Journey to the Center of the Ace

Unlike many aces who have related their stories, I didn't grow up thinking there was something wrong with me and that I didn't fit in. I grew up convinced I was heterosexual (and heteroromantic, except I didn't know that was a thing, then). Sometimes I was concerned that I was a lesbian, because I've never been terribly feminine and women who were could make me feel… inadequate, like I was a different gender, almost. (I say concerned because that would not have gone over well, on so many levels, in my school, or my town, or…) But I did know enough to know that, no, this didn't make me a lesbian. There wasn't any "spark" when I thought about women. And I had crushes on boys! That meant I was totally heterosexual, right?

There should have been some clue bats along the way. I remember wondering why all my peers were interested in having sex, because that hadn't happened to me, and I figured it was just a matter of time. I remember thinking it was probably a way of being cool-- having sex, that is. But, nope, no clue bats.

I encountered the definition of asexuality once or twice in college, and didn't give it more than a glance-- I thought, "Nope, I have a boyfriend, I like him, sex sounds pretty good, I'm straight." Then after a while, I encountered it again (in the context of the "Sherlock" fandom, I think) and went "… wait. What is this 'sexual attraction' thing? What?" And it wasn't a concept that made sense at all, so I went, "Huh. You know, I've certainly never been interested in sex outside the context of my boyfriends. Maybe I'm demisexual, or grey-asexual."

Another clue bat should have been that the only thing I really wanted to do with the boyfriends, where want is a visceral desire with no logical explanation, was cuddle. We didn't really, for a variety of reasons, but I wish someone had just kind of shown up and gone, "OK, that thing you feel about cuddling? Where you just want to do it? And you daydream about it and sometimes feel kind of empty because it's not on the menu? That's how most people feel about sex." And I probably would have gone "Are you high?" (And, darn it, I came up with a really good definition of sexual attraction in the middle of the night and then I forgot it. I think it might have been "a desire to engage in sex with a specific person without a logical explanation.")

Eventually it occurred to me to wonder whether sexual attraction wasn't a bit more needy than what I felt in the context of the boyfriends. Sure, if we were having a conversation about sex, sometimes I'd get physically aroused. But I never felt the need or desire to do anything about it at the time, and it was mostly just… kind of inconvenient. It didn't make me want to have sex with them, and it didn't mean I wanted to have sex with them. So then I went, "Hmm. Well, I must be a heteroromantic asexual, then. Glad I got that sorted out."

Then that niggling little voice went, "So what is this romantic attraction thing, anyway?" Eventually I realized that there's a difference between having a crush on someone because you're insecure and you want their friendship and approval, and having a crush on someone because you're into them romantically. Now that I'm older, the kind of crushes I experienced when I was a high-schooler seem… illogical. And while I kind of know what my friends mean when they describe romantic attraction, it's hard for me to sort out from meeting someone, liking them, wanting to get to know them better, and wanting them to like me. So I now identify as grey-romantic or aromantic. (In retrospect, this also explains why the concept of dating-- and the feelings my peers expressed about romantic love, which seemed to me at the time to be downright codependent-- disturbed me in high school.)

I knew I didn't like women as anything besides friends, so I was convinced I was heterosexual. Because of that, I assumed that everything I felt mapped onto something in heterosexual discourse-- "oh, well, this is how I feel about boys and sex so this must be desire." It's like having an anatomical diagram that you're convinced fits you, and standing and looking at it saying "OK, if this is me, then this thing must be my spleen because I know I have one and this is the thing that looks most like it," only to find out later that you were pointing at your left eyeball. Or something equally unspleenish. And then someone comes along and says, "Actually that's a diagram of a cow, and you're holding it upside down." And then you look at them, and look back at the diagram, and kind of moo at them out of spite.

And this is where I think we need more ace education. If you grow up, as I did, thinking that everyone wants sex with someone so this, this strongest feeling I had about sex, well that must be the wanting… then you're going to be really confused the first time you stop and go "Wait. What?" Whereas if you grow up knowing that people have all sorts of different feelings about sex, then you're going to be much less confused.