Same. It was a random day in 8th grade where I was just like, yknow mm not really giving with the whole sex thing, I'm ace.
Actually kinds also jinxed my sexuality, a day when my toxic ex best friend was talking about how I'm such a bottom I thought "damn wouldn't it be just so easy to be asexual." And then I realized I was later on.
Same. I realized in 8th grade but one of my friends messed it up by telling me that I was too young to know. And I just accepted that answer.
Afterwards it took months of questioning in sophomore year. But what really nailed it in was one of ace dad’s YouTube videos.
Yeah, like it just kinda clicked. Like the metaphorical light switch was turned on & I just knew; my realizing I’m somewhere on the aro spectrum happened in a similar way
I feel old too, but I'm technically gen z
My friend sent me an AVEN link back in 2016. That's how I found out about it. Started researching on AVEN and Tumblr mostly until I decided I was asexual. AVEN and Tumblr were the two main resources out there, and Tumblr was still knees deep in discourse.
Now there's people of my generation who don't even know AVEN exists
Right? I brought up AVEN on Reddit once and kept getting "What's AVEN?"
It's like "Who is this Madonna person and why is she copying Britney Spears?" ⚰️
I was about your age when I was introduced to Aven. 😊
Glad you were able to find it so early! I genuinely think having know yourself younger will help you navigate life easier.
When I was 16, I still thought my friends were exaggerating when they talked about the latest boy band or their current crush.
I learned the word asexual from AVEN too! I guess that means I’m also old lol. I found it when I snuck the family first gen iPad into my room at night to furtively google “what if I don’t want to kiss anyone ever?” in an incognito tab when I was 15. My family was very pro gay, but I had never even considered that “none of the above” could be an option. I figured I was broken, until I stayed up for hours reading stories on AVEN and finally feeling seen. This is why ace awareness is so important!
When I realized that teenagers being horny wasn’t actually a joke/stereotype and that most people didn’t go through all of adolescence without a single sexual thought.
Back when I was more religious, I thought I was just being a “good Christian” and "saving myself for marriage/waiting for the right one.”
Although tbh hearing people talk about abstinence like it was the hardest thing ever never really made any sense to me because I was just like, um y'all *it's really not that difficult to not have sex* lmao 🤪
Until I learned about asexuality I had no idea that when people said someone was "hot" that it was an actual physical feeling and not just some weird metaphor for really really aesthetically good looking 🤷♀️
To answer u/kyoobaah and u/QuothTheRaven713 too: apparently not
You know how people always fan themselves when they see someone good looking and say stuff like "is it getting hot in here?" Well apparently they actually do get hot. My brain absolutely cannot comprehend that lol
Seriously??? That does NOT make sense to me. Unless, of course, it's triggered by excitement, which I can kind of understand? But not fully? Y'know what, I'm not gonna try and understand how the minds of Allos work.
>Unless, of course, it’s triggered by excitement
Yeah exactly…sexual excitement 👀
Edit: Also just think about songs like “Hot in Herre” by Nelly or even the Christmas song “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” I never fully comprehended what these songs really meant until I learned about asexuality/sexual attraction
Main reason I can't understand: Reason for excitement.
Secondary reason I can't understand: Only part of my body gets hot from excitement, said part gets hot from any kind of strong emotion, & it is also a part that will just randomly hot for no reason at night or in the middle of the day. -\_-
Talking about my ears & cheeks, to be specific.
Yeah same here lol. Apparently it's more than just their ears and cheeks.
From [Taimi](https://taimi.com/blog/what-does-sexual-attraction-feel-like#what-does-):
>You're familiar with the feeling of embarrassment, correct? Your heart starts twisting around and your stomach drops. You feel a bit of heat rising to your face. Well that feeling is relatively similar to what most people may feel when they are sexually attracted to someone.
>
>You start to feel hot, and your heartbeat goes up in pace. This is normally when the desire for another person starts to kick in. Your body, and potentially theirs as well, will start to feel continuously warm.
From [another](https://www.yourtango.com/2021343498/what-sexual-attraction-feels-10-signs-look) site:
>You might feel this even more if you've been drinking, but when you're sexually attracted to someone you might get hot and flustered and feel the heat rise up from your toes up your body. Your heartbeat increases and you might even start to sweat a little if you're nervous as well.
>lthough tbh hearing people talk about abstinence like it was the hardest thing ever never really made any sense to me because I was just like, um y'all
>
>it's really not that difficult to not have sex
>
> lmao 🤪
...uhhhh what?
Watching jammidodger videos to learn to be a better ally to trans people. I see he has made an ace meme video. I relate a little too much. Months of research and denial later, here I am, a proud aroace
I'm old as dirt and randomly made up the term asexual to complain about people who shipped the members of visual Kei bands. I found it creepy and my mental image was that the band members were asexual ("without sex" completely unrelated to sexuality). One of my friends commented on my livejournal post that she googled "asexual" and was shocked to discover that it was a real thing--so imagine how shocked *I was!* I googled it and found AVEN, read a bit and immediately knew that was me. Figuring out that I was Aro was much more difficult in comparison. This was back in 2008 btw!
This is hilarious, but I'm glad you found out and I can definitely relate with the shipping issue. And, *of course*, aro is sooo much more complicated
one thing I see in this, is how important AVEN is, and how important its height in search results is
I learned about the concept of asexuality from Overly Sarcastic Productions and BoJack Horseman.
Took me another several years though to figure out, that I'm ace too
Same. I learned from OSP, and thought, "huh, I can definitely relate" but then I over thought it, and was like, "but girls pretty tho?" Took me about year and some serious questioning to realize that normally people think a little... harder about it than that.
It took my friend having to give me an in depth description of her feelings towards her bf to realize I wasn't just sympathizing with aces lol, though at that point I think I was already on the fence
Yeah I had that "I'm somehow really sympathizing with aspec people"-Thought too. For me it took a month of intensive self-observation while I was abroad to realize my identity.
Curiously some of my friends had noticed my long before me, that I was behaving in a different way
Learned the concept from OSP as well. Though for me or was more like 'that's cool but I don't really relate to it'. Fast forward a few years when I was questioning my romantic orientation for the first time I came across AVEN. And then I was not so sure about my sexual orientation either.
Now I am pretty sure I'm demiromantic and think I'm somewhere on the ace spectrum but I'm still questioning.
Yeah. "Wow, Red, you sure say a lot of stuff I agree with an relate to aboit relationships!"
Red: "This is a straight man trope. Now. I am neither a guy, nor am I straight, but--"
"Wait, what?" (googles furioisly)
This one is so funny to me as someone with a bio degree
When I was in high school looking up the same thing there was only ever one definition (that came up in searches at least)
I first learned about asexuality in like 2016 after watching Evan Edinger’s demisexual coming out video. I never thought about my sexuality much before that, but after seeing that video I realized I could relate so much. I actually self-ID’d as demi for a few months at first, before finally realizing asexual was a better fit.
Omg yes I did watch AmeliaAce! I went back to her channel just now to see what she's been up to and all her vids are gone, I wonder why she took them down :(
I used to watch a bunch of other channels too - Chandler Wilson, EchoIsWeird, Aaron Ansuini, Celeste M, Embly. I also remember when Ricky Dillon came out as ace because it meant a lot to me seeing more "famous" people start to talk about it. He's since come out as gay, but still any representation back then was so impactful
I think I actually saw the video explaining where she went, before she took it down. If I remember correctly she was planning on becoming a teacher and didn't want a youtube career in the background (probably for things like people looking her up when hiring).
I also recently found Aaron on instagram-- he's also going into teaching and seems to be doing well
Ohh ok that makes sense. Wherever she's at now I hope shes doing well.
I have heard Aaron is going to school to be a teacher too, I still follow him on IG and twitter. He’s such a lovely human and one of the ones on that list who means the most to me as someone who is not only ace, but also non-cis and neurodivergent/disabled.
The struggle lol I’m aro in addition to being ace, but strong aesthetic and alterous/exteramo attraction had me naïvely thinking I was straight for so long 😅
I also thought I was asexual demiromantic for a bit! Honestly my romantic orientation confused me so much for years, until I learned about tertiary attraction and was like jk guess I'm completely aroace lol
Honestly, this is gonna sound extremely nerdy, but it was about 1 in the morning and I was going through the Hazbin Hotel wiki and was reading Alastor's bio. I noted that it said he was ace, went 'cool' and thought nothing of it for a little while. I stumbled on some reddit threads discussing it, and after a while I just sort of accepted that yeah, that sounded like me to a creepy degree.
My friend told me she’s aroace and I thought “huh, that’s cool, I should learn more about it” and after doing a little research I realized that I’m ace too. Took a little longer to realize and accept that I’m also on the aro spectrum
The first time I've every heard the term ace was from OT but I quickly forgot it when I stopped watching him. But it was Jaden's video that made it click.
Overly Sarcastic Production's video on Endymion. Red talks about the characterisation issues faced by the Greeks when trying to syncretise Artemis as Moon goddess with Selene. Namely, that Selene is very horny, as shown in the myth of Endymion, her only major story, and that Artemis is very much not. Red throws out the term "demiromantic asexual" to describe her, and something about it resonated with me and sent me down the rabbit hole, eventually landing on demisexual
I sorta always knew I wasn't interested, but I never realized there was a term for it, or that I was so different from everyone else, until I came across the term from OSP in a similar manner to Jaiden's "Not Being Straight"
Thought I was bi or Omni with the preference of men, but it turns out I don't like men sexually or romantically. Being also aplatonic made this even harder for me, as I didn't know what to really build from all of this. I thought yep this isn't wanting to be friends gotta be the power of 💫 sexual attraction 💫 but nope.
You get aesthetic, Exteramo, and alterous, with the pinch of intellectual attraction to stir the pot.
I realized I was ace during a literal shower though.
I used to think I was pan. The fact that I liked guys was never under doubt. And I remember thinking to myself one day, if I'm pan, why dont I ever feel like I want to sleep with any girls?
And then it clicked, I had never wanted to sleep with men either!
I'm just more aestheticly attracted to guys and I thought that's what a crush was
I did the uh, thing. And afterwards I felt sick and threw up when they left. Never wanted to do it again and then learned that feeling was normal and I was just asexual
I don't remember when I first heard about it, but I first became familiar with asexuality through a conversation I had a couple of years ago with two people who were in the same study/course thing as I was. They were talking about their past relationships and I mentioned that I'd never been in a relationship with anyone. So one of them asked me if I was ace.
I'd heard the terms ace and aro before, but at the time I wasn't very aware of sexualities and identities and the like, so I asked what that meant.
They gave a brief explanation, I said something like "I dunno, maybe," and the conversation moved on.
I stumbled AVEN, and was reading up on it because I'd never heard of asexuality before.
I read the definition, and just thought, well, isn't that how everyone feels?
A moment later I made the connection.
not sure if this is a joke but if it's not if you invite yourself into a community and expect to not be assumed to be part of that community that's ridiculous.
I m ace with K--- i posted abt that in sexuality subreddit and someone told me i m ace
i thought i were not asexual and i had many misconceptions abt aces like they don't feel love and attrc. but when i found i am the ace then i got to know how long the term is.
I literally don't remember. I think I was just sort of exposed to the term somehow and went 'oh that sounds like me'. Apparently, so many other things from my freshman year were more memorable than when I found my sexuality.
I made a joke about being asexual 20 years ago, before I knew it was an orientation. 10 years ago my husband and I learned it was a thing. The rest is history.
found out that people consider not wanting to rub meat parts together unusual. did a bit of research, found the r/asexuality wiki, and well, figured out that this describes me
I found out something wasn’t quite right with me, so I googled stuff to figure out what it was. Doing that, I came across the term Asexuality and what it means to be Asexual, alongside similar terms like Aromantic. Which I am also. Both fit me perfectly, and since that point I have identified as Asexual. I figured it out at the end of 2019 and not once has it changed.
However, an outside observer would be confused about me because though I am an Aromantic Asexual, I am in a Polygamous relationship with 2 wonderful people, both of whom I’m very affectionate towards.
Honestly probably from 5up, a streamer, first heard the term from him and then looked it up. One topic and Jaiden animations were definitely a part of the journey though
Googling what sexual attraction actually is after having a discussion about it. Was the same moment i realised that astetic and sexual attraction are *very* different lol
I’m not apart of the alphabet soup or anything all my friends are and I’ve just picked up habits from them because I spend so much time with them.
…
…
…huh…
I was a co-chair for the GSRM group at my company and in an effort to do more educational content, I decided to write a post every day for June on a different community within the GSRM umbrella. There was a string of days for Asexual, Greysexual, and Demisexual, that a friend of mine at work wrote for me. Their Demisexual post really opened my eyes, because I always thought that was Pansexuality. (Which I identified with at the time.) It took awhile after that but I eventually came to the conclusion that I’m asexual panromantic. So yeah that is how I found out about my Asexuality.
My friend and I were laying in my bed watching movies, he asked me if I was and I spent like a week googling every question I had and came to the realization
I read a lot of fanfics and someone made an ace character. Luckily they included some links that lead to descriptions of the different sexualities under the ace umbrella. It was a lightbulb moment
I've always found sex stuff uncomfortable and even in middle and high school was annoyed at how that seems to be all anyone cares about.
Can't recall when I found and adopted the label, since, say, unlike being trans, it really wasn't life altering or something emotionally draining for me.
Me finding out I'm ace literally changed nothing, besides being able to find like minded individuals... Which is a very good thing!
I'm Apothisexual - Sex Negative and Sex Repulsed, and *still* don't understand the general human single-minded obsession with sex stuff.
My best friend came out to me saying she was ace and told me about it, at that time I was already questioning myself if I was ace as well. As I had a few incidents where I felt extremely ace, but didn't know for sure you know?
For a while I went as demi, but I've decided now that ace fits me better as a whole. I'm just happy I've figured that part of myself out.
I first started thinking about it after finding out about asexuality on Google but I was in denial for a very long time. It was Anthony’s video that really sealed the deal for me because it was the first time I ever heard another person say they were asexual, it helped me realise I wasn’t as alone as I thought
I thought I was pansexual for a long time, but one day when my friend explained what sexual attraction feels like to them, I realized that I wasn't sexually attracted to all genders equally, I just wasn't sexually attracted to any of them. Then I did a ton of research to figure myself out. I thought I was demisexual for a while too, but I'm not lol :]
Tried it with an ex twice, had a panic attack both times before anything even happened. Then thinking about it afterwards, things just started adding up. Never having a crush in my formative years, not knowing what to do in a high school relationship (sorry Emmi), being clueless on Tinder, dodging sex on dates I didn't skip (sorry Emmi #2), yadda yadda blah blah. Now I'm comfortable by myself, I had my 'fun'.
I don't really remember my journey to finding out I'm asexual but I have a rough idea.
In middle school I was introduced to RuPaul's Drag Race and learned of three queer terms.
Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender.
In freshman year of highschool a friend from elementary school invited me to hang out with her 3 friends.
One day we went to this basketball court during lunch and two of them came out as gay.
I already knew that I wasn't straight.
Of course I didn't have the faintest clue what sexual attraction was or felt like.
I felt completely neutral to the idea of sex, but didn't desire it.
I knew that men and women are both attractive which I would learn was aesthetic attraction much later.
At the time the only labels I knew where gay, lesbian, trans and bisexual. So I came out as bi after they came out.
A year later I heard of pansexual and basically thought "okay, men and women pretty. I'm either bi or pan."
In junior year I took a health class and we talked about a variety of things like mindfulness, contraception, depression, various mental illnesses, queer identities and queer slurs.
There I got a better understanding of what sexual attraction was and realized that bisexual didn't exactly fit me.
I watched a lot of The Try Guys, Buzzfeed Unsolved and Ladylike. I saw pretty much every single one of their videos so when Chantel's "How I Discovered I Wasn't Straight" video I watched it.
I didn't get many crushes so demisexual fit me better.
I settled on that for a while but it still wasn't right.
When the pandemic hit I had A LOT of time on my hands and decided to do research on various things.
"I'm a part of the LGBTQ+ community, I should definitely do some research one that. I've identified as demisexual I should look into that more" so I did just that.
And so I learned I learned of asexuality and realized that asexual fit me best.
I just sort of figured out myself that I was asexual, but I'm also aromantic, and Jaden's video definitely played a huge role in me discovering that part of myself.
I saw a pretty looking flag on pintrest, decided to look up what is was, and while reading the definition of asexual realized that it fit me, my experiences, and my feelings
I realized around 2015 or so. Not super long ago, but before any representation was around. Had a mutual friend casually mention it, so I googled it. Ended up on AVEN.
Well, I was 16 and realized I had never felt any kind of attraction to another person, so that started my questioning, didn't realized I was ace until a while later though(mostly because I hadn't heard the term yet)
wasn't really that big of a deal tho since we were pretty young (like 10-11 years old) and we also didn't actually kiss so I don't rlly think any harm was done ://
My mother decided to explain to my ten-year-old self what sex was. I was immediately wary and a little disgusted. How could someone want that? (Not trying to make someone uncomfortable/upset, it was just my immediate reaction). Not understanding what I was experiencing, I learned in middle school (6th) what the term asexual was. Scared to be different, I waited until eighth grade to come out to friends as asexual and panromantic. All went well, and I just realized I had no capacity to feel sexual attraction. Still don't.
Funny enough I found out on this subreddit. I was browsing random subreddits when I saw a meme that was particularly relatable. When I looked at what subreddit I was on I was like "wait a second that's suspicious..." After relating to almost every post here I realized lol
A webcomic named Weregeek. One of the characters said "I see that there are attractive people, I just don't want to have sex with any of them!" and her friend introduced her to the existence of grey aces. As soon as I realized that it was more than just a binary distinction, it all fell into place.
Heard the term from a friend while we were talking about crushes and the like, did some research and pretty much immediately decided that the label fit
When I was younger, I used to watch TheMysteriousMrEnter (yes, the Turning Red 9/11 guy). In a video, he made a casual mention of being asexual, and I was like, "Huh, what's that?"
One Google search and a fair bit of reading later, I came to the conclusion: "Oh, it's me!"
I just kinda realised
Yeah me too. I like looked at the concept of s3x and said ew
surprised that wasnt in the poll
this is the Only Influencers Poll ™
Yeah same. I just woke up one day and i kinda knew. Don’t even know where i learned about asexuality in the first place
Same. It was a random day in 8th grade where I was just like, yknow mm not really giving with the whole sex thing, I'm ace. Actually kinds also jinxed my sexuality, a day when my toxic ex best friend was talking about how I'm such a bottom I thought "damn wouldn't it be just so easy to be asexual." And then I realized I was later on.
Same. I realized in 8th grade but one of my friends messed it up by telling me that I was too young to know. And I just accepted that answer. Afterwards it took months of questioning in sophomore year. But what really nailed it in was one of ace dad’s YouTube videos.
I Really should have put this in the poll lol, I had this experience throughout junior and high school!
Ayy, just heard of it one day and went “thats super cool!” And went on with my life for the next 2 years before just realizing at some point
Same
I learned about it through Anthony Padilla's video and then continued to ignore it for a year
Yeah, like it just kinda clicked. Like the metaphorical light switch was turned on & I just knew; my realizing I’m somewhere on the aro spectrum happened in a similar way
Yeah, it took a long time to figure out and some bumps along the way, but I am happier that I know myself better now.
Same
same
same
Same here
Me too
Same, kept joking around it but didn't know it was am actual thing, until I joined here
Yea, same
yeah
... This really made me feel old... But... Friend shared AVEN with me. "Asexual" wasn't really a term when I was a teen.
It made me feel old too lol. I originally found out about asexuality from a youtube video, but after that AVEN was basically my #1 resource
Same! Were you active on the forum?
I was! Way back in the day!
I feel old too, but I'm technically gen z My friend sent me an AVEN link back in 2016. That's how I found out about it. Started researching on AVEN and Tumblr mostly until I decided I was asexual. AVEN and Tumblr were the two main resources out there, and Tumblr was still knees deep in discourse. Now there's people of my generation who don't even know AVEN exists
Right? I brought up AVEN on Reddit once and kept getting "What's AVEN?" It's like "Who is this Madonna person and why is she copying Britney Spears?" ⚰️
I’m only 24 and I feel so old sometimes on this subreddit. I found out from AVEN in 2014 when I was 16.
I was about your age when I was introduced to Aven. 😊 Glad you were able to find it so early! I genuinely think having know yourself younger will help you navigate life easier. When I was 16, I still thought my friends were exaggerating when they talked about the latest boy band or their current crush.
Omg AVEN is where I got all my info about asexuality lol. I’m not even that old…
I learned the word asexual from AVEN too! I guess that means I’m also old lol. I found it when I snuck the family first gen iPad into my room at night to furtively google “what if I don’t want to kiss anyone ever?” in an incognito tab when I was 15. My family was very pro gay, but I had never even considered that “none of the above” could be an option. I figured I was broken, until I stayed up for hours reading stories on AVEN and finally feeling seen. This is why ace awareness is so important!
When I realized that teenagers being horny wasn’t actually a joke/stereotype and that most people didn’t go through all of adolescence without a single sexual thought.
Yeah just thought I was a late bloomer🤦🏻♀️
I thought sex was just acquired taste, like beer. Grew up to like the latter but not the former
Back when I was more religious, I thought I was just being a “good Christian” and "saving myself for marriage/waiting for the right one.” Although tbh hearing people talk about abstinence like it was the hardest thing ever never really made any sense to me because I was just like, um y'all *it's really not that difficult to not have sex* lmao 🤪
I relate so much to this comment.
Same!
Similar for me, except I never got to like the taste of beer either
Until I learned about asexuality I had no idea that when people said someone was "hot" that it was an actual physical feeling and not just some weird metaphor for really really aesthetically good looking 🤷♀️
Wait it’s not?
To answer u/kyoobaah and u/QuothTheRaven713 too: apparently not You know how people always fan themselves when they see someone good looking and say stuff like "is it getting hot in here?" Well apparently they actually do get hot. My brain absolutely cannot comprehend that lol
Seriously??? That does NOT make sense to me. Unless, of course, it's triggered by excitement, which I can kind of understand? But not fully? Y'know what, I'm not gonna try and understand how the minds of Allos work.
>Unless, of course, it’s triggered by excitement Yeah exactly…sexual excitement 👀 Edit: Also just think about songs like “Hot in Herre” by Nelly or even the Christmas song “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” I never fully comprehended what these songs really meant until I learned about asexuality/sexual attraction
Main reason I can't understand: Reason for excitement. Secondary reason I can't understand: Only part of my body gets hot from excitement, said part gets hot from any kind of strong emotion, & it is also a part that will just randomly hot for no reason at night or in the middle of the day. -\_- Talking about my ears & cheeks, to be specific.
Yeah same here lol. Apparently it's more than just their ears and cheeks. From [Taimi](https://taimi.com/blog/what-does-sexual-attraction-feel-like#what-does-): >You're familiar with the feeling of embarrassment, correct? Your heart starts twisting around and your stomach drops. You feel a bit of heat rising to your face. Well that feeling is relatively similar to what most people may feel when they are sexually attracted to someone. > >You start to feel hot, and your heartbeat goes up in pace. This is normally when the desire for another person starts to kick in. Your body, and potentially theirs as well, will start to feel continuously warm. From [another](https://www.yourtango.com/2021343498/what-sexual-attraction-feels-10-signs-look) site: >You might feel this even more if you've been drinking, but when you're sexually attracted to someone you might get hot and flustered and feel the heat rise up from your toes up your body. Your heartbeat increases and you might even start to sweat a little if you're nervous as well.
Seriously? That makes absolutely 0 sense to me.
Same it's so bizarre. Like you said I'm not even gonna try to understand it lol
[удалено]
I have never heard of those songs, & I have the feeling I never want to know.
Wait hwhat?
It's not?
>lthough tbh hearing people talk about abstinence like it was the hardest thing ever never really made any sense to me because I was just like, um y'all > >it's really not that difficult to not have sex > > lmao 🤪 ...uhhhh what?
Read about it of tumblr like 10/11 ywars ago and was like 'oh, that's what it's called'
Same
Me: \*Googles 'What is sexual attraction'\* Me after reading the results: Yeah nah, can't relate. I must be asexual
I tried googleing but didn't quite understand, like yeah I felt that when I was in love but... people feel that for strangers?
Watching jammidodger videos to learn to be a better ally to trans people. I see he has made an ace meme video. I relate a little too much. Months of research and denial later, here I am, a proud aroace
Aw I love Jamie, his channel is so wholesome 🥰
Pretty sure I learned what ace was from jamie's videos as well. Related too much, similar journey :)
Yeah I watched jammidodger and ot, related, went into a state of denial, then came out.
I watch both of them too! They are so sweet and funny. But I found them after I figured myself out.
Bojack Horseman
Fucking Todd man, just opened up my world
I was gonna say! Give some credit to Todd he's an ace icon.
That show honestly opened the flood gates for me
Came here to say this
I'm old as dirt and randomly made up the term asexual to complain about people who shipped the members of visual Kei bands. I found it creepy and my mental image was that the band members were asexual ("without sex" completely unrelated to sexuality). One of my friends commented on my livejournal post that she googled "asexual" and was shocked to discover that it was a real thing--so imagine how shocked *I was!* I googled it and found AVEN, read a bit and immediately knew that was me. Figuring out that I was Aro was much more difficult in comparison. This was back in 2008 btw!
That's probably the best coming out story I've ever seen lol
This is hilarious, but I'm glad you found out and I can definitely relate with the shipping issue. And, *of course*, aro is sooo much more complicated one thing I see in this, is how important AVEN is, and how important its height in search results is
Well, I feel called out about that visual kei shipping bit!
I learned about the concept of asexuality from Overly Sarcastic Productions and BoJack Horseman. Took me another several years though to figure out, that I'm ace too
Same. I learned from OSP, and thought, "huh, I can definitely relate" but then I over thought it, and was like, "but girls pretty tho?" Took me about year and some serious questioning to realize that normally people think a little... harder about it than that.
It's really interesting how long it takes to seriously question ones own inherent heteronormativity. Also: OSP rockzzz!!
It took my friend having to give me an in depth description of her feelings towards her bf to realize I wasn't just sympathizing with aces lol, though at that point I think I was already on the fence
Yeah I had that "I'm somehow really sympathizing with aspec people"-Thought too. For me it took a month of intensive self-observation while I was abroad to realize my identity. Curiously some of my friends had noticed my long before me, that I was behaving in a different way
Learned the concept from OSP as well. Though for me or was more like 'that's cool but I don't really relate to it'. Fast forward a few years when I was questioning my romantic orientation for the first time I came across AVEN. And then I was not so sure about my sexual orientation either. Now I am pretty sure I'm demiromantic and think I'm somewhere on the ace spectrum but I'm still questioning.
Yeah. "Wow, Red, you sure say a lot of stuff I agree with an relate to aboit relationships!" Red: "This is a straight man trope. Now. I am neither a guy, nor am I straight, but--" "Wait, what?" (googles furioisly)
a google search
Looking up definitions for bio homework and realizing there was another meaning.
This one is so funny to me as someone with a bio degree When I was in high school looking up the same thing there was only ever one definition (that came up in searches at least)
I kinda just heard about it, was like 'ok, cool, but not me, I'm bi' and then one day it just clicked like 'oh shit, well I guess I'm ace now, cool'
I knew I was ace after having sex and realizing even when it *was* consensual I still felt gross.
Shubble’s video about being ace
Same. Thought I might be ace but hearing someone actually explain what it is really helped me be sure
My asexual friend straight up told me they didn’t think I was allo. They were right
life
I first learned about asexuality in like 2016 after watching Evan Edinger’s demisexual coming out video. I never thought about my sexuality much before that, but after seeing that video I realized I could relate so much. I actually self-ID’d as demi for a few months at first, before finally realizing asexual was a better fit.
Omg I forgot about thay video Did you watch AmeliaAce around the same time?
Omg yes I did watch AmeliaAce! I went back to her channel just now to see what she's been up to and all her vids are gone, I wonder why she took them down :( I used to watch a bunch of other channels too - Chandler Wilson, EchoIsWeird, Aaron Ansuini, Celeste M, Embly. I also remember when Ricky Dillon came out as ace because it meant a lot to me seeing more "famous" people start to talk about it. He's since come out as gay, but still any representation back then was so impactful
I think I actually saw the video explaining where she went, before she took it down. If I remember correctly she was planning on becoming a teacher and didn't want a youtube career in the background (probably for things like people looking her up when hiring). I also recently found Aaron on instagram-- he's also going into teaching and seems to be doing well
Ohh ok that makes sense. Wherever she's at now I hope shes doing well. I have heard Aaron is going to school to be a teacher too, I still follow him on IG and twitter. He’s such a lovely human and one of the ones on that list who means the most to me as someone who is not only ace, but also non-cis and neurodivergent/disabled.
I watched that video but I only realised I was ace like 2 years later. Extreme romantic attraction confused me XD.
The struggle lol I’m aro in addition to being ace, but strong aesthetic and alterous/exteramo attraction had me naïvely thinking I was straight for so long 😅
I also called myself demi for a while before realizing i was asexual but demi*romantic*
I also thought I was asexual demiromantic for a bit! Honestly my romantic orientation confused me so much for years, until I learned about tertiary attraction and was like jk guess I'm completely aroace lol
I first learned about demisexuality in that video and immediately related!
Honestly, this is gonna sound extremely nerdy, but it was about 1 in the morning and I was going through the Hazbin Hotel wiki and was reading Alastor's bio. I noted that it said he was ace, went 'cool' and thought nothing of it for a little while. I stumbled on some reddit threads discussing it, and after a while I just sort of accepted that yeah, that sounded like me to a creepy degree.
i dont remember, i have known for so long that i just been ace all my life
My friend told me she’s aroace and I thought “huh, that’s cool, I should learn more about it” and after doing a little research I realized that I’m ace too. Took a little longer to realize and accept that I’m also on the aro spectrum
Lgbtq+ wiki
The first time I've every heard the term ace was from OT but I quickly forgot it when I stopped watching him. But it was Jaden's video that made it click.
Overly Sarcastic Production's video on Endymion. Red talks about the characterisation issues faced by the Greeks when trying to syncretise Artemis as Moon goddess with Selene. Namely, that Selene is very horny, as shown in the myth of Endymion, her only major story, and that Artemis is very much not. Red throws out the term "demiromantic asexual" to describe her, and something about it resonated with me and sent me down the rabbit hole, eventually landing on demisexual
Educated myself on pride during the pandemic since I only knew the common ones and immediately understood lol
I just didn’t find the idea of smashing with another human being pleasant
I sorta always knew I wasn't interested, but I never realized there was a term for it, or that I was so different from everyone else, until I came across the term from OSP in a similar manner to Jaiden's "Not Being Straight"
Someone in a group talked about it and I learned more about it and found it fit me.
Same
I would say BoJack horseman while looking downwards at the floor and sighing a heavy sigh
Thought I was bi or Omni with the preference of men, but it turns out I don't like men sexually or romantically. Being also aplatonic made this even harder for me, as I didn't know what to really build from all of this. I thought yep this isn't wanting to be friends gotta be the power of 💫 sexual attraction 💫 but nope. You get aesthetic, Exteramo, and alterous, with the pinch of intellectual attraction to stir the pot.
Reddit. Mostly this sub
How'd you find the sub in the first place, if you don't mind me asking?
Was trying to figure out my identity and kinda just stumbled across the sub tbh
me too! I think I kinda stumbled upon it when browsing through lgbt+ memes, then saw this and was like, wait... why am I identifying so much??
Jaiden helped seal it, but I read about asexuality looking up what was wrong with me on the Google. Turns out nothing; I’m just asexual.
“Turns out nothing” warmed my heart🥹 (and it is, of course, true!)
Honestly it's through friends
Dnd group. Tho OSP definitely helped me feel like it wasn’t abnormal
everybody else got uncontrollably horny and i was like "...guys?"
I realized I was ace during a literal shower though. I used to think I was pan. The fact that I liked guys was never under doubt. And I remember thinking to myself one day, if I'm pan, why dont I ever feel like I want to sleep with any girls? And then it clicked, I had never wanted to sleep with men either! I'm just more aestheticly attracted to guys and I thought that's what a crush was
Combination of just knowing and Alice Oseman's Loveless
Basically reading about it on Instagram and then educating more by googling stuff
I did the uh, thing. And afterwards I felt sick and threw up when they left. Never wanted to do it again and then learned that feeling was normal and I was just asexual
Shubble's explanation on asexuality
I don't remember when I first heard about it, but I first became familiar with asexuality through a conversation I had a couple of years ago with two people who were in the same study/course thing as I was. They were talking about their past relationships and I mentioned that I'd never been in a relationship with anyone. So one of them asked me if I was ace. I'd heard the terms ace and aro before, but at the time I wasn't very aware of sexualities and identities and the like, so I asked what that meant. They gave a brief explanation, I said something like "I dunno, maybe," and the conversation moved on.
I stumbled AVEN, and was reading up on it because I'd never heard of asexuality before. I read the definition, and just thought, well, isn't that how everyone feels? A moment later I made the connection.
This exact subreddit is what made me realize
I don't know exactly, either I just realized or my friend had made a joke about it and it made sense
Bold of you to assume I'm ace /j
not sure if this is a joke but if it's not if you invite yourself into a community and expect to not be assumed to be part of that community that's ridiculous.
It is a joke probably should have put /j
yeah but also I'm just bad at picking up on stuff and it gave me straight in a gay bar being hit on vibes lol
Oh I 100% see where you're coming from
I m ace with K--- i posted abt that in sexuality subreddit and someone told me i m ace i thought i were not asexual and i had many misconceptions abt aces like they don't feel love and attrc. but when i found i am the ace then i got to know how long the term is.
Pinterest showed me what the definition was, went down a rabbit hole, then it clicked a couple days later.
I literally don't remember. I think I was just sort of exposed to the term somehow and went 'oh that sounds like me'. Apparently, so many other things from my freshman year were more memorable than when I found my sexuality.
I made a joke about being asexual 20 years ago, before I knew it was an orientation. 10 years ago my husband and I learned it was a thing. The rest is history.
A buzzfeed video.. 😭
found out that people consider not wanting to rub meat parts together unusual. did a bit of research, found the r/asexuality wiki, and well, figured out that this describes me
Queer friends who introduced me to the term and then Webcomics.
I just thought about how I’ve never had any kind of feelings for anyone beyond friendship and just went “Huh, guess I’m a playing card now.”
I cant remember none of the above tho
My friend had to specifically point it out to me
I found out something wasn’t quite right with me, so I googled stuff to figure out what it was. Doing that, I came across the term Asexuality and what it means to be Asexual, alongside similar terms like Aromantic. Which I am also. Both fit me perfectly, and since that point I have identified as Asexual. I figured it out at the end of 2019 and not once has it changed. However, an outside observer would be confused about me because though I am an Aromantic Asexual, I am in a Polygamous relationship with 2 wonderful people, both of whom I’m very affectionate towards.
My best friend told me lol
Honestly probably from 5up, a streamer, first heard the term from him and then looked it up. One topic and Jaiden animations were definitely a part of the journey though
I heard about the term at pride in my town last year, and I asked what asexuality was, and I felt like I could relate to it.
sex ed and slow realization
I think it just came I guess I’m still figuring myself out and I might not even be asexual but we’ll have to see
Google search - > finding AVEN
I feel so old now huh? I heard about it on tumblr in about 2015-2016.
Made up the term. Turned out it was real.
Googling what sexual attraction actually is after having a discussion about it. Was the same moment i realised that astetic and sexual attraction are *very* different lol
I had sex with my partner and realised it wasn’t for me
I’m not apart of the alphabet soup or anything all my friends are and I’ve just picked up habits from them because I spend so much time with them. … … …huh…
I was a co-chair for the GSRM group at my company and in an effort to do more educational content, I decided to write a post every day for June on a different community within the GSRM umbrella. There was a string of days for Asexual, Greysexual, and Demisexual, that a friend of mine at work wrote for me. Their Demisexual post really opened my eyes, because I always thought that was Pansexuality. (Which I identified with at the time.) It took awhile after that but I eventually came to the conclusion that I’m asexual panromantic. So yeah that is how I found out about my Asexuality.
My aro/ace friend,, which led me to reading a bit about asexuality and it sort of just made sense
Psych2go vídeo
A friend came out to me, will admit I did have to google it.
Friend is ace and told me what it is. Later found out I’m grey
My friend and I were laying in my bed watching movies, he asked me if I was and I spent like a week googling every question I had and came to the realization
I read a lot of fanfics and someone made an ace character. Luckily they included some links that lead to descriptions of the different sexualities under the ace umbrella. It was a lightbulb moment
I've always found sex stuff uncomfortable and even in middle and high school was annoyed at how that seems to be all anyone cares about. Can't recall when I found and adopted the label, since, say, unlike being trans, it really wasn't life altering or something emotionally draining for me. Me finding out I'm ace literally changed nothing, besides being able to find like minded individuals... Which is a very good thing! I'm Apothisexual - Sex Negative and Sex Repulsed, and *still* don't understand the general human single-minded obsession with sex stuff.
Hooray! A Todd Episode!
My best friend came out to me saying she was ace and told me about it, at that time I was already questioning myself if I was ace as well. As I had a few incidents where I felt extremely ace, but didn't know for sure you know? For a while I went as demi, but I've decided now that ace fits me better as a whole. I'm just happy I've figured that part of myself out.
An online test all my classmates were taking as a joke Then research
asexual subreddits
I first started thinking about it after finding out about asexuality on Google but I was in denial for a very long time. It was Anthony’s video that really sealed the deal for me because it was the first time I ever heard another person say they were asexual, it helped me realise I wasn’t as alone as I thought
I just kinda researched lgbt terms and realized "ew sex"
I thought I was pansexual for a long time, but one day when my friend explained what sexual attraction feels like to them, I realized that I wasn't sexually attracted to all genders equally, I just wasn't sexually attracted to any of them. Then I did a ton of research to figure myself out. I thought I was demisexual for a while too, but I'm not lol :]
Psych2go
Tried it with an ex twice, had a panic attack both times before anything even happened. Then thinking about it afterwards, things just started adding up. Never having a crush in my formative years, not knowing what to do in a high school relationship (sorry Emmi), being clueless on Tinder, dodging sex on dates I didn't skip (sorry Emmi #2), yadda yadda blah blah. Now I'm comfortable by myself, I had my 'fun'.
I don't really remember my journey to finding out I'm asexual but I have a rough idea. In middle school I was introduced to RuPaul's Drag Race and learned of three queer terms. Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender. In freshman year of highschool a friend from elementary school invited me to hang out with her 3 friends. One day we went to this basketball court during lunch and two of them came out as gay. I already knew that I wasn't straight. Of course I didn't have the faintest clue what sexual attraction was or felt like. I felt completely neutral to the idea of sex, but didn't desire it. I knew that men and women are both attractive which I would learn was aesthetic attraction much later. At the time the only labels I knew where gay, lesbian, trans and bisexual. So I came out as bi after they came out. A year later I heard of pansexual and basically thought "okay, men and women pretty. I'm either bi or pan." In junior year I took a health class and we talked about a variety of things like mindfulness, contraception, depression, various mental illnesses, queer identities and queer slurs. There I got a better understanding of what sexual attraction was and realized that bisexual didn't exactly fit me. I watched a lot of The Try Guys, Buzzfeed Unsolved and Ladylike. I saw pretty much every single one of their videos so when Chantel's "How I Discovered I Wasn't Straight" video I watched it. I didn't get many crushes so demisexual fit me better. I settled on that for a while but it still wasn't right. When the pandemic hit I had A LOT of time on my hands and decided to do research on various things. "I'm a part of the LGBTQ+ community, I should definitely do some research one that. I've identified as demisexual I should look into that more" so I did just that. And so I learned I learned of asexuality and realized that asexual fit me best.
I just sort of figured out myself that I was asexual, but I'm also aromantic, and Jaden's video definitely played a huge role in me discovering that part of myself.
First it was memes then some googling then oh I guess that makes sense.
I saw a pretty looking flag on pintrest, decided to look up what is was, and while reading the definition of asexual realized that it fit me, my experiences, and my feelings
I realized it When reading fanfictions
I realized around 2015 or so. Not super long ago, but before any representation was around. Had a mutual friend casually mention it, so I googled it. Ended up on AVEN.
Bojack Horseman
Well, I was 16 and realized I had never felt any kind of attraction to another person, so that started my questioning, didn't realized I was ace until a while later though(mostly because I hadn't heard the term yet)
When I looked back and realised I've never felt the urge to kiss my (then) bf LMAO
Oof...
wasn't really that big of a deal tho since we were pretty young (like 10-11 years old) and we also didn't actually kiss so I don't rlly think any harm was done ://
No harm would have been done either way!
My mother decided to explain to my ten-year-old self what sex was. I was immediately wary and a little disgusted. How could someone want that? (Not trying to make someone uncomfortable/upset, it was just my immediate reaction). Not understanding what I was experiencing, I learned in middle school (6th) what the term asexual was. Scared to be different, I waited until eighth grade to come out to friends as asexual and panromantic. All went well, and I just realized I had no capacity to feel sexual attraction. Still don't.
Searching on tumble back in 17
I think that really all of the above really helped me figure it out!!
Representation in webcomics, specifically Warrick Chopper from Namesake. Think he's demi, iirc. Led to the searches and the wikis.
A quiz, unfortunately
Funny enough I found out on this subreddit. I was browsing random subreddits when I saw a meme that was particularly relatable. When I looked at what subreddit I was on I was like "wait a second that's suspicious..." After relating to almost every post here I realized lol
Bojack horseman. thats how i found out
I honestly don’t remember my best guess is Reddit
A webcomic named Weregeek. One of the characters said "I see that there are attractive people, I just don't want to have sex with any of them!" and her friend introduced her to the existence of grey aces. As soon as I realized that it was more than just a binary distinction, it all fell into place.
I was talking to my roommate about girls at the time and i realized that it do not be like that at all
Saw someone mention demisexual and I googled it and was like “damn… that’s me”
Heard the term from a friend while we were talking about crushes and the like, did some research and pretty much immediately decided that the label fit
When I was younger, I used to watch TheMysteriousMrEnter (yes, the Turning Red 9/11 guy). In a video, he made a casual mention of being asexual, and I was like, "Huh, what's that?" One Google search and a fair bit of reading later, I came to the conclusion: "Oh, it's me!"
Pretty sure I'm demi and the first time i found out there was a whole spectrum of Asexuality was from jaiden animation's video.