The story, in full...

So this is going to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I have grown up in a religious home all my life. When I was young I went to St. Mary’s, a catholic school in Southern California (my family has ever been catholic by the way.) But that whole experience really left me without any concept of any other possibility other than heterosexuality. And that was if the issue was further than “God made Adam and Eve, and soon you will have the same blessings through marriage that they did.” Homosexuality was basically considered a sin so great that it didn’t even need to be addressed. After all, we were good little catholic school children.

My first crush was around that time, but even then, it was never the “oh my gosh, I want to marry him and have babies” thing, just more of a “he’s cute.” I’ve always noticed if a person has nice features, but that’s as far as it’s ever gone. Anyway, apparently he liked me back because one day he decided to kiss me in the middle of the playground, to which I promptly responded by throwing up everywhere, covering my uniform (and his, karma’s a bitch; you don’t go kissing people without their permission) and was then sent home. My mom thought it was adorable that someone liked me enough to do that. Me? Not so much.

Fast forwarding through middle school to high was all of the same. Except for now, if I ever had another “crush” I made sure to stay as far away from that person as I could get. I never wanted another repeat of that first boy. Because of this, people actually seemed a little scared of me. Except for the fact, that I never dated, never spent time with a guy that was not strictly a platonic friend, and never joined in on the topics of who the hottest guy in school, I was a “typical” teenager. I loved the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC (though by high school these guys were on the outs with my classmates) and I had gone through the whole Avril Lavigne on repeat phase. It always struck me as odd why people placed such an importance on needing to have somebody in their lives that was more than a friend. I can’t tell you how many times I was called a dirty term because I would just friend zone everybody; and I was asked out by both guys and girls. So pretty much, I was the odd one out on everything.

It wasn’t until college that I had even heard the term asexual. The first time was a real brief glossing over so I didn’t get that much information about it. It was in my sociology class and the main focus of the section was LGTBQ viewpoints. Several days were spent on the stories of the LGTBQ part and only a few sentences to mention asexuality with no definition of it. Now that I know about it and identify so heavily with it, why would people gloss over something like that? It’s crazy. The second time I heard about it was in my psychology class. Just reading through the textbook in the chapter of sexual orientation for the exam I saw the word again, this time with a definition of “Asexual: the lack of sexual desire or attraction to any gender.” BAM! There it was; the answer that I had been searching for years for. With that little nugget of information, I hit the internet and YouTube to find out more about it. After that I was finally able to understand myself.

The only problem that remained, and still does remain, is telling my parents about this. You see, in the religion that my family is a part of, marriage is a huge deal. And of course when people don’t know that you’re asexual, what’s the next step in marriage? Um, sex? Duh! And to me that would be the worst thing that I could put anyone through. No sexual person is going to want to give up sex forever. Especially brining in the fat that not only am I asexual, but I’m aromantic asexual. I don’t like any type of touch that is anything more than friendship. No kissing, no holding hands; if you want to cuddle and watch TV then nobody better be getting grabby. That all being said, I could never marry someone and they not know that, and I could never be okay with putting my identity aside for my religion.

My family is also very against the LGTB community and everything that it stands for. They always have some comment to make about everything that goes on with it. All of my brothers and sisters know and have been warned that if any of us were to have a gay partner, we would no longer be welcome. This fat causes a lot of apprehension for me to even say anything because they may just assume that I might be just avoiding saying I was a lesbian, even though I’m not.

The biggest source of comfort and understanding that I have found is in the “Asexual Singles” group on Facebook. I’ve already been a part of LGTBQA communities before but that level of understanding through asexuals coming together is more than I have ever experienced. Granted, the LGTBQA community is used to being misunderstood as a minority. But try being the minority within a minority. With the Facebook group I am now able to talk to people who know EXACTLY what I mean. It doesn’t matter if you’re herteroromantic, homoromantic, demisexual, greyace, aroace, etc. If you’re on the spectrum, you have a family now. In a lot of ways, this group has saved my sanity. I honestly thought that I was never going to meet anybody who was like me. No one here tries to fix me, or tell me that I need to “get over it.” It’s a place where I feel like I can be myself. And quite honestly, it’s the only place that I’ve ever felt comfortable proclaiming my asexuality publicly where someone might actually see it.

I still haven’t told my family. I’ve thought about it several times and have even thought about ways that I might try and break the news to them. In person, through text, a letter. Who knows? Only time will tell what will happen.

#asexuality