On Being Asexual

As you think more about the asexual community, remember that our struggle for connection is tangled up in a culture of sexuality. – David Jay

Let us begin at the age of 15. At this point, I was reading the Harry Potter^* series, which, like every other heteronormative novel, puts love on a pedestal. Near the end of almost every novel in the series, we see Dumbledore gushing about how Harry is so much more powerful than Lord Voldemort, because he can understand love and feel the related pain, which Voldemort cannot. Therefore, Harry can defeat him (never mind that Voldemort could be a misunderstood aro-ace, a victim of heteronormativity). Unfortunately, at the time I did not evaluate the series critically, and thus formed a skewed picture of love in my mind.

This explains the background and the state of mind with which I fell in romantic love for the first time. At the time, I did not examine my feelings about the person very closely. The fact that I had no idea about the feelings experienced by the typical heterosexual male person did not help either (more on this later). Looking back now, it has become clear that although I did feel romantic desire, I had no sexual desire at all.

Just after the Harry Potter series, I had picked up the Sherlock Holmes series. A key fact to know is that although it is never explicitly stated in the series itself, Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as an asexual, driven entirely by intellect and rationality. Although I did not realise this at the time, seeing an asexual person portrayed positively in literature which I loved would become instrumental to my own examination of my sexuality, or lack thereof, later.

About a year later, I fell in love for the second time. At this time, I had an English teacher who was a fan of both love and literature. (They were instrumental in strengthening my appreciation of both English literature and the language itself. Unfortunately, they did nothing to correct my skewed picture of love.) Once again, I did not closely examine my own feelings. When I look back now, I remember that although I loved spending time with them and getting their appreciation, I had no sexual desire for them at all.

During the next four years, while I was pursuing my bachelor’s, I never felt any romantic or sexual desire towards anyone at all. However, I have noticed that my friendships seem to be much deeper and longer lasting than for most other people I know. The friends I made during my bachelors continue to be some of my best friends.

I have been aware for some time now that my sexuality does not exactly match the typical heterosexual person. This was evident as my friends seemed exceedingly interested in relationships and sex, while I never felt any need for either. Indeed, there were at least two occasions when I was entirely oblivious of another person hitting on me. On both occasions, I realised this much later through a mechanical observation of ‘signs that another person has a crush on you.’ Recently, I came across a video by Jaiden Animations entitled ‘Being Not Straight’ (Being Not Straight – YouTube). Watching this video made me realise for the first time that I was asexual as well as somewhere on the aromantic spectrum (I am not sure exactly where). Being able to label my sexuality in this way has been very empowering. Suddenly, looking back on my experiences, many things began to make much more sense. Since then, I have also been able to examine and correct the skewed picture of love in my mind (my friends have said that there isn’t even a gram of romance or love left in me).

I recently read it described somewhere (not providing the exact source for fear of vandalism) that anything a man did for a woman was in some way an effort to gain sexual pleasure. To me, this looks like a rather skewed view of sexuality; indeed, it seems to come dangerously close to toxic masculinity. But if this is even somewhat representative of the motivations of the typical heterosexual male person, then it is completely antithetical to how I function. Nothing I have ever done for anybody has been motivated by sexual desire. It sometimes seems that I can’t relate to this world at all. Must I always be afraid that any friendly gesture to a person of a different sex would be interpreted as a sexual advance?

I have, in many ways, experienced asexual erasure. David Jay’s talk on asexuality comes to mind (David Jay | Asexuality – YouTube). Quoting him, “As you think more about the asexual community, remember that our struggle for connection is tangled up in a culture of sexuality.” I came across this video recently, and looking back has made clear various instances of acephobia which I did not recognise as such when they happened. Almost every time I developed a close platonic friendship with a person of another sex, my family would suspect that I was in a sexual relationship with them. I remember at least one time during my bachelor’s when a friendship had become unsustainable because of the number of rumours which were thrown around. I have had friends and family downplaying the importance of my platonic friendships, saying that they’re useless and don’t count. I have had friends asking me about how many relationships I have had, even after being explicitly told that I don’t appreciate being asked this. When I told my family that I don’t wish to ever marry, I was told that I would lead an unhappy and depressing life because I would not have any ‘real relationships’.

I dream of a world where acephobia and asexual erasure are a thing of the past. A world where all relationships, whether platonic or sexual, get the same appreciation and respect. A world where I am not repeatedly told that my friendships are useless and don’t count.

*: To clarify, I am aware of the transphobia espoused by J K Rowling recently. I read Harry Potter a long time ago and was not aware of transphobia (or homophobia) at that time. Nevertheless, you may notice that I have not shown Harry Potter in a particularly favourable light here.

Notes:

1. This piece was first published in the November 2023 issue of Out & About, the blog of Vannam, IIT Madras, and has been reproduced here with consent of the author and the Vannam collective.

2. The visual representation of the Asexuality spectrum is from https://www.reddit.com/r/asexuality/comments/slcguk/a_visualization_of_the_asexuality_spectrum_v3/