Asexuality

[tressell]

I am a 28 year old woman and have never been interested in sex (despite plenty of offers and teasing). I have been told that I am asexual. Is there anyone else out there like me?

[sddsddean]

If you are physically a normal woman (ie you've got all your naughty bits) you are not asexual. An organism has to have no sexual reproductive organs to be asexual.

[tressell]

Yep, everything in place. Perhaps the TERM asexual is wrong - but I am definitely not interested in sex, I have tried and I am not. I just like the way men look but I don't want to DO anything. My friend says that she read in the Daily Mail sometime back about a woman who was also not interested in sex and never had been but had relationships purely for support or affection. I have also considered doing this but didn't consider it fair on the fella. It can't be common as I have never read about anyone with a similar peculiarity but I'm kind of feeling isolated and weird! I also fear being lonely.

[froggequene]

No, you're not alone, I'm just not interested in relationships, period.

[snotmonkey]

do you "flick the bean"?

[xyzzyplugh]

Hiya Snot.

[tressell]

I don't 'flick the bean', no, and no desire to! (if that is what I think it is - onanism I mean). To be honest I only learned that women could in my mid twenties, and that through a copy of Cosmo that someone said I 'ought to read' to 'because you're green'. I just found the content crude and boring, and pretty vacuous and pointless, if I am honest. Give me a history book or Jane Austen anyday! Sex ain't compulsory, so why make me feel weird? There must be others like me who just ain't interested in that side of things? I get embarrassed as well, and I don't like gratuitous vulgarity, though I have found the odd naughty joke funny. But I sometimes feel that if the times were more restrained and romantic, and I hadn't had it forced down my throat, first by(some) people at school and then (some) at work, and also the media, I might be different. There's no mystique, you know? And I never wanted to be like a sheep and just conform, doing something that I felt uncomfortable and unhappy with when I felt no desire. As for ugly - well, I think that I am peculiar looking, (thanks to the nose) but the general reaction seems to be otherwise. I get asked out a lot, by anyone from 16 to 30 I would say. I look dead young and unlined as well so can't be doing me too much harm! Well, one like minded person out there...man or woman I wonder?

[andy hughes]

I think there are more people than you think, but in common with your feeling is a very well-developed sense of personal privacy which precludes the identification of these individuals. The media, and people in general, are interested in sex, their own and other people's, but you simply have other interests, and sex is not one of them. From what you say, you are an intelligent and attractive woman, and you are comfortable with yourself. If anyone else has a problem with your way of living your life, it's just that - their problem. Through the anonimityof this site, you may find like-thinking people, but if not, I suspect you won't be too concerned.

[Miss Zippy]

Tressell, if it ain't broke why fix it? What I mean is, if you are happy with the way things are (which you seem to be), why look to explain it or change it in any way just because it may not fit in with society's expectations of what a young woman should be doing? If people are 'interested' in your sexuality, it's only because they haven't got a life of their own, so they are to be pitied!

[tressell]

Thank you Andy Hughes, thank you Miss Zippy. I guess that I need reassuring because I have been wound up by the family next door (bit of a problem family to be honest with you) and I made the mistake of telling the common law wife that I had never had a full relationship when I moved in in a passing comment (she was telling me about her lover being 'an animal' in bed. Also, some people also think me strange at work, so though I fit in with most of them just fine, I am fed up of snide remarks and dirty minded insinuations from some. They shouldn't hurt me, but they do...bit childish of me really. I am a bit thin skinned sometimes and ought to grow out of it. But celibacy is my choice and if they don't like it it's their problem - I don't know why I always want horrible people to like me as well as the nice ones, you can't be liked by everybody. I do think that I might find a flatmate (one of my older male friends, nobody new) as I am really fed up with being slandered by next door and need a bit of support and company. I guess that's the answer for me really - it came to me in a brainwave this morning!

[Miss Zippy]

Sounds like a suitable solution, getting a male flatmate. Also, though, sounds like you could be a little too trusting and telling 'intimate' details to people too soon, when you don't really know them, which gives them the opportunity to judge you or have an opinion about you before they really know you?

[tressell]

Definitely too trusting! She was very open about her sex life and I suppose I just blurted it out. I spose I hoped that it might shut her up, I was just trying to say, look, I'm really not interested in your bloody sex life! I mean, you don't tell someone about football when they've no interest in soccer at all, d'y? Good job that you can blurt all you like on email - deffo keeping schtum from now on.

[DavidUK]

If you are just not interested in sex then it's perfectly natural that you should choose to be celibate. It is terrible if people give you a hard time over it. On the other hand though, you may be missing out on something that you could enjoy because of a hormonal or psychological problem. Have you considered seeking advice on this? But, if you are happy as you are, then good luck and try to ignore people who mock.