Tag: asexual

Exposing My Journal Entries From My Sexuality Crisis

At the end of 2020 when my sexuality crisis started, I did what any person trying to salvage their emotional state does; I began journaling.

Side note, I still journal to this day if I’m overthinking or need to rant. My blog has kind of turned into my journal, and I can confidently say writing about events in my life has brought me a lot of peace and happiness.

Now that I’m back from college for winter break, I have access to the very journal I wrote in, and decided to make a very entertaining blog post by going through it and writing my thoughts about that time. Instead of laughing at myself (although I will be doing a little of that) I decided it would be much more beneficial to give advice that I could have used during that time, and possibly provide advice for anyone else having a sexuality crisis as I did.

I will start by saying that if you are questioning a label or your sexuality for quite some time, it’s probably because that is your label. Straight cisgender people don’t spend every waking hour questioning if they’re trans or aromantic or bisexual. If a label is swimming around in your mind, it’s probably who you are. Not always, but oftentimes that is the case.

Okay, onto the journal. The first entry was from December 9th 2020. Out of the many bullet points I wrote (lots of which you can find here) the one that sticks out to me is “I would be okay if someone assumed I wasn’t straight.”

For all of the statements you’re going to read and wonder how I had these thoughts and still thought I was straight, I will admit that in the very very back depths of my mind during this time I did know that I was probably queer, it just wasn’t something I was fully admitting to myself.

The next day I wrote about the release of Evermore followed by a statement that said “I wouldn’t be too mad if I liked girls. I mean, having a pretty girlfriend would be cool. But am I ACTUALLY ATTRACTED to women?!”

Unfortunately for me I wasn’t aware of asexuality yet, and was definitely struggling to confirm if I was attracted to women when I was unaware I was not sexually attracted to anyone.

In a full circle moment I also wrote “One day I’ll look back on this when everything is figured out. Today is not that day.” Two years later, it’s very comforting to know how confident I am in my sexuality. I’m sure Past Jadey would be very happy and proud of Future/Present Jadey. I also wrote about how I wished I knew about the LGBTQIA+ community when I was younger. At the ripe old age of 17, I felt that I was late in the game to knowing my sexuality. This is obviously not the case. I was, and still am, quite young. I have a lot of things figured out about myself that others older than me don’t, yet I also have so much more to learn. It is unfortunate that many queer people, especially youth, have to figure out all of this information by themselves. Thankfully social media has become a very easy way to learn about the community and has normalized our existence even more.

December 25th 2020:

I thought I could be bi with a strong preference for men. Ironically, right after I said that, I stated that having a crush on a girl would feel “Warm. Fuzzy. Sweet. Dare I say right?”

I truly laughed out loud reading that.

Dare I say right?!? That is the gayest thing I’ve ever heard!!!

January 21st 2021:

“I have a crush on a girl lmao.”

It’s the casual “lmao” for me. The lowercase letters. The laughing at my situation.

Wow. Look at me finally admitting things to myself. My first girl crush. A big deal. Looking back, the person I had a crush on is pretty cool, so I’m not surprised I pined over her for a while. Sometimes you look back on the crush you had and want to projectile vomit all over the floor. I’m happy to say that is not the case, and honestly makes me enjoy looking back on this because there’s nothing mortifying I have to face.

February 15th 2021:

I “feel very comfortable/happy with being unlabeled.” Honestly I still have a lot of love for calling my sexuality unlabeled. It was, in a sense, a label I used for a long time and found a lot of comfort in.

September 22nd 2021:

I am “still unlabeled and very gay.”

December 2022 Jadey agrees that even now that is a very accurate statement. My preference for men was definitely deteriorating at this time.

My entries became a lot less frequent as I began to figure out my sexuality.

The last update was April 12th 2022:

I started identifying as asexual and still have my romantic attraction unlabeled.

As of now, December 2022, I identify as asexual and queer. I feel incredibly confident in my asexuality, and mostly confident in my romantic attraction. I know who I like and who I don’t like, yet I’ve never found a label that fully fits my feelings. I use queer in a loose term to voice the fluidity and complexity of my romantic attraction. However, going through this journal has really reminded me how I enjoy not labeling my romantic attraction. I think queer sounds cool. I think unlabeled sounds cool. Maybe I’ll use both. Who knows.

It was quite an adventure to look back on this, and I’m sure I will continue to read through it from time to time if I’m ever in need of some lighthearted entertainment.

Since this post is going up on Christmas, I thought I should take this opportunity to acknowledge the love and acceptance I receive as a queer person, and to verbalize how incredibly thankful I am that I get to be so visibly out. Unfortunately, this is a difficult time for my community, and my heart goes out to them. I hope you all have a merry Christmas, and if you want to get me a present, you can keep it very small and share my blog with your one hundred closest friends.

Questions Asexuals Have For Allosexuals – A Friend Interview

I needed a blog topic for this week. My friends were in the room. I had the brilliant idea to ask them questions that I, an asexual, had for them, allosexuals.

Amongst my three allo friends one is queer, one is straight and in a relationship, and one is straight and not in a relationship. For context they’re all females, I unfortunately don’t have any guy friends I could interview – I think it would have added some nice diversity to the answers I received. I also combined all of their responses for a general answer, as it would have been too complicated and confusing to have different answers when many of their responses added on and agreed with things others had said.

Here’s my questions and their responses:

1. What is sexual attraction?

Sexual attraction is a physical and emotional desire to have a physical relationship with someone. For them it could not be with a complete stranger, there has to be some sort of connection, even if it is the tiniest interaction. Maybe you had a conversation once, or maybe they’re someone you’re close to. Moral of the story: they don’t experience attraction to randos on the street. Additionally, you don’t have to want sex with this person, you might just want to kiss or make out with them. You might wonder things about this person; are they a good kisser? You have thoughts and queries about this person but you don’t necessarily want to actually act on those feelings.

The only sort of exception to this is celebrities. Because yes, you have never met them, but they’re not necessarily strangers because you know about a character they might have played, or you gathered information from them from interviews. You know about their personality enough to have sexual attraction.

Follow up question: how often does this happen?

“A lot more than it should.” (Referring to a desire to want to kiss someone.)

They think about sex probably once a day. Honestly, I agree with this. I’m not thinking about how I want to have sex, but it definitely crosses my mind as it is such a prevalent topic in our society.

Just because they think about sex daily doesn’t mean they’re experiencing sexual attraction everyday. For example, my friend in a relationship explained to me how if there is an event, a date, or an interaction where she would see her boyfriend that would provide a situation where those feelings would come up.

My friends not in a relationship think about making out with someone probably once a day. Also, if they’re bored and their mind begins to wonder they could imagine a hypothetical situation relating to sex, but might not want to actively do it, it just crosses their mind.

2. Can you describe the feeling of being sexually attracted to someone?

It feels warm and fuzzy like hot/intense butterflies.

3. How do you separate romantic and sexual attraction?

You can’t.

(Crazy!!)

Romantic attraction is more gestures, time with that person,and the person’s personality. Sexual attraction is more about what they look like, and happens more in the moment.

You can feel sexual attraction and not romantic, but once you feel romanitc attraction you can’t not feel sexual attraction too.

4. Can you describe horny-ness please. I don’t understand.

It’s a random yearning for someone; you just want to have sex. Compared to sexual attraction, feeling horny feels more urgent and pressing. You can be horny without being turned on.

(Jadey: ???) That makes zero sense to me and even reading that multiple times I still don’t get it. (The ace editor is also very confused.)

The person is doing something that makes you want to have sex with them. Being turned on is in the moment while sexual attraction is a person to person basis.

5. Why do you want to have sex?

An overall response: I think it would be fun, it would feel good, and you’re also making someone else feel good – that provides a deeper connection with that person.

6. Is there something that would equal the intimacy of sex but isn’t sex or sexual in nature?

For my friend in a relationship – she gave an example of a back massage, or her boyfriend brushing her hair would have that same amount of intimacy and could be done instead of sex from time to time.

For lack of better words, my virgin friends said probably yes, but they couldn’t tell me what that would be yet because they haven’t experienced it yet. They guessed it could be a deep emotional experience, like a good laugh, having a good cry, or opening up about your feelings and being vulnerable.

7. How often do you experience sexual attraction?

“Once a day.”

“Three to four times a week.”

“Every other day.”

This is a rough estimate, for example if you saw your significant other or saw your crush then it might be a higher number.

8. Could you be in a romantic relationship without sex?

“No.”

Jadey: Why not?

You want to be desired by them it would bring you unhappiness or a feeling of not being satisfied if the relationship wasn’t sexual.

I didn’t like that answer. I obviously wished that people, not necessarily them, as I’m not dating any of them, said yes. It’s a bit difficult to hear that sex is so important when it’s not to me. It’s hard to know that a lot of the population couldn’t be satisfied in a non-sexual relationship.

9. How important is sex in a relationship to you?

Most of them couldn’t answer because they have not been in a relationship. However, it is important, but not the most important thing.

I asked for a number on a scale for reference. 1 being you can totally go without it, 5 being you could go either way, 10 being it’s very important.

The friend in a relationship says 8/10 – it’s pretty important but it’s not the most important thing.

10. What are stereotypes you’ve heard of asexuality, or things you don’t understand?

For context: they had all vaguely heard of asexuality from social media (TV shows, Instagram, TikTok, etc).

The consensus answer was that they didn’t know anything/didn’t know a lot until they met me.

This is why we need more ace rep!!

A follow up question I had for them was do they (especially my two straight friends) wish there was more queer representation. (For context I said for education, entertainment, and representation purposes).

They all said yes for all three reasons.

11. Does the over-sexualized culture we live in bother you? Do you feel that you have to be sexual because of your age, sexuality, culture, etc.

Short answer: no.

Feeling like they had to be sexual was never something they felt pressured to do because that was something you did when you were older/ married. It doesn’t affect their daily lives but it is something they find annoying. They don’t feel pressure to be sexual because that is something they already want to do. Additionally, hook-up culture is also very normalized, especially at college or on dating apps like Tinder. They never felt the need to dress to impress someone. We decided dressing up for men was different than dressing cute because you might see your crush that day.

12. Do you want to lose your virginity?

Yes.

Jadey: Why?

“I want the experience. I think it would feel good.”

Follow up question: Is this something you’ve felt more recently because it’s so normalized in college?

Yes, it definitely grew in college. It was kind of in the back of their mind in high school, but grew once they got to college. You’re no longer home with your parents, you’ve grown as a person, and sex is really normalized here. There’s places for STI testing, birth control, and many locations to get condoms for free.

13. When did you first experience sexual attraction?

Another consensus answer was that they generally started experiencing it in eighth grade/freshman year. They didn’t necessarily want to act on it, but it was something they experienced.

Funny enough this was the time I thought I was straight and sex was something I’d want to do later in life. Oh how things changed.

Wow. That was a lot of allo information for this ace to mull over. Sexual attraction is weird, but interesting.

Asexuality is Weird

Asexuality is weird. Not weird weird. Just…different.

It’s weird that I don’t experience sexual attraction and almost everyone around me does. It’s weird that I don’t want to have sex or kiss someone or be involved in dating culture.

But you know what’s really weird? No, Jadey. They don’t. Because they have absolutely no idea where you’re going with this post. There is definitely something well known in the ace community that people grieve for the things they don’t want. A lot of the ace community has probably felt some disappointment in their life that they can’t fully relate to their friends or the sparks of a first kiss of what it’s like to sleep with someone you truly love. It can feel like you’re missing out. Like you’re excluded from something that everyone gets to experience. It’s weird to grieve for things you don’t want.

Recently I’ve been feeling that way. Not to that large of an extent. I don’t want to have sex. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about when a boy will text me back or if I’ll have my first kiss or when I’ll lose my virginity. That all seems annoying and way too time consuming.

I do, however, really want to kiss someone. I really want to fall in love and kiss someone. It seems so fun. To be in love and to express that in a way that is so intimate. That’s what I really want, I guess, that kind of intimacy. Oh but how fun it would be to make out with someone! I don’t have to go past that!! I know all you allos reading this are thinking “oh haha Jadey you silly little ace” but I know I’m right. People wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Every book and movie and TV show wouldn’t include a steamy first kiss scene if it wasn’t practically a universal desire.

I don’t need to do anything past that. But I want to kiss a pretty girl and be in love. I want so desperately to be an ace that likes kissing. It’s not fair.

Of course, I don’t actually want to kiss someone. Even if you put the most beautiful person I was madly pining over in front of me I wouldn’t actually want to. It would disgust me. I would probably feel sick if I actually kissed them. I would be so uncomfortable. Physically, I don’t want to…but theoretically…

Don’t get me wrong. I love that I’m asexual. I love that I get to experience love differently. I think that’s a beautiful thing. I’ve always found my asexuality a part of my identity to love. To celebrate.

I know that love and romance has been saturated and over hyped by the media. Yet, I still want that novel-worthy first kiss. Something crazy like in the pouring rain or on a rooftop or sitting in the back of a car at a drive in movie. Something memorable. Something romantic. I’m a hopeless romantic, but that should come at no surprise.

When I first got to college it kind of shook me a bit – how real sex is. Now that we’re all out of the house and “adulting,” having relationships and being sexually active is expected. It’s weird. I was always aware that sex was a thing, it just has become ten times more apparent at college. I’m constantly being told about STI testing and where to get birth control and about who to call if I need to report an incident. Sex is everywhere. And that’s weird to me. It’s weird for me to sit in class and know that everyone can relate to what we’re talking about or use the information we’re learning about – like communication in sexual relationships or birth control or deconstructing gender roles – when I will never use that information in my life. Besides maybe, to educate others or to ponder and be confused about.

There are people around me who want to have sex. Who have had sex. That is something they think about and want to do. One day my friends are going to get into relationships and have their first kiss and lose their virginity, and I’m probably going to hear about it. Then, I’ll have to try to not look as disgusted as I feel and I don’t know, applaud them or something. Give them a cake. A card that says congratulations.

Oh well. I’ll deal with it. It’s not about me. I will however continue to think that sex is weird, and occasionally ponder my silly little asexual life. When I’m not doing that I’ll listen to Conan Gray sing about being a hopeless romantic and be happy he never writes songs about sex.

How I Figured Out I Was Asexual and Queer

As the new owner of a gay blog, it is only fitting that I tell the long and exhausting story of how I realized I was very, very gay.

I saw a TikTok from a friend at the time, probably sometime in the early fall of 2020. In the caption it said she was bi. And my immediate super straight and normal thought was, “I wish I was bi. I wish I could come out.”

Yeah. A very straight person thing to think.

My sexuality crisis began during the start of my junior year of high school.

Do I like girls?

That was the age-old question. I knew I liked boys. I had in the past. Heck, I had been on two dates with a boy I genuinely liked. I was, and still am, certain it was not comphet. The weeks passed as I spent my nights laying in bed questioning my sexuality in the comfort of my room, alone with my thoughts. Eventually, I would settle back into the idea that I was straight for a week or two, only to end up questioning that again. I was terrified of claiming to be a part of a community that faced so much oppression, only to later come to the conclusion that I was wrong.

Here are some of the things I spent my time thinking about:

Could I like a girl romantically?

Am I straight, or has society just forced me to believe I am?

Physically, I could kiss a girl. But would I actually enjoy it?

I knew I liked boys.

Was I bi? If I was bi then I might as well be pan or omni.

I was 17, shouldn’t I know by now?

Do I want a girlfriend?

I could call myself bi-curious, but do I really like labels?

I felt like I related to the queer community. Did I relate to them, or their beliefs and values because they lined up with my political ideology?

If I liked girls, I definitely had a strong preference for men.

After about six months filled with many informational YouTube videos, research, and ‘Am I Gay?’ quizzes, I eventually figured out that gender didn’t matter to me. What I really wanted was to be in love. (This definitely has to do with my asexuality and sex-aversion, I just hadn’t realized it at the time.) Not labeling my sexuality felt like the most comfortable option, as well as occasionally calling myself queer, all in the safety and judgement free zone that was my head.

We can thank social media for opening my eyes to queer people and the beauty that is the gay side of TikTok.

Here are a list of things that made me realize I was in fact, not straight at all:

– Girls are very pretty.

– I realized all of the people I wanted to get close to throughout my life, or thought were cool, are queer.

– I had a phase in middle school where I loved rainbows and unicorns. While the unicorn phase did eventually fade away, my love for rainbows lasted. This was definitely a subconscious comfort with the pride flag and what it stands for.

– I wanted to dress gay. Flannels, cuffed jeans, Converse. I was aware of the fact that that was not a very straight person thing to do. I didn’t need straight people to know I was queer, I needed to walk down an isle at the grocery store and know other queer people knew I was one of them.

– I was a very passionate ally.

– I watched practically all of the queer documentaries on Netflix.

– I read LGBTQIA+ books because I found them “super interesting that people had such different lives than me.” Subconscious queer awakening? I think yes.

Spoiler alert: straight people aren’t obsessed with gay people.

As time went on I began to realize I liked boys less and less. One day I thought about marrying a man, and was utterly disappointed at that thought. I texted a friend about this, and she responded with, “Oh no. That’s very gay.” My boy preference was gone, and was left with a minute liking of them, now with a very strong preference for people who were not men.

During this crisis there was a very pretty red-headed girl I began to crush on during my junior year, but taking online classes made it easy for me to avoid confronting my feelings. When we returned to in-person learning, I did in fact like her. Yeah. A real crush on a girl. No denying I was gay. We can ignore the fact that I only spoke one sentence to her.

Eventually that crush faded towards the end of the school year, leaving room in my now empty brain for an asexuality crisis.

During the summer was when I revealed to my sister that I had been crushing on a girl during a late night talk while on vacation with our best friend. Now she knew, as well as my best friend who I had previously confided in. However, I still hadn’t told my only other queer friend about my crush on the red-head! Once back from vacation, I told her all about it while sitting on her front porch, and we had a true heart to heart about our experiences as queer individuals.

After this conversation, the lists began.

There are some things that are only in person conversations. I began to start writing lists of my own thoughts, opinions, confusion, and topics I wanted to share and discuss with my queer friend, who is asexual and aromantic, as well as into girls. Let me tell you, my lists were long and plenty. Every few months we would sleepover or get together and go over a new list I had created. She often agreed with everything I had there, oftentimes giving me unintentional good advice, while managing to say everything I needed to hear.

Through these lists and conversations with another ace person, I came to the conclusion that I was asexual due to the following reasons:

– I had no clue what sexual attraction was.

– I related to other ace people.

– Sex was something I never thought about actively doing, and if I did, it was something I would do later in life.

– If I had sex, it would be very vanilla. I had no reason to want more.

– One night as I laid in bed, I woke up with a start. I had a realization that I had never wanted to kiss a crush. Heck, I had never thought about doing anything slightly sexual with the few crushes I had previosuly had, which I was certain was not what most people felt.

– I wanted to be friends with my past crushes. Hold hands. Cuddle. It had never crossed my mind to do anything past that.

– Other labels such as bisexual or lesbian didn’t feel right because they suggested a relationship that involved sex or sexual attraction.

– It had never occurred to me that people had genuine celebrity crushes, and took the idea of a hall pass seriously.

– If I thought of a sexual situation it never involved myself, and always two made up characters I created that had the possibility to turn into a short story or novel, as I’m clearly very into writing.

It was extremely helpful to know another ace person during this time, and I’m eternally grateful to be able to have come through my journey with this friend. Also thanks to these chats, I became a huge fan of lists, as they are clearly the best way to organize one’s thoughts, so they must appear in every blog post. You’re welcome.

In the spring I eventually came to terms with using the label asexual, and came out to my friend, who I had promised would be the first person to know if I ever labeled my sexuality.

Since then I have become more comfortable with the label asexual, as well as other terms such as gay or queer.

This aroace friend of mine eventually turned into my Queer Platonic Partner, where I noticed my attraction to her was platonic as well as romantic. I began to label my romantic orientation as alterous; a desire to be emotionally close to someone that is neither exclusively platonic or wholly romantic.

After saying all of that, I really don’t focus on labels. Calling myself ace has become something I am comfortable and confident in. (Clearly, I started a whole blog about it.) If someone asked, I could describe my romantic attraction, however I don’t feel an overwhelming desire to focus on it.

Okay. It’s quite exhausting to relive all of my gay confusion. To any baby gays or aces reading this, I hope it was slightly helpful. And remember, labels are tools to use to help you feel comfortable in your identity, you can use whatever labels you want, or none at all. ❤