I’m the aromantic asexual who’s thread was taken down and I don’t even know why AMA!

[IWillFindYou]

So I posted it, checked day later no questions, next thing it’s gone.
I have no idea what happened or was said.

So, let’s do this again.

I am on the ace spectrum, I am demisexual. It means that I am only sexually attracted to people I have a deep emotional connection to. It was very disjointing to realise recently that people who for eg have one night stands aren't just doing it because they feel horny but because they actually feel sexually attracted to this stranger. I always thought everyone found people attractive like you would admire a work of art, aesthetic attraction. Turns out thats not the case!

Part of my journey of realising I was demi, was I recently realised that before my DH, I wasn't sexually attracted to my previous long term partners. I was in love with them for a time. And had sexual urges (like an itch that needs scratching). So I would physically enjoy it but sex was never the main focus for me in a relationship, I could easily live without it as long as there were hugs and conversations and hanging out and so on. My DH is the only man that I have ever felt sexual attraction to, and that came after we had become close friends and when we were starting to fall in love.

Before I realised I was demi (and that there was a word for it!) I thought that I was a bit broken in regards to sex. That maybe I just got bored with my previous relationships, that I wasnt putting enough effort in, that maybe everyone just gets a bit fed up of it after a while, that everyone is just pretending because society suggests this is the way you have to behave when you're in a relationship. I put so much pressure on myself to feel and act a certain way, I thought as I was not like that, that something was wrong and needed fixing. I can now accept myself for who I am, and not pretend to be someone I'm not. Its quite a relief actually!

vinsurvin thank you, that helps to explain, and to answer my questions.

I think what I've found so baffling is that I am clearly- as I've said earlier on this thread - what some people are calling demisexual. I didnt have (in that I actively avoided) going out (or staying in...) with anyone in my teens and early twenties, I've been single much, much more than I've been partnered with anyone, I very rarely fancy anyone (though I do find plenty of people incredibly beautiful in an aesthetic way), etc etc. Thats never been an issue, even as a teenager. My teenage friendship groups were mostly shagging their way through parties and festivals and evenings after the pub etc, i had plenty of opportunity and approval if I wanted to do the same, and it was just considered an endearing quirk of mine that I didn't, sort of thing. It was an issue - not for my friends, but for my family, and in wider society - when I fell in love with a woman. That's the disparity in my personal experience, and the disparity I've noticed in the personal.experiences of the people throughout my life. People who haven't had relationships have been rewarded for it as often as not, and that hasn't been the case for being gay.

Every time I have asked for further information, I've been treated like I am denigrating people's personal experiences - and that hasn't been thr case. I have explicitly been asking where the torment and struggle comes from, not saying that - for the posters here, at least - that it doesn't exist.

I don't think asexuality and demisexuality is, or should be, part of the LGB community, because its a different thing with a different history, and it muddles things up to lump them together. There also just has not been the sort of systemic discrimination in law and in society that has been visited on gay people - and this is not to say that asexuals haven't personally experienced torment and struggle, just that they haven't been explicitly discriminated against on a structural level.

@CluelessCar
I recognise so much of what you've typed.
You also get .. but also.. cause it's the weekend.

@DemiDino
And for you, you get... A very aesthetically attractive little bear he's good for hugs and hiding gin. 😁

Every time I have asked for further information, I've been treated like I am denigrating people's personal experiences - and that hasn't been thr case. I have explicitly been asking where the torment and struggle comes from, not saying that - for the posters here, at least - that it doesn't exist.

People have given you lots of information and personal reasons and you keep asking for more. (See my posts at 16:08 and 22:38 on Thursday and 22:51 on Friday). There are also smaller things like forms where there is no sexuality part which related to me - "Are you heterosexual/Gay man/Gay woman/bisexual?"

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430212442419

galop.org.uk/resource/acephobia-and-anti-asexual-hate-crime/

Thats never been an issue, even as a teenager. My teenage friendship groups were mostly shagging their way through parties and festivals and evenings after the pub etc, i had plenty of opportunity and approval if I wanted to do the same, and it was just considered an endearing quirk of mine that I didn't, sort of thing.

You still seem to be equating asexuality with actually having sex. Asexuality has NOTHING to do with having sex, it is about being sexually attracted to people. Asexual people can and do have sex.

Look, I'm glad that you were seen as having a "endearing quirk" but surely you can recognise that it's not the same for everyone? My friend has been in a relationship with another woman for over 10 years and nobody cares but I would never come on here and tell you that I don't understand where your issues with society or family have some from because there's disparity in the experience in someone I know.

I don't think asexuality and demisexuality is, or should be, part of the LGB community, because its a different thing with a different history, and it muddles things up to lump them together.

Are you just including aro asexuals in this or would you allow homoromantic or biromantic asexuals into the LGBT+ group?

I only read the first page of this thread cos people were being nasty to the op. AMA topics are about all sorts of things there's no need to rip into someone for starting one cos it's not for you.
Op, hope your thread improved, I see it's got quite long, thought I'd wish you well.

Every time I have asked for further information, I've been treated like I am denigrating people's personal experiences

From the first "question" your bias has been obvious. You've been given tons of examples of struggles.
Then accused me of of computing, of declaring myself the most oppressed ever etc.
And then asked for biased responses to a biased question coming from a place of misunderstanding and equating single with asexual.

But the truth of the matter is, you just don't like asexual people, you don't believe their experiences are real and you don't want them included in LGBT+ because you don't believe their experiences are as bad as yours. So I refer back to my very first reply to you...

You should have just said you're biased against asexuals and don't wish them to be associated with the same club you're in, people would have saved themselves a lot of time replying to you.

*Then accused me of of computing

Lots of people accuse me of that... But I actually meant Co Opting... Damn typos.

L and G and B have different histories too, though.
Gay men used to be prosecuted for having sex; there was no offence in law if women did so. So gay men could equally say that lesbians have not historically experienced what they have.

So, so glad that my people my daughter’s age are more accepting and less exclusive. She’s suffered enough anxiety as it is. It is perfectly possible to realise that LGB people have different histories and these are different things, and still hold in view that asexual people are also worth recognising.

Our entire culture towards the belief that everyone will want to have sexual relationships. It should be possible to have cognisance of asexual experiences. So school teachers doing RSE don’t begin the class by saying ‘you will all want to have sex one day’; or English teachers when talking about love and Shakespeare don’t say ‘you will all fall in love one day’. It’s not difficult.

And are you really sure that asexuals have not been systematically discriminated against on a structural level? Just think back to the 18th and 19th century where the societal expectation was marriage and it was very difficult for women to support themselves outside marriage. And the belief that sex in marriage was the man’s right. I don’t know enough about the history of asexuality to confidently assert there has been no systematic discrimination, but it does seem from comments on this thread that there is societal prejudice. I would not imagine that is new.

MumofAceDD

L and G and B have different histories too, though

T is also part of LGBT.

Interestingly, some people like the LGB Alliance want to remove T as it isn't a sexuality, those people often get called transphobic.

I was responding to the poster above who was talking about L, G and B. That is all. If you want to make this about transphobia, go ahead. I’m out.

@MumofAceDD

I was responding to the poster above who was talking about L, G and B. That is all. If you want to make this about transphobia, go ahead. I’m out.

I hardly think mentioning another group some want to remove from LGBT+ based on odd reasons in response to a post about someone wanting to remove a group from LGBT+ is 'making it about transphobia'... More a continuation and point that people want to also remove other groups from the support networks...

Yes, I was thinking that when I stepped away from the keyboard, but more along the lines of well, there are the Q and the I too…

@MumofAceDD

Yes, I was thinking that when I stepped away from the keyboard, but more along the lines of well, there are the Q and the I too…

There's lots of 'letters' to be fair. It gets confusing. LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual)

If people want to disagree with them and start removing them based on lack of shared experiences and history..
Transgender & Transexual have a very different history and experience to Pansexual (I wasn't trying to make it about Transphobia, but I'm sorry if it came across that way)

I could have gone with Intersex, but I don't know if there is a word for people that want to remove that. But they would have ahugely.dofferent experience to Ally.. or any other of the letters..

(I hope that makes sense. I worry sometimes that things I type make sense in my head but readers have a different take on what I type and it.maoes.me.think I typed.it wrong, like there's a language barrier there that I can't quite grasp)

Great thread OP, apart from the ludicrous posts. I've been reading for a while and decided to add my story to the pile.

I'm asexual, hetero-romantic.

The romantic part is more of an emotional attraction.

I've always been asexual but never knew it was a thing with a name. I never felt what other women did when they'd see a handsome (can't even use the word hot or sexy because I've never felt like that about anyone - man or woman) man and start going on about how they fancy him, what he'd be like in bed and fanning themselves. It was strange to me so I thought they were just faking it.

I can find people attractive and enjoy looking at beautiful people the same way I enjoy looking at beautiful cars or paintings or landscapes. Theres no difference for me, so I don't feel anything in my loins when I think someone is pretty or goodlooking. I only do in my head - I just appreciate the look, bone structure, colours, symmetry, curves, etc.

Attractiveness, to me, is purely aesthetic and it's 'pan-aesthetic', as some call it. Meaning, it's the same for anything and anyone. When I develop romantic feelings, it's usually that I'd like to have the person in my life, be their friend, have deep heart-to-heart conversations, cuddle and maybe... maybe... kiss but not really, hold hands, walks on the beach, dance in the rain or under the stars, rub faces together like cats, etc. Companionship with overt affection, basically.

The body, especially the naked body is both a turn-off (when it's meant to be a turn-on) and like looking at a wall, to me. I feel nothing. Also, I cannot stand the highly-rated muscular look with six-packs, etc or the thin look. They make me feel tense like I've been tied up too tight.

It wasn't until I got much older that I started coming across some of these other words to describe what I felt or didn't feel. That's when I started thinking I was the anomaly.
I faked it most of my life and believed it, so I didn't have the opportunity to feel too different. Got married, had children and divorced.
Even while faking it, I never had a one night stand and couldn't understand it because I couldn't just jump into bed with someone. I could only have sex with someone I felt a romantic attraction to. However, there was never a sexual attraction. I just decided to have sex, when the time came.
I didn't mind sex and liked the tactile feeling but I didn't care either till something else made me go off it completely.

My oldest is ace-aro (since preteen) and this is what helped me discover this about myself too. I'd been getting to know myself through years of being alone.

Years later, I'm now married to a fellow asexual hetero-romantic. We have so much more in common too and life couldn't be simpler and our relationship much better.

What, for me, is the best sensation in the world is when someone's massaging or slowly running their fingers through my hair or back or neck or arms or when I'm drinking my preferred carbonated (non-alcoholic) drinks. Both feelings are different but overwhelmingly pleasurable in my brain. Even simple kindness or show of affection or a hug feels miles better to me than sex. (Yes, I've had "great sex" before someone thinks I need to ).

I'm happy as is, there's nowt wrong with me or my husband or my child - we don't have a mental disorder, thank you very much.

People have given you lots of information and personal reasons and you keep asking for more

slashlover people here kept on throwing the what at me, when I kept asking for the why. I was being told again and again what a struggle and torment it was, when I was asking why it's a struggle and a torment, because that's what I didn't understand - why people would experience this as something they hate themselves for, or experience bullying for, when for other people it's just been a thing, neither good nor bad, just how they are, and for yet other people it's been a freedom. And where there is no structural discrimination, and in some cases there is structural positivity. That's what I was asking about, and not getting answers to.

Would it be fair to say that asexuality is on a sliding scale like bisexuality is for a lot of people ie 0 being not sexually attracted to anyone and 10 being sexually attracted to many people?

OrShouldIJustLeave I found your post helpful, thank you.

people here kept on throwing the what at me, when I kept asking for the why.

Is that what you meant by:

Nobody ever got beaten up for not holding hands with someone in the street.

Tbf the why has been answered, even before your 'genuine question' post:

Vinsurvin
It does feel like everyone else has been invited to a party while I've been left at home, unable to join in. It's hard being asexual and aromantic in a world where romantic love is considered to be the ultimate goal in life. I've been single my whole life and I am judged for it, questioned on it, etc. constantly. The world is set up for couples and families and if you don't fit that mould, it's tough. You are seen as abnormal, weird, etc

Me:
How about years of bullying for being different?

Slashlover
I've been dismissed, told that I don't exist, told that there's something wrong with me and thought of as lesser than. You can see how often we've been dismissed in this very thread.

So on and so on.

Did you perhaps miss those posts?

No I didn't- but the second two are all what, not why. The first helps me understand, because it addresses why.

@ArcheryAnnie

No I didn't- but the second two are all what, not why. The first helps me understand, because it addresses why.

No you didn't mean that or no you didn't miss the posts?

That first post, by the way, answered your question an hour before you asked your "genuine question"

22/09/2021 17:45 Vinsurvin
The world is set up for couples and families and if you don't fit that mould, it's tough. You are seen as abnormal, weird, etc. People who are nasty and dismissive on this thread clearly just don't appreciate what it can feel like to be so different in the way you see and experience the world, and to feel utterly marginalised because of it

22/09/2021 18:42 ArcheryAnnie
Genuine question here: why is it a "struggle"? Nobody ever got beaten up for not holding hands with someone in the street.

If you don't want to help me understand, Wot, then don't. Your posts to me feel like targeted harassment, just because I cannot give you the validation you seem to want from this thread. You said you were going to ignore me - when is that going to kick in?

Bloody hell, just goes to show that it really doesn't matter how many times people explain, or say their experiences, there's always going to be at least one dismissing, denying, asking why? define what you mean or however they phrase it, it's always the same and on loop.
They don't want to get it, or incapable of it.
I'm just sat here reading the thread as it's turning out really interesting, as I knew next to nothing about this so am finding it informative (despite the first few pages of arsehole responses)

@Journeyofthedragons

Would it be fair to say that asexuality is on a sliding scale like bisexuality is for a lot of people ie 0 being not sexually attracted to anyone and 10 being sexually attracted to many people?

I think different people have different interpretation to be honest.

For me, I think if there's a scale, it wouldn't be between asexuality and sexuality. They'd both have their own separate scales.

For me, I think the asexual scale from 0-10 would be 0 being no sexual attraction and sex-repulsed. 1 to 5 being no sexual attraction but sex neutral (they don't mind but don't seek it out) and 6 to 10 would be no sexual attraction but sex - positive, which is no sexual attraction but they enjoy sex when it happens and will seek it out either sometimes or all the time just for the pleasure of it.

I've always been neutral but ended up realising I was more repulsed but believed my own faking. I now tip between neutral and repulsed but luckily, it doesn't matter because I don't have to do it anyway. Just watching sex scenes is irritating to me and I wish there are options to not come across them at all, not just to skip or forward. They add nothing to the stories.

For me, to be asexual is to not feel drawn to anyone sexually. To be aromantic is to not feel drawn to anyone emotionally or in an affectionate/touchy-feely/lovey-dovey manner. (They're both different kinds of attraction and you can have one without the other. You can also be homo-romantic, biromantic or hetero-romantic).

But you can choose to do sexual stuff and emotional/romantic stuff if you want and are comfortable with it (i.e, not repulsed by it).

This is my interpretation but I don't have all the answers to it. Even this interpretation could change if I later understand something different about asexuality.

There's something else called Grey-asexuality or Grey-sexuality or GrayAce. Different people also have different definitions of this and some place it within one scale between asexuality and sexuality. So perhaps in the middle.
Someone who's GrayAce/GreyAce is someone who feels sexual attraction sometimes or depending on the circumstances. So not in the way sexual or allosexual (as they are called) people do and also not at all like asexual people.

@ArcheryAnnie

If you don't want to help me understand, Wot, then don't. Your posts to me feel like targeted harassment, just because I cannot give you the validation you seem to want from this thread. You said you were going to ignore me - when is that going to kick in?

I see you've changed tack now.

Instead of repeatedly replying to me, your moaning I am replying to you.

How is that harassment?
Or is it because I'm highlighting things you don't want highlighting?
People are maybe realising that when I took your original question as being asked in bad faith, and responded in mind, that I wasn't far from right?

You've asked to understand the why...
People answered that before you asked.

You accused.me.of.co opting, haven't answered that..

You said I claimed.to be the most oppressed in history, I don't recall that and you've failed to highlight where.

Lots of people have given their experiences,.but they don't fit for you so you asked for biased clarification from people based on single people.

You've accused me of misrepresenting what you've said and that I haven't read peoples posts, I've responded with plenty of quotes to disprove that.

Then you've admitted you don't want Asexuality being under the LGBTTQQIAAP banner.

It's all here in black and white.
All of it.

But I'm harassing you?

How's that work?

@ArcheryAnnie

OrShouldIJustLeave I found your post helpful, thank you.

You're welcome. I'm glad you did.