Scarleteen

I am almost 16 and I have never been physically attracted to anyone in any way.
I have experimented a few times with my fingers out of curiosity, but I felt nothing at all no matter what I did.
Is this normal?

Hi there, Wooooow--welcome to the boards!

Yes, it is normal. There are so many people in the world, and so many ways in which we can experience sexuality. There is certainly nothing wrong with not feeling attracted to other people and not feeling pleasure, yet or at all.

If I may ask, what has brought up this question for you? Is sexual attraction and pleasure something you would like to explore for yourself, or something you feel you should know?

Not really, I've just noticed other people my age talking about it lately.

I've never been romantically attracted to anyone either, but it doesn't bother me that much. I know enough about the LGBTQ+ community to know there's no right or wrong way to experience attraction, I guess I was just curious since I couldn't find any questions like this on this forum or others.

Hi, Wooooow:

I agree with Latha - there is nothing wrong with this at all and there are so many forms of sexuality and, even, asexuality. There are people who are and consider themselves "asexual" - this can be adopted at any time in your life for the reasons you choose. Here is the definition from one of our articles: "Asexuality is an orientation usually defined by a focus on romantic⁠, aesthetic, spiritual, or physical intimacy, or on non-sexual friendship, rather than on sexual attraction or sexual intimacy."

You don't need to readily adopt any orientation or label until you feel you want to, but I am going to paste the link to that article on asexuality for you to read just because it has some relevant information!

https://www.scarleteen.com/read/identit ... ity-primer

I've played around with the aro/ace label for a few years and I'm pretty comfortable with it for now, but it sucks because it's not that I have no wish to be with someone romantically and/or physically, I just haven't ever felt attraction like that.

Gotcha! Well, I think you can still be in relationships and do things like that even without the attraction. There are all types of relationships with enjoyments of different kinds, like emotional, common interests, intellectual, etc. And if you wanted to, you can also do and enjoy physical things without the attraction as long as it's not something that is unpleasant for you. Have you been open to exploring these different types of enjoyment?