I Discovered I Was Asexual at 29

I always imagined most people knew their sexuality early on - perhaps as children, but certainly by the end of their teens. It never occurred that I could be just discovering the truth about my own sexuality at 29 years old.

By the time I was entering my 30th year I was married with 2 children. There were cracks in my marriage, and a lot of that came down to one big issue - sex. My husband was a very sexual person who equated sex with showing love, I could take it or leave it and we would only have sex if he initiated it. In the many years we had been together this had come up as topic of discussion on many occasions, but since the birth of our second child our sex life had waned further and fizzled out to almost nothing. My husband didn't understand how I could love him as deeply as I claimed but be so willing to avoid sleeping with him, and I didn't understand how he could claim to love me and not just let me sleep.

As a teenager I had wondered about my sexuality a lot. I only had boyfriends but often had romantic feelings for girls too. I wondered if perhaps I was bisexual, but I didn't really want to have sex with those girls. I didn't get excited about sleeping with boys either but that's what you're supposed to do in a relationship, isn't it? I thought I would figure it out eventually, and maybe I just wasn't sexually mature yet anyway.

I didn't know much, if anything, about asexuality back then. I know now that I am asexual and panromantic, but these were terms and concepts I had never learned about. All I knew was that I had never experienced being horny (I always imagine it's like being really hungry but for orgasms instead of food), I'd never looked at a person and thought I'd want to have sex with them, I'd never had sexual fantasies, and I'd never initiated sex.

Now, don't get me wrong. Though I've never initiated sex I have always been a willing participant. I'm not sex averse, sex can be nice with the right person, but I don't crave it or need it or dream of it. I participate because I enjoy making my partner happy, because it can feel good, and frankly...it helps me sleep.

Being a sex positive asexual has made me very hesitant to publicly talk about my sexuality. Asexuality isn't well understand by most people in my experience, and the emotional labour required to explain the nuance involved in my own life as ace is just too much for me sometimes. When I have tried to open up about being ace, some questions are almost inevitable.

"How can you be asexual if you have kids?"

Because I still have sex.

"I thought asexuals were repulsed by sex?"

Some may be, but others like myself might be sex positive and sometimes find sex enjoyable although they don't experience sexual attraction.

"Are you sure you haven't just been having bad sex?"

Yes, I am sure.

I would love to see more education about asexuality. My teen years would have been far less stressful if I had been armed with the information to recognise not only what my sexuality was but that it was valid, and I was valid. I learned so much about the different types of attraction but not about the lack of it, and for a long time I thought I was broken. I don't want ace kids to spend the years I did thinking they need to be fixed.