Zuri

i apologize for being nosy, and please don't answer this if you don't want to, but i remember a few years ago you had identified as asexual and i was wondering if you still do? i did for a long time but i'm with a new partner now and i'm starting to wonder if maybe the connection just wasn't right with anyone before and that's why i wasn't into having sex? is that normal? i mean, i identified that way for YEARS so i'm just. very confused at myself.

I mean listen, I’m in my 30s. These labels don’t mean a lot to me anymore. Like, literally everything is normal. Everything is fine so long as nobody’s feelings are being hurt. Don’t worry about some label that used to be useful maybe not being useful anymore. Thank it for its service and let it retire. Maybe one day it will be useful again. That doesn’t change anything about you, because you are, and always have been, a complex, multifaceted, constantly changing kaleidoscope of emotional and sexual needs, and “asexual” is just a word that helped you make sense of it for a while.

Like, y’all, give yourselves a break. Sex is complicated. Some people are straight their whole lives, and then they meet one person who changes everything. Some people are one thing for a while, then they’re another thing, then they go back to being the first thing. Some people stay one thing forever. Some people are really into something in their 20s that grosses them out to even think about for the rest of their lives. All if it’s normal.

The words you put on your orientation are not elementally a part of you. They are tools, and as tools they should serve a function. That function can be to help you understand and categorize your own experiences and desires. It can be to help you find a community. It can be to help you get laid. It can just be to set social expectations. These words can be a revelation when you first apply them to yourself: they can be life-saving. But you are not beholden to them. 

“Idk, I thought of myself as ace for a long time, but I’m into my current partner, so like, enh? I’m having a good time and my partner and I are both happy, so I guess labels aren’t really useful to me right now” can be all you have to say on the subject.