#as they proceed to mod all the female characters to be naked

[avernusreject]

If I hear one more gamer bro complain about how women just aren't hot in video games anymore, I think I might actually scream. God forbid women, hell even fictional depictions of women, just exist without trying to be sexy for five minutes. How dare they have personalities, backstories, and opinions instead of just being a pair of tits and ass to stare at. I hate it here

[goodlesbianadvice]

basic rundown: i identified as ace for most of my life, either suppressed my libido or naturally never developed one, now i have no idea "how" to be attracted to people but when i try it only feels right thinking about women. how do i proceed? there are no resources for (questioning) lesbians in my school/town. if yall need more info just ask, i know this is vague, sorry

Mod j will probably have better advice with this, since she’s actually had times where she id’d as ace, but I’ll try and provide some insight as well.

At least for me, I consider attraction to be a natural, unconscious-type thing, while arousal/fantasy is something a lot more active that varies a lot from person to person. For me, the easiest way to start really recognizing and acting on my attraction to women was just…going for it, when I felt attraction to a particular woman, whether that was girls I met on places like OKCupid or (eventually) my now-wife.  It’s a lot easier to let feelings flow in that context than in reaction to a general concept of “women.”

If there aren’t local resources, then I think it can be really helpful to start immersing yourself in online communities, even if its just particular lesbians on tumblr or facebook groups. Some of them can be crappy (esp depending on your age), but making individual connections to lesbians can help a lot with achieving a sense of “normalcy” for attraction to women that you can’t get anywhere else.

I apologize again for not having the most particular insight on this – but my best advice is to just let yourself think/feel things freely, whether that’s a female fictional character catching your eye or some cute girl at the grocery store making you feel fluttery even after you leave. I think overtime, that can get you more comfortable with the idea of being a lesbian and a future relationship with a woman, if you want to pursue that.

- mod d

i identified as asexual for a few years in high school and i can relate! this may take work, but that’s ok. when you’ve suppressed for a long time, it’s not about trying to force yourself to feel or go after something, but rather about teaching yourself that there’s room for you to have these feelings. it sounds to me you’re not at the “going for it” stage yet. so let’s work on that. 

i’m responding to this based on my own experiences, but the starting point might be thinking of yourself as a sexual person in the first place. in a way this is building the confidence/getting used to the idea that you can experience sexual attraction and have it reciprocated. if you don’t normally masturbate, start doing that! how do you feel about another woman seeing you naked? if you have mental blocks about that, try to work out what they are specifically. (it’s normal to feel nervous or shy but if you’re like “absolutely not, no one will ever see or touch me,” that’s worth thinking about more.)

so let’s say now you have some libido and abstract interest in sex but you’re having trouble really seeing it as a concrete thing you’d desire. for me i kinda had some exercises to do. i’m gonna tell you something: it’s okay to look at real women and have fantasies.  so if you have a cute friend? it’s okay to think about, how would i feel about kissing her? if you feel a pull towards a woman, it’s okay to think about her physically and figure out what exactly did that for you. assuming you’re not becoming creepily obsessive about it,  these desires are normal and healthy and not hurting anyone! so once i started doing this i eventually started having ~sexy dreams~ that really kicked my butt into realizing i was a lesbian and not asexual.

another thing you could try is movies or books! assuming you haven’t already. but seeing lesbians and lesbian desire as a real thing was important. (i also had the advantage, i’m gonna be real, of cyber chatrooms lmao…where i could “experiment” virtually. i don’t think those exist anymore tho.) how do you feel when you watch or read sexy scenes? what about them makes you feel that way? that might help you get a handle on what you’re attracted to.

i hope i understood your question right and that this was helpful. if not, feel free to come back with more! but i’ve been where you are. and it’s okay, too, if you always have a low (or even non-existent) libido. that happens! i answered this assuming that’s something you don’t think is the “real” you, but as long as you’ve taken the opportunity to explore it and know you’re not suppressing it, it can be fine. either way, good luck :)

- mod j

I can understand where you’re coming from, I was raised catholic and the shame they taught me around matters of sex and sexuality left it’s mark on me. It’s part of the reason I didn’t come out until I was 26. Figuring out your attractions while simultaneously having a very complicated relationship to sex is never easy. However, your sexuality isn’t just about sex. The asexual identifier is very much just about sex, and the community has consistently pushed homophobic notions that being gay or bi is also just about sex. It’s not. A child can have a crush and realize she is a lesbian and there’s nothing sexual about that.

Now, we live in a society where one key aspect of homophobia is all about the sex we have. We are told from birth how gross and wrong sodomy is. We have the double whammy of misogyny telling everyone how disgusting vaginas are. No one can escape these sorts of messages in our society, so it’s no surprise that people with same-sex attraction can feel confused. We internalize that gay sex is gross, and of course we don’t want that so we must not be gay!

Here’s the thing, you can remove sex and your libido from the equation and continue to interogate your thoughts and feelings to figure out if you’re a lesbian. Recognizing right now you feel something for women is good start. I would say continue questioning your attractions and don’t even bring sex into it. Even if you figure out you’re a lesbian, and still find you have issues with libido/sex, it doesn’t make you any less of lesbian.

There’s no therapy for this kind of thing, but I know I have found it a comfort to talk to other lesbians who have issues with sex and libido too. I felt like a fake lesbian for a long time because I couldn’t date women, and yet i couldn’t date women bc my own mental illnesses prevented me from dating anyone. And yet, I am a lesbian. I found it to be an intrinsic part of who I am. And even if I may end up a forever single lesbian, I’m still a lesbian bc my attraction and passions will always be about women, even if I’m not sexually active.

It’s possible figuring out your attraction may help clear things up for you and your libido, but if it doesn’t, you’re still not alone. I wish you the best in figuring things out for yourself.

mod e