Young adults who identify as asexual feel excluded from the wider LGBTQ community

I wonder.

well, it’s a difference between you and many teenagers, certainly.

Tbf they do get a ton of this sexual identity stuff now.

I worked at a library a few years ago that for Pride month had a big basket of buttons with the different flags and a list of what they meant. In the youth area. So teens and tweens were meant to pick out the one that applied to them.

So basically a lot of 11 year old girls who were either pansexual or lesbians. If they did it now I am sure some might say asexual.

The way they teach about these things, and the way it's emphasized so much in schools in special activities and assemblies and posters etc, it seem that the kids feel they are supposed to have this as a major part of who they are.

So maybe it's a solution to a problem they've created themselves.

Yesm teens are unsure about themselves, so they are always looking for ready made identities and labels and personality tests to tell them who they really are. It's a normal stage.

It's also not something that works. It's adopting a mask and mistaking it for our real selves.

Which is why adults understand when teens adopt these silly labels, being a goth or metalhead or jock or nerd or whatever. But they don't typically reinforce them or encourage kids to think that's who they "really" are.

In the end we all have to do the work to understand ourselves, to accept ourselves where we can't change things, or sometimes to not accept certain things and try to become a better person, and to have a comfortable positive relations with others and also not require others to validate ourselves.

Giving kids these made up categories like they are objective so they can "feel comfortable" is not kindness. Feeling comfortable is not always the answer. Growing up requires feeling uncomfortable sometimes.

When I was a teen and twenty-something, most people by 20 had started to see that these are limited things, and by 25 had really grown out of them. Maybe they still wore some of the clothes, they might have the same hobbies, listen to the music, but they understood that people are way more complicated than that, and more interesting, and they didn't need to limit themselves in such artificial ways.

I wonder now if the fact that these kids are being taught that these identities are real and important is part of why so many seem to mature quite late?

Me too, a childhood of CSA meant I was processing that and did not understand what the fuck other girls were talking about. Sex was a dirty secret to me. And all men were gross as fuck.

I still didnt think the world was owed an explanation.

Why are people so keen to advertise and discuss their private thoughts about their sexual preferences? It's a private matter imo.

Identifying as asexual would have relieved the sense of pressure and the sense of not being “normal.*

What's so unusual of not wanting sex? Why is it even worth discussing? What 'pressure' are you even talking about ?

Me neither, I don't remember any of these type of conversations when I was younger.

I see no particular reason to share either one, tbh. That's probably the difference between us 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think schools are emphasizing "sex positivity" too much. They should tell young people it's totally fine to put off sex until they are more mature and feel comfortable. Until university.
I had a whole bunch of late maturing friends. Male and female, who waited until uni. And it made it easier to set strong boundaries as we were older and more confident.

But it just boils down to accepting how you feel, really? Not "identifying as" something.

Sure, for adults. You might remember that self-acceptance and self confidence don’t come easy to teens and identity is very important. Honestly, it was just a throwaway remark that I’m struggling to explain because it seems so obvious! Do you really not get why it might be easier for a teen to say to other teens “I’m asexual” than to say “I haven’t developed sexual feelings yet?”

The vast majority of teens who don't fancy anyone are either just late developers or haven't met anyone they are attracted to yet. A lot of the kids who do claim to be attracted to someone or other aren't being entirely honest. They are just exaggerating to feel grown-up and fit in. When I was a young teenager I used to buy Big magazine every fortnight and hang the posters from it on my walls because I thought I was supposed to. I had zero interest in celebrity culture. I liked Star Trek and X-Men comics and I never had the slightest crush on any Starfleet officers or drawings of superheroes. But I wasted some of the tiny amount of money I had on a magazine I couldn't really afford because I thought I was supposed to. I drew the line at pretending to fancy a Take That member to fit in with my TT obsessed friends. But I picked an actor my best friend's older sister said was hot and went all in on having a thing for him. I didn't.

We shouldn't be telling kids that what they feel as a teenager is necessarily any indication of their sexuality. Obviously if you have strong sexual feelings for someone of the same and/or opposite sex, you can assume you are most likely gay/straight/bi. But if a teenager isn't experiencing sexual attractions, it means precisely nothing at all about their adult lives. And it's utterly, utterly fucked up to tell them that it does. Asexuality is an adult concept, because it is usual for adults to have some degree of sexual desire. But it has absolutely place being taught to teenagers as anything other than something that they may or may not find out about themselves when they are fully developed. And adults should be taught that complete lack of sexual desire can also be symptomatic of a health condition. Because it can. I'm not saying asexuality isn't real. But fancying someone of the sex you aren't normally attracted to, isn't a common symptom of a number of health conditions. Lack of sexual desire is. And those conditions should be ruled out before anyone considers a possible symptom of a health condition to be their identity.

But it just boils down to accepting how you feel, really? Not "identifying as" something.

surely you are or you aren't?

you’re assuming it’s a meaningful category!

I also don't understand why anyone needs to identify as asexual, surely you are or you aren't?

Being a late developer isn’t something teens tend to feel great about. Identifying as asexual would have relieved the sense of pressure and the sense of not being “normal.”

I’d probably have been glad to have an “asexual” identity to hide behind during those years
I don't understand how portraying it as an "identity" would have changed anything for you??

I was confused as every one of my friends fancied people and I never did.

same here. Turned out I was just a late developer.

yes, teens should absolutely be taught that lack of interest in sex is normal, and in some ways I’d probably have been glad to have an “asexual” identity to hide behind during those years. But there are real problems with promoting the idea that it’s a form of “queerness” or that it should be celebrated with a flag (it should not be a big deal!) or even worse, that it’s normal to have sex with people you aren’t attracted to.

If the concept of “asexual” gives young women who need it some protection from porn culture I’m all for it, even if there’s something rather precious and silly about it . My concern is that the concept has been corrupted, or perhaps “queered,” to the point where it can be used to pressure people into bad sex instead of being used as a shield against it.

I was confused as every one of my friends fancied people and I never did. Who you fancy is a big topic of conversation for teens. Plus, everything you read in magazines at that age was focused on relationships and sex, so naturally you are confused if you don't feel that.

Yeah, this. I've thought about the friends I've had over the years and discovered I really dont have any idea if they are/were asexual.

Its not something I would bring up in any conversation (mainly cos I just dont care about others sex lives or lack of) i dont see why they would feel the need to tell me. It wouldnt change our friendship, so no reason for me to know.

It's absolutely 100% normal for teenagers to have no sexual desire. Some do, others don't. So what the hell was confusing you back then? It is way, way, way worse to allude to teenagers that a perfectly normal lack of sexual desire makes them somehow other. How utterly selfish and self serving to think otherwise.

That STDs and pregnancies are preventable?

According to the various definitions asexual people do have sex so presumably you don’t want asexual people to catch STDs?

Exactly this. I was really confused when I was a teen (I'm 41 now) as I didn't know asexuality was a thing so I wondered what was wrong with me. They should teach about it in sex education.

My DD got taught how to put a condom on a banana - why should that be taught in a school? What assumptions are being made there?

My assumption is that they’re trying to educate to prevent teenage pregnancies. Most people are straight, so it stands to reason that this is a valuable lesson.
The problem has begun when various identities have decided to take offence at being taught broad life skills, and feel invalidated because they’re expected to learn something that doesn’t apply specifically to them. Education doesn’t and cannot work like that.

Well, a lack of interest could simply mean being bored that day, I think. It’s not really the same thing. Why not discuss heterosexuality, homosexuality and asexuality if you are doing sex education? The world won’t stop spinning if teenagers know 1-2% of the population are asexual, any more than it will stop spinning if they know some people are gay.