Feeling emotional, here to vent. Being Ace is hard, here’s my journey.
My best friend who I trust the most right now keeps having discussions with me about the social construct of gender, which is fine. I don’t mind an open-minded discussion/debate. She is very republican, so we have decent discussions and usually agree to disagree.
But when she jumps into sexual orientation discussion, then it’s personal to me and I jumble my thoughts in trying to defend who I feel I am and I never get my point across. I end the convo frustrated and sad. So I’m planning some answers here.
She keeps asking, why do they keep adding acronyms?
Because Karen, (which was is literally her name), it feels good to be part of a community. To know that your experiences and feelings are valid. To know there are others like you, to feel like you belong somewhere. So that when you are doubting who you are, because society screams it’s not “normal” you can go on tumblr or tiktok or Google and find thousands of people who experience the lack of sexual attraction like you do and you remember you aren’t alone.
She tells me that asexually doesn’t count because I wasn’t born this way. She thinks if I didn’t have trauma and didn’t have hormone imbalances that maybe I would feel attraction to people. That it wasn’t something I was born with. Idk maybe she’s right, but why does that need to deter from what I am experiencing right now? Plus my traumas happened after age 10. I knew there was something different about me when I was 8. She says kids that young dont understand and don’t know what sexual and/or romantic attraction is. I try to explain that I didn’t mentally understand the concept of having crushes. My friends at 8 obsessed over Derek Jeter and a boy in our class, Ryan. they thought they were so handsome and so cute and said they wanted to kiss them. I didn’t understand what that meant. Why was Derek Jeter cute? He has muscles, he is tanned, he is successful, that’s as much as I got out of them when I asked for an explanation. And why was Ryan cute? He had freckles, they said. He was sweet, he had a cool haircut, he was popular, and they wanted to kiss him so I said I did too.
Then we discussed boy bands, still at age 8-9. NSYNC & Backstreet Boys. Each one of us in my friend group of 4 had to choose who we had a crush on. One girl liked the one with the blonde hair, because blonde hair is cuter. One chose the craziest acting one in each group because she liked their personalities and spunk. Another chose the lead singer because of their face and ripped body, because she wanted to hug and kiss a strong guy. I chose whoever was left, for the simple reason being that they hadn’t been chosen yet. I copied what they did. Drawing hearts on their notebooks with names in it. Talked about what it would be like to hang out with them alone. Wondered how solid their muscles were. But I didn’t get it. I nodded along and agreed with everything they said because it seemed right. But it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to kiss them or anyone.
After puberty started and I had gone thru trauma that fucked my ability to have normal attachments, I clung hard to female friends and role models. I started to explore a little and Google and think that I must be a lesbian. But sure thinking about sex was fun and felt good, but I never wanted to touch a woman, I never had that moment of “ oh yes I want to kiss her or hump her” no, I just wanted to experience the physical sensations I saw them have, all on my own. I thought because I felt good watching and reading about lesbians I must be one. So I tried to fantasize about my peers and other women. But it just didn’t make sense to me. And that made me more confused. I felt like a “bad” lesbian because I didn’t feel attracted to them either. I decided pansexual was a label that maybe fit me. Maybe I could eventually find someone I wanted to have sex with, maybe they would be trans. I kept that label a secret but still couldn’t shake that it wasn’t the right one for me.
Sometime in college, I learned what asexuality is. Probably from here on tumblr. And it all made sense. I joined Ace groups, watched tons of interviews, read everything I could. And something clicked. I realized this was me to a T.
That’s my rant for now. Thanks tumblr for still being a safe place to vent when I need to.
