Ace and/or no sexual feelings whatsoever.

[Heteroacemaybe]

Hi, I’m a cis woman in my mid 20s and I’ve never experienced sexual desire so I’m pretty sure I’m ace. I also still experience romantic and aesthetic attraction so I’ve been using the label Hetero/allo romantic-Ace.

The thing is I’ve never been in a serious relationship until recently (he’s very understanding and completely comfortable with me being ace, I’m pretty sure he’s ace-spec too just less bothered with the labels), and I’ve noticed I still don’t experience sexual pleasure or any sort of signals to do with arousal. I enjoy some parts like kissing and gentle touching and don’t mind others (I range from sex-averse to sex repulsed and I wouldn’t engage with my partner in sex until we eventually try for children which we both definitely want at some point) but I don’t experience any real reaction to it, or don’t notice it in the moment. I also don’t experience any sort of reaction like being turned on so any attempts to try out masturbation have been lacklustre at best.

I’m just wondering if this is all part of my asexuality or if there might be a link to something external/biological/hormonal.

I’ve never experienced sexual trauma, though my parents are not the most healthy example of a romantic relationship. And while I’ve always loved romance in movies and the idea of it in real life, it feels like I never aged out of the ideas of a relationship I wanted at 14, even though I’ve mentally matured beyond that and know how a healthy relationship might look now. (For the longest time I thought I was just sheltered and innocent, but while I still struggle with talking about these things, I know now that not feeling desire is different from not wanting to talk or hear about sex).

If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it. Thanks.

[Heather]

Hey there, Heteroacemaybe. Welcome to the boards.

So, I'd say the idea that if someone isn't sexually responsive to a certain partner, or in general, something must be wrong is very much based on allosexual norms and on longstanding ideas about sex that are mostly based in heteronormativity. By all means, a lot of what you are describing could all be just because you are a person on the asexual spectrum.

I'd also add, though, that how we do (or don't) respond sexually to one person isn't ever going to be a good indication of how we will or do potentially feel with the whole rest of the world, so I'd not get too caught up in making broader generalizations about your feelings based on your experiences with just this one partner. Sure, maybe this is how you'll feel with everyone, and if that was the case, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that, but it also may not be. How you are with this one person is probably mostly about you and this one person.

I also want to add that sex isn't only the things people do that can make babies. Sex can be a ginormous range of things, basically anything and everything a person can do to express or explore sexual feelings. That absolutely can and often does include things like kissing, though of course, people also can choose to kiss from a different place of motivation, such as to express platonic affection. For more on that, you can check this piece out: What's Sex?

Can you say some about if the way you feel (or again, rather, don't feel) is troubling you, or if you're looking for what might have been involved at you being the way you are more out of curiosity? Also, can you say more about your concerns about what you are looking for in a relationship? You say it hasn't changed since you were 14, and it sounds like that feels problematic to you. What are some of the beliefs you're still holding, or wants, that feel wrong to you or have you concerned?

[Heteroacemaybe]

Thank you for responding.

It’s more out of a place of curiosity and trying to understand myself better. I’m not really seeing it as problematic as such, more so just that I was expecting the desire and everything else to hit me eventually and when it never did I wondered why that was. In retrospect, understanding I’m ace made a lot of that make more sense, but I was curious if anyone else especially ace people experienced the same things regarding not experiencing pleasure in that way or if it’s something separate.

I’m actually quite a physically affectionate person, I’m a big hugger even with friends, and cuddling with my boyfriend is one of my favourite things, but even though I like kissing sometimes, that’s never had any real response in me either. I’m more wondering if that’s something that other people have experienced in positive relationships and how they might have navigated that. Or if you think it could be something else influencing it. (If other people had similar experiences that would reassure me a bit or if something was influencing it like hormones etc. I’d want to understand why in case it was impacting me in another way eg. fertility since that’s quite important to me in the long term).

I don’t actually care about penetrative sex outside of eventually having kids, and anything surrounding or to do with genetalia isn’t really something I’d have any desire to do. But I would like to understand why I don’t want that and why I have no physical reaction to certain touches or kisses, or even heavy making out. Partially out of curiosity and partially because if something is ‘wrong’ or at least different about me physically and blocking potentially positive feelings/sensations, I’d want to know.

It won’t alter my sexuality but it might alter my enjoyment of sexual acts should I choose to engage in them.

[Heather]

You know, this might be semantics to you (and if so, feel free to just walk on by!), but in case it isn't, I don't personally use the term penetration/penetrative sex. It came into vogue fairly recently, but it's such an inaccurate depiction of actually wanted actually consensual sex where people are interlocking their genitals, and an unfortunately excellent depiction of sexual assault. It also suggests orifices are passive when all of them are actually very involved muscular tubes that are in no way passive when the person whose body parts those are are into what they're doing. Part of why I put that out there is that when you think about it with this framework, it's actually pretty easy to not want it or find it repulsive. Again, by all means, it is normal to not want to do that just like it's normal to want to, so if you don't, you don't, but if you're thinking about all of this it might be fruitful to think about how much frameworks of sex influence our feeling about it or even what we conceptualize as sex at all, you know?

(It's also worth mentioning that if it remains something you don't have interest in doing but want to have kids, you don't have to have intercourse in order to have kids, anyway.)

I think that how we best determine if stuff like this is about something being wrong is often if it *feels* wrong. In other words, plugging into our intuition and our own sense of self to sort out how it actually feels. If it doesn't feel wrong, then it's usually pretty likely that's because nothing actually is or went wrong. On the other hand, if it feels wrong, while that can be for other reasons -- like us having been taught to believe we should feel wrong -- it can sometimes be a clue that something is a way that it is, in whole or in part, because of a difference (like a difference in neurochemistry, like by virtue of depression or something like Parkinson's), because of something based in trauma or fear, or just because we actually want something different but that's being obscured from us in some way. If, for any reason, you do ever want to look into those kinds of possibilities, for any reason, I'd say that's something a therapist who is ace themselves or at least well-versed in all things ace could probably help you with. I would very much make sure that ace-understanding is a given for that therapist though: otherwise you might wind up with some bad/ignorant/archaic approaches.

I'm glad that this is mostly about curiosity and that you're generally feeling comfortable with who you are and how things have been in this respect so far. That's not always easy to come by when there's something that feels pretty different about yourself than for a lot of other folks. <3

Also, have you read Angela Chen's "Ace"? If not, I think it might answer some of these questions. Additionally, you posted this in the area of the boards for only staff responses, but if you'd like, I could move it to an area where other users can answer if you want this open to hearing from other fellow asexual folks (a couple of our staff are ace, but if we move the thread, other ace users could also potentially pitch in). If you'd like me to do that, just let me know!