What's with assexualo suddenly being a thing?

[n0wayn0h0w]

My 14 year old DD has just come to me to say she's assexual. She goes to an all girls school and is worried she's never had a crush. She said she went online, watched some TikTok videos and now feels happy to know there's "nothing wrong" with her because she's assexual.

I told her she's never had a crush because the odds are she's into boys and never meets any so there's no opportunity for crushes. I told her some people get crushes on people they don't know, based on appearance but many need to know the person in order to feel attracted to them in that way.

I also said it's normal for teens to question who they are as they're growing up.

It's so insidious, children are out there looking for answers and the internet churns out labels for them.

Anyone got any advice on this?

Mine said the same at 14 and has never had a relationship. Now 20

Think it's asexual, not assexual lol. This is one of the more harmless "labels". Just say "that's nice, dear" and let her get on with it.

its always been a thing. be glad for no risk of pregnancy now

My son said he was aromantic and asexual at 15, is now 23, and has never had a relationship or been interested in anyone.

As long as your daughter doesn't imprison herself in a label on the long term, I don't think there's anything wrong with her being reassured that she's okay for the time being?

went online, watched some TikTok videos

There are all sorts of things that are now a Thing because of Tik Tok. You could let a teenager convince themselves of anything with free reign access to the internet for a few hours.

Teens are looking, very naturally, for sources of information outside that of their parents at this age, and unfortunately instead of other trusted adults, it's now Tik Tok, if you let that happen.

Can asexuality not be transient? Maybe she just currently is, or currently feels like she is. I’m not sure it will resonate with her that it’s just because she hasn’t had much contact with boys – many girls in single-sex schools are boy mad or fancy celebrities, and she might be seeing that among her peers.

I don’t think your advice was wrong, because it may well be true, or perhaps she just hasn’t had that surge of development yet, but I think it’s important to let kids feel their feelings.

I also don’t think it’s ‘suddenly’ a thing. I recall this being a thing in my niece’s secondary school (she’s now 25) and in a colleague’s son’s school, who is early 20s.

I don't think it's 'suddenly' a thing, I'm sure there've been people throughout history who were just not interested in sexual relationships with other people. It's just that now there's a term that's widely used for it which is of comfort to people who are genuinely not interested and might also be mistakenly/temporarily used by someone too young or not yet experienced enough to have felt sexual attraction and are told by the social norm that that's unusual, therefore finding comfort in a label which explains it.

No telling which your daughter is right now - maybe she's just not got there yet, maybe she never will, but it doesn't really matter, does it? Nor is it 'insidious'. It's not going to make a difference to your life in literally any way. Just tell her that's fine and you love her and keep moving.

Asexual has always been a thing but there's this whole new thing which to me, is easily the most worrying thing about the younger generation and sexuality.

You can Google all this BUT basically, they've "stretched" the definition of asexuality now into this weird thing where they think you can like and even WANT sex without being sexually attacted to someone and the lack of this sexual attraction is what makes you asexual. You can be a "sex favourable asexual". Not kidding.

So before, asexual meant someone who doesn't experience sexual desire or sexual attraction and therefore doesn't want sex in their relationships. Now it can mean someone who lacks sexual attraction but still desires it.

All these words like "attraction", "desire", "want", they break down into these components that are unrecognisable to me.

They even made other terms to describe people who are ambivalent towards sex or go through phases of high to low sex drive, like greysexual, but they still found it necessary to stretch the definition of asexual.

Perhaps the problem is your 14 year old having free access to the internet and TikTok?

https://www.reddit.com/r/asexuality/comments/1d4dcp1/can_asexuals_enjoy_sex/

Example ^^

So still super young and not at all evidence of whether they are or aren’t asexual?

I think asexuality is a thing for some...

But I don't think it's necessarily good to allow teens to think that they are asexual without evidence.

"Fake it to you make it" works both ways and if you go through your formative teen years thinking this way then the odds of you turning out this way are increased in my view!

A better answer in my view to teens is to say that one of these days, quite unexpectedly, they'll just get feelings. And that everyone is different about how and when and where it happens.

I’d just smile and nod and say ‘cool’. But also tell her that if she’s asexual that’s fine but sexual preferences do change and that’s ok too, if she decides later in life that she’s feeling differently she can be whoever she wants to be.
I know/ am related to a surprising amount of asexual people, looking back (many more asexual people than gay people)- they just don’t call themselves that and I’m sure they felt weird or like there was something wrong with them. May have been comforting to know there was a word for it.

23 and never had a relationship is…pretty normal? Lots of people don’t figure this all out until well into 20s or even 30s. This means exactly nothing.

I'm aware, as you will see from the body of the post, I can spell it. It was a typo and you can't edit subjects in MN posts.

I wish it had been more known when I was at an all girls grammar school in the mid 90s.
Forcing myself to like boys. Feeling like a freak, a weirdo, being called a "frigid".
Thankfully society is becoming more understanding

Thanks for your very useful advice here.

You spelt it wrong in your main post too though?

actually realised that you meant the spelling in my subject rather than the body of the post.

I guess I didn't care about the spelling as it seems like a made-up trendy term.

It is the most useful advice you could actually take.

Seems like another meaningless label that just means you haven't met someone with whom you feel any romantic or sexual feelings towards. You might meet someone in your teens, twenties, thirties, forties or beyond - there's no time limit,. There's so much pressure to be having lots of sex or to be in a relationship, I'm not surprised people are getting bored of it and turning to more interesting things - sounds like a good approach.

"Are you, love? OK then."

I said exactly that to her, whilst also saying it's normal to not have had a crush too.

Whilst also thinking it's a weird label to give yourself at such a young age.

she doesn't have a tiktok account and I check her phone regularly. No idea how she watched these videos.

I'm always checking on her and her use of the internet. I guess somehow this slipped through the net.

Glad you're helpfully judging me though, thanks for that.

I think that’s unnecessarily snippy. I agree with pp, there’s all sorts of awful stuff on tik tok. Mine didn’t have access to TikTok at that age.