My Asexual Story
In grade 11 I discovered the term ‘pansexuality’ but before I get into that, we need to take a detour. At a point in high school I was in a relationship, and we had started talking about our boundaries. Now, I had thought about sex and doing sexual stuff but when it finally came down to it, it felt like a switch was off. The relationship ended soon after for unrelated reasons but I was left feeling confused about myself once again. I eventually figured out I was probably asexual, or at least on the spectrum.
Asexuality falls under the sexual spectrum (you know, homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual – we’ll get into this) but in itself has it’s own spectrum or categories. I believed I was asexual, which means I had no desire to have sex. The hook for me was ‘some asexuals still enjoy masturbating.’ So I lived for a year not really experiencing any sort of sexual attraction towards anyone, and then this weird moment in matric happened of looking at my friend’s boobs the one day (she was wearing a really pretty shirt) and suddenly adjusting to wanting to touch boobs and much more.
I mention this story because it’s okay if you change. I’ve been a bit perverted for majority of my life and now I’m basically a perverted nympho but the year I was asexual is still a part of me and my story; it is valid. If you find yourself being bisexual and then after some time you realise you only like a certain gender and now you’re gay, that is okay. It should only matter to you and your partner(s).
The Asexual Spectrum
Note that even if someone is asexual, they can still have romantic feelings or attraction to people. Researching this now, in retrospect when I believed I was asexual, I think was instead quoisexual because it was a confusing time for me. There are a lot of words and terms in the image above and you may think it is excessive but I believe they are important because they put into words the confusing feelings. Even if you don’t fully understand, it’s important to be accepting because at the end of the day, it is what makes that person happy and it has absolutely no effect on you. However, always remember that open and honest communication with a partner is important and this does affect them.
The Aromantic Spectrum
The same way we have an asexual spectrum, we also have an aromantic spectrum. Aromantic obviously meaning a lack of romantic attraction. A person who is aromantic can still have sexual feelings or attraction to people. The aromantic/romantic spectrum is also broad and you can replace the ‘sexual’ with ‘romantic’ for most terms in the image above and they relate to your romantic attractions or lack thereof. For example: Fraysexuality means you can have an initial sexual attraction to someone you’ve just met but it fades as you get to know the person better – in a romantic sense this would be having a strong initial romantic attraction to someone that fades as you get to know them.
I hope you look forward to next week as we further expand on the sexuality spectrum and speak about gender.
Peace,
– A
A's Explanations 