Q&A: “Hi, I identify as bi and aro and I’ve been questioning being on the asexual spectrum for a year…”
anonymous said:
(part 1/2) Hi, I identify as bi and aro and I’ve been questioning being on the asexual spectrum for a year but I can’t get anywhere. I’ve always noticed I wasn’t attracted to my partners even before I knew asexuality existed but oddly, it didn’t bothered me or made me question things on the moment. However, I can have fantasies about people I know or celebrities but it never becomes reality. When I have sex with my partners, it’s because I have a libido and I feel emotionally good with them.
(part 2/2) I can’t relate with most ace stories since I have fantaisies, a libido and sex. But at the same time, I can’t totally relate either with allosexual way of things. And being bi means I exist in that weird paradox where I can’t draw the line between being attracted to all genders or none. I know there’s a grey area in the ace spectrum as well that doesn’t make this a total paradox but yeah I’m really lost. Do you have any idea where I fall on the ace spectrum, or if I am in it please?
hi, anon.
i’m afraid that i can’t really say (and prefer not to even speculate at) whether you “fall on the ace spectrum”, as you and many others put it, because i personally prefer not to look back over past experiences or feelings (be it someone else’s or even my own) and label them as either fitting with or not fitting with the description of a particular thing or not because, to me, that feels like doing a diagnostic test to decide whether one meets certain criteria to warrant using whatever word(s) it is you’re questioning using.
to be clear, i’m not saying that approaching these topic in such a way is necessarily wrong, just that it’s not how i personally prefer to approach these things,
instead, i prefer to focus on one’s agency over the words one uses to describe oneself or their identity. i encourage you to focus on what being on the ace spectrum means to you personal (as opposed to others’ definitions or descriptions of it) and then take your interpretation of that and relate that back to your personal experiences and feelings rather than holding up your experiences and feelings side by side with someone else’s. how does it feel? however it feels, go with that. if the thought of you identifying as / being ace spectrum feels right, then go with that.
i know that such advice is often unhelpful, especially to those who have been questioning for an extended period of time, but it’s the best i can do and i swear it makes more sense and sounds more helpful in my head. bottom line, i guess, is just know that there are more aces who fantasize, have a libido and / or have sex than you may think. also, if you haven’t seen this post, you may be interested in checking it out.
best wishes, anon.