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A lot of people wonder if their religious beliefs or their religious upbringing that’s responsible for their perceived asexuality. They wonder if they’re just repressed, and if there might be a way to undo the effects of this repression.
One thing to consider is how easy you found it to follow your purity pledges or vows to remain chaste until marriage or whatever similar things they might have had you do. Did you ever struggle with it? Or was it smooth sailing the whole way? Were you ever confused by how hard it was for some of your peers? If they strayed, could you not understand how they could succumb to temptation so easily?
Were the religious messages strictly about abstinence, with no mention of marriage? Most of the time, there is a component of the discussion where you’re supposed to wait until marriage, then you’re free and even encouraged to have sex with your spouse. Do you think getting married would change how you feel? Or do you think you would continue to find sex uninteresting and unappealing, even after you’re married? Did you even dread the possibility of getting married, because it meant there would be sex? Has anyone in your peer group ever said or done something that makes them seem like they’re in a race to the altar, so the door to sex can be opened, and have you ever felt something remotely similar?
Did you ever feel that you were having sexual thoughts involving another that needed to be kept under control, because that’s what your religion required? Many people who feel that they are negatively impacted by their religion’s teachings on sex know that it’s going on. For them, it’s a constant struggle between how they feel and how they’re supposed to feel.
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I personally struggled with this one for a bit. I considered that maybe I wasn’t asexual because I was saving myself and knew better than to have sexual thoughts about anyone before marriage. I figured that sexuality was a switch that would be turned on when the time was right. I thought that one day, when I was ready for marriage, the switch would flip and I would suddenly like boys. It did occur to me that it was odd that boys were still “gross” at 16, then 17, then 18… but I just thought that was how seriously I was taking my convictions and nothing else. It basically took looking up if there was a non-Catholic equivalent to a nun for me to decide that I might be asexual. (My sister introducing the term also helped.)
Oh. So apparently, this isn’t just the church. I’ve struggled with this on and off and never understood why people needed sex. I was lowkey hoping that I just didn’t want it because of my upbringing, but those questions really hit me. I don’t understand why some friends have strayed from chastity. I don’t know why they succumbed to temptation so easily. I’ve never had a sexual dream and I didn’t know that people had those. I have a friend who’s the sweetest girl ever to walk this earth, who is so kind and takes care of everyone and seems like the purest and most innocent girl ever. Yet she apparently gets sexual dreams. I don’t understand it. I’m slowly coming to terms with that I’m asexual. I’m trying.