Asexuality in general

I was thinking that would be the logical route as she would simply reciprocate in a way that he would understand as showing return interest. But, I don't know how to explain that to the audience quickly, so its possible another route would make more sense. Or maybe just not explaining it in that scene and waiting until another one...

I suppose... Hmmm... I guess I'll explain who these characters are and maybe an idea will come.

So, in the backstory of my book, three people went off on a quest to defeat the evil magic army on the horizon, yada yada yada, its your basic fantasy premise. The leader of this trio falls for the female mage in the group (the asexual) and it follows the typical fantasy story path. The trio wins and the leader of the trio is offered the crown.

Well, Kinghood just sort of dives him mad because he keeps shaping the land's values to his own rather bigoted ones and he also isn't from this world and desperately trying to get home which sort of drives him insane and evil... if the bigotedness didn't already mean he was evil. Anyway, he becomes the antagonist.

Cut to the main-present story of the book, said female mage has been trapped in our antagonist's castle for ages (though, to be clear, this is a Badass in distress, not damsel) where she is freed in a rescue operation by our protagonist. She joins the protagonists' journey to overthrow our antagonist and her character arc is about healing from love that has hurt you to be open to the love in front of you, where she ends up falling for another character in the group and I think I've got a good romance to build with them.

But, its the romance with the antagonist/stuff that happened in the past part I find the issues coming with. Though... Its possible I'm mis-targeting the issue as how to write an asexual romance. Hmmmmmm...

And, I too have had the issue of buy gifts for friends coming across wrong. It doesn't help that I'm openly pansexual and a very flirty individual, which leads many to wrongly believe I'll have sex with anyone I'm talking to.

edited 2nd Jun '14 5:31:27 PM by lancesolous13

I'm a critical person but I'm a nice guy when you get to know me. Now, I should be writing.

"I think asexual people can have a purely asthetic appreciation for people's looks. I'm not sure about 'warm and fuzzy feelings', but they can notice when a person looks attractive."

As an ace person, I can say that this is me. There are people I find attractive, but I'm not attracted to them, if that makes any sense at all: I can find a person nice to look at without having any actual sexual thoughts about them. I went for much of my life not knowing the term 'asexual', but once I heard it, I found it described me completely. While I've had sex, I didn't enjoy it, and I never had any desire to do it in the first place — I was married, and my husband was a sexual person, and he wound up resenting the fact that I wasn't "into it" myself.

Why did I get married? Back before my ex hit a mid-life crisis and turned into a major jerk, I loved who he was as a person. It's not something I think I could explain to a sexual person, since from everything I've gathered, sexual people don't (or can't) separate the idea of love and sex. We had a very close emotional bond, and I did enjoy cuddling, but I never had any sexual desire for him or anyone else.

Naturally (and I'm sure this is common in relationships between sexual people and aces), this became a problem. Though I was honest with him from the start about the fact that I have no sex drive, and he initially thought it was no big deal, he began to take it personally. He then refused to shut the fuck up about it, and only wanted to spend time with me if I'd be willing to have sex with him later. As a result, what was once an indifference to sex became outright revulsion for me. His complete personality 180 in all areas of our life has turned me off any sort of romantic relationship, either, but I know plenty of sexual people who have had that reaction after a bad relationship. (I was not the only person he turned into a complete douche to, either: he drove off most of his friends and even some of his family members with the way he began acting. He just decided to blame it all on me, and the fact that I had no physical interest in him.)

I don't find being asexual particularly difficult. No, I don't understand most of the world's fixation on (and occasionally obsession with) sex, but it doesn't bother me unless someone badgers me about my own disinterest. That doesn't happen often, especially since most of my (female) friends who have been in long-term relationships have got apathetic about it themselves. One of them said she goes over her grocery list in her head when she and her boyfriend have sex. While the media often makes sex out to be the be-all, end-all, a lot of the sexual people I've talked to find it boring after a while. In some ways, being ace makes me feel like I've dodged a bullet, because watching the relationship drama my sexual friends have gone through makes me think it wouldn't be worth it anyway.

Most sexual people can feel the same. I'm heterosexual, that doesn't mean I cannot recognize an attractive man when I see one. I'm just not sexually interested. And there are also women who I find attractive but not in a sexual way, because they're simply not my type. It's like seeing a beautiful animal. It's clearly beatiful but that doesn't mean I want to have sex with it.

They can and do have sex without love. There's also a billion dollar business for it.

Which is fueled by people going over grocery lists while having sex (more generally, by the difference in sex drive between people). It is possible to separate sex and love, but sexual people need sex and are going to look for some eventually (it is a biological drive just like eating and breathing). It is possible to separate love and sex, but Western culture tells us it's wrong.

Question, if I may, how do you guys know you are asexual and not just late bloomers?

lol

lol

I don't

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Riveting.
lol
Thanks for the answer.

lol

I'd say I don't know for sure either, but at which age (approximately, of course) can you rule out the possibility of being a late bloomer?

I don't think anyone really know for sure on that, but I can say personally that I doubt I'm a late bloomer. I knew I was asexual when I was really little (like 7 or 8), years before I'd even heard the term asexual and when I did discover term (at about 14 I think), I was like, "yeah that's me".

even when I started getting into the idea of a romantic relationship being something I wanted (around when I was 18), I found anyone sexually attractive and still found, and still find, sexual related stuff personally disgusting. Again though that's just me. each person tends to find this stuff out differently.

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

Coming up to 39, I'd have to be a really late bloomer. (I may well hit the menopause before I ever get truly sexually attracted to anybody, at this rate.)

Welcome to the wonderful world of people are different from each other... at different times of their lives, even. <shrugs>

Differing or changing libidos and needs can kill relationships even at the best of times, particularly if people don't work at it and/or find other means of personal sexual expression. <_< It's not just an ace thing. Suddenly turning hypersexual can also be an issue (and, often, even be a symptom of something).

Lack of sexual interest may also be symptomatic of something... if you've changed gear suddenly, that is. If it's your default to be uninterested, it's unlikely to be e.g. due to depression. Or "late blooming" — whatever that is supposed to be.

7-8, that's like... really early. How did you know? Not questioning it, just wondering how you "felt", if you understand what I mean.

When you don't really care about the whole boy/girl split even as a young child is a good hint you're on the road (and finding the whole thing just generally silly). Little things can stack up even before the hormones start up. <shrugs>

Particularly when you don't wind up with the compulsion to talk (or even think) about the opposite sex at random intervals for hours per day. Even though you might have to do that to try fitting in. -_- If you're lucky, it doesn't come off as forced.

True fact: I, for one, didn't crush on boy bands. And, the few actors I liked... were usually for the acting (although, I often had to pretend to have crushes just to shut other people up about the whole thing). I learned not to bubble about female actors I liked for the same "wow: she really pulled that off!" reasons as the blokes: getting called a lesbo for just liking talent is annoying.

edited 8th Aug '14 12:32:41 PM by Euodiachloris

Well yes, I can relate to these things as well, I just didn't think of myself as a sexual being at the age of seven, sex was like "stuff grown-ups do when they are naked and it makes babies" when talking about it. Not that we did that a lot, but... Anyway, I noted that I didn't think of other boys (or girls for that matter) as pretty or felt interested in them, and wasn't typically girlish or boyish, I just didn't think of it as a sexual matter until later. Do I make any sense?

As for being "sure", I'm quite certain I'm asexual. I'm 24; I've never felt sexual drive, arousal, interest, whatever. I've had sex and found it uncomfortable, kind of disgusting. When younger I thought of it as late blooming, but mostly because I didn't know there was something like asexuality rather than some actual feeling that it would come.

edited 8th Aug '14 12:25:53 PM by Elva

well it wasn't really a sexual matter for me either. I'm able to roughly pinpoint and age because of a fairly concrete memory when I was about that age (which, if you know me, is rather impressive as I have a hilariously bad memory, especially when it comes to my childhood). I can pinpoint it because when this memory happened I also recall getting Pokémon Red (and about a month later Pokémon Gold) for my new Gameboy color at about the same time, so when I was 7 of 8.

the memory itself had to do with my dad asking me something about girls, of whom at the time I was completely disinterested in, and I told him as much (in kid talk of course but you know ) and his response was basically that I will eventually be interested in them. I remember that as one of those times someone talked as though they knew me better than I knew me, and those always stung and I kept it with me.

of course that's Hilarious in Hindsight now as while I am interested in romance I'm still not all that interested in girls (I am either a Homo-romantic or maybe Bi-romantic I'm still not sure there)

but again, for the strictly sexual matters, I never really thought of that stuff. I didn't even really figure out what that was until high school and that was over long period of slow disinterested discovery that I actively tried not to make.

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

Good job avoiding it for so long! How old are you now?

currently I am 20

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

How does one know that one is straight or gay instead of bisexual? It's always possible, but for me, it's a matter of feeling comfortable with the identity. Asexuality covers a spectrum - it is a label which I find convenient to describe who I am. There are always questions, since few people are purely asexual, but I feel that I've been different for a long time. Even as a late teen, I didn't realise I was different: it was like sex didn't really exist as a concept for me, and I was very surprised whenever I realised it existed for other people. Then I found out about asexuality at around 15-16 and thought "Huh, that sounds exactly like me".

I find it difficult to appreciate the aesthetics of physical appearance (i.e., I can't really recognise "this person is beautiful", I find recognising people difficult because I just don't notice physical appearance), let alone experience attraction; the concept of having intercourse I find mildly revolting to physically sickening and I wouldn't be able to tell you if I find men or women more attractive. These aspects seem unlikely to change, even if I were to suddenly develop a drive.

I'm really fortunate to have an ace as a partner, which has cleared things up for me - I love him dearly, but I do not feel the need to kiss or go further than that, so it seems unlikely I am a late bloomer. We appreciate being close to each other, with the security that the other person doesn't want anything else.

edited 17th Aug '14 11:12:09 PM by Yuanchosaan

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

I'm 21, and thought I was broken for years. finally learned about asexuality through a book I read in high school— a ya fantasy with an ace protagonist— and it all made sense. That said, I am still interested in the romance side of things, and recently got engaged.

Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writers

In response to something somewhere else online, I came up with a T-shirt idea:

Asexuals: We don't care what you do in the bedroom, as long as it's not to us.

In which I attempt to be a writer.

Hmmm: "Asexuals: we don't care what you do in the bedroom, as long as you don't bring us into it."

HAPPY ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK!

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

It is? OK... (seriously: is there a week for everything these days?)

There is a flag and everything. Apparently the color for asexuality is purple, but the flag is grey, white, purple and black: Here◊

There are even fluid flags.◊

But seriously, how fluid is asexuality? That just seems contradictory.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Today's also "Disgruntled employees day", so I'm going to go with yes, virtually everything has a day/week. All the good months are taken though

edited 27th Oct '14 1:38:00 PM by joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack

Not really, there's heteromantic asexuals, homoromantic asexuals, biromantic asexuals, and panromantic asexuals as the flags show, not to mention there's the whole asexuality spectrum.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.