The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality

by Julie Sondra Decker

Some felt my lack of interest in a central aspect of their lives somehow disrespected sex itself or the people who love it.

After all, people who are only attracted to one sex or gender aren’t generally interpreted as “not yet” bisexual, but asexual people are held to a different standard.

But sexual orientation is not determined by whether someone has sex or who they have it with. Orientation is not a behavior—not for asexual people and not for anyone.

Some people misinterpret aesthetic appreciation, romantic attraction, or sexual arousal as being sexual attraction, only to realize later that they are asexual.

But desire for sex does not define desire for romance, any more than love’s presence or absence defines whether sex happens.

If this sounds confusing, the main issue to remember is that sexual arousal, sex drive, and sexual attraction are different things.[4] Sexual arousal suggests a physiological response; sex drive suggests a desire to respond to arousal or a desire to pursue sex; and sexual attraction suggests an experience of finding someone sexually appealing.

Many non-asexual people aren’t willing to try sex with someone they’re not at all attracted to, and this is usually considered reasonable.

Graysexuality is an umbrella term. It can refer to many situations wherein a person is experiencing something that isn’t as consistent, as strong, as predictable, or as prevalent as most other people experience it.

We all know it’s possible for some people to be immediately sexually attracted to other people based on information gathered with one’s physical senses—without knowing anything about their personalities. It can be based on looks or voice or chemistry or charisma, and it’s known as a primary sexual attraction reaction.

Secondary sexual attraction is more gradual, though not inherently a “different kind” of sexual attraction—it just happens under different circumstances. A partner starts to seem sexually appealing only after an emotional bond develops (not necessarily love), based on qualities that can’t be perceived through immediate observation of the subject without interaction.

But demisexuality isn’t about willingness to have sex. It’s about capacity to experience sexual attraction.

To begin to understand these compatibility issues, it must first be acknowledged that every arrangement is different and the ultimate purpose should never be “how can we change the asexual person?”

But relationship-seeking people should try to express their desires as “their preferences,” not as “the way things are supposed to be”

If a critic argues that the relationship was “happy” when the asexual person felt required to hide and be ashamed of their lack of desire, that critic is suggesting that only one person—the non-asexual person—actually has desires that matter in the relationship.

LGBT/Queer groups that wish to be more inclusive of asexual members should take care to actively mention the word “asexual” or “asexual-spectrum” in their literature and mission statements in the same capacity that they mention the other orientations and identities they support, so asexual people will know whether this group will accept them.

The tools used to measure prejudice and discrimination cannot be molded to detect LGBTQ oppression and then get applied unchanged to detect it in asexual populations.

These perspectives suggest asexual people aren’t suffering if they don’t suffer the same way, but anti-asexual prejudice doesn’t deny them the same things in all cases. This would be like saying a person of any oppressed group isn’t really suffering if they have enough to eat.

Asexual people are told, through these messages, that they are expected to be quiet unless they want people to interrogate them about everything from sexual experiences to genital functionality.

Many asexual people who are in relationships without knowing they’re asexual have accepted that sex is expected of them, and they believe not being sexually attracted to their partners is just not something that should get talked about.

Coming out as asexual in these situations might cause unacceptable loss of access to family and community, which will disadvantage them more than a similar situation would disadvantage a white asexual person.

Asexual identity is not an orientation that can only be claimed by people who have led wholly uncomplicated lives, and there is no way to draw the line for what aspects of us are reactions to what we’ve been through.

it should not be the goal of any therapist or counselor to push for sexual and/or romantic relationships as proof of healing, and asexual people should not feel pressured to hold themselves to these standards either.

But since every person in the world develops into who they are from who they were, it stands to reason that some people’s sexual orientation can be influenced by negative experiences.

carelessly bringing up abuse in these conversations has the capacity to trigger asexual survivors and minimize their experiences while refusing to respect their ability to understand themselves.

We live in a world that tells us sex is something we’re supposed to love, so if we have any other feelings about it, it’s natural to look for something to blame.

Especially on AVEN—the Asexual Visibility and Education Network—it is common to reference sharing and eating cake. This developed when some members discussed “what’s better than sex?” and cake was the most popular answer.

Aces of Hearts sometimes used as symbols of romantic asexuality, and Aces of Spades assigned to aromanticism).

But language is always dependent on context. Scientific disciplines use context-dependent terms all the time. For instance, in a scientific context, theory has a totally different meaning from theory as used in a murder mystery or to describe a hunch.

abstaining from sex is a practice, while asexuality is an orientation.

A person can suffer from erotophobia (irrational fear of sex or something related to it), genophobia (fear of sexual intercourse), sexual anorexia (pathological loss of sexual appetite and/or fear of romance and intimacy), or anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure, including sexual pleasure).

Orientation is complicated, and a person does not have to be free of all possible complicating factors to be asexual.

Unless one is directly responsible for the health and safety of a person who cannot make their own decisions, other people’s medical and lifestyle choices should be respectfully left to the individual.

It doesn’t matter whether a little, some, most, or all of the reason that someone isn’t sexually attracted to anyone has to do with some other aspect of their lives. There are many ways to be asexual.

If a straight guy had sex with a man and told people he’d hated it because he didn’t think he was gay, most people wouldn’t say “no, you must’ve just had bad gay sex, keep trying” or “no, you must’ve just had gay sex with the wrong partner, try someone else.”

You must have been abused is a phrase asexual people hear all the time. First, a message to anyone who might consider saying this: do not bring up abuse without warning in any conversation.

If someone thinks an asexual person was so emotionally scarred by an assault or abuse experience that it changed their sexual orientation, it definitely should not be brought up unexpectedly.

Most people will not tell heterosexual people that they just need to meet the right gay person and their orientation will change. But LGBTQ folks and asexual folks do hear this—and,

one person’s experience doesn’t invalidate another’s.

For people who—again—cannot empathize or refuse to, it’s impossible to imagine sex as unappealing. Sex is appealing to them; therefore, they insist sex is objectively appealing, and those who are not chasing it must feel unsatisfied.

Most asexual people support everyone’s freedom to pursue sex responsibly however they like—as long as not pursuing sex is also considered acceptable.

Some asexual people like orgasms and pursue them in various ways available to them, and they still identify as asexual because arousal and satisfaction are not sexual attraction.

Asexual people who want partners have their own hoops to jump through, trying to negotiate atypical relationships that are anything but simple. They face the rarity of asexual partners versus the difficulty of compromising with non-asexual partners.

People love thinking that they’re so good at sex they could even make an uninterested person crave it. And this, yet again, is a symptom of ego—

Sexual attraction is not the same thing as sexual behavior.

Remind them that you didn’t “decide” to be asexual, and that this isn’t something they can talk you out of through reasoning. You’re using it as a description for how you feel and will continue to identify with the label until or unless it does not fit you.

First, try to encourage everyone involved—especially your partner(s)—to understand that you have a mismatch of sexual needs, not a situation that is one person’s fault

have each of you figure out your must-haves, your dealbreakers, and what you’re willing to compromise.

they are living every day with little to no acknowledgment of a central aspect of their lives. And yes, that still constitutes living in a prejudicial environment,

You’re processing yourself in a situation that would be distasteful to you, and until you accept that this is someone else’s “normal,” you may be unable to react constructively.

But remember: asexual people who have never heard of their own orientation are trained since childhood to think sex is an unavoidable part of all romantic relationships and that no one will love them without it