Q&A: “how do I know if I’m ace?”

anonymous said:

Hi, I have a question : how do I know if I’m ace? For example if I have never kissed someone how do I know I don’t like to kiss someone? Maybe is a stupid question but I’m new on this blog

hi anon,

“how do i know if i’m ____?” is a very common question that many people ask themself and / or others at one point or another and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. despite being a common question, the answer to that question isn’t a simple one and will differ from person to person because there is no one “true” answer, imho. the following is just my longwinded personal opinion.

before i attempt to answer your question

i’d like to point out that whether you like or don’t like kissing is not an indication of whether you’re ace or not. if you don’t like kissing then you simply don’t like kissing, which can be true for someone of any orientation. similarly, someone of any orientation can like kissing, including aces.

replace “kissing” with “sex” and the same is still true.

different people define asexuality differently because it means different things to different people, but imho asexuality is no different from other sexual orientations in that it’s descriptive of who someone is or isn’t (potentially) sexually attracted to and says nothing about the actions one finds enjoyable (or not). besides, a person doesn’t have to be sexually attracted to someone for kissing (or sex) to be enjoyable and a lack of sexual attraction is not required for kissing (or sex) to be something you don’t like.

while it’s certainly true that there are aces who do not like kissing and / or sex, for whom their experience with kissing and / or sex and disliking it (or worse) may be intrinsically connected to their asexuality / how they came to identify as ace, i hope that a lack of experience will not detour you from identifying as ace if you think that you might be ace.

to answer your question (finally)

how do you know if you’re ace? the same way that i myself and countless others know that they’re ace: “ace”, “asexual”, “gray asexual”, “demisexual”, etc resonate with you and you feel comfortable enough describing yourself (or being referred to by others) as such enough to identify as such. in other words, you adopt that word / identity for yourself because you decide for yourself that that’s who you are.

there is nothing that qualifies you (or disqualifies you) as ace.
there is no surefire way to know whether or not you’re ace.

there is no way to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you will never experience sexual attraction even if you have yet to experience it.

hell, sometimes it can be difficult to know whether or not you’ve ever experienced sexual attraction to some degree or in some way. sometimes it’s simply impossible to know for sure and yet other times you may not even be sure what the hell this “sexual attraction” even is.

and that’s okay.
all of that is okay.

every single one of us lives in the present, not the future nor the past. uncertainty is natural. you do not need to know anything for certain. furthermore, you do not need to know how you may feel in the future to identify as something now because it feels right to do so now. even if you were to identify as ace (or anything else) now, but in the future something were to change for you that makes ace (or anything else) less relevant or comfortable for you, that’s okay. use whatever word(s) / identity(/ies) feel right for you at the time and discard the ones that don’t. every experience you have (or don’t have) is valid regardless of whether that experience changes for you later in life. there’s absolutely no reason to hold one’s breath for future possibilities that may never come, simply roll with them if they do.

tl;dr because i’m longwinded as hell

if the thought that you might be ace resonates with you, why not try it on for size? in other words, try identifying as ace (even if only internally to yourself) and see how it makes you feel now. don’t worry about the future. if you happen to find that ace feels “right” or comfortable for you now, then hey! you might be ace. sometimes it’s not actually a matter of “knowing” whether you’re ace or not, but rather deciding if “ace” is meaningful as a word / identity for you. no one knows you better than you know yourself and sometimes it’s difficult to know anything for sure and that’s okay. just roll with your feelings, figure out things as you go and use whatever word(s) / identity(/ies) happen to feel right for you / be helpful. i’m pretty sure that that’s what all of us are doing. 🙂