How I Discovered My Asexuality

And listen to my new song a week early!!!

Jan 08, 2025

TW: SA

One of my first memories I can connect to being asexual was at age 14 when I had my first kiss. And my second kiss… And my third kiss… And my fourth. I don’t think I even told any of my friends how I much I hated kissing. I felt at best like a weirdo or a prude, at worst I thought I was broken. And brokenness was what I carried around my sexuality well into my 20s.

asexual
/eɪˈsɛkʃʊəl/
adjective

experiencing no sexual feelings or desires; not feeling sexual attraction to anyone.

having me cover reference -me2.jpg — Me at 18 not knowing I’m asexual yet

I didn’t find out I was asexual until I was in my early 30s, and I read the book ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen. And shortly after that, I read the illuminating book Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown. I had the preconceived notions many people do that asexual people don’t have sex, can’t enjoy sex, don’t masturbate, etc. I had done all these things and thus never even considered the label. I contributed my dislike of sex to past traumas, sexual assault, and growing up religious.

As I read Chen’s book I saw myself more and more in descriptions of different asexual experiences. I especially relate to this quote about the link between feminism and asexuality: “It seems that the message is ‘we have liberated our sexuality, therefore we must now celebrate it and have as much sex as we want,’” says Jo, an ace policy worker in Australia. “Except ‘as much sex as we want’ is always lots of sex and not no sex, because then we are oppressed, or possibly repressed, and we’re either not being our true authentic selves, or we haven’t discovered this crucial side of ourselves that is our sexuality in relation to other people, or we haven’t grown up properly or awakened yet.”

I remember being in college, having decided in my teenage christian years to wait to have sex til marriage, and realizing that if I didn’t have sex I couldn’t be seen the way I wanted to be seen by my peers: someone fun, open minded, feminist, a cool artist type. This is definitely still true today, and there’s always been a “perfect asexual” belief where people think you can’t claim the label if you grew up religious, oppressed or have sexual trauma in your history. Then you’re thought to just be broken, someone to fix. If you heal your trauma, you’ll like sex. I promise. So I was told over and over. This is called compulsory sexuality.

From Brown’s amazing book Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: “Compulsory sexuality is the idea that sex is universally desired as a feature of human nature, that we are essentially obligated to participate in sex at some point in life, and that there is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who does not want to—whether it be perceived as a defect of morality, psychology, or physiology.”

When I got my autism diagnosis at 35, pieces really started coming together. Studies have found autistic people are queer (or at least openly queer) at much higher rates than neurotypicals, and autistic people are asexual at higher rates too. I think perhaps it’s an uncomfortable sensory experience thing, at least for me it’s a big part of it.

My song Having Me is deeply tied to my asexuality. It’s a song I started writing in 2007 when I was in college and grappling with getting it over with, losing my virginity for the sake of being cool and open and definitely NOT a prude.

The song starts with these lyrics about wanting to lose my virginity but finding my body freezing up and telling me no: “I told myself I wouldn’t wait, but by default my lack of movement makes it quite obvious what I’m doing. I worry about my use to you. If I don’t give you all you want I know you’ll find somebody else to.”

Can you relate to feeling like your sexuality doesn’t fit the mold society tries to put it in? Tell me below in the comments.

the veil

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