Hi everyone, I posted on here a couple of months ago and am so very confused. I have always identified as a heterosexual female although I'm now in my late twenties and have only ever had one proper relationship. It wasn't a great experience and I've never particularly been attracted to males since. I always like the "idea" of a relationship; I want to have children, a family etc but when it comes to it, the idea of intimacy (physically and emotionally) makes me feel sick. I've considered whether I could be a lesbian (what my previous posts were about) - I prefer women generally, not necessarily in a sexual way and for a brief while it made sense to me. However, I don't feel particularly attracted to women anymore than I do men. I find the human body a bit gross really and I don't find myself physically attracted to anyone. Equally, emotional closeness makes me feel uncomfortable. Yet I do WANT a relationship - I want a family. I have considered whether I could be asexual and it is perhaps something I don't know enough about. That doesn't make sense to me though because I do feel aroused sometimes and do masturbate (I don't want to be too crude, i'm so sorry) but it's not linked to any particular thoughts or gender. I could have sexual thoughts (which I wouldn't if I was asexual?) whilst masturbating or I could think about the shopping - makes no difference to how I feel Sometimes the thought of that kind of physical intimacy with someone else is something I think I would enjoy but other times it disgusts me. I don't necessarily need a label for myself, I am just struggling to understand myself. I know I want some kind of relationship but I don't know with who or how I explain this to anyone else when I don't even understand my own feelings. I do have another related but separate dilemma but I will put it into a different post as not to make this too long. Thank you for your help.
I kinda can ressonate with that. What do you dislike of emotional closeness, like the feeling of vulnerability?, do you get a sense of shame or something like that, or maybe like someone is stepping on your boundaries and invading your privacy. How do you react to it?, you react angrily pushing people away, leaving and beeing by yourself, like closing you up, rationalizing, distracting yourself from it.
As an asexual, I've done a lot of research on this. Having sexual thoughts or masturbating doesn't mean that you're not asexual. Asexuality is just a lack of attraction. And it's entirely possible that you could be grey-asexual(rarely feeling attraction) or demisexual(only feeling attraction to someone that you have an emotional bond with). Also try to keep in mind that sexuality and romanticism are not the same thing. You could be asexual and pan-romantic, or bisexual and aromantic, or anything in the middle. If you are looking for more information regarding asexuality, I highly recommend looking at asexuality.org. It is a forum website with lots of good information and you can ask all the questions you have.
I'm asexual and I can see where you're coming from. Masturbation and sexual thoughts don't make you not ace. I have sexual thoughts at times but I'm still asexual. You might be demisexual or grey-sexual. I can't label you because you are you and I am me. But I do feel some of what you're feeling. The answer is: You gotta figure it out for yourself.
