By Aden
I always thought I was just weird or people around me were exaggerating their attraction toward others. I didn’t understand how you could have a crush on someone you have never met. I didn’t understand how people could just look at someone and find them sexually attractive. It didn’t make sense to me and it still doesn’t. I wasn’t sex-repulsed, I just didn’t understand how people experienced sexual attraction in a way that I could never imagine. I could acknowledge a person’s physical attractiveness but I wouldn’t feel a sexual pull toward them. I didn’t understand what it felt like to have a “type”. I couldn’t comprehend what it felt like to see someone and think they were sexy. I didn’t understand being sexually attracted to celebrities and public figures whom I didn’t know.
I was 19 years old when I realized I was asexual. Before that, I struggled to figure out where I was on the spectrum. I didn’t feel straight but I felt straight at the same time. I didn’t feel homosexual but I didn’t feel bisexual either. I even called myself a pansexual at one point. I always thought all asexual people were sex averse so I couldn’t be asexual because I actually enjoyed sex and had a high libido. I felt attracted to people, I had relationships and I was satisfied in those relationships.
It took me years to realize that the attraction I felt toward my partners was not sexual at all. I would imagine my life with these people and envision us living happily ever after, starting a family, going on trips, making memories or enjoying life together but I had never in my life thought of anyone of any gender in a sexual way. That was when I discovered romantic orientations were a thing. As a cisgender asexual-heteroromantic, I struggled to find my place. I was romantically attracted to people of the opposite gender, so did that make me straight? But I didn’t experience sexual attraction at all which made me asexual. So, did that mean I was a member of the LGBTQIA community? If someone on the street were to ask me if I like people of the opposite gender, my answer would simply be “yes” without any further explanation. If they were to ask me if I liked people of the same gender, the answer would be “no.” So where did I fit?
As far as the wider community was concerned, I was attracted to people of the opposite gender, so I was straight. Only people very close to me would know the full details of my romantic and sexual orientation. Any relationship I would be in would be with someone of the opposite gender. Belizean laws wouldn’t stop me from marrying the person I loved, I wasn’t at risk of street harassment if I would hold my partner’s hand in public. I didn’t have to “come out” to my family as an asexual. I had no idea what it felt like to be a victim of systematic oppression and to be marginalized for who I loved or for my gender identity. I felt I was too privileged to claim a community that had gone through all of this and was still fighting for their fundamental human rights.
To this day, I still don’t know which box I should fit in and I think that’s perfectly fine. I realized after so many years, that sexuality is fluid and exists on a huge spectrum and asexuality is not excluded from this. Human attraction is complex and sometimes confusing but that’s what makes us unique.
It took me years to realize that the attraction I felt toward my partners was not sexual at all. I would imagine my life with these people and envision us living happily ever after, starting a family, going on trips, making memories or enjoying life together but I had never in my life thought of anyone of any gender in a sexual way. That was when I discovered romantic orientations were a thing. As a cisgender asexual-heteroromantic, I struggled to find my place. I was romantically attracted to people of the opposite gender, so did that make me straight? But I didn’t experience sexual attraction at all which made me asexual. So, did that mean I was a member of the LGBTQIA community? If someone on the street were to ask me if I like people of the opposite gender, my answer would simply be “yes” without any further explanation. If they were to ask me if I liked people of the same gender, the answer would be “no.” So where did I fit?
As far as the wider community was concerned, I was attracted to people of the opposite gender, so I was straight. Only people very close to me would know the full details of my romantic and sexual orientation. Any relationship I would be in would be with someone of the opposite gender. Belizean laws wouldn’t stop me from marrying the person I loved, I wasn’t at risk of street harassment if I would hold my partner’s hand in public. I didn’t have to “come out” to my family as an asexual. I had no idea what it felt like to be a victim of systematic oppression and to be marginalized for who I loved or for my gender identity. I felt I was too privileged to claim a community that had gone through all of this and was still fighting for their fundamental human rights.
To this day, I still don’t know which box I should fit in and I think that’s perfectly fine. I realized after so many years, that sexuality is fluid and exists on a huge spectrum and asexuality is not excluded from this. Human attraction is complex and sometimes confusing but that’s what makes us unique.