Scarleteen

hi there,
i've been question both my sexual and gender identity for a while now (i'm 16, turning 17 this year, and i'm a cisgender/ female, maybe genderfluid between female and non binary/ neutral genders), and i think i might be a lesbian orientated aromatic asexual, but i'm finding it hard to determine if i'm actually aroace or not, as i dont have any romantic/ sexual relationship experience, and experience severe body image issues, so maybe i'm just nervous about the whole thing in general?
what confuses me also, is that all the relationships i do experience are often sensual/ platonic, and so i'm unsure if maybe they are actually crushes or not. maybe i just haven't experienced romantic/ sexual feelings yet because i'm so young or haven't met the right person?
i know i like physical touch, and i can imagine myself enjoying kissing, cuddling, holding hands, and other kinds of touching like that (with females only), but not in a sexual way, as anything to do with the in-between the leg area doesn't interest me at all, and i'm kind of neutral/ meh about it.
just curious as to what you think, as i know you can't give me a definitive answer.
thanks for your time and kind regards

Hi Skyskysky,

I don't think anyone is too young or too old to have or not have crushes!

I think the difficulty for some people of hyper-specific words for feelings around intimacy or attraction is that our sexuality and personalities are wobbly and imprecise, and so trying to describe those imprecise feelings with precise words can be frustrating if we expect those words to be a perfect fit, because people's sexual interest, romantic feelings and daydream fantasies, do vary throughout the day, let alone through their lives, alongside the language itself changing - there was no "non-binary" when I was 16, but now it's a word that exists, so I use it!

I think an important thing to learn is that it's ok to be imprecise in using those same words. You can say "I'm a lesbian" or "I'm aroace" or "I'm aroace lesbian" and you're allowed to be loose with it! Do you think having that flexibility might help at all?

We obviously can't say that a feeling you don't feel now, you won't feel at some point in the future, but if aroace feels like a good enough way to describe what your experience is right now, then I say go for it!

I'd recommend giving these a read (even if the second one is a bit of a self-promotion):

• Should I consider myself ace/aro, or keep holding out for attraction? (An advice question and answer talking through deciding if or not you want to be described as aro or ace)
• Jacob and Al's Intergalactic Intersectionality Adventure (Me and our beloved past volunteer Al explore identity and intersectionality)