Scarleteen

Hey there. my story is a bit complicated but ill try to explain it as best as possible. me and by girlfriend have been in a relationship for 3 months now and im happy with the relationship. we hang out and do stuff together and are together a lot. but there is still something bugging me and that is that her current sexual orientation is asexual. i myself am deffinetly not asexual and would like to have sex later on in my relationship with her if we are both ready for it, but as i said shes ace. i respect that and i still want to be with her because i do care about her a lot but there are a few things that stick out to me why i might think that shes not ace. i want to know your opinion on this too because i want to help her. first she had another boyfriend before me who was a bit creepy and kissed her without her consent multiple times and stalked her to her home and that led to her breaking up with him. second she was almost raped at a party. and third and i dont know if this is related but her mother also abused her. i want to be there for her and i want her to be able to enjoy everything from life and not have it ruined by some other people

Hi qualifiedpanda,

I'm glad you want to be there for your girlfriend, but questioning her sexual orientation is not a good way to do that. Yes, being a survivor of sexual abuse can give people a lot of complicated feelings around sex, but it does not make someone asexual. If you're going to be there for her, then it doesn't really seem authentic if your support around those experiences is motivated by hoping she'll change her mind about sex - does that make sense?

Has your girlfriend specified what being ace means to her? Some ace people occasionally have sex, some don't but that varies person to person and the only way you can find out what it means to your girlfriend is by speaking to her. Maybe you could read this first, so you've got a bit more of an idea of what being asexual is all about: Just the Basics, Ace: An Asexuality Primer

Of course, if you know you want to have sex some day, and your girlfriend definitely doesn't then you get to decide if or how long you want to stay in the relationship for. We can talk that through if you ever need to, but it sounds like you're not wanting to have sex real soon?