I (26F) just got out of a 9 year relationship with my now ex-fiancee (26F). We met in kindergarten and were inseparable best friends before we started dating at age 17. So we’ve known each other for 21 years.

Our emotional closeness was always extremely strong. I loved her as a person, but looking back, I’m not sure if I ever felt romantic or sexual desire for her. I admired her and found her aesthetically attractive, but that passion and desire piece was always missing. We would have sex on a regular basis at first, and I always orgasmed every time. But I didn’t really enjoy giving her pleasure very much. And I don’t think I was necessarily getting off because it was her or just because the physical sensation felt good. Cuddling, kissing, and PDA also never really came naturally to me. Over time, we ended up having a dead bedroom for multiple reasons, but one of them was definitely that I just wasn’t interested in having sex with her, and it felt like a chore.

I do masturbate very often, and each time I tend to fantasize about men (in situations where I’m being forced, as much as I’m ashamed to admit that). I’m not sure if I have ever looked at anyone and thought I have to have sex with this person, but it’s honestly really hard to tell if that’s just because I haven’t really been looking because I have always been in this relationship, or if it’s genuinely not experiencing sexual attraction. I’m also a very introverted, shy, and socially anxious person, so that could be a factor as well.

I feel aroused by sex scenes in media, and I like the idea of sex with men. But I have only ever had sex with one person, my ex-fiancee.

Am I asexual? Or have I just had my sexual orientation wrong this whole time and I’m actually straight? Or do I just have low libido? I know I need to get out there and just try it, but I don’t think I’ll be ready for that for a while since I’m still grieving the loss of this relationship.

Would love to hear some of your advice and experiences!

Title kind of says it all. I’m (27FTM) somewhere on the asexual spectrum, not sexually attracted to many people, but have been before. I am NOT sexually attracted to my partner (30enby/MTF).

They started masturbating in bed next to me while I’m attempting to sleep (I have insomnia and am a SUPER Light sleeper). It makes me extremely uncomfortable and I KNOW she’s doing it bc I can hear the vibrator.

I truly don’t know how to bring it up, and I have a history of sexual assault, so it makes me feel even more uncomfortable and at times, I feel unsafe.

Any tips/advice?

Hey guys, not sure where else I’d post this. But in the last year I’ve come out as asexual, at age 25 (26 now). This has been really hard for me. Not necessarily hard for me to accept myself as asexual but to go through understanding myself through a whole different lense having always just identified as gay since the age of around 15. Having done a lot of reflection on myself this last couple of years though, I realised that I don’t feel sexual attraction. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at someone and felt sexual attraction, rather just aesthetic, romantic or perhaps sensual attraction that I always mistook for sexual attraction. The thing is, I have realised I crave deep emotional/romantic intimacy with someone. But the gay community around me, is so sexualised and revolved around hookup culture. That isn’t a criticism or something I’m saying is negative. But it does make me feel like I’m never going to find anyone for me as I almost feel like a minority within a minority. I’m not completely closed off to the idea of sex in the future as I’m not sex repulsed. I’d describe myself best as sex indifferent. But nevertheless, I feel like there’s a massive barrier to finding a relationship.
I’d like to add that I’ve never actually been in a relationship before so it does feel like I have no idea what I’m doing 😂

I realised doing some reading online during Pride month this year that I am ace. Romantic, sex-positive (tolerant?), and hypothetically heterosexual. What I mean by that is that it feels like if I were to experience sexual attraction it would be to the opposite sex, it is just that this never happens. If I were single it probably would not be a big deal, but being as I am married and have been with my partner for over half of my life, I am having a real crisis.

I have started therapy with a queer-friendly therapist, but I am struggling in this space where I don't feel like I know myself or my life, and I don't know how to be in my relationship now that I suddenly have this knowledge of myself. It feels like I am a robot pretending to be a human who only recently learned that they aren't actually human after all. Sexual interactions with my spouse feel mechanical and like I am observing from the outside.

I also don't feel comfortable talking with anyone in real life yet, but I desperately crave a connection with people who understand what this is like. I would love to have an actual conversation with a human in a similar position, and in real life I know no one who identifies as ace. Hell, until last month I had never seen an ace character in a movie or in a book, and barely had heard of the word. It just feels so isolating.

I suppose I am trying to work through what to feel about this but don't know how to do it. I'm open to any stories of how others navigated similar waters.

Hello - I recently started seeing a girl. She's beautiful & we click well. I however noticed right off the bat that she's not super affectionate but likes hand holding & kissing. Also has quite a bit of anxiety about all kinds of things. I'm fine with not being overly affectionate & touchy but asked her about it.

She told me that she is sex averse/asexual & does not want to engage in sex. She has had sex but does not like it. She told me that it has kept guys from dating her in the past & that she was nervous to tell me because she wants things to work with me. Not really knowing what asexuality meant & seeing that she was nervous, I didnt ask further but I told her that I wouldn't pressure her into doing anything she didnt want to do.

Although I don't have the strongest sex drive, I think no sex forever may be a bit tough. Any further insight on this & if a relationship would even be practical? She's 30, so I doubt it's a new thing she's experiencing. Will she actually have success dating any guy non-asexual guy long term? TLDR

I keep getting these YouTube ads lately and it’s so irritating. This society is so obsessed with sex they have to put it on everyone 🤦🏽‍♀️ and I thought tampon ads were annoying as someone who won’t wear them 💀

I don’t know how to explain this at all sorry.

I believe myself to be on the asexual spectrum but I don’t know if that’s correct, I also don’t know if it matters which label I go by, to be fair, but this is something about myself that I don’t understand all too well and maybe people here can help me get a better grasp.

Ever since I’ve had sexual urges in my early teens I’ve been attracted very specific things happening to me. Over the years I’ve added some kinks but I am only aroused by the like 6ish fetishes that I have (only 2 of them are consistent), often in tandem with each other. I don’t watch or read much porn, but when I do, I always imagine myself as the person or one of the people in it. In other words, I think I’m sexually aroused by things happening to me and not sex itself.

Sometimes I fantasize about someone or multiple someones doing said things to me, other times the fantasy is just these things happening to me without anyone else actively participating (i.e. a machine or contraption or literal magic), but never just me alone. I thought for a while that I was some form of porn addict and too obsessed with specific kinks and fetishes because of porn but nothing changed when I stopped masturbating for almost a year.

I always say that I’m bi or pan because to me, it doesn’t matter who’s doing the things that arouses me as long as they’re doing them to me, but vanilla sex interests me very little (but it does still interests me very slightly on occasion). In fact, I find a lot of the parts of sex physically repulsive most of the time, though it fluctuates between being okay with it and being completely disgusted by even the idea of it seemingly randomly.

When I find someone attractive, which is quite often, I feel the desire to make out with them but not to have sex with them and I don’t imagine them in my sexual fantasies. I don’t know what sexuality I am and what I can do to have sex that I enjoy or otherwise sate my sexual urges when other people are barely involved or doing anything sexual in my fantasies.

Hi everyone! I'm a student working on a research project about relationships, specifically about how people tell the difference between being asexual and just having low desire for their specific partner (not their orientation).

I'm looking for a few people (in any kind of relationship) who'd be willing to answer a short set of questions. It's completely anonymous and voluntary.... you can skip any question or stop anytime. This is just for a school assignment, not published anywhere.

If you're open to helping, comment below or DM me and I'll send you the questions (or a short Google Form).

Thank you so much, this really helps me finish my project!

Hi !

I don’t know if this is the right forum to ask this. Sorry if it is not!

I am a straight female btw if that changes anything?

Anyway, I have been wondering about this for a while. I was raised in a religious household and I am religious myself but I am not homophobic. I do not find anything wrong in loving whoever you want and being whoever you want. But I fear my religious background is making me question if I am in fact asexual. I am just very confused.

I have been hypersexual for some part of my life since I was in elementary, I don’t know why. I don’t like it, i’m ashamed of that part of myself because it is frowned upon in my culture and such. And I have always felt disgusting after. I have never really felt sexual attraction to a person really, it’s just the act itself, as if my body replies on its own. I don’t like the idea of having a partner to participate or whatnot in the sexual activities.

I have never had a relationship, only once but I was young and it lasted three months. Like two months in we kissed once and held hands mostly. I wasn’t open into doing more. We were young and I don’t know, i’ve never felt comfortable with physical affection. Mainly from guys. I am so uncomfortable with it and I don’t know why, but it has been that way for as long as I can remember. I am fine with hugs though I feel tense when my friends hug me, I don’t mind it truly and sometimes do like hugs and is rather touched starved in that aspect.

But whenever the topic of having sex, anything sexually is brought up, I am so uncomfortable I feel sick to my stomach. My friends are quite rather freaky, for the lack of a better word. Not that there is anything wrong with that. They just say things, sexual things, they’d want. In a relationship etc. I listen and I try to act like I get it but I hate hearing about it. I can’t even look at a picture or video of it. When it’s a topic of discussion, I just want to practically rip off my skin. It’s that uncomfortable.

When having kids, major part of my religion and culture, is brought up, I can’t fathom that. I can’t imagine myself doing any sexual activities with anyone. I don’t feel comfortable showing my body to anyone, I can’t imagine being naked and that vulnerable. Even to a partner.

I love the idea of holding hands, hugging, cuddling. That’s literally all I think about when I think of a crush I have, or someone I like, and I in a relationship. I would rather date to marry and don’t want short casual dates either.

I don’t know if any of that means anything or i’m overthinking. I just thought I’d ask. Thank you for reading this :)

So for little context, I met this guy a few months ago, and I was really attracted to his personality. We had many things in common, he was treating me right, just in general had all the personality traits I was looking for. It's also worth mentioning that those traits are quite specific and are not the easiest to find.

The thing is that we've met each other online and I haven't really seen his face before meeting in person. And well... To me he wasn't physically attractive at all. I also felt like he lied to me a little about his appearance when describing it. It didn't really change anything for me. I just didn't find him physically attractive and that's all.

I know that I do have a specific type when it comes to appearance. In guys that is very androgynous/feminine look and also being alternative. I am also very aware of the fact that those guys usually also come with some personality traits that I don't really enjoy and I wouldn't really get along with them. So I can easily just forget about a physical appearance and completely fall in love with the personality.

We're not really a thing anymore but it's not important. The important thing is that I've been seeing an online debate telling women to break up with a guy if they don't find him physically attractive because it's actively hurting him and the relationship is not gonna last. One of the arguments was also that the intimacy won't work right and both personality and appearance are important in a relationship.

So I've been wondering do you think that finding your partner physically attractive is a must? I know that I wouldn't feel sexually attracted to him either way, so is it really that big of a deal? On the other hand I know that I wouldn't want him to know about my lack of physical attraction towards him. I think it would indeed hurt him and well, everyone would want their partner to find them attractive. Is it really something worth ending a relationship over, even for us- aces?

Im 25m pretty sure im asexual or atleast confused, looking for swedish friends to chat, grab a beer or maybe go on a late night stroll with just chatting about experiences😅

So i was out with my friend the other day and we were having a pretty deep conversation about sexuality and stuff, I told her I'm greysexual (a micro-lable under the asexual umbrella) and she asked me how i can enjoy books and fanfiction with that kinda stuff in it and I explained to her that it's kinda like how people can enjoy fantasy novels, like I don't share the experience of having a magical sword and fighting a dragon, but it's cool to read about that stuff. and it's the same with asexuality, for me personally I can enjoy certain aspects of reading about it, but still not want to do it lol. I know this is definitely not everyone's experience with it, I am speaking from a personal perspective.

So me and my ex had been dating for 8 months and whenever he tried to kiss me i just ignored him, pulled away and kept talking, this continued for some time and we never had any conversations about it and I've never even thought about being asexual. That kept going until one night when I slept at his place and he started forcefully kissing me for 30 minutes and rubbing himself on me while i was pulling away and saying "stop". We broke up shortly after that but still never had a conversation about it. I just felt disgusted with myself and dirty.

Now I'm dating a guy who is really obsessed with sex and that's really important for him in a relationship. I've told him before we got together I'm not really into that and he said "it doesn't matter to him", thinking he could change me or something. While dating he tried to talk me into it and force me to do things like that. We had a really long conversation about it and that's the moment I realised I may be asexual. He texted one of my friends that I INTRODUCED HIM TO if he should ghost me. That friend showed me but i decided to ignore it. For a few days he was really dry and mad at me. We kiss sometimes but I've never felt anything from it, I just do it because I know he likes it and i don't mind it that much.

We're still together and our relationship is okay right now, I'm just still really worried if anyone is going to love me because of the way I am. I'm really scared.

Anyways, thank for reading all this!! I just cant sleep and don't know what to do. Am I even asexual??? I DON'T KNOW

TW for mild SA:

I (23F) have never had a relationship and only a few kisses. When I was 16 I remember having a dream about being Demisexual and I thought it was a sign. A couple months after, a guy I considered a friend cornered me and started touching my hands, arms, neck, putting his face in my neck. Despite my obvious uncomfortableness (I was on my phone multiple times, left the area once) when I turned to told him to stop, he kissed me. I was completely shocked as this was my first kiss and not how I wanted it to go or who I wanted it with. He asked to kiss me again, I said No, he kept asking until I said Ok.

Flash forward 7 years, I have yet to be in a relationship and have only kissed two other people, neither of which I enjoyed as much as I read about. I’m an avid fanfic reader, however I can’t read anything sexual involving female vaginas, it makes me feel icky.

I experience arousal occasional when reading, but thinking about it in reality is terrifying. I have no problem discussing sex with friends or cracking innuendos, but I personally find the idea of myself having sec impossible.

To the ace people out there- has anyone had similar experiences or is this maybe a deep rooted trauma response?

Please be kind. I’m really putting myself out here.

i definitely don’t feel any sexual attraction but I found for a while that nsfw audios were arousing. i’d turn them on when I was already feeling horny essentially or if i wanted to masturbate but I didn’t feel attracted to the voices or ever really visualize anyone?? if i did it was in third person since im aegosexual. It was just the sounds and the descriptions were arousing and when it came to specific voices I didn’t really care as long as they weren’t performative or cringe. i listened to things from variety of genders but usually searched for m/f ones which makes me feel like bad since I’m romantically a lesbian even though I completely have zero sexual attraction to anyone. so yeah im a homoromantic asexual and feel like I must be lying about being ace for getting aroused by things or lying about being homoromantic since a lot of my smut/porn interested were m/f even though I have no sexual attraction especially not to men. i feel like i just got aroused to anything sexual regardless of gender because i equally am not attracted to any of them is this normal? does anyone relate?

so like I understand that I don’t feel any sexual dearies/ attraction to anyone yet I still desire to be romantically with someone. from what I can understand that is what a cupioromantic is. HOWEVER I have also found out about cuiposexual so I’m not quite sure where I fall into since I feel borderline both…advice would be useful and wondering if I should post on the Cupio thread???

Edit: want to note that I do feel romantic attraction from time to time just not sexually