Is Your Sexual Identity Hard to Define?

[ghughes1980]

I have started to discuss theses issues with therapists, the problem I'm finding is I don't get to talk to the same person every time (I've been going to a clinic run by volunteers). There seems to be a lot of rehashing and explaining going on because who I get to talk to seems to be different every week.Which is getting frustrating.

[Pigeon]

Wow yeah that sounds frustrating! Is there no way to request a certain volunteer?

[ghughes1980]

I posted in another part of the forum more on this. (dealing with a non mental health issue) The saga continues I guess. Great interview this week by the way Pigeon.

[Pigeon]

Thank you!

[ghughes1980]

I have put some thought into this particular reply over the last day or so. Pigeon I think you hit the nail, integrations with people have become something I feel that others expect of me rather than something I really want. I can gather this attitude is a major contributor to my situational and seasonal depression but to be honest interactions contribute a large bit to my depression and stress also.

The physical proximity to others and the prospect of actual touch even in a basic interaction is frustrating. Thirty two years of having to justify my existence and physical being to people has basically turned me off of socializing.

I can grasp that a therapist can want to try and help me clinically but they can't possibly understand what this feels like inside because they don't have these things happening inside themselves.

A support group might I don't deny that but I have yet to find one that isn't just a meet and great or some activity based thing that discusses nothing and just puts on a face for the world: "look at me world! I'm just like you I can bowl!" rather than discuss actual problems amongst each other.

Another problem I seem to face is one of varying intelligence among participants in the support situations I have been suggested to. I view myself as being high functioning but most of the people in the groups I'm lumped in with are not as functioning. That is very disheartening when you are trying to connect. Specially in any sort of dating pool.

[aperfectring]

I apologize for the huge post. I tried to break it up as much as possible.

I am a 30 year old man who is looking for a woman to fall in love with, marry (emotionally if not legally), and possibly start a family with. This is all looking pretty normal, so far. Easy to define, and easy for people to understand. Then I throw in the little bit about never having a desire to have sex with this woman, ever. All of the understanding goes right out the window for most people after that. I'd say that I do fit neatly into a bucket, but its a bucket that most people have no idea exists.

My current identity, as I have accepted it into my life, is that of a heteroromantic asexual male. That's a long label to tell someone, and includes two words they probably have never heard before (at least in this context), and have absolutely no concept of. For those who are unfamiliar with the terms, these two wiki pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_orientation and this website (AVEN) http://www.asexuality.org/home/ can provide a more complete definition than I could probably come up with on my own.

One of the biggest challenges for me just has to do with how little was, and is, understood about asexuality. The first real psychological/sociological study focused on asexuality was published in 2004. Those of you who are good at math will already have realized that I was 21 when this was published. There was an online community started in 2001 (AVEN), which was intended as, and is, a safe space to talk about asexuality. It is, in fact, where that term was really coined. I'm sure people had been calling themselves asexuals long before that community arose, but they didn't know others felt that way. This community was still very young at that time (2004), and could really only be found if someone typed in "asexual" or "asexuality" into a search engine.

This means that, as a teenage boy, with all of the raging hormones and elevated sex drive that usually entails, I was surrounded by friends who are constantly talking about sex, and I'm sitting there not finding anyone, anywhere, that I have any desire to have sex with. It doesn't take too long for someone feeling like that to feel broken. Unluckily for me, I had other concerns more prevalent in my life at the time, so I just figured that it would come around once those concerns waned. I ended up in my first relationship (she asked me out) at 18. This was before those concerns had completely gone away, and I still had no sexual attraction. Thinking that this might kick start that missing attraction, I went along with it.

Here are some milestones of the relationship:
1 month in - she asks me to hold her hand and I do. It had never occurred to me to do this before then.
2 months in - she asks me to kiss her, it takes me a couple more dates to do it. Again, it hadn't ever occurred to me to do this.
Continue on, following the general pattern for a "normal" sexual relationship between teenagers (I won't go into the details). Except that the timeframes for initiating each new intimate level would be considered absurdly long by the majority of people. The relationship lasted nearly 3 years.

I loved her dearly, and I'm pretty sure she loved me as well. The relationship was an emotional disaster for both of us. She had body image issues. She was anorexic before, and somewhat during, the relationship. I had absolutely no desire for sexual contact, so she would always initiate. Everything. This caused her body image issues and self esteem to spiral out of control. I couldn't make her happy, and that sent me spiraling into depression, which I've suffered for periodically throughout my life. Because of this emotional undercurrent, fights between us grew more and more regular, and got more and more emotionally charged, until things finally snapped, and I stopped caring. The relationship ended on a particularly nasty fight, with me walking out of my apartment, leaving for my job. Her and all of her stuff which had been at my place was gone when I got home.

Over the next few months, I had some very complex emotions which are to this day very hard to describe. I was horribly sad that this woman I loved so dearly was no longer a part of my life. Conflictingly, I was also extremely relieved and happy that I no longer felt pressured for any sort of sexual contact. I knew that I still loved her, and that made the relief cause even more sadness. Multiple times over this period, she sent me e-mail and physical letters, and once even visited me. She wanted me back in her life. She would change, do anything necessary. I coldly told her that I didn't want that. I still loved her, but I think that deep down I knew that it would only be a matter of time before my lack of sexual attraction to her caused the rift to come back. We'd be back where we ended it, both miserable, and causing great emotional damage to each other.

That was in 2004, just shy of 10 years ago. I have not had a girlfriend, nor had sex since then. I am not at all disturbed by the lack of sex, but almost always lament not having found someone yet. It took me just shy of 5 years after the breakup to find out about asexuality. By that point, it had become quite a bit more established of a community, and I'm sure I just randomly encountered it on some internet message board somewhere. There was a huge sense of relief that I wasn't broken! I didn't identify as asexual at that time, because I was not a fan of labels, but just knowing that I wasn't alone was a great weight off my shoulders.

The decision to start identifying as asexual came about a year ago when an online friend of mine re-affirmed his asexual identity publicly on facebook. It made me reflect on my position, and at that point I decided that taking an asexual identity and being open about it wasn't to help me. It wasn't to help my friends understand me, either. It was to raise general awareness of the orientation, and to help prevent other people from having to endure the pain and isolation I felt while I didn't know about it.

I decided to take the identity, internally apply it to myself, and come to peace with it before actually deciding to start telling people. I set no date for when I would tell people, only having the intent that I eventually reach a place where I feel comfortable doing so. The final decision to start being more open about it, and to start telling friends, happened a couple weeks ago. I haven't told anyone in real life yet, just some close friends on the internet, but I plan to start doing so before too long. Probably one of the most intimidating things about doing this is the expectation that I am going to have to try to explain huge portions of human sexuality that I'm not sure I really understand myself. I will be extremely emotionally vulnerable while exposing something which is deeply personal, and strongly a part of who I am. At this time, I will probably have to answer some very pointed questions and face some doubt about the existence of something which is so much a core part of myself.

I am open to just about any questions people may have for me, and I will try to answer any questions people have about asexuality. If I can't answer, I hope I can at least point you to somewhere you can get the answer.

To close out this very long post, I am going to paraphrase the words my friend started off with when he re-affirmed his orientation.
I am asexual. I am neither proud of this, nor am I ashamed of it. I'm neither happy about it, nor sad. It's just who I am. I've been this way my whole life, and I am not different today because you now know it.

[manuel_moe_g]

Thank you for writing this post, and for your tremendous honesty, aperfectring. I hope this forum serves you well as a resource. All the best, cheers!

[JessicaLauren0]

Thank you so much for posting this aperfectring. I am a 29 year old hetero-romantic asexual female. I have had the same issues trying to explain to people what that means. All of my friends are currently getting married and it's hard for them to understand why I choose to stay single. I would love to have a companion to build a life with, but finding someone you are compatible with is hard enough without also throwing in the no sex part. It's nice to know there are other people out there like me.

[aperfectring]

I'm happy that people have found it useful and comforting. One of my main motivations for posting it was to prepare myself for being much more open about my past, even some very personal parts of it. I feel that if I can be comfortable in sharing that story more often, and possibly to even be more open and descriptive about parts of it, that it will really help people, especially those I am close with, to really understand asexuality. You can always point people to dictionary definitions, but knowing someone who is very open and honest about how it has and continues to affect their lives is almost always the most eye opening.

Jessica: If you haven't already, definitely check out asexuality.org (linked above in my post). There is a large community and message board there, which is quite active, and can be very supportive. Even if you choose not to post on the message boards there, it can be very helpful just to read through the struggles that others are willing to share. That community was the main way that I was able to realize I wasn't alone. Even though I haven't visited often, and only just recently created an account there, it is a great comfort just knowing it is there if I need it.

Probably the hardest thing for me right now is that I haven't actually come out to my friends. Though I don't really change my behavior for their benefit, it still makes things very awkward for me at times, especially when they go about trying to be my wing-men. One of the best parts about writing this post was that it forced me to articulate how I felt back then, and deeply examine how I feel now. All of that should be very helpful for me when I go to tell people, especially those who might be less understanding than my close friends, and also really helped me to understand myself even better.

[Pigeon]

I am so glad that this topic is getting more conversation! Some awesome sharing going on everyone!

ghughes,
I can almost feel your discomfort and frustration coming through and I really hope that talking through some of these feelings on the forum is helping to alleviate some of that tension. I know how frustrating it can be, too, when you can't find a group of supportive or understanding people in your area. That's why I think forums like these are so great! Because you have more of a chance of finding someone who understands what you're going through.

The downside of course is that online interactions feel less personal. I wonder though if that might be good for you? Online relationships, friendships, and social interactions seem like they would be more comfortable for you, since the issue of physical closeness would never come up. If you still want that emotional or intellectual interaction without the stress of a physical relationship, it seems like online interactions would be perfect but please correct me if that isn't the case.

As for seasonal depression, I can totally relate. In my experience too, my anxieties skyrocket when the days start to get colder/darker. I feel like I have to grit my teeth and just wait until things get better, which is not a good way to live almost half the year, but I haven't found a good way through it yet. I did have a slightly easier time last year though by just accepting it was going to happen regardless of what I tried to do to fight it. I went easier on myself, didn't push myself to socialize too much, cut out a lot of my family obligations, and just accepted that my energy was going to be low and I was going to be sensitive. It did help some.

I know for me (and this goes out to everyone) a lot of my problems have come from fighting myself and trying to be something I thought I should be rather than what I am (which ties well into this topic). When I accepted that my body does not represent who I am inside, when I accepted that I am a total nerd with a dorky sense of humor who will never be the cool kid, and when I accepted my attractions and desires without letting them define me, I found that everything started to come easier. Like life just generally went smoother when I stopped fighting against my own current. I still have a long way to go because I have enough denial and fear to keep me busy for a lifetime, but it's slowly getting better.