#it became a chathartic rant

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

I am Asexual. I’ve identified as asexual since my friend Max first introduced me to the term freshman year of high school. That was six years ago. But I have been asexual for so much longer than that. 

At a sleep over in 4th grade all my friends were listing out their celebrity crushes and I didn’t even know that was an actual thing. I think I tried to say Taylor Swift because she was the only celebrity 10 year old me actually gave two shits about because I liked her music, and was told to pick a guy (which annoys the biromantic in me now). I threw out a random guy and that was that, but I didn’t get the big deal or why my friends obsessed over guys they never met just because they were “hot”. 

Sixth grade probably should have been a big hint for me. Sixth grade was when I read fanfiction for the first time and thought: This fanfiction marked as sexually explicit and not for minors probably isn’t that bad! I’m mature, I can handle it! (spoiler alert: I really couldn’t and I fully acknowledge 12 year old me was an idiot). I was incredibly grossed out by it and avoided mature fics after that. I didn’t explore what it was that grossed me out though, I just realized it wasn’t for me and thought nothing more of it. Then in one of my classes my classmates were talking about this really ‘cool’ adult thing: 69. We were 12 and all idiots. Not learning my lesson, I asked one of my classmates to explain it to me and he point blank told me I wasn’t going to be able to handle it. At the time my stubborn child brain took this as a challenge and a slight against my honor and I insisted he tell me and then proceeded to run away grossed out. But in hindsight, I wonder if my lack of sexuality was obvious even then. 6th grade was when I got my first boyfriend. It was honestly more like close friends with a fancy label. We dated until the beginning of 8th grade when I broke it off. All we ever did was hug and kiss and that was all I wanted. He never said anything about wanting more, but one day that thought was put in my head by an outside source and it scared me so bad that less than a month later I broke up with him. The very idea of sex caused me to break off my first relationship. And it still took me nearly 2 more years after that to find a word to label what I was: Asexual. and another 6+ months after that to find a term to describe how I felt about sex: Sex repulsed.

 I tried talking to my doctor once about these terms because I wanted to understand more and thought “doctors help people, surely she knows about asexuality and can tell me more about it!” Yeahhhhh. She told me that I was too young to know something like that (I was 16) and my feelings would probably change down the line. And yet she had no issue asking me if I was having sex, but because I was like: “hey, you don’t have to worry about that with me!” her response was “good, but that will change, use protection when you do” Its ironic how adults are like “don’t have sex” but as soon as a young person tells them they don’t want to ever, it’s like the world ends. “How dare you never want to do this thing we don’t want you to do!” and “Don’t worry, you will someday, but that day better not be now!” 

I’m asexual. I was as a kid and I am today. And there have been times I’ve questioned it. When my lack of a community made me feel insecure and cling to my label too tightly until it was all I was. When people who didn’t even know me tried to tell me what I was and wasn’t and that hurt me so much I let myself wonder if they were right. No. I am asexual today. I am sure of that. I was asexual yesterday and the day before that going back years. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find a label that fits me better than Asexual. Maybe I won’t. But that doesn’t change the way I feel: I don’t want sex. Never have. That doesn’t make me broken. I don’t need to be fixed. I am perfectly happy. I am asexual. I am me.