Asexuality: A Brief Introduction

I’ve been a supporter of gay rights for years. It would be hypocritical for me to be open in my support there, yet be completely silent about who I am, now that I know who I am.

I know that one of the greatest factors in someone being willing to accept homosexuality is to know someone who is gay. I know that if I’m open about who I am and how I feel, that all of you will gain a greater understanding of asexuality and be more willing to accept us. You won’t see asexuality as some scary alien concept. You’ll see me. (Granted, I can be a scary alien concept at times, though…)

So why have you been hiding all this time, then? What took you so long to come out of the closet?

I haven’t been hiding. I really just found out myself back in April. I’ve been confirming the hypothesis since then and trying to figure out how to say anything about it. And it’s not like I’ve been trying to pass or anything. Even before I made the discovery, I never went around claiming to be sexually attracted to anyone. I’m sure all of you who know me had already figured out that there was something off here. I mean, you’ve all seen that picture I have on my desk in the office, right?

(I’m not really sure aces come out of the closet, though. I think we come out of the pantry, because of the cake.)

Cake?

Yes. We have cake. That’s how we recruit people.

Recruit people?

Of course. Just like any other sexual minority, we recruit people to help carry out our sinister agenda.

Sinister agenda?

Yes. Say, would you like some cake?

Sex

I’m asexual.

But…

I’ve had sex. It wasn’t a compromise. It wasn’t solely for her pleasure. It wasn’t to save the relationship. It wasn’t a violation.

I did it for me. I did it because I wanted to experience it.

On the whole, it was positive. It felt good. I liked it.

But…

It wasn’t the mind-blowing experience I was led to believe. It didn’t sexually awaken me. I didn’t start craving sex with every waking hour of my life. I felt like I was acting.

That was nine years ago. I haven’t had sex since. I don’t miss it.

But…

I’d do it again in the right circumstances.

Attraction

The words “hot” and “sexy” might as well be in a foreign language. I don’t relate to them at all. They always seem to be used to describe people or things that I find artificial, impractical, and unappealing.

I had a girlfriend once who complained that I thought she was “cute”. She didn’t want to be “cute”, she wanted to be “hot”.

My brain is simply not wired to understand it. When someone says “Check her out, she’s so hot”, what I see is someone with oversized lips, plastic skin, breasts that’ll make her lose her balance, a face with more paint and spackle on it than my house, and it’s all wrapped up in clothes that cannot be comfortable to wear. Those features stand out and scream that I’m looking at an artificial creation instead of a person.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong for a person to like that sort of thing. I’m just saying that I can’t.

I do experience aesthetic attraction. There are certain people or types of people that I do enjoy looking at. Those people will stand out and I will notice them. But all I want to do is look. It’s like I’m looking at a cute puppy or beautiful picture.

Those are words I understand. “Cute”, “Beautiful”, sometimes even “Pretty”. I see people who I consider cute or beautiful. There is always something about them that will stand out. Maybe it’s the clothes, maybe it’s the hair, maybe it’s the smile. But whatever it is, it always feels natural. It feels real.

But even so, I get the feeling that I experience aesthetic attraction even less often than most people experience sexual attraction. It’s a rare feeling.

Porn

Yes. Porn.

I’ve looked at porn before. In fact, porn is a big reason how I knew that I was different sexually than most other people.

You see, everyone else seemed to really like porn. Really really like it. And I didn’t. Not all of it, anyway. After I got past the initial rebellious feelings of “OOH, I’M LOOKING AT BOOBIES!”, I just felt bored.

Yes, bored.

I was supposed to like it. I was supposed to fantasize about taking part in every scene. I was supposed to turn into a drooling horn dog at the mere hint of an exposed nipple.

But I just didn’t.

It was repetitive.

It was fake.

It looked uncomfortable.

It was formulaic and predictable.

Thoughts ran through my mind…

No one ever does those things.

That would pull a muscle.

The camera angle is horrible.

The lighting is horrible.

Why is she pretending to have an orgasm when no one in scene is touching anything capable of producing that reaction?