Here's the thing that I seem to differ a bit on, these things were completely normal to me. I was exposed to and drowned in sexual culture WAAAAAY before I knew that asexuality was a recognized orientation; didn't really know we could pick "none of the above". I wish that I could say that "it just all seemed boring to me", but my experience while seemingly normal, looking back now, was actually quite sad.

During our childhood, we learn how to act and how to react to things from the people around us, typically our peers. I can only speak for myself, but growing up as a young boy I learned exactly how I was supposed to feel towards all of these things. This only became more elaborate as I got older, the "girls are yucky" card only worked until I was 5.

Here's the thing, I was still pretty 'normal' throughout my early childhood, and what I mean by this is I was obviously curious about nudity! Most people here likely were as well, and if you weren't you're most likely were and are simply embarrassed at the thought, or you grew up in a household where nudity was more commonplace.

You're probably wondering why the heck I'm even bringing this up, let alone telling people that 6 yr. old them really was interested that one time they saw naked people wrestling on the T.V right before Mom/Dad/Other. hurriedly turned it off and asked why you were out of bed... that was all much more detailed than planned, but I bet at least a few got it. To my point, assuming your house wasn't too uptight, we had little to no concept that nudity was something taboo/shameful at that age. This is a key point I emphasize when explaining my lack of sexual attraction to people and I feel its a healthy point of view for Aces as well.

Even though it became clear at a young age that bodies had to be covered up, and I'd learned about reproduction early as well (no cutsie words either), I wasn't really forced to acknowledge sexual attraction until I was around 12. Here's where it wasn't so smooth. I'd said acknowledge, because even if my friends experienced it earlier, it was only normative to have attraction in some way at a certain age. Here's the thing, from this point on all of my friends displayed the same 'interests'. I saw myself as no different; I knew what to say (Spoiler Alert: until high school "boobs" was the safe answer. Instant camouflage) I still thought some people were pretty (or handsome) and their evaluation of who was 'hot' lined up with that. What can ya say, we all admire health people.

This went on for a while, and though it became clear after a while that I didn't fixate like others, I was confident in telling myself that I could be exactly like them (which was what I wanted at the time) High School came around and that's when the inner conflicts started. I was always perfectly content with childhood friends, but when my friends got girlfriends I began to feel very distraught. This is when the pressure from sexual culture forced me into a 'mask'

After my 1st year of high school, I began independent study. At the time I just didn't "click" with my peers, not sure if it was completely about sex, but it was a factor. I got heavily involved in Jiu Jitsu and have made some really good friends, but when I turned 16,17,18... people were wondering why I didn't have a girlfriend, especially with the well, atheistic perks of being a pro athlete. People would try to play matchmaker and despite being so deep in denial about my lack of attraction I still shut down and felt defective. Was always good about keeping a straight face though. I was the weird one in the world

That was longer than expected repressed frustrations am I right? I'm very comfortable with my Identity now though. That story, my Ace Buddies, is why I felt my world was unraveling during the 6 months it took me to actually accept the word "Asexual" (I eventually had no choice, it became too correlated). I'm a native speaker when it comes to sexual speak, and I spent 18 years HAMMERING the hetero label into me because my brain wasn't pulling any weight. I know my situation was nowhere near as bad as those from more stigmatized minorities, but I will say that forcing myself to be someone I wasn't, even if it was just feigning interest, was mentally taxing and it did take a toll after a while. Always remember: You do you