Hey, After more than three years of changing my sexuality-label (bisexual to biromantic asexual to panromantic asexual and then smaller changes of romantic orientation again) I think I might had a completely wrong view on the whole thing. [Attention: The next sentences mention the reason for the trigger warning] When I was a child I got sexually abused at least two times by other children (11-13 years), a girl and a boy. I am diagnosed with PTSD even if I'd call myself mentally stable. In my younger teens my lost memories of those events came back and affected my life negatively but when I had my first relationship at the age of 15-16 I already coped pretty well again. But when it came to sex I wasn't interested at all and even felt repulsed by it. not because she was a girl but because of the action itself. After our relationship ended (mostly because of me being anti-physical-closeness) a weird friendship+ with another friend of mine (female) started because I was too dumb to say anything and thought I would be able to just play that game even if I still didn't like sex at all. Spoiler: I should have said something. I started having flashbacks and panic attacks. So... I'm wondering: I had sex multiple times and I think there where a few seconds when I enjoyed it (because hell I got a all-functioning human body even if I don't like that fact and all) but also I'm strongly sex-repulsed. I can make myself through a few times but I don't feel good at all (the few mentioned moments excluded) in the best cases I'm just bored and have to fight against the urge of falling asleep randomly and in the worst I'm overwhelmed from panic and disgust which gets pretty obvious to my partner. Is this truly what asexuality means? Like I heard from some asexuals who hate sex too but also I read a lot about how asexuals aren't broken and stuff. I won't consider myself as broken but I think my trauma may got an heavier effect than I first thought. Asexuality isn't the result of some negative event, cause this would make it a PTSD-symptom, not a sexual orientation. To get it straight (bad pun I'm sorry): Am I asexual? Or am I a traumatized allosexual? yrs. Bug Boy
A lot of people with PTSD are disgusted by sex, whether they are asexual or not. It's a common problem. I would suggest talking to a therapist if you haven't already. Because as long as these wounds are there, you aren't going to know what your identity is outside of the trauma.
I'm already in therapy since about five years. Every of my three therapists tell me that I appear pretty mentally strong and am able to distant myself from my trauma so that it doesn't seem to affect my every day life. Anyways I'll try to talk to my therapist about the topic again and may try to find out if there's more I have to work out. Thanks a lot for your answer!
Hi, I hope you don't mind if I reply. I was also sexually molested as a child and raped as an adult and actually had a very similar response to sex. That being said, I've talked with friends of mine who are asexual and one positive thing is they're very welcoming to individuals no matter their experiences or people who realize they may be demisexual or another orientation. I cannot speak for you and your experiences, but I do know I've also been utterly repulsed by sex, including bored (some of that was my partner at the time!). A lot changed as I grew in my healing process. I know for me personally it really depends on my partner. I've had really great sex with partners who are attentive and allow me to be attentive. For example, I can't have one-night stands. I 100% support my friends who can, but I know I can't. I would definitely talk with a therapist who specializes in sex and sexuality if you haven't already. I'm not sure if that helps, but I hope it does! I can also ask a friend for some book suggestions, which helped me when I was really in the thick of recovering from PTSD. Good luck!
If we're talking about the widely accepted definition of asexuality, it's a hardwired and unchangeable orientation in the same way that hetero and homsexuality is. What you are describing is a learned pattern (actually, a very common one) arising from childhood sexual abuse. What's interesting is that it can swing both ways... some abuse survivors become extremely promiscuous, as they learn that their bodies are the only way to get people to like them, while others, like you, have severe discomfort and trauma surrounding sex, and get a lot of confusion and often shame as a result of feeling the pleasure that our bodies are hardwired to experience during sex. So the good news is, with good therapy, with a therapist specifically trained and skilled in sexual abuse treatment, it is entirely possible to move past the difficulties and fears about sex and have a completely happy and healthy sex life. Someone who is an asexual in the widely used sense of the word simply won't ever enjoy sex because they aren't wired that way. Demisexuality is actually simply a normal part of the ordinary spectrum of human sexuality. Whether you are gay or straight or bi, there are a very large number of people who simply don't connect or get excited by someone until they get to know them. Use the label if you want, but it actually describes probably a third or half of the population who simply see it as a normal variation.
@signmypapyrus No not at all! I opened this thread to get helpful replies and that was what you wrote! Thanks a lot I experienced welcoming but also heated arguments with asexuals when it came to my orientation. Don’t get me wrong I’m mostly totally on their side when a new member comes up with stuff like “asexual after depression?” that’s got nothing to do with asexuality, that’s a symptom. I don’t wanna give myself an asexual label to (subconsciously) slow down my healing process. (I don’t “miss sex” or want to know what “good sex” means or anything but if I’m truly still fighting with my trauma it’d be better to accept that I might shall feel different about it, even if I can’t look at it as “positive” at all. *talks weirdly*) As I’ll also say when it comes to my reply on Chips post: Demisexual is 100% not my thing/label/sexuality. I had/have no emotional connection to the two persons I had sex with so far (yes one was my girlfriend but I never loved her I was in a relationship with her because she asked and I just didn’t see what’d be the problem with playing a role to make her happy + the other friend isn’t emotionally close to me either, we talk about a few things and stuff but she’s far from being special to me) and also I don’t think the partner really matters. I might be a little more “afraid” of guys (even if I think I have homoromantic tendencies) but in the end the whole thing is the problem, not the person. Finding a therapist like that won’t be possible in the near future. I’m already in “normal” therapy (where I will try to talk about my problems anyways) and will start seeing a gender therapist (hopefully) soon. But I would like to read some of the books you mentioned, may they’ll help me too @Chip That’s exactly the thing. You can’t randomly develop a sexual orientation because of a mental disorder (if it’d work like that sexualities would be part of disorders themselves and we’d get thrown back in the past were they tried to “heal” non-heterosexuals). Yes, I think that are the two main ways it goes with traumatized people + sex. For myself I experience the weird thought that I, even if I don’t like it at all, don’t get “hurt” and therefore don’t have a reason to refuse having sex with people who like that thing because like... I’m just “not allowed to”. Even if I already found out that I definitely get hurt (mentally) something inside tells me that it shouldn’t bother me because it’s me who behaves awkward and therefore noone has to take care for me (thankfully my friendship+ does, when she saw that something wasn’t okay she immediately stopped and just hold me in her arms till I calmed down/fell asleep). Like I tried to say: I’m not feeling like I miss anything. The thought of having a sex life, even if it’d be healthy and perfect, disgusts me. I feel a little caught in the middle because I was pretty young when the abuse happened, so I didn’t had any relationship to sex before but also I don’t feel like it affects me “that much”. Also the definition of “enjoying sex” does this mean enjoying the whole act with the person you’re doing it and so on or is it just the physical aspect/the orgasm? As mentioned above I’m not demisexual. As far as I know demisexuality has something to do with having a pretty close emotional bond to the person you have sex with and that doesn’t describe me at all. Thanks for your detailed reply too
I also have PTSD, and struggle with trying to figure out whether what I feel is my natural orientation, or whether it's a reflection of my trauma. I still have no concrete answer to this. But here's what has helped me a little bit: I have stopped treated the two as different. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if my feelings are "natural" or an outgrowth of experiences. Right now, they are my feelings. And after a lifetime of trauma, it's important to re-learn how to just respect your own feelings. I also take some time to grieve for the probable loss of my natural self, as I have accepted that I may never be able to recover it. I may have no choice but to just continue working with what my experience has made me. I don't know what I should have been, but I have to learn to let go of that.
