Used to be asexual, now unsure?

[Namerling159]

Hello! I am a 19 year old AFAB. For the past several years, I’ve been pretty confident in my identity as a sex-repulsed asexual. Just the idea of sex made me really uncomfortable.

But recently I’ve noticed that I’ve been feeling more libido, and it’s kinda terrifying? It feels like my brain is finally producing the chemicals that everyone else started getting during high school, and I’m only just now playing catch up and I have no idea what to do. I very much do not enjoy feeling like this all the time.

About a week ago it hit really hard, and it didn’t go away, so i decided to try masturbating in a way that made me feel good yesterday. In the moment yeah it feels nice but afterwards I just feel kinda embarrassed. And then a few hours later I’m hit with the urge to do it again, which I think scares me the most. I’m worried that doing this won’t actually help make it go away and instead it’ll just get worse.

While being sex-repulsed ace was kinda isolating at times, I honestly think I prefer it to whatever the hells going on in my brain now, and I kinda want to go back. I’d rather be uncomfortable with the people around me every now and then than be uncomfortable in my own skin all the time…

Thank you!

[Jacob]

Hi Namerling!

Firstly I think it's worth mentioning that this is suuuuuuper common. Sexuality, in the world we live in, not to mention the forever changing nature of how we do or don't experience that sexuality, can be kinda terrifying. I don't think it has to be. There are lots of factors that make it so, but I think we can do a lot to help eachother out and make those experiences a whole lot better. All that to say, I'm really thankful you've come to us ask about it!

I think you really hit the nail on the head when you imply that being 'sex-repulsed' felt safer to you, and that as a result, masturbation, and it's aftermath felt embarassing.

So I want to ask you, embarassed in front of whom? And safe from what?

Because no doubt, as with everything there are risks (and rewards) but there are also ways of decking out our emerging (and changing) sexual selves with knowledge and even, to be grand about it, our own sense of our human rights!

Do you want to say more about what you might be losing by having these feelings?

Hopefully we can come up with some ideas that'll help you feel a bunch more self-secure in all this!

[Namerling159]

I’m honestly not sure… I think it might be because I’m scared about losing such a clearly defined part of myself?

Pretty much my entire life I’ve been always been a really stubborn person, especially when it comes to parts of my identity that put me in a minority. It’s like… I feel like I’ve picked my hill, and now I have to die on it. If I give up now it means all the work I’ve put into defending that part of myself will be for nothing. Or even worse, the people I’ve been defending myself from will look at me and say “I told you so”

I’ve always had this problem. I even refused to watch Star Wars for years because I had arbitrarily decided that I didn’t like it as a kid, and that lead to me having to defend my stance.

I know it doesn’t make sense logically, and that me accepting something like this should make me feel more comfortable, since it means I now am able to relate to more people (especially since sex and sexual freedom is such a big part of the queer community), but I’m having a hard time actually accepting it if that makes sense.

It doesn’t help that my social anxiety and rsd are making me terrified that people will look at me differently if they somehow knew…

[Namerling159]

I think that another reason I’m scared is linked to my adhd. The more I learn and educate myself the more I feel like I’m falling down the rabbit hole of a hyperfixation, and I don’t want to hyperfixate on this. But I have no idea how to pull myself out of it before it’s too late if that makes sense.

I dont want to spend all my time thinking about it or my brain linking everything back to it. When I hyperfixate on something I go all in, and it normally lasts months for me, and so the idea of hyperfixating on this terrified me

[Sam W]

Hi Namerling159,

As someone who is stubborn in unhelpful ways at times, I hear you on that fear that acknowledging a change in your feelings, even if it's just a potential one, will bring out the "I told you so" crowd. It can be so disheartening to feel like people are waiting for a chance to prove they know you better than you do.

But something I've learned that's helpful is that a lot of people who would react that way were never really going to change there minds about how they saw you or the world in the first place. And the people who care about you will either roll with the change you tell them about or keep their "I told you so" to themselves because they're more invested in you feeling comfortable talking with them and being supportive of you than they are in being "right."

Something I often tell people who use someone changing their sexual orientation as "proof" that they never were the orientation they said they were is: when we're defining our sexual orientation, we do so based on the information we have at the time. And as we go through life, we're ALWAYS going to get new information about ourselves, and some of that might be related to our sexual orientation. And how we describe ourselves or our identity might change as a result. That's not a situation where someone can even be "wrong" because they were picking how to describe their identity based on the most accurate information they had.

Edited to add: when you say "hyperfixate on this" is "this" referring to sexual thoughts or feelings, or to your worries about your identity?
I also wonder, do you think it would help to treat the question of your sexuality as something you're leaving open for a bit? In other words, giving yourself permission to not stress about putting the new information you're getting about yourself into a box marked "ace" or "allo" or anything like that and instead just taking the information as it comes and sorting it all out down the line.

[Namerling159]

It’s less about the specific label I’m putting on it and more that I feel like I’m betraying my ideals as a person I guess. I’ve always been pretty comfortable with my identity being up in the air, i like to try on different labels all the time, but the one thing that’s always been consistent is the fact that I don’t like sex and the idea makes me uncomfortable. So now I feel like I’m betraying myself the more I research and try to accept it.

As for the hyperfixating, I’m scared that I’m gonna hyperfixate on sexual thoughts and feelings in general I guess. Sorry if this feels kinda all over the place, I still don’t fully know what it is I’m trying to figure out in the first place

[Jacob]

I'm totally nodding along to Sam's answers!

When you talk about betraying your ideals I wonder if it could be useful to write a list of what you're thinking of as ideals, and ask some questions of yourself about those statements. I have a feeling that asking "Is this actually a belief?" and "Do I actually still agree with this?" could be helpful.

For example, we can compare these three:

• "I don't want sex, it makes me feel uncomfortable to think of"
• "People have a right not to want sex"
• "Sex is bad"

"I don't want sex, it makes me feel uncomfortable to think of" isn't an ideal or a belief, it's a judgement-free description of how you were feeling. You had a right to feel that, and you're not doing a disservice to your past self by changing - No betrayal here.

You can also continue to defend your right to have had that experience and to describe it as you pleased, AND the right to those feelings now even if you're not actively feeling them. Which brings us to "people have a right not to want sex". This is totally a belief but is it a belief that has changed? It doesn't sound like it - No betrayal here either.

"Sex is bad" is a belief, and if you ever believed it, it seems like you're questioning whichever version of that idea was important to you at one time.

If that changes, or has already changed, then I think we can regard it as an improvement rather than a betrayal. We are all capalbe of being very wrong about stuff, and in those cases, the ability to change our minds isn't a weakness or a disloyalty, it's a strength.

So to the "I told you so" folks in real life (or those we conjur in our heads as part of self-blame) your answer could be "No. You never had a right to tell me my experience was false, or to tell me what would be true for me in the future... all those things are mine to name and describe. Also, I might have been wrong about a couple other things, but here's what I think now."

Do you wanna try that? Does it help to separate these ideals some?

[Jacob]

(Also, my understanding of hyperfixation in ADHD (fellow diagnosee here) is that its more of a task oriented thing where we might have tasks or interests that absorb our attention very easily, when our ability to direct our attention to a preferred task or subject is at its weakest because of stress, lack of sleep, things like that.

A new subject to fixate about, doesn't change the causes of the hyperfixation, so if that becomes a problem for you it'd be waaaay more helpful to focus on general self care, checking in with whatever strategies or support you have for ADHD, than wishing away the subject we're stuck on, which 90% of the time is stuff that is genuinely interesting or important to us.)