hey im not sure if you answer questions like this and this might be kinda personal, but i think i might be ace, but im not sure, so like how do you know? i have trouble figuring out my emotions so im never certain what im feeling, but ive never really wanted to sleep with anyone in particular and most of the time i find the idea of sex pretty icky. but sometimes i think that maybe id like it if i tried it, but i dont really have the urge to do so. 1/2
i keep reading about sex drives n stuff but im not even sure what a sex drive is supposed to feel like, so im not sure if i even have one. idk, im just a little confused and i guess that if i start identifying as ace some part of me will think im faking it cos i dont know if im sure. i know this is a lot to ask so feel free to ignore this if you want, but i just wanna know, how do you know for sure if youre ace? 2/2
Whoo boy! For starters, these are totally normal worries and questions, and I'm super proud of you for reaching out. I know this can be tough, but trust me, you will figure it out.
The definition of asexual is: does not experience sexual attraction. To me it was super simple: you don't want to have sex with anybody? You don't even want to think about other people sexually? Congrats! You're ace! Now, this experience is not the same for everyone, but generally speaking if you don't look at other people and (comfortably!) think about what sex with them might be like, asexual can be a really useful label for you. It expresses a disinterest with something most people are expected to be interested in. (And honestly, while allos can get really confused or defensive about this, do you think sexy stuff would be so prevalent in our culture if it wasn't the assumed normal?)
It can be confusing to identify a lack of something. It took me a long time to figure out what sexual attraction is, and honestly, I still don't completely get it. There was a long time where I thought maybe I was attracted to EVERYBODY because their appearance had literally no bearing on how I felt about them. Eventually I reached out to a trusted friend, who was pansexual (and defined it as attraction where gender is not a factor), and he explained that if I was experiencing attraction I should probably feel differently about different sorts of people.
As for sex drive! That's specifically your desire to, putting it crudely, get off. Orgasm. You know. Your body can have different opinions on it than your brain. Like, tmi warning, but I am asexual and sex repulsed and I still masturbate from time to time. It happens. You can probably figure out if you've got one by paying attention to how the purely physical stuff makes you feel. I would definitely recommend doing some research on AVEN and Scarletteen here, but this is something you might never be able to be sure about, and that's okay. It wouldn't invalidate you as an ace.
Phew. Okay, finally, sex isn't something you have to try just to see, and not trying or trying and then liking it wouldn't make you a fake asexual. It all comes down to whether or not the label is useful to you. For me, it opened up a whole community of people who experience similar things to what I do, and who intrinsically understand things I struggle to explain. It let me know I wasn't broken. It gave me a shorthand to explain myself to other people. It taught me to accept who I am. The questioning process can be ongoing, but whether or not I decide I'm actually something else in the future doesn't change the benefit I got from identifying as asexual. You don't have to know for sure. You can still call yourself ace. And if anybody challenges you on that, let me know, I'll fight 'em!!!
As a final note, if anybody wants to clown on this post, they're getting blocked. I recognize that these are my subjective opinions. I understand the instinct to correct me. I welcome constructive criticism, but I refuse to tolerate hateful engagement. Thank you.
