i'm scared of growing up

[maroonteen]

I'm 19 years old, aroace, and I've been working on myself for a while. I'm the kind of asexual that doesn't experience sexual attraction, but engages in the usual acts of self-pleasure. I've written a few times on here before about that, but basically, I've grown up in a household that shuns just about anything to do with the female body. I understand that this definitely contributed to the majority of my guilt associated with sexuality. I've been working through this pretty well, acknowledging the religious guilt and parental pressure. But lately there's been a new development. I guess I do experience some sort of sexual attraction--not for anyone attainable though (fictional characters..), and this was exciting at first because I had something to work with, something to work towards! But then I got to thinking: I don't like viewing someone in a sexual manner. Fictional or real--in my head or on the screen. I enjoy it, I enjoy it a lot actually, but I hate that I do. So it looks like there's still some guilt here. I associate sexuality with adulthood. And holy shit, I am scared to be an adult. The majority of my childhood was just depression and verbal abuse, I don't feel like I actually got to live my life from the start. I disassociated through just about all of it. The one thing that kept me slightly attached to reality all this time is that I see it as a movie. So suddenly I'm an adult and I have my own responsibilities. Yeah thats fine, I'll deal with it, I have to. But sexuality? That's not the tv-14 lens I've been living my life through. That's when the scene cuts and fades to black. Sex is an implication and a couple of adult jokes littered throughout the movie. And if I'm interested in it and engaging in a form of self-pleasure, the rating has jumped to R. I tend to disassociate badly during the act for this reason. Like I'm afraid to face what I'm doing because it means i'm older now. I feel tainted in a sense.

[Heather]

Hey there. <3

I wonder if it might help to hear and try and take in that sexuality is not actually adult. Human beings at all stages of life, even in infancy (and maybe even in utero!) possess sexualities. People of all ages also typically masturbate, and usually start as very young children.

Sexuality also isn't the same all across that lifespan. The sexuality of a person at the age of 3 is usually very different from the sexuality of someone at 23, and the sexuality of that same person at 53 may well be very different from that one. What our sexualities are like -- and even more so, what we do with them and choose to make of them -- at any given age or stage of life is also largely up to us. So, if a way of exploring or expressing sexuality feels like it's at a place you're not at yet, and that feels way too far ahead of where that is to feel right for you, well then that's probably not the right way for you right now, you know? The good news is, there probably are ways that do feel more right for where you're currently at. You get to have a PG-13 sexuality for as long as you want.

Does any of that help start to chip away at some of this fear and discomfort for you at all?