[ SECRET POST #5788 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5788 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #828.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Any ace people out here?

[(Anonymous)]

Basically just seconding what everyone else is saying. Nobody else can (or has any business) telling you whether you're ace or not. It's one of those things where it's entirely up to you and your understanding of yourself, and what you want to identify as, and what feels right. And there's no rush to figure it out. Also, it's not like you're stuck with a label forever once you use it, you know? Like, I think there's a really strong desire to avoid changing our chosen labels, because nobody wants to seem like they're validating the "it's just a phase/you're just confused" rhetoric that we still hear so much of. But the bottom line is, fuck that rhetoric, identify however feels best for you at the time and revise it if you need to. It's totally normal for one's own understanding of these things to change and develop over time.

I've identified as asexual since I was fifteen--back when there was almost zero public information about asexuality and 95% of people probably thought it was something I was making up for funsies. But despite having felt strongly that I was ace from a young age, there was a couple of years in my early twenties where I actually stopped identifying as asexual, because I didn't understand how I could be asexual when I loved smut so much. Then an entire book about asexuality was published (possibly the first of its kind), and in it the author coined the term "autochorissexuality" which described people like me who felt no desire to personally engage in sexual activities with others, but who enjoyed things like smut and/or pornography where we could vicariously experience sexuality through the characters without having to project ourselves into it in any way. I was like, "Wow that's me exactly," and immediately went back to identifying as asexual, because I'd been shown that there were other ace people whose asexuality was like mine, and it didn't make us not asexual. (In recent years the ace community has largely switched to using the term "aegosexual" in place of the original "autochorissexual", just FYI, in case any of this clicks with you and you feel like looking into it more.)

As for having crushes as an asexual, that's super complicated, because like, some ace people are also aromantic but others aren't. So one could have a romantic crush on someone but still not be sexually attracted to them. And if you're a romantic asexual who isn't sex-repulsed, then it's possible that you might even want to have sex with your crush, simply because you want to give them pleasure because you like them romantically. It's also quite common for young ace people to have a difficult time differentiating between what they genuinely want, and what they want to want because society tells them it's what they should want.

I'm aro and also somewhat sex-repulsed, so I'm not at all a good source of insight on what it's like to be romantic ace or sex-neutral ace, but I definitely spent a lot of my teen years feeling conflicted because even though I actively identified as asexual, it didn't feel like a valid sexual identity, and I was constantly trying to find some attraction in myself for somebody, so that I could just have a crush and be "normal." There are a couple of guys who, to this day, I genuinely don't know whether I had a little bit of a crush on them, or if I'd just worked myself up to believing that I did because they were the best candidates and I wanted so badly to be feeling and doing the same things everybody else was.

Re: Any ace people out here?

[(Anonymous)]

(Another ace anon) wow, this was so detailed and well-explained.

AYRT's question made me think back on it, and I definitely had (very passionate) crushes growing up but I just feel like the nature of it wasn't quite the same as an allo's. If asked whether I would like to date them or not, I would be like "if they want to, that's nice!". Because I was happy to be liked by whom I liked but it really wasn't the end-all for me, far from it. And if they only wanted sex because they found me attractive, even though I should probably be flattered, I would have been sad or even "offended" not because they're calling me a whore or whatever but because that's not what I wanted at all so I would feel misunderstood. To put it shortly I wouldn't feel "offended" by being friendzoned, for instance. And I definitely experienced intense squishes too.

So, not at all incapable of feeling... anything for other people (if anything, I feel too much) but it was never romantic or sexual in essence, though it's hard to describe how I know it, like, telling my friends about my crushes they'd be like "and then what?" but it's the end of the story and it was as good as any to me .. That, and being legitimately uninterested in other people's stories of sexual encounters unlike the rest of your same-aged friends (both at school and online, which made me realize "wait... something is off and maybe I am not just Super Slow").