Maybe I’m Not Really Asexual Because Isn’t Everyone Like This?

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To tackle this one, you should first try to get a sense of exactly what “like this” means to you.  Write down some of your feelings, things that interest or disinterest you, take some silly online “What’s your sexual spirit animal” type quizzes, come up with your personal list of “sexiest celebrities”, keep track of all the times you think or talk about sex or make some sort of suggestive statement for a week or so.  Try to build up some data about how you really feel.

Then, once you have that information, try to get some friends or other people to do the same and see if they’ll share the results with you.  If they won’t do it, or you’re uncomfortable asking them to, think about how they probably would have answered.

Now compare the datasets you’ve acquired.  Do the results seem similar, or are they wildly different?  Did you get “panda bear” on the spirit animal quiz, and all your friends got “rabbit” or “bonobo”, or are you all somewhere in the neighborhood of “blue jay”?  Do you have roughly matching sets of celebrities on your lists, or is your page blank and theirs needed five sheets of college rule paper, double-sided?  To go back to your original question, is everyone like this?

Let’s also take a moment to look closer at where “Everyone is like that” comes from.  In many cases, when someone says “Oh, everyone is like that”, it comes from a misunderstanding of what asexuality is.  People saying that often believe that asexuality is similar to celibacy or abstinence or prudishness, that is, they think being asexual means that you’re not willing to act on your sexual desires, not that you may not really have any to speak of.  They’re saying, “I won’t sleep with just anybody”, not understanding that you might be saying “I just won’t sleep with anybody.”  It’s also fairly common for people who are asexual but aren’t yet aware of asexuality to believe that everyone is, in fact, like this.  So maybe the person saying this is asexual themselves and just doesn’t know yet.

When I look around at “everyone”, I see that they are not “like this” from my perspective.  I see them talk about who they find hot.  I see them discuss sexual things they have done or are interested in doing.  I see them notice things I am completely blind to.  I see TV shows and movies and books with obligatory sex scenes and hear music about various anatomical interactions described in ways that won’t upset the FCC.  I see them seek out sexual encounters.  I see them act in ways and talk about feelings that are wholly alien to my personal world.

For everyone to truly be “like this” from my perspective, everyone would have to be constantly spinning fairy tales about things they’re not remotely interested in and then lying in response to the fairy tales that other people are telling.  It would have to be a massive global conspiracy where almost everyone but me was complicit in selling the Great Lie About Sex, and that humanity has been repeating this lie for thousands of years.  The pottery turners of Moche sold this lie, the carvers of the Khajuraho temples sold this lie, the tilers of the brothels of Pompeii sold this lie, the author of the Song of Solomon sold this lie.  A legendary knight wrote these immortal words in his famous poem:  “I like big butts and I cannot lie.  You other brothers can’t deny that when a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face, you get sprung.”  Are you calling Sir Mix-A-Lot, knight of the Emerald City, known for his valiant deeds he and his squires performed on the Broad Way, are you calling him a liar?  Occam’s Razor and common sense dictates that this cannot be happening, that there is no ancient conspiracy to preserve the Great Lie Of Sex, which means that all of these people are truly experiencing something that I have never experienced.

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6 thoughts on “Maybe I’m Not Really Asexual Because Isn’t Everyone Like This?

  1. THANK YOU!!! <3
    This was by far the biggest obstacle to letting myself identify as asexual – how on Earth could a thing like allosexuality exist, without me knowing about it? How could sexual attraction be a thing?
    (Granted this was made harder, I think, by being in an all-girls school, with a friendship group who didn't talk about this sort of thing, really, and who we discovered later were 30% ace, anyway XD.)
    And another thing about not realising that most people didn't feel this way – for me, anyway – is not identifying with the 'I felt broken' narrative that is so often used in asexual circles. (OFC this is hugely important to address, I'm not saying that.) But not knowing other people are different meant that there was no room to feel 'broken', because everyone is like you.

    Sorry, rambling on a bit here – but yeah, thank you for writing this, it means a lot.

    • No. Most heteroromantic people are also heterosexual (but they usually don’t specify that they are heteroromantic because most people don’t feel the need to separate their romantic and sexual attraction).
      I’ve also met bisexual heteroromantic people.

  2. I keep thinking “I’m not really asexual because only one percent of the work is asexual, and I’m not special so it would be weird if I was asexual” even though I’m asexual.

  3. Thanks! I’ve actually thought about what my spirit animal could be. Unicorn symbolizes innocence & only a virgin can tame a unicorn. I’ve also always been obsessed with cats & porcupines. Porcupines have been my favorite animal that I work with. I never knew about spirit animals until my friend told me about them. I also tried a game where you ask a question, but the answer has to begin with the first letter of your middle name.
    What is a word that describes yourself? In my case the word has to start with the letter v. A word that describes me : virgin. You could ask many questions this way to get to know people. What’s your favorite girls name? Boys name? Favorite drink? Favorite fictional character? A reason why you’d arrive late? Your spirit animal? Be creative & see how people answer. It could be fun too.

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