Missing a Permission Slip

[Content Warning: Discussion of masturbation and sex and stuff.]

Not too long ago, over on Asexual Activities, there was a discussion about aces having trouble masturbating in one way or another.  So I started writing about the problems I encountered learning how to do it.  Along the way, I realized that there was something else getting in the way that I’d never really thought about too much.  It’s always been there and the strength of it comes and goes, but it touches pretty much every interaction I have with sexuality.

I don’t feel like I have permission to have sexuality.  It doesn’t feel like it’s mine.  It’s like I stole it from someone else and I’m going to get in trouble if someone finds out that I have it.  And I’ve never read the instructions, so I have no idea how to use the thing anyway.

I know that sort of sounds like guilt or shame, but it doesn’t really feel like that’s what it is.  Guilt or shame implies that I think I’m doing something shameful or that I’m guilty of doing something wrong.  I know it’s not anything that’s wrong and I know it’s not anything that’s shameful.  It’s like one day I discovered that there was a mysterious $1000 deposit in my bank account.  It’s not mine, I don’t know where it came from.  I should tell the bank that they made a mistake, but everyone else says that they got the same mysterious deposit, and they’re going around spending it, with the bank’s blessing.  But I don’t know what to spend it on and it doesn’t really belong to me, so I keep it in the account.  I check on it once in a while, and it’s always still there.

Let’s start by getting some terminology out of the way.  I’m not using “sexuality” as a synonym for sexual orientation.  I am asexual, and that’s not in doubt.  It’s likely even a large contributor to why I feel this way.  I’m using “sexuality” to refer to my feelings, thoughts, interactions, reactions related to sex and other stuff in that general neighborhood.

Now, some statements of fact which feel relevant to what I’m going to talk about:  I own a penis.  I experience physical arousal.  There are external factors which sometimes cause physical arousal.  I masturbate.  I enjoy it.  I have sex toys.  I look at porn.  I have had sex twice.  Fifteen years ago.  I live alone.  I am asexual.


When I hit puberty and first learned how to masturbate, it was something beyond top secret and fraught with peril.  Messages from all over were telling me how terrible it was.  You’ll go blind!  You’ll grow hair on your hands!  You’ll go sterile!  It’s a sin!  It was something only losers did.  My ultra-Christian neighbor from an American Taliban household even gave me a mixtape that had a Christian Punk song about how “Masturbation is artificial sex” that probably detailed the eternal fiery horrors that awaited those who went downtown.  (Fun fact:  The pervy neighbor kid mentioned in the other post?  Same guy.)  Of course, none of those messages were coming from my parents.  They never talked to me about it, but I suspect their thoughts would have been “Lock the door and clean up after”.  But those messages were so pervasive from other places that they absolutely tainted how I felt, even though I didn’t believe most of them.

And it tainted what I did.  No one could ever find out.  I would take precautions worthy of an undercover agent.  Only in the shower, where the evidence will be washed away and if someone walks in, I can say I’m just cleaning it, nothing else going on.  Eventually, that expanded to being willing to do it while sitting on the toilet, but in that case, I had to use toilet paper to wrap myself and catch every drop.  (Not sure how I was going to explain that if someone walked in…)

Either way, securely locked in the bathroom was the only place I was willing to do it for years.  On extremely rare occasions, I would grab a bit of hand lotion from the front room, but that felt like a mission behind enemy lines.  The house had to be vacant and expected to remain that way for hours if not days, all the doors were locked and checked, all the rooms were cleared, and then I’d make my move, grabbing a bit of lotion and running to the safety of the locked bathroom.  I was terrified that every milliliter of lotion was being tracked and that I’d be discovered, so I did not do this often.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to try it in my bedroom.  I think my parents were going to be gone for the weekend, and I was home alone.  I triple checked the house to make sure it was empty, closed all the curtains in the house, checked the garage to make sure their car was gone, locked all the doors, then went into my bedroom and locked that door, too.  I didn’t strip naked and get comfortable on my bed in order to have the most relaxed and pleasant experience possible.  Instead, I was kneeling in front of my bedroom window, watching the driveway through a crack in the blinds, just in case.  I kept my clothes on and did the deed through my fly.  Not only was it all wrapped up in toilet paper, I added a layer of paper towel, to be extra special sure that everything would be contained.  That happened maybe twice, total.  Too risky.

Masturbation was something I did, but not something I felt I was allowed to do.  It felt good, but it really wasn’t something I was able to enjoy, because I constantly had to be on guard or taking steps to hide the evidence.

I mention all of this, not to tell funny/embarrassing stories of my youth, but to detail how secret and forbidden I felt the whole thing was, and the lengths I felt I had to go to to conceal it.  And certainly, I’m sure that other teenagers went through the same sorts of cloak-and-dagger routine to hide what they were doing.  But some of that never left me.


Fast forward, years later.  I have my own place.  I knew by then that masturbation was common and that it didn’t cause random hair growth, etc.  It had, by then, largely turned into something I was able to enjoy.  But there were still limits.  It was still done in the shower most of the time.  I was able to occasionally work up the nerve to do it naked and relaxed in bed, but that was rare.  I lived alone.  No one would catch me, no one would know, but still, it somehow felt like the locked bathroom was the only truly private, safe place I had.

I had moved beyond using toilet paper and had discovered that various lubricants worked much better.  But those had to be purchased.  At a store.  Where I had to get them off a shelf.  Where I had to walk around the store with the item in my cart.  Where a checkout clerk had to scan them.  They are going to know.  They are going to know why I’m buying hand lotion.  They are going to know and they are going to report me.

Buying sex toys was a multi-faceted operation.  First, finding the toy involved a lot of false starts and cleared search history.  When I finally found something, it was probably a couple of weeks before I actually made the purchase.  I used a second browser and completely cleared out the history when I was done.  No one else ever used my computer, but you could never be too careful.  (Not to mention the fear that the computer would somehow glitch out and start forwarding the order receipt to everyone I knew, or that it would set a picture of the item as my wallpaper and not let me change it.)  Then, when the item arrived, it was dropped off at the leasing office, so I had to go in to pick it up.  They have x-ray eyes or the box broke open so they know somehow.  They know.  They’re all going to laugh at me and I’m going to get evicted now.  I even remember thinking that my new job would find out about it somehow and fire me.

Who did I think was going to find out my dark secret?  Why did I think it was a dark secret?  I knew there was nothing wrong with it, but why did it feel wrong?

But no, not wrong.  Not bad.  Not in itself.  It wasn’t about someone discovering that I masturbate, it was about someone discovering that I was in possession of something that didn’t belong to me.  That act, those feelings, that glimmer of sexuality, I wasn’t supposed to have that.  I could pretend that it was mine, I had learned how enough of it worked to get by, but in the end, it wasn’t mine.  And any time I tried to embrace a part of it or expand on what I knew, that put me at risk of the whole thing falling apart.  Changing routine is what gets you caught.


I’ve been talking about masturbation a lot, because that’s my primary interaction with the world of sexuality, it’s not just that I feel like this about.  Anything remotely sexual seems to set off the same alert buzzers in my head.  I remember agonizing for a month about whether or not I should stop by the Student Health Center at college to pick up a free condom, because it seemed like a good idea to know how they worked.  Even when I went to the health center a couple of times for something unrelated, I couldn’t bring myself to grab a few, because someone might see me.  For years, any sort of undressing had to be done within the protection of the locked bathroom.  I couldn’t change at the closet where all the clothes were.  If I didn’t have a towel after a shower, I would have to dart to the hall closet to get one, after carefully peeking my head out the door to make sure no one was around. Sleeping in the nude was right out.  Hell, sleeping in anything less than full clothes on even the hottest nights wasn’t something I felt I could do.  (And this is all when I lived alone in my own apartment and there was no reasonable expectation that anyone would be there.)  Whenever coworkers or friends talk about sex, I tend to shut off and pull back into my shell.  Certain types of sex scenes in movies make me uncomfortable to watch.  Beaches in Hawaii were unpleasant because of the amount of skin present.


While things have changed and gotten better over the years, this still comes up even today.  I rarely go downstairs in my house unless I’m fully dressed.  I still think that the mail carrier and neighbors will know what’s in certain packages I get, or that some package thief will grab one and blackmail me over what’s inside.  Any book that’s remotely sex related (Even a general anatomy reference guide) doesn’t get put on the bookshelf, it gets hidden.  So does any movie with “too much sex” in it.  I’ll clear my clipboard if I ever copy/paste something remotely sexual.  I’ll hide the hand lotion whenever someone comes over.  Sex toys are removed from the closed cabinet in the headboard (that no visitor would ever open) and hidden in the closet.  I even feel weird about having a box of tissues near my bed, because of the potential association it might have, even though I really do only use them to blow my nose.  And I’ll censor what I talk about or feel weird about posting on Asexual Activities, even though that was deliberately designed to be an uncensored place to talk about those sorts of things.

And it’s not a general “Sex is bad, run away” reaction, either.  When I’m in a scenario where I have permission, where sexuality is expected, it’s fine.  When I had a girlfriend, we did sexual things.  I was awkward and I had no idea what I was doing really, but I didn’t feel like I shouldn’t be doing any of it.  At work, I had to test the adult filter settings on a service we ran, which basically meant searching for porn all day and making sure that the nudie pics showed up in the results or were blocked, depending on the settings.  That was just doing my job.  And I can dive in and research all sorts of random things for people who have questions on Asexual Activities, without any issues at all.  But if I want to know about those things personally, I get a bit nervous.

So, what’s going on?  Why do I feel this way?  Why do I have so many blocks and caution signs put up around so many expressions of sexuality, even when they’re completely private?  Well, the two broad areas that I think are coming into play here are society’s views on masturbation (specifically male masturbation) and the fact that I’m asexual, and the way those two things interact.


Society basically requires men to masturbate.  If you don’t, you’ll be a two pump chump, your balls will fill up and explode, you’ll become a slobbering ball of horniness, and you’ll get cancer.  But masturbation is only permitted in very specific scenarios.  It must only be done when there isn’t a suitable partner available, and when it is done, it must be done while fantasizing about an acceptable person.  And regardless, you’ll be mocked and ridiculed for doing it.  You’re a pervy loser who can’t get laid.

Masturbation is seen as a replacement for “real” sex.  You’re not supposed to do it if real sex is available.  If you are forced to do it, due to a lack of real sex, you must be imagining having real sex with someone while you do it.  It is not to be done within the context of a relationship, unless it somehow involves your partner, because the involvement of your partner allows you to claim that you’re doing it for them.  It’s never permitted to be pursued in its own right, it must always be a substitute, never the main event, and any pleasure you take from it must be surrogate pleasure that’s being provided on behalf of your fantasy.

You can use porn to help, but not too much of it or the wrong kind of it.  Oh, and by the way, any amount is too much and any kind is the wrong kind.  Possession of nudity in all forms makes you a pervy loser worthy of mocking and ridicule.  (Unless it’s an oil painting, a sculpture, or soft-focus photograph, then that’s art and therefore perfectly acceptable.  But you’re not permitted to be aroused by that in any way.)

Sex toys are an absolute no when you’re alone.  If you’re a pervy loser for masturbating, you’re an especially pervy loser if you use a toy.  If you’re using a toy, you’ve given up hope of ever getting “real sex”, so you’re trying to find a second-rate simulation with a sleazy blow up doll.  You’re so perverted that you’d rather fuck a rubber pussy than use your hand.  And if the toy gets you off, you must have the hots for an inanimate object.  It doesn’t help that sex toys for men have a stigma of being creepy and weird (likely because so many of them actually are creepy and weird).

And finally, look at how it’s portrayed and discussed.  If it’s ever brought up in a movie or a TV show, it’s a punchline.  When it’s mentioned in the news, it’s universally negative.  It’s a peeper at a window, a creeper in the bushes at the park, or a movie executive abusing his position.  It’s never a positive sexual health piece about how it’s normal and safe and fun and here’s these awesome toys to try.  There are dozens of examples of where masturbation for women is held up as an empowering act, an important skill to learn.  Hell, there’s one movie where it literally brings color to a dull black and white town, with so much energy that it sets a tree on fire.  But when it’s a man involved, he’s invariably a dirty, pervy overly horny creep who can’t control himself.

 

That sort of constant stream of negative messages will really mess you up.


Being asexual adds a number of complicating layers on top of an already complicated situation.

I mentioned earlier that I felt like I didn’t have permission to have sexuality.  Well, a huge part of that is that it feels like my own body never gave me permission.  It physically responds when prompted, yes, but that’s all mechanical.  It seems like other people will start to become interested in sexual things, and think “Am I allowed to do this?  Do I have permission?”, and their body will respond with a resounding, hormone charged “YES”.  Yes, you have permission to think you’d like to have sex with that person, in fact, why don’t you think about that when you touch yourself and it’ll make the whole thing better.  My body doesn’t do that.  My body’s all “What are you on about?  I don’t understand what’s going on here.  Do you need something?”

Sexuality in our culture is supposed to be directed at someone.  You can only wear “sexy” clothes when you’re trying to attract someone, not because you like how they look or because they’re comfortable on a hot day.  You can only masturbate if you’re fantasizing about someone and you’re treating it as practice for the “real sex” you’d rather have, not because you just want to get off.  You can only have sex because you find someone attractive and want to share a moment with them, not because you just like the way orgasms feel when they’re provided by someone else.   Your sexuality is never really yours.  Even when it’s entirely in your imagination and private, there’s a part of it that’s directed outward, and it’s that part that makes it acceptable.  But I can never do that.  I can’t include anyone else.  My sexuality isn’t directed at anyone, my asexuality won’t let that happen.  My sexuality can never be acceptable.

And when an expression of sexuality isn’t directed outward, it’s treated as if there’s something being hidden.   Touching yourself while imagining being with your partner, that’s fine.  Jacking off to nudie pics, that’s fine.  Pleasuring yourself to a fantasy about the person that was in front of you at the coffee shop that morning, that’s fine.   Using a toy supposedly modeled on a porn star, that’s fine.  But masturbating to nothing?  Well, come on now, you just can’t do that.  What are you thinking about?  If you can’t say, then just what kind of dark, depraved secrets are you hiding?

I can’t even look at porn right.  Porn is supposed to be fantasy fuel.  I’m supposed to want to be there, I’m supposed to put myself in the scene, I’m supposed to imagine what I’d do with the person featured.  Everything is supposed to be a stand-in for my penis.  The cock on that guy is supposed to be mine.  That toy is supposed to be my disembodied penis.  Those fingers, are they supposed to be my fingers or my penis?  I can never tell.  And if there isn’t a surrogate penis in the scene, then I’m supposed to mentally introduce my own into the picture.  Every shot, every angle, every position, they’re all designed to indicate that the surrogate cock or imaginary penis is being worked on.  That seems to be how everyone looks at porn.  That’s why that sort of porn is so prevalent, that’s how everyone describes their reaction to it, that’s even how people frame their objections to pornography, that it encourages lustful thoughts, because you’re imagining committing adultery and/or fornication.

But that’s not what it does for me.  I never picture myself in the scene.  I never teleport my penis onto another body or into the plastic shell of a toy.  That doesn’t work for me.  That sort of emphasis is dull and boring and leaves me confused, wondering whether people really like that sort of thing.  This is supposed to be a turn on?  That’s supposed to be hot?  Doesn’t that chafe?  Isn’t that tiring?  I’m pretty sure I can’t bend that way.  For most people, porn is a way for them to explore their sexuality, to let their fantasies wander.  But for me, it’s a big wall.  My body and my mind are just standing there saying “Nope, you don’t belong here.”  I don’t have permission.

(And honestly, even when it’s a video I’ve taken of myself, I can’t put myself in the scene…)

That’s not to say porn never works at all.  It does.  Sometimes.  Rarely.  It’s best when the performers seem to genuinely be having a good time, doing things they actually want to be doing, instead of trudging through a script for the camera.  My response feels more empathetic than sexual.  They seem to be having a good time, doing things that feel good, so I can have a good time, doing things that feel good.  But a lot of pictures and videos have to be clicked past to get to that sort of thing, and all that clicking and clicking feels like a chore, especially when I know that almost all of what I’m clicking past is going to be more than adequate for other people.

And I seem to be repulsed by the stereotypical “porn star” look.  I don’t know if it’s the glossy fakeness of it all, or the overt, deliberate sexuality of it all, but something about it is a quick ticket to the land of “nope”.  It’s not appealing and I don’t even remotely understand what is supposed to be appealing about it.

There are some people who I find pleasant to look at, but pretty much none of them would be considered “sexy” by a jury of my peers.  And while it’s pleasant to look at them, it’s not a sexual pleasantness.  Sex isn’t in the picture.  If I try to fantasize about doing things with them, it all falls apart.  In the rare event that there’s someone in porn that I find pleasant to look at, that certainly helps things, but I don’t understand why.  I don’t think it’s anything about the pleasantness that’s subconsciously sexually enticing to me, because if that were the case, I’d be able to get the same enhancement by thinking about someone I find pleasant to look at that’s not in a pornographic context, but that doesn’t work at all.  Maybe it’s that because it’s pleasant to look at them, I’m able to look at the images for a longer period of time without getting bored?  Maybe I feel more comfortable?  I don’t know, but the whole thing feels like there’s some sort of neuron in my brain that would normally be responsible for sexual attraction, but it’s confused and not wired up correctly, so it just spends its time taunting me.  It’s arousing, but why?

The world of sex toys was not made for asexuals in mind.  So much of it is driven by fantasy and an attempt to convince someone that it’s fine to use sex toys.  It’s not a rubber tube that’s getting you off, it’s an anthropomorphized rubber replica of some porn star’s anatomy of choice, and so therefore, it’s really her that’s getting you off.   Here are some direct quotes from the marketing of a few sex toys:

“Ever wondered what it would be like to bone me? Now you can screw me in the nastiest ways!”

“Let her love tunnel’s ribbed Cyberskin grip you so good as you slide home.”

“Flip this cheerbabe over and dive under her skirt for some steamy anal play!”

“Stop dreaming about your hot neighbor… and start doing everything you’ve fantasized about with her!”

To be clear, these were talking about 4-6 inch long rubber tubes.  It wasn’t hard to find marketing copy like this.  Pretty much every toy has something like it.  That sort of thing does not enhance the experience for me at all.  It just feels creepy and sleazy and misogynistic and makes me less interested in the product.  Does that sort of thing even work for non-ace people, or are they just as skeeved out by it?

Most toys have some sort of anatomical features.  Most common are labia, to resemble a vulva.  But there’s also mouths and butts and breasts and feet.  There’s even some that have mouth-breasts and foot-vulvas.  Some toys claim to have a G-Spot or a cervix, neither of which ever resembles those actual structures.  (Anatomy lesson for sex-toy makers:  The cervix does not get penetrated during sex and it would likely be excruciatingly painful if that happened.)  And for the more adventurous, there’s double-clitted aliens, zombie mouths, dragon cocks and mare vulvas.  But whatever features they have, they all have a few things in common:  They can’t be seen when the toy is in use, they have little to no effect on the sensations of the toy, and they usually drive up the price of the toy for no reason.

And even non-anatomical toys aren’t very ace friendly.  One toy mentions that it’s great for use with a partner, another that its open ended design allows “added oral thrills” with a partner, another has product photos where it’s placed on a naked woman.  And pretty much any toy that doesn’t look like a vulva is sold as a “blow job simulator”.  When you try to buy a toy, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see some sort of genital depiction somewhere in the storefront.  If you look up lists of the best sex toys of men or look at male sex toy review sites, it’s pretty much guaranteed that cock rings and vibrators will be on the list, and it’s always about how “you’ll drive her wild” when you use them.  All of that is useless to me.  There’s never anything about the softness or stretchiness of the toy.  Dimensions are rarely mentioned.  There’s never anything about how a ring changes sensations or how to effectively use a Magic Wand style vibrator on a penis.  (I’m still trying to figure that last one out…  Nothing I’ve tried is reliable.)

I masturbate because I like the way it feels.  I use sex toys because I like the way they feel.  It’s all about the physical feelings.  It’s not about cleaning the pipes or about practicing for the Real Thing™.  It feels good.  Almost everyone else does it because it feels good, too, but no one’s allowed to admit it.  So they pile up a wall of excuses and rationalizations made up of desires and fantasies and imaginary health concerns to justify it and protect themselves from having to admit that they do it because it feels good, because that would be wrong.  And I don’t have any of those desires and fantasies, I don’t have anything besides the way it feels, so I’m all I’m left with is the feeling that it’s wrong.

And because I’m ace, I feel like I can’t talk about these things.  In a non-ace context, everything about sexuality is foreign to me.  I don’t understand the feelings, motivations, or goals that are in play.  If I try to read about masturbation techniques or look at sex toy reviews, it usually ends up with someone talking about how they just thought about “the girl from the bar I fucked last week” or that the toy “feels just like a blow job”, neither of which is remotely useful for me.  Every once in a while there’s something I understand, but it’s buried under an overwhelming mountain of stuff that just fundamentally does not make sense to me.  And in an ace context, these things just don’t get discussed.  All of these things are “sexual”, therefore they can’t be associated with an asexual person.  Some aces are reluctant to talk about it because they think it makes them “less asexual” to do it.  Some aces are reluctant to talk about it because they’re not comfortable talking in a semi-public arena about such things.  Some aces are reluctant to talk about it because they don’t want to offend or alienate other aces.  When I talk about it, and there’s little response, I can’t tell if no one’s paying attention, no one understands what I’m saying, no one feels comfortable talking about it themselves, or if what I’m talking about or the way I’m talking about it is dirty, pervy, and creepy, so it drives people away.  So I feel like I’m not allowed to talk about any of it, even in the place that I created to talk about it.

 

There’s no place where the way I feel is allowed to exist.


What if I’m not averse to sex, but averse to sexuality?  And not because it’s gross or disgusting, but because I can’t understand it.  Maybe I feel like I don’t have permission because none of it makes sense, so it’s obviously not something I’m supposed to be a part of.  It’s like I snuck into the field trip for the wrong class and we’re all at the planetarium of naked people, but asstronomy was never covered in my class.  And it’s frustrating that I don’t understand it, because everyone else knows what’s going on.  And so I play along because maybe there’s something out there which will unlock my sexuality, that somehow I’ll find my permission slip.

 


ETA:

On deeper reflection, it feels like a large part of it is that my sexuality is not typically desire-linked, yet the general cultural conception of sexuality is.  So all these desire-linked concepts are being layered on my experiences by external forces, and I’m not comfortable with that.  I’m supposed to be feeling sexual desire for someone, I’m supposed to be able to connect that desire to my actions, I’m supposed to be able to kindle that desire through surrogate objects.  But that’s not what’s going on, don’t assume that’s what’s going on, don’t make me feel like I have to correct the record, don’t make me feel like I have to play along.

This outside overlay of desire-linked sexuality on top of what I’m feeling is alien, unwanted, invasive.  I don’t really see masturbation as sexual in the way other people mean it.  And so there’s a fundamental disconnect there which I keep trying to reconcile.  It’s just something I do that feels good, but other people/society/whatever keeps trying to layer meaning on it, interject their own analysis and inferences and innuendo or whatever.

It’s not so much that I don’t have permission, it’s that in a fundamental way I don’t recognize the concept of sexuality as it exists for most other people.  They’re using a different file format for sexuality, and I’m incompatible with it.  I don’t know what to do with the data being passed to me and just end up throwing a bunch of internal exceptions.

Do you ever have sexual fantasies?

Q:  Do you ever have sexual fantasies? If so, do you design them or are they subconsiously-sourced or are they the work of other people (a la pornography)? Do you find them arousing, enjoyable, and/or annoying?

Not really, but I have tried.  I’ve never really been all that successful.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a natural fantasy that just came out of nowhere.  It’s always been something that I’ve deliberately had to think about.

“I am going to have a fantasy now.  I am going to imagine a sexual situation.  I am going to imagine another sexual situation.  I am going to imagine…  Damn it, I lost my place and have to start over.”

Yeah, like I said, not very successful.

It takes a lot of mental effort to try to conjure up a fantasy and keep it going.  The more complicated and detailed it is, the more difficult it is.  With all the effort involved, it typically ends up more distracting than arousing.  Typically, I can only manage a few seconds at a time, so it’s just not worth it.

It was always strange to me to hear people claim that masturbation required sexual fantasy, because I managed just fine without them.

I can never mentally put myself into a pornographic scene.  It just doesn’t work that way for me at all.  I can’t imagine myself involved in that way.

Possible Signs of Asexuality – Part 2: About Sex

This is the second post in a three part series on the possible signs of asexuality.  The items discussed here aren’t meant to be any kind of “Am I Ace?” checklist, so it’s okay if you don’t identify or agree with any of them.  They’re just experiences that I’ve seen pop up over and over when asexuals talk about their lives.

The first part in this series focused mostly inward, on thoughts you may have had about yourself and your identity.  Today is all about sex and sexual activity.  If that’s not your thing, you might want to skip today and come back for the conclusion tomorrow.

Links to the posts in this series:

You’d much rather do X than do sex.

When you think about sex, you realize that there are dozens of things you’d much rather do.  I’d rather read a book, I’d rather watch TV, I’d rather play a video game, I’d rather go to a movie, I’d rather stargaze, I’d rather walk the dog, I’d rather go shopping, I’d rather organize the books on the bookshelf by date of author’s birth, I’d rather go bird watching, I’d rather build a Lego tribute to the Prime Ministers of Canada, I’d rather work on the car, I’d rather mow the lawn, I’d rather learn Esperanto, I’d rather fly a kite, I’d rather eat cake…

Your sex dreams don’t really have sex.

I had a dream with a warning for “adult content and mature themes”.  It was about mortgage payments.  I’ve had dreams where naked women throw themselves on me, and I tell them that I’m really busy and I’m supposed to be somewhere.  I’ve had dreams where women are very obviously coming on to me, and I completely miss it.  I’ve told women in dreams to put their clothes back on, because they look cold.  It’s like the part of my brain that generates dreams didn’t get the memo that I’m asexual, so it still is sending out these prompts for sex dreams, but the rest of my brain doesn’t process them, so they always end up weird.

Many asexuals say that they’ve never had sex dreams of any kind.

You think that “sexy” clothes just look uncomfortable or cold and can’t understand why anyone would wear them.

Tight pants look like they’re going to squeeze the life out of someone, and if it’s a guy wearing them, you know he’s gotta be in pain.  Heels look like a broken ankle waiting to happen.  Shirts that expose the midriff have to be freezing in this weather.  All that lace is just going to leave a weird pattern in your skin.  Thongs seem like they’re going to cut you in half like a wire saw.

And I never got the point of make-up, either.

You don’t really fantasize.

Everyone else seems like they undress people with their eyes.

Everyone else seems like they dream about having their way with the quarterback or the head cheerleader.

Everyone else seems like they would “hit that”.

But not you.  It’s not that you won’t, because you think it’s sinful or something like that.  It’s that you don’t.  Your mind just doesn’t work that way.  It doesn’t spontaneously imagine leaping into bed with someone.  Maybe it’s even that you can’t.  Maybe you’ve tried to devise erotic fantasies and have failed.  You tried to undress someone with your eyes once, but you couldn’t even figure out how to get their bra off.  And if you can make it to the hot & heavy, rather than picturing the perfect mix of ecstasy and passion, you get bogged down in the details and distracted.  You spend so much energy trying to maintain the fantasy that you lose whatever pleasure you were hoping to get from it.

You don’t like sex.

Some asexuals don’t like sex.  They don’t want to do it, they don’t want to see it, they don’t want to hear it, they don’t want to think about it.  At the age when most people were hearing about sex and thinking “I’d like to try that”, they were thinking “You want me to do what with WHAT?  No.  Just.  No.”

While not liking sex is not the same as asexuality, many asexuals don’t like sex, and discover that they’re asexual when they’re trying to find out why they don’t like sex.

A lot of non-asexual people feel this way, too, when they first hear about sex.  Let’s face it, the whole process is a bit icky, after all.  However, for most people who feel this way, those thoughts are pushed aside once sexual attraction kicks in.  But for the aversive asexual, sexual attraction never comes along to override these feelings.

The “ick factor” isn’t the only reason people don’t like sex.  Some asexuals don’t like sex because they find it uncomfortable or boring.  There are thousands of reasons that someone might not like sex.

You like sex, but it doesn’t feel “right”.

I don’t mean this in an “Oh, it’s sinful and dirty” sense.  I mean it in the sense where something seems off, like gears with mismatched teeth or walking with gum on your shoe or using a shopping cart that always pulls to the right.  At first glance, it seems like everything’s okay, but the more you think about it, the more things feel off.

Perhaps you physically enjoy sex.  Maybe you like making your partner feel good.  There are things you might really like about sex, but at the same time, there’s something missing.  When you watch your partner’s reactions, it’s clear that there’s something there that you’re not feeling.  It’s impossible to put your finger on it, but you know there’s something there.  Some intangible spark is behind their eyes, and you’re acutely aware that spark is missing in your eyes.

This was how I felt when I had sex.  It physically felt great, but emotionally, I was not connected to the moment and to my partner.  She wanted it, she was into it, she had been craving that moment for months, while I just didn’t have any of that.

You had sex because that’s what you were “supposed to do”.

You never were really interested in having sex, you never felt a drive or biological desire to have sex, but you thought you wanted to have sex because “that’s what people do”.  Later on, you got a partner, they wanted to have sex and you went along with it because “that’s what people do”.  You kept having sex because “that’s what I’m supposed to do”.  It felt more like an obligation or a chore than the expression of love it was supposed to be.  At first, you may have even wanted the experience, but as time went on, you grew tired of it.

When you encountered the naked body of someone for the first time in a sexual situation, you looked at it like a real-life anatomy lesson, rather than an object of desire.

This one happened to me.  I was in my bedroom with my first (and so far, only) girlfriend.  Following her lead, we were fooling around a bit.  She was wearing short shorts and sitting on my bed.  She sat me down on the floor in front of her, spread open her legs, and pulled aside her shorts.

I think that most young men in this situation look upon it with unbridled glee.  It’s a milestone in their life, something they’d been working toward, often for years.  Instantly, their mind fills with ideas and opportunities and a thousand fantasies, any number of which could come true within the next five minutes.  For many men, a sight like that is like being invited into the playground of their dreams and told to run wild.

So, what went through my mind?

“Oh, so that’s how it all fits together!”

There was no explosion of sexual urges, no endless stream of desires.  I didn’t really even feel compelled to touch it.  Instead, I was busy looking over the terrain like it was a road map, full of places I’d only heard of in passing.  I wanted to identify all of the bits and pieces that I knew were supposed to be down there and see how they were all oriented relative to one another.

Needless to say, I now look at this event as one of the big red flags that should’ve clued me in that I was asexual years ago.

You focus on the motions, not emotions.

When dealing with sex and physical closeness, you put an emphasis on trying to make the right moves, like touching the right place in the right way, instead of focusing on the emotional aspects.  In some cases, the pressure you feel to push all the right buttons may make the experience highly unpleasant.

“If I try it, maybe I’ll like it.”

So, you haven’t had sex.  You’re not terribly enthusiastic about it, either.  It’s not that you’re against it, it’s just not all that interesting to you.  But everyone else seems to like it, so maybe you will too, if you just gave it a chance.  Maybe you just need to try it out and you’ll see what the fuss is about.

I call this the “Green Eggs and Ham” hypothesis:

You do not like them, so you say.  Try them!  Try them, and you may.  Try them and you may, I say.

The idea that maybe you’ll become interested in sex if you try it out is a compelling one.  The thinking goes, how can you really know if you’re not interested if you don’t give it a shot?  Well, the answer is that you really can know.  After all, you don’t actually have to hug a saguaro cactus to know that would be unpleasant.  So, if you’re certain that sex is not for you, then don’t feel pressured to prove that you don’t like it by going a few rounds.

On the other hand, if you feel this way, you’re open to the experience, and the right situation comes along, then go for it.  Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t, it doesn’t really matter, either way.  I felt this about myself, and I did try having sex.  Of course, what it lead to was…

You had sex and thought “Is that it?”

That’s it? That’s all there is?

Weren’t there supposed to be fireworks and standing ovations?  Wasn’t my life supposed to be changed forever?  Wasn’t it supposed to be the single greatest experience of my entire life?

What was supposed to be so great about that?  Why do some people devote their entire lives to pursuing that?  How could that possibly be responsible for ruining the careers of so many politicians?  How could so many people consider that to be the very meaning of life?

I don’t know, I guess it was kinda fun, a little bit, sorta.  Bit boring, though, too.

I mean, seriously?  Is that really it?  What’d I miss?

Meh, whatever.

You don’t like masturbating.

Maybe you’ve tried it before, but it didn’t work out and you didn’t get anywhere.  Maybe you never saw the point.  Maybe you do it, but you look at it like any other bodily function, like a sneeze or a shiver.  Maybe you think it’s gross or disgusting or repulsive.  Maybe you do it and wish you could stop.  In any case, you don’t look at it as something pleasurable and fun.  And it’s not out of a sense of guilt or shame or anything like that.  You just genuinely don’t enjoy it.

You masturbate, what would you need anyone else for?

You might look at other people and how they talk about sex and about what person X did for them last night, and think, “Huh, I can do that by myself.  I don’t need any help.”  You’re perfectly fine taking care of yourself and really don’t mind reservations for sexual pleasure as a party of one.  When other people talk about masturbation as if it were some sort of consolation prize for a distant runner up, you’re a bit confused, because it certainly doesn’t seem like a terrible thing to you.

When you think about having sex with someone else, you may think that a second person would just get in the way and complicate things.  Maybe you’ve even had sex and didn’t think that it was really any better than what you’re capable of by yourself.

You think arousal is annoying.

Instead of looking at arousal as a sign from down below that you need to get all sexed up as soon as possible, you just find it annoying.  It’s distracting.  It’s random.  And, for some people, it literally gets in the way.  If you could shut it down, you would.  It’s never directed at anyone, you don’t really want to do anything with it, it’s just kinda there.

————

Tomorrow’s conclusion is all about other people and things.  Hope to see you there.

Links to the posts in this series:

“But asexuals can’t masturbate!”

Do asexuals masturbate?

Maybe.

“Maybe” isn’t an answer.

But it’s accurate.

No, really, do they?

No. And yes. It depends on the person.

So some asexuals masturbate?

Correct. And some don’t. It’s perfectly fine either way.

Do you masturbate?

That is an extremely personal question and is quite rude to ask. Just because I’m asexual doesn’t mean that it’s somehow okay to ask me that.

But do you?

Yes. And I’m good at it, too. But if I weren’t writing a post about asexuality and masturbation, that little tidbit would be absolutely none of your damn business.

How can an asexual masturbate?

For the most part, they just kinda rub until-

No, I meant, how can someone who masturbates be considered asexual?

Simple. Masturbation has nothing to do with sexual orientation. A gay person doesn’t engage in some sort of homosexual masturbation. A straight person is still straight even if they don’t touch themselves now and then. It’s no different for asexuality.

But masturbating is a sexual act. You can’t perform sexual acts and still be asexual.

Certainly, masturbation is a sexual activity performed using sexual organs and it produces a sexual response. There’s a misconception that an asexual must be devoid of all sexual properties and sexual responses and cannot experience sexual pleasure. I used to believe that myself, in fact, before I discovered what asexuality really is. I used to think that I couldn’t be asexual because I masturbate. But not the case at all. Asexuality is all about attraction, not action, it’s an orientation, not behavior. Being asexual does not mean one cannot or does not take part in sexual activities. Being asexual means one does not experience sexual attraction. Asexual people generally can and sometimes do take part in sexual activity. Masturbation is the most common.

Why would an asexual person bother to masturbate?

  • Sometimes they do it to relax.
  • Sometimes they do it as a stress reliever.
  • Sometimes they do it because they’re bored.
  • For women, it can help with period pain.
  • For men, it can help with embarrassing issues like spontaneous erections or nocturnal emissions.
  • Sometimes they consider it a bodily function.
  • Sometimes they do it because their libido wants them to.
  • Sometimes they do it to prevent prostate cancer.
  • Sometimes they do it because it’s like “scratching an itch”.
  • Sometimes they like to perform a self-test to make sure everything is in working order.
  • Sometimes they just want to.
  • And, oh yeah, going out on a limb here, but could be because orgasms tend to feel good.

In other words, asexuals masturbate for pretty much the same reasons non-asexuals do. (Please note that this is not meant to be a complete list of possible reasons.)

So, it’s okay to be asexual and masturbate. It’s okay to like it, too. It doesn’t cancel out your asexuality, it doesn’t minimize your asexuality, it doesn’t mean you’re faking your asexuality.

How can someone who has an orgasm still claim to be asexual?

Having an orgasm does not, in any way, invalidate someone’s asexuality. An orgasm is a physical response to stimulation. It’s not related to one’s sexual orientation, it doesn’t require sexual attraction to work. To say that someone who has an orgasm can’t be asexual anymore is ridiculous. When a heterosexual has an orgasm, it’s not somehow a function of a heterosexual orientation. When a bisexual has an orgasm, it’s not a “bisexual orgasm”. So why would it be any different for an asexual? Why would the asexual orientation somehow get canceled out by an orgasm? Am I suddenly turned straight or turned gay by an orgasm? How would that happen? I wasn’t attracted to anyone before the orgasm and I’m still not afterward, so if I’m not asexual anymore, what am I?

Do asexuals enjoy orgasms?

In general, yes. I know I do.

How do asexuals masturbate?

Exactly the same way someone who isn’t asexual does, with all the variants that implies. There’s no such thing as “asexual” masturbation. We’ll use the same methods, techniques, and implements as everyone else. We’ll range in frequency from absolutely never to several times a day.

“Implements”? You mean sex toys?

Yes. Like many non-asexual people, some asexuals will use sex toys to help them get off. In fact, I probably have a larger collection of toys than most non-asexual people.

(And for the record, males can and do use sex toys, too.)

But some of these “implements” are anatomically correct. Doesn’t using them mean the person is attracted to the anatomical part it’s a facsimile of?

Absolutely not. Anatomically correct toys are designed that way because that shape is obviously quite effective at achieving the desired stimulation. Using something that works doesn’t somehow make someone less asexual. Or maybe they’re using one because they liked the color or because it was in the $5 bin. It doesn’t matter. Using sex toys of any kind, from a formless bullet vibrator up to a fully anatomically correct RealDoll does not mean someone is not asexual.

So, if you’re not attracted to people, what do you think about while you’re going at it?

Well, this is certainly different for different people, but here’s some things I think about: Furniture. Vacation plans. The weather. The day at work. Things I did with my ex-girlfriend. Politics. Things I did with myself in the past. Some TV show or movie I watched. Video game music from the 80s. However, for the most part, my thoughts are “That feels good” and “That feels even better”.

Wait… “Things I did with my ex-girlfriend”? How can you think about that and consider yourself asexual?

I can think about that because it felt good. I never found her sexually attractive. However, just because I never found her sexually attractive doesn’t mean that I didn’t find her sexually effective. When I was stimulated by her, it was extremely pleasurable and it did lead to orgasm. The memory of that sensation is extremely arousing. It’s not a memory of her body or a longing to have sex with her again. I was sort of bored when I had sex with her, even though it did feel good.

Don’t you ever fantasize?

Personally, I never really fantasize. I’ve tried, but it never works. My mind always focuses on the details and the stage direction and never on the imagining having sex part. Fantasies always seem to end up more distracting than anything. It’s so much effort to get the imaginary naked woman in the right pose and performing the right motions that the slightest stray thought would kick me out of the fantasy and force me to start over. (Not to mention that the thought of the imaginary naked woman in any pose never really did anything for me…) The one that’s come the closest to working is imagining myself demonstrating how I masturbate to someone else, which isn’t really much of a fantasy and usually just leads to me dropping the other person and going back to just thinking “That feels good”.

Some other asexuals will fantasize while masturbating. Often, they’ll describe it as imagining a sexual situation with a placeholder partner. Essentially a faceless, sometimes genderless prop that’s only there to provide an element that would be missing otherwise. For instance, they may imagine a person with a mouth performing oral sex on them. In this case, their thoughts are focused on the act itself and not any kind of attraction to the person performing the act. Sometimes the placeholder will be there to fulfill a fetish that the person finds arousing, in which case the focus is on the object of the fetish, and not the placeholder.

It always used to seem strange to me that so many people would say that you couldn’t masturbate without thinking of someone while doing it. There’s the religious thought that the reason masturbation is considered sinful is that it requires lust in the form of a fantasy, and I never understood that because I never needed lust, so why did anyone else? I would just grab it and go, without thinking about anyone. It was very mechanical. Fun, but mechanical.

How can you get aroused if you’re not thinking of someone sexually?

You don’t have to think of someone sexually in order to get aroused. You don’t have to be sexually attracted to anyone or anything in order to masturbate. You don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to experience and enjoy an orgasm. All you have to do is touch your sensitive bits in the right way and presto! (And sometimes it doesn’t even take that much…) There’s a reward there that doesn’t require sexual attraction. I understand that, for most people, fantasy and attraction certainly helps the process, and I’m not disputing that. But it’s not a requirement.

Why would an asexual start to masturbate in the first place if they’re not turned on by someone?

Any number of reasons. Sometimes they’re told that it feels good and want to try it out. Other times their libido will kick in and downstairs will start screaming out for attention. And sometimes it’s because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do, after all, it seems like everyone else is.

In my case, in fifth grade sex ed (Which was basically nothing more than a vocabulary lesson) introduced me to the terms “masturbation” and “orgasm”. Masturbation was defined as “the self-stimulation of the genitals to orgasm” and orgasm was “an intense pleasurable sensation in the genitals”, and I eventually put the two definitions together and realized that it was something I wanted to try. I eventually managed to work out how it was done some time later.

You mentioned a libido? An asexual person can’t have a libido.

Actually, many asexuals do have a libido or a “sex drive”. They’ll have “urges” and desire sexual stimulation. But while for a non-asexual person, those urges tend to be directed toward another person, for an asexual, they’re often directionless. But that’s a topic for another post entirely…

What about porn?

What about it?

Do asexuals use porn?

You’re just asking that so you can say “Ha, gotcha!” when I answer, aren’t you?

No, not at all. Do they?

Sometimes, yes.

Ha! Gotcha! You can’t be asexual if you use porn!

I knew it…

Anyway, yes, asexuals sometimes will use porn while they masturbate. And no, it does not mean that they’re not asexual.

People who watch porn don’t necessarily find the performers sexually attractive. People who watch porn don’t always want to participate with the performers.

Consider it another way. Watching a cooking show on TV doesn’t necessarily make you want to cook whatever they’re fixing on the show, does it? You might not even like whatever it is. But it’s food, people are eating, and that makes you hungry. So you go get a bag of chips.

With porn, you might not want to do what they’re doing, you might not even like what they’re doing, but you may find it to be arousing simply because they’re aroused. You watch it and think “They seem to be enjoying what they’re doing. I have one of those, too, and I bet that feels good. Now I want to feel good.”

Enjoying porn has no bearing on your sexual orientation. Research has shown that women who are straight will often have a strong arousal response to lesbian scenes. And the very existence of the “money shot” in porn aimed at straight men should put any argument to rest. After all, if straight men didn’t find the shot of another man having an orgasm and ejaculating (Often by his own hand) to be arousing on some level, then why would it be so prevalent? It doesn’t mean that the viewer is secretly gay and repressed. It just means that they don’t necessarily have to feel sexual attraction toward something to be aroused by it.

In my case, I find most porn to be dull, uninteresting, and repetitive. I get more out of the sense that the performers are legitimately having a good time and experiencing pleasure than I do from the way they look or what they’re doing. I am very easily distracted by things in the background, like movies on a shelf or views out the window. And things like poor lighting and poor camera work will absolutely kill a scene. Sometimes I’ll watch porn for educational purposes, to see how other people do things and pick up a few tricks and techniques.

What about asexuals who don’t masturbate or don’t enjoy it?

Then they don’t masturbate or don’t enjoy it. Not every asexual has to masturbate. Not every asexual that does masturbate has to enjoy it. If you don’t masturbate, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. If it’s not your thing, don’t worry about it and don’t worry about what other people might think. It’s no one’s business but your own.

Will masturbating make someone not asexual somehow?

Masturbation isn’t suddenly going to make you not asexual anymore, so don’t feel like you have to try it to know for sure that you’re ace. I’m pretty solid evidence that no amount of masturbation is likely to change your orientation. At most, you might discover that you like the way it feels and want to keep doing it.

What about asexuals who are curious about trying it?

If you’re looking for a step-by-step instruction guide, nope, not going there. I do have some other advice, though.

First: Relax.

Second: Don’t turn it into a chore. Presumably you’re doing it because you want it to be fun. It won’t be fun if it’s a chore.

Don’t feel defeated if you don’t get anywhere your first attempt, because you probably won’t. No one does. You’re not a failure and your equipment probably isn’t defective. It’s a learned skill and takes practice. I probably had to try for months before I got anywhere. Of course, those were the days before search engines, so it was all trial and error for me. At any rate, persistence is the key. You need to find out what works for you and not be afraid to try something new. And don’t be afraid of calling in a little bit of artificial assistance. Many people, male, female, or otherwise, will use lubricants or toys to help them get off.

Don’t feel guilty, as if you’re betraying your asexuality. You’re not.

You don’t necessarily need a libido in order to become aroused. It probably helps, but it’s not required. With the right mindset and the right stimulation, you can usually wake things up downstairs. Honestly, I’m not even sure I have a libido. I rarely, if ever, feel “urges” or feel “horny”, or any of the other things people describe as a libido at work. Whenever I masturbate, I usually have to spend a bit of time getting myself ready. However, I have read things which claim that sexual activity itself in some cases may increase libido in a sort of feedback effect. The more you do, the more you want. So you may have a dormant libido that masturbation could potentially awaken.

And most of all, if you don’t like it, stop. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. If you’re not getting anything out of it, don’t do it and don’t worry about it.

Anything more?

I’ll just leave you with this:

If you’re asexual and you masturbate, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you don’t masturbate, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you masturbate to porn, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you don’t masturbate to porn, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you masturbate using sex toys, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you don’t masturbate using sex toys, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you masturbate and you like it, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you masturbate and you don’t like it, then you’re still asexual.
If you’re asexual and you want to masturbate, but haven’t, then you’re still asexual.

(Please also see the companion post I wrote for Asexual Awareness Week, which elaborates more on my personal views on the topic, and where I stole a number of lines from:  http://www.asexualityarchive.com/aaw-day-6-masturbation/ )

AAW Day 6: Masturbation

One of the most common question asked of asexuals is “Do you masturbate?”.

The answer:  Yes.  I do.

(Not all of us do.  Some of us do, some of us don’t, and some of us can’t.)

(BTW, it’s NOYDB.  So stop asking.  Anyway…)

It generally confuses people when we do, though…  (It even confuses us sometimes.)

It’s not just “scratching an itch” for me.  It’s not “just a biological function.”  It’s not “cleaning the pipes.”   It’s not a way to calm an undirected libido or prevent nighttime accidents.  It’s not some bothersome vestigial leftover of the sexuality I’m supposed to have.  It’s none of that for me.

I do it because I like it.  It feels good.  It’s fun.

And it does not invalidate my asexuality to feel this way.

Asexuality means that I’m not sexually attracted to anyone, it does not mean that my equipment doesn’t function.  It functions, and how.

You don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to become aroused.  You don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to experience and enjoy an orgasm.  All you have to do is touch your sensitive bits in the right way and presto!

I never understood the old religious claim that “Masturbation isn’t necessarily a sin, but lust is, and you have to have lust in your heart in order to masturbate, because you’re fantasizing while you do it.”  It just didn’t make sense to me. I never had lust.  I never fantasized.  When I first heard it, I was young and had only recently started masturbating.  At the time, I just figured that I was new and I hadn’t figured out quite what I was supposed to be doing, and that when I got older, something would kick in and I’d start fantasizing and feeling lust and have to confront the moral question then. (And all this even though I was never actually religious…)  But all that happened was I got older.  The lusting and fantasizing never began.

I don’t fantasize.  I just can’t.  I’ve tried, though.  I tried to picture naked people doing naked people things.  I tried to imagine erotic scenarios.  It never worked for me.  I tried because it was supposed to help.  It was supposed to turn on the sexual overdrive and make everything ten times more exciting.  All it did was distract me.  I had to concentrate so hard on the mental stage direction that I lost focus on what I was doing.  It was so much effort to get the imaginary naked woman in the right pose and performing the right motions that the slightest stray thought would kick me out of the fantasy and force me to start over.

If you start to plan out the script of your sexual fantasy because your brain doesn’t do improv in that genre, that’s a pretty good sign that something is up.

That bothered me for a long time.  Everyone else fantasized while they masturbated and I just couldn’t.  That bothered me more than my lack of interest in dating ever did.  Not wanting to ask a girl out could conveniently be explained away by shyness or social anxiety.  But not being able to include her in a sexual fantasy that would have stayed in my mind and been free of awkward conversations and fear of rejection?  That made me feel broken.

I eventually overcame that, well before I discovered asexuality.  I realized that it didn’t do anything for me, I just didn’t think in that way, and it wasn’t actually a problem for me.  I enjoyed masturbating adn I wasn’t going to let something like that stand in the way.

So, that brings up what is probably the second most common question asked of asexuals:  “If you’re not attracted to anyone, what do you think about when you masturbate?”

(Again, NOYDB.)

What do I think about?  Furniture.  (No, really.  I have planned out how to decorate a room while involved.)  My day.  The plot of some TV show.  Video games.  Politics.  Music from the 80’s.  The next vacation I’m going to take.  The weather.  But most of all, I think about two specific things:

“That feels good.”

and

“That feels even better.”