing and feelings are at level 10.

          I know what you mean about identifying too hard with your “disorder” label. I had panic disorder in my early 20s and it went away. I also used to have much worse anxiety. I think we can make it worse for ourselves just by intellectualizing every “wrong” feeling and trying to make it more than a transient thing

          Edit: I’ve read research on trans overlapping with personality disorders as well. Especially the externalizing rage types.

          [–][deleted]  (3 children)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

            I just kept doing scary stuff and sitting through the panic to prove to myself I was not going to faint or die. Medication didn’t help me. Forcing myself to experience my feelings did. A lot of my anxiety was from being in a place where my feelings were not welcome so I just stopped feeling them. Moving away from there I didn’t have to push my feelings down and they started coming out as panic or anxiety etc. It was a rough time but I am a tough bitch and very determined to not be controlled by fear. We are the boss of us. Feelings are fine, they happen and change. It sucks how it can “feel” like it will never stop etc, but it always does. You’ll be okay

            [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

            I'm mostly just your garden variety depressive these days. I still have some schizoid-like traits, but others sound completely foreign to me now. I am still a loner weirdo though and one of the most depressing things about coming out was initially getting excited about getting a girlfriend and thinking it would be easy and then, a month or so later, realizing I'm the same weirdo that has trouble connecting with people and now with only a fraction of the dating pool.

            Personally medication always made things worse for me, but I am glad to hear it is working for you and that things are getting better. I don't know if this is common, but age seemed to mellow things out a lot for me.

            [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

            Yeah, I think you're generally not supposed to diagnose teenagers with personality disorders due to that reason. In my psychiatrist-at-the-time's defense, she never told me the diagnosis and was very cagey about it with me, but she told my parents and they told me.

            [–]zephyranthes 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

            I never identified as asexual: the "community" was stupid back when I found them (circa 2005) and it's awful and misogynist / handmaidenny now.

            • misogynist: "Unlike those sluts, I only sleep with people I am really attracted to!"

            • handmaidenny: "Of course I'd be happy to suck your girlcock, but I'm asexual and I'm just not feeling that special connection... those non-asexuals on the other hand will be transphobic if they refuse"

            I'm over 30 now, and I've never felt desire for anything "pleasurable" to do with genitals. (Maybe it has to do with growing up during the sexual revolution, when you'd be hard-pressed to find a school copybook without porn ads on it.)

            I love women. I love women's hair, women's eyes, women's shoulders and hands, women's waists and hips, women's legs (in shoes only, kthx). I love "women's" clothes and styles on women, fluffy hats, fluffy hair, elegant coats and flowing skirts, and "men's" clothes reimagined for women's shapes (like fitted three-piece suits). I love "men's" clothes and styles on women (they're considered unisex in my country when worn by women - there's nothing a woman can wear around here to look deliberately "gender-nonconforming"), work uniforms, sports uniforms. I want to find a woman who I'd be happy to risk if not give up my life for, and spend my life her, and raise children with her.

            But genitals are gross, and boobs, while not gross, are for babies.

            [–]theysaidthat 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

            No, I knew I liked women as far back as I can remember. I started developing crushes on the other girls when I was about 10. I kept waiting to develop crushes on the boys, never did. But I never felt asexual.

            [–][deleted]  (1 child)

            [deleted]

              [–]marigold 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

              Haha this brings back memories of dreaded questions about who was more attractive. I could never tell!

              [–][deleted]  (1 child)

              [deleted]

                [–]theysaidthat 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. I'm glad you were able to find a space where you can speak comfortably about yourself with people whose experience may parallel your own.

                [–]beholdyourheart 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                I went from thinking I was asexual, to bisexual, to trans/NB, and then finally accepted that I was a lesbian. I think I knew inwardly that I was gay the whole time but really didn't want to admit it. When I thought I was asexual I was still young and thought that because I didn't want sex that meant I was abnormal - when really I was just 13. A bit after that I began realizing I was attracted to girls so I decided I was bisexual because it meant I could indulge in my crushes on girls without the guilt that came with being a lesbian; I was convinced that 'eventually I'd end up with a guy.' Then I realized the attraction to guys wasn't showing up so I identified as NB and then a trans guy - again, because I didn't want to be a lesbian and I was GNC and thought that made me not a girl.

                Then finally I admitted to myself I was just a lesbian lmao. It's so easy, especially as a teen, to wrap yourself up in these identities. It's why I don't like when people make fun of teenagers for having weird gender identities and all that - being a teen, especially female and LGBT, is super rough and people naturally want an out from all the sexism, sexualization, and homophobia. But I do think these labels can have a negative effect on people in the sense that they can prevent them from facing certain facts - in your case, trauma around sex. In other cases I think things like the oversexualization of everything nowadays and how incredibly easy it is to find porn can make teens who are overwhelmed by that build up an identity around it. At least that's how it was for me when I saw porn when I was young and thought that my disgust of it meant I must be ace.

                [–]VioletRemi 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                Yes, I did, when I married on a man, and nothing was working in bed, no matter how he and I tried. I thought I was asexual or frigid. Until one time I kissed a women.

                [–]plotbunny 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                Yeah, I had a few years as a teen where I used asexual to describe myself. I had a lot of internalized homophobia and it was easier to say I didn't like anyone. Didn't really help that nobody I knew ID'd as a lesbian and a few of my crushes transitioned- had me questioning for a while where I fit in. Went through a bunch of identities while trying to ignore the obvious.

                Now it's better and worse in that a bunch of people came out right after high school, but they're all woke. The few lesbians I have met have been pretty cool, and it feels so good to no longer be hiding part of myself. But it took a while to get here.

                [–]ShellBellSherbs 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                In a way I did, though that was before discovering asexuality was a thing.

                I realized at 14 I had no feelings for boys and men in any way and thought that meant I didn't have any romantic desire whatsoever. then before I was 16 noticed I had an interest in girls, but burried the idea I was a lesbian and wondered if I was bi instead.

                Yeah past me is kinda dumb in some ways.

                [–]SickOfThisShit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

                I thought I was asexual for about a year before realizing I was a lesbian. Looking back I definitely had a couple crushes on girls in school, but I didn't realize it at the time, I just thought I wanted to be friends with them or something. In general I'm pretty introverted and don't feel the need to be in a relationship, plus I have a low libido so that all contributed to first assuming I was asexual before realizing I was gay.

                [–]Freetochoose 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

                Just want to say your username made me laugh! I bet this is a sentiment of many in the world today.

                [–]SickOfThisShit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                Haha, thankyou I was pretty angry when I made it

                [–]LesbiSilly 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                When I was 12 ish, I thought I was Ace because I wasn't into guys. I am still not sure if I am ace or not even as a Lesbian. Because I don't feel comfortable with sex and stuff while in my 20's. I'm a virgin still and naked bodies still freak me out. So... I donno. But I am 100% Lesbian. That's for sure.

                [–]HelloMomo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

                I did, but for a different reason that most of the other stories here. I was really into Artemis, as in Greek goddess of the moon, eternal maiden, goddess of the hunt, etc. And while yeah there are lesbian readings to be had about Artemis, I still think she's more asexual than lesbian. And I was so into her, and I conceptualized myself as being like her.