lack if arousal

[tomatopotato]

Dear people at scarleteen,

I have been worrying a little bit since I have not felt a lot of arousal in a very long time, over a year. While I had a high libido in my early teens (a very specific one and only if I was currently attracted to somebody) it's almost dead since over a year maybe. I also lost almost complete interest in men, it feels like I just can't be attracted to people anymore/currently even though I would like to be into somebody. But it's also so exhausting to be in love/into someone and somehow my interest in people does not last over a couple of days and is not even very strong in the beginning. Is it possible that I might be on the asexual spectrum? While I definetly have been into people, it kinda feels unreal looking back. Can sexuality shift so drastically? I am not even severly stressed or something, it just feels like my libido and attraction are sleeping in my closet and I lost the key to it.

[Heather]

Hey there, tomatopotato.

I know it sounds like this started for you longer ago than this, but this is an issue a lot of people have been dealing with since the pandemic and social isolation and distancing and...well, the rest of the dumpster fire of the last year.

By all means, it might just be that separate from all that, you're entering a phase of your life where your libido (arousal isn't the same thing as libido, AKA desire, but for now let's just lump them) is lower than it has been. That's not so weird: it's common enough for us to have times where it's higher and times where it's lower. Those times can shift from month to month, year to year or longer just like they can from day to day or hour to hour. Could this also be about an orientation shift for you to asexuality? Maybe.

But given the timing of things, it also seems like it's impossible for all that is having an effect on everyone else's libido not to be having an impact on yours, too, especially given how major and seemingly sudden the shift has felt. same certainly goes for arousal, on which stress plays a major part and there truly isn't a single one of us alive right now who isn't living with a major stress load.

I'd try not to sweat it, and see if you can't just let yourself be as you are for now -- maybe let this part of you sleep for a bit -- and see how you feel when we can start to get closer to the other side of some of this, if not all the way on the other side.

Have you seen this piece, yet? https://www.scarleteen.com/article/sexu ... d_lockdown