A little more broken or a little more whole?
A personal essay on identity, the self, and changing into the woman I have become
The following is an essay on a few different things that all relate to each other- My struggles with identity, the changing of the self, sex, mistakes, and everything that has made me the woman I am today. There are encounters I detail with people that played an important role, but are very purposely vague so I apologise If things feel rushed or incomplete in some areas, it’s just what I have to do. I’ve tried to write everything chronologically to reflect the real timeline but not everything is in order.
Seeing as it’s 5 years to the day since I realised, a large part of this essay is about the importance and effects of aromanticism in my life ( I’m not going to have written definitions to every term or label I talk about, but everything will be linked) This is the biggest personal essay I have ever written at over 7,000 words. I’ve poured my bare soul into this and finishing it was devastating because I could have worked on this forever. This is a very long and vulnerable piece but I hope it’s insightful and appreciated. I write my truth unapologetically and for that I will publish without fear
This essay is divided by the following categories
⟡ Identity ⟡ Sex ⟡ Queerplatonic and change ⟡ Demisexuality and a new chapter
Enjoy.
Identity
There are some things you can only push down for so long. You can ignore and deny all you want but the time will always come when you have to face the truth.
I realised I was Aromantic at age 16. My best friend at the time was in love with me and I couldn’t comprehend at the time why I didn’t like him back. By all accounts he was perfect for me - Same interests, same humour, and we were absolutely inseparable throughout high school. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. At the time my understanding of the term aromantic was ‘doesn’t like relationships’ and I didn’t think that was me by any stretch, so I ruled it out. But a couple months passed and the time came when I really thought I loved him back. I missed him all the time, I lit up when I saw him, and I felt such a strong love for him. People my whole life have described those symptoms when being in love with someone, so what else could it have been? I thought maybe I just needed more time to realise it, maybe I just needed to get to know him better.
On March 3rd, I told him just that, that I felt the same way he did. Coincidentally, the first Covid lockdown started later that same month in March 2020. We decided not to put a label on things and wait out the lockdown and do things the traditional way, after all it was only gonna last a couple weeks right? The day after I told him all the excitement and adrenaline disappeared. I was panicking for a reason I couldn’t figure out. I felt anxious, like the pressure was on. I was gonna have to meet his parents, kiss him, have sex with him because that’s what couples do. I was putting so much pressure on myself and it made me dizzy. I couldn’t shake the dread. For the next few weeks I couldn’t escape the feeling of being trapped and I had told myself it was just an issue of commitment, normal teenage fear. I pushed those feelings down until the day I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Those feelings for him left just as quick as they had appeared. Well the attraction and the feeling of being in love, I still loved him but I realised I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
April 12th, 2020. I entertained the idea that maybe I should actually check what being aromantic meant, so I looked it up. It was a random decision, a fluke, a hey let me just double check and it changed everything. What I felt in those moments afterwards made the whole world stop for just a second. I looked up definitions, checked Reddit and forums to see what other people were saying and every little thing in my life just clicked. It explained why I never had any crushes as child, why I had never been bothered by relationships, or why I could never understand the actual difference between platonic and romantic attraction, and so many other things that would take forever to recount.
This missing piece of my puzzle was finally found and it felt amazing. There was nothing wrong with me. However that feeling of peace lasted no more than 5 minutes. It sunk in that I was going to have to break the news to my best friend. It was a horrible and traumatic conversation to say the least, with a lot of tears and apology’s. I felt like a terrible person and he only blamed himself. The guilt was heavy but the weight and fear I’d been carrying was finally off my shoulders. (Neither of us knew it then, but it was that inciting incident that would end our friendship 3 ish years later)
For the next few months I was a little fish in a big new pond. There was a whole new side of myself to explore, and I did. I researched everything, learned all the labels and definitions of the wide scale that is the Aromantic spectrum. At the time, in my confusion, there were many labels I felt applied to me so I thought Aroflux was an accurate descriptor. I say in my confusion because I thought the burst of love I would go on to feel for a few people in later years was romantic, It wasn’t, I was just still figuring myself out and was a bit mixed up. I can say with confidence that I am not a person who can traverse the spectrum, I do not fluctuate from one side to the other. There are two sides: Aromantic and Alloromantic (a non aromantic person) and I am Aromantic completely, there’s not a part of me that has felt or can feel romantic attraction. (That being said, I’ve had my doubts and I feel other attractions very strongly but more on that in later sections.)
When I knew I was aro I realised I had been so brainwashed by societal norms that all the things I thought I wanted - children, marriage, relationships- I didn’t want at all. The thought of a relationship made me feel suffocated and sick to my stomach. A few years prior at 13 I had my first and only relationship to date with one of my best friends at the time. My high school friend group was very diverse in the ways of sexuality, and little me was the straightest of them all until I started dating her. My best friend had a crush on me, I cared about her dearly so when she asked me I said yes. After that I considered myself bisexual, came out, went to pride- the whole shebang. But after realising that I was aromantic, I began to distance myself from bisexuality. The more I embraced being aromantic the more I felt that bisexuality no longer identified with my experience. It was a slow process but whenever I described myself as such, it started to make me very uncomfortable. Despite having the word sexual in the term, when you describe yourself as bi it’s a bit of a given that you also mean that you are romantically attracted to both genders, so up until fairly recently I described myself as Queer which eased my discomfort a lot.
I was happy, full of pride and perfectly content. I found pride in being just on the edge of society, it made me feel something indescribable. By simply being, I was a defiance to the social standard, a natural rebellion to tradition and norms and I fully embraced it. I wish I could remember when that all began to change.
Coming out and being Aromantic hasn’t been without its difficulties. I’ve faced pushback from a lot of people in my life. It was and still is exhausting to constantly have to defend and explain my very existence to people who don’t think I exist or make sense. I’ve heard it all: “you’re a sociopath” “you just want to be special” “it’s not real” “your friends will leave you for their partners and you’ll be alone.” “You’re missing out, I’m scared for your future.” From my friends I’ve been told I’m too confusing, from my parents I’ve been told that I will spend the rest of my life alone. These are things I already know, things I am painfully aware of and I don’t need constant reminders and pity, it only affects me negatively.
I am the only aromantic person I know, and I have been since the day I came out. Something I wish my the non Aromantic people in my life, and in general, knew is that there is a certain isolation that I feel every single day because no one in my life, no matter how much they love me, understands me entirely. It’s a completely alienating feeling. It doesn’t come from a place of badness I know, and it no ones fault that it’s a little confusing, but that doesn’t make it any less of a lonely experience. I started to feel like something more than just a ‘fuck you’ to societal standards. I felt like I was outside the bounds of humanity itself, because what is a woman, a human, if she could not love? I rejected my humanity for a time and started closely identifying with the subculture of Voidpunk and experimented with using It/its pronouns because I felt so truly othered. I wasn’t delusional and knew that obviously I was biologically human, but I look back at time and remember how fun it was to experiment. That was a few years ago now and though I don’t take action on expressing my otherness like I did back then, and embracing what it means to be human is a very intense journey I’m on right now, I still feel like an outsider.
In old poems and diary entries I described the feeling like this:
I am on the very edge, and out of bounds. I am in insider looking in. A bird in an open cage, free to fly if I could but I am chained to my perch. It feels like I am in an invisible box that no one else can see, in here it’s only me. I can see but I cannot touch , be touched, and can never feel.
Being aromantic is not something I talk about a lot anymore, in writing or with my loved ones for one simple reason. It is not something I am proud of. Pride month is obviously a month where the resistance and existence of LGBTQ+ identities are celebrated in a society where we are still oppressed, but I am not someone with a lot of pride about mine. As much as I believe it’s important to celebrate the joys of queer experiences, I don’t think people who feel less prideful should be demonised for expressing unhappiness. When I first came out and in the years to follow I was a frequent visitor of the r/aromantic subreddit because that was a helper in feeling less alone. I learned a lot from that subreddit and I got to read posts from people who were just like me and that meant everything, but over time I started to feel like it wasn’t really a place for all of us. A lot of aromantic redditors made posts and comments about their unhappiness with being aromantic for many reasons, and so many other users would complain and beg that they stop being negative. I understand how it can be frustrating but you cannot expect every single person to be full of pride and joy, these feelings are still apart of the aromantic experience and that shouldn’t be ignored.
I have neutral feelings towards my identity, I have no choice but to accept it but it’s not ideal. When I grew up and matured, my experiences shaped my reality- and the reality is that no one will ever value a friendship over a romantic relationship the way I do, and I still get more than enough proof of that, and the world is not the kindest to women like me.
I often wonder why I was made this way. Did it start at my conception? After all how could two people who didn’t love each other make a baby who could love others? Or was it a result of being surrounded by unhappy couples from a very young age? I was 3 months premature maybe I just didn’t have the time to fully bake. I didn’t ask to be made this way, and if I’m being truthful sometimes I would give everything to change it, to fall in love, to be loved. There are just no words, not even the words I’m writing now could accurately describe how it feels to be aromantic.
That being said I cannot deny that it is one of the cornerstones of who I am. I don’t say that to make my identity my entire being or personality, but it impacts almost every aspect and feeling of my life. It’s not something I can easily reject or forget, no matter how hard I try.
Sex
I’ve had a somewhat complicated relationship with sex. At the same time I was experiencing fears related to relationship expectations, a fear of sex was starting to come on quote strongly. To this day if my best friend hears me say the word sex she gets surprised because I go so far out of my way to use any other juvenile word. (Honestly I don’t even like typing it)
Everyone I know was sexually active at a younger age, and it was the expectation that at 16 I should be out getting drunk and banging guys, but I wasn’t, I kept to myself. But I figured if I wasn’t going to be dating people I should be having sex. I was half joking when I suggested to my friend (the one who was in love with me) that the next best thing to dating him would be having sex with him. The idea was entertained but never left the confines of our phone screens, one big reason being every time I thought about having sex I would panic so much to the point of hyperventilating, catastrophising, and overthinking.
I started clubbing at 18 and I thought I was the type of person that could easily indulge in a few one night stands. Even at that age I had one rule- don’t get involved with your friends because it can only get messy. Unfortunately for me I didn’t have enough experience for the common sense to be a true deterrent yet. I kissed hot guys in clubs but I never felt anything.
If you know me well you know how much I fucking hate kissing. It’s too wet, too meh, and my eyes are always open just waiting for it to end. Even with the guys in the clubs I found attractive, I only did it because they liked it, and if sex was the reward I thought I might as well just endure it. So much about the typical sexual things grossed me out. Dirty talk for example was always something I found absolutely vile and I didn’t really know why, but every time I get a kinktok video on my fyp of some 30 year old guy putting on a deep voice and saying ‘good girl’ it makes me want to be sick.
I’ve frequented my fair share of dating apps in hopes of getting my body count up but I cannot stand the way men talk to me. There’s no attempt at a connection or knowing me on a base level, they see my tits first and humanity second. I wish it didn’t gross me out so much but it’s appalling the way they speak to women they don’t know. They varied in content but almost every single one spoke to me like I was an object, or they’d share some sexual fantasy that involved me. The one that finally broke me was this:
The focus on the only parts of my body that would give him physical pleasure, using playground to see me as a setting to play with, and the idea of ownership, fucking ownership? This talk when it’s about me makes me so incredibly uncomfortable. These guys don’t know anything about me, they don’t care about respect or connection, they don’t see me as a person they see me as a thing for sex. It’s such a normalised thing today with the lack of emotion and connection, and whatever the fuck a ‘situationship’ is and I never really knew why that bothered me so much, I wish it didn’t. I wish I could be a no emotion let’s just have sex and feel good girl but I’m not. If a man wants to speak to me like that he needs to earn it, and even then I don’t know if the extreme like that would still make me uncomfortable. I understand that these are dating apps and sex is the primary end goal so I should expect it but that is not an okay thing to send as a FIRST message. Have some class for the love of God.
I never felt anything, I never thought I would, but there is a first time for everything. I’m not going to share much detail about my first sexual experience, but for someone who was very knowledgeable about sex from a young age I was totally clueless on what I was doing. I was a total mess and I’ll admit pretty embarrassing too, but I can look back on it without feeling too embarrassed because it was with someone who made me feel comfortable and supported in that moment. I realised that even though I was nervous, I didn’t feel the fear or disgust I’d been feeling all those years.
For a long time I wondered why kissing him was different, why I liked the (mild) dirty talk. It became the norm that I was desperate to kiss him at every opportunity, and though I was a little confused why, I wasn’t the one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe I just actually needed to like the person I was kissing (no duh) to enjoy it and that was enough of an explanation for me.
I am very conflicted about the intimate experiences I’ve had in the past year. On one hand, I can look at them objectively and appreciate that without them I wouldn’t know what I like and don’t like or what mistakes I wouldn’t make again. On the other, I got hurt, and I struggle to appreciate the positives for what they were and my self-esteem has yet to recover.
Let’s talk about the first hand- Appreciation of the lessons I learned.
It is through experience that I have a very solid idea of what I do and don’t like sexually. Before having any real experience there were things I thought that I would like, that I totally did, and there were things I thought I’d love but hated. Even if my experience is few and far between, I have enjoyed the reflection and enjoyed getting to know that side of me. There are qualities that I know I’d like in future male partners, and I know the red flags that I ignored or didn’t notice and I’ll know better for next time. In terms of myself I know what I need to do better for next time, mainly I really need to work on being a more effective communicator and voice how I feel about things I don’t like. Being a people pleaser only affects myself and other people negatively. Especially in recent months I think I’ve learned to stand up for myself more, and gained some much needed self respect, but I’ve still got a long way to go.
And now for the other hand- The hurt and regret
To put it very plainly, my first time was the biggest mistake I have ever made, solely because of the fallout and subsequent damage. I have not recovered from the pain of that situation or the things that were said to me, nor can I forgive myself for being so vulnerable and open in my wanting. When the only person who has ever seen my naked body had very little positive to say while openly uplifting my other female friends, it really fucking changed me. 2024 was easily the lowest point in my life and I’m not proud of the things that pain drove me to do. I was in so much distress from a rejection I was too insecure to handle in a healthy way.
It’s coming up on a year since that event and I wish I could write that I’m a strong happy and healed woman unburdened by the weight of my pain, but I’m not. Healing isn’t linear it never will be, but it doesn’t hurt as intensely as it did and for that I’m thankful. That being said it is something I don’t think will never leave me. Unfortunately though I cannot deny the change it brought me, negative and positive. I am in a much better place mentally and now that now that I’m in therapy I’m hoping to be able to forgive myself and find peace. So for all the good I believe that experience brought me, it could never outweigh the damage.
Looking back as an adult at my younger self is an interesting experience. From a young age I was never shielded from the internet or adult content and because of that I sexualised myself long before I should have. I discovered what pornography was at age 9 by accidentally finding it on my grandads computer. I have another essay on the backburner about the negative impacts of the porn industry both for myself and feminism so I’ll try to keep this next bit brief. I think abuse and pain in sex have become incredibly normalised in todays society, and not being into rough sex or being ‘vanilla’ has been disparaged and turned into a reason worthy of shame. I don’t think the porn industry is pro feminism and it does more damage than good.
But for a long time at too young an age what I was watching was very intense. BDSM, S&M, choking, CNC (the list really does go on) and the older I got the more violent it got. My experiences have completely bulldozed some of my beliefs around sex and pornography, and that is a really hard thing to unlearn after a childhood of watching women be abused for male pleasure. It affected more than just my mentality but also my physical health and writing/reading.
At the same age I found out what porn was, masturbation was in very quick succession. I’ve never put my life in danger, but my teeny tiny brain internalised that that’s how women were supposed to be treated, and there was occasions I got hurt trying to replicate what I’d seen. DIY restraints, very very unsafe breath play, hitting myself until I was bruised. I had a full blown addiction and not once did any adult who knew intervene in an effective way.
When I say it affected my writing, it was the content in which I wrote. I am no stranger to the literary vixens, Wattpad, Tumblr and AO3, and when I was around 13/14 is when I started fanfiction writing. Most if not all of those fanfics featured bondage in all its many forms, slight dubcon, a lot of noncon, and of course whatever character I was obsessing over. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing fanfiction, it’s a teenage girl staple, but the things I was writing about were far too adult (despite how well they were written.) I did eventually stop after I started to have a lot of conflicting feelings about some of the more extreme topics. I had grown up a little more and realised this was not something I wanted to sexualise or promote, and I haven’t written another since.
I started reading fanfic at 13 but I didn’t know written porn was a thing yet. For all the people my age who grew up in the fanfic height that was the 2010s, it may not surprise you when I say I started reading fanfic on the site Quotev. My earliest memory of it was printing out an x reader Creepypasta fic so I could read without WIFI. It bound to happen I’d find smut eventually and of course I did. I read fics long before I wrote them, and with the influence of porn I was quick to find any that featured the kinks I had been watching. I had a smut addition way before booktok women got their hands on it. I’d read it everywhere, in class, at the dinner table, on the bus you name it I’ve probably read there too. Sites like Gaggedutopia and Literotica became my go once Wattpad started to go downhill, and I still find myself there on occasion, but I’ve refined my searches a little. This isn’t to demonize fanfiction readers and writers, my point in mentioning it is to highlight that it was not healthy at that age, and show you how much unrestricted access I had. With the exception of any cringey horribly written booktok smut, I am still a fan of erotic fiction. I think it’s a beautiful expression of primal human desire, and I will always appreciate a well written poem. It’s something I make use of in both expressing my own desires through writing, and it is a very good foreplay tool that works in more intimate moments with myself.
So now that you know my history with pornography and erotica I’ve teed up this next part nicely. As a teenager I sexualised myself to an insane degree in the way that I dressed and acted. Going out in bondage collars at 18, buying whips, wearing handcuffs on my clothes, and wearing anything that showed off my breasts might not sound like that big of a deal for a teenager, but now that I’m older I resent how much I sexualised myself because it only had a negative impact. Teenagers aren’t supposed to be sexy and I got caught up in pretending to be something I wasn’t. To this day I struggle to see myself as a sexual being, I think mainly because my lack of hands on experience, but the way I express my sexuality now is in a way much more comfortable to me. It’s not a performance anymore. Now, there are things and kinks I still very much like that I knew about as a child, but as an adult I interact with them in much safer ways. Education is important, safety is important and I’m still navigating myself in relation to my sexual expression. It’s a fun albeit scary journey.
I thought I wanted to be this sex vixen with an interest in the extreme but honestly I don’t. I don’t want to be hit or degraded or treated like someone’s pet, and I don’t want to be in pain. It only took me so long to realise through experience because it was so normalised in my brain that this is what I should like because I didn’t want to seem boring. I just don’t think I can trust, or feel completely safe with a man that is not only willing but eager to, and derives pleasure from hitting and hurting me. (especially if I don’t know them well enough to be absolutely sure if I can trust them.)
Why did I want to be hurt? In my introspection I found my answer. 1, I had been seeing it my whole life and thought it was normal. 2, I have such low self worth I think I deserve to be hurt. 3, I can’t hurt myself so why not just let someone else do it and disguise it as a kink? Don’t get me wrong a part of me finds a bit of excitement in the thought but I have enough restraint and self-worth to make the promise that I will never let a man do that to me.
On the topic of sexualising and unlearning porns influence there is another major part that contributed to my self sexualisation. Somewhere along the way I internalised something I have spent my entire life being told: “Once your guy friends realise they can’t get anything from you, they won’t want to be your friend.”
This is a loose paraphrase from my mother, who has spent the better part of my life reminding me, unintentionally, that if my male friends can’t fuck me then I’m worth nothing. (And suddenly my extreme reaction to everything that happened last year made a little more sense.) It’s never something I’ve openly talked about because recounting it only serves to upset me. She, even to this day, never misses an opportunity to tell me that I will never be more important than a romantic partner, and that because I’m not an option for sex or romance that I’ll be forgotten about and have no friends. Because if I can’t be used for sex I don’t have any value. I know she thinks she’s being helpful and the attack on my self worth isn’t intentional but that doesn’t negate the damage she’s done. On the regular she reminds me that “Oh (name) doesn’t come over any more because he realised you’re not going to have sex with him.”. These are thoughts I have already tried so hard to work through and to hear it verbalised from someone else hurts.
I have a lot of friendships with men I’ve known for years, and I can say with confidence that if they were going to stop being my friend because they can’t fuck me they would have done it a long time ago. But because of the reinforcement from my mum I have unintentionally tied my self worth to how fuckable I am. Like a 21 year old Fleabag that’s having less sex. I’m hoping through therapy that this is something I can also start to unlearn because attaching my value to something so superficial will never bring me happiness.
Queerplatonic and change
That ongoing sexual encounter with a friend was what made me realise how much I had changed in relationship to my aromantic identity. Everything I thought I hated, everything I though I knew about myself was put to the test. I didn’t know it then but that one choice would change me in a lot of ways, and returning to who I was will never be possible.
When I first came out I was very romance repulsed. The thought of romantic closeness and lovey dovey couple stuff made me incredibly uncomfortable. That sick dizzy feeling would always come back if I thought too much about it, and I was very content with that. I wasn’t missing anything if I didn’t want it. I was very vocal about my discomfort at the thought of having a relationship and I have rejected the very core of romance. In all honesty I wish I was still like that, it would make being aromantic easier to live with.
During the months I was researching everything about aromantisicm, one word kept jumping out at me. Queerplatonic. For years it was something I could not wrap my head around, no matter the explanation I just didn’t understand the concept of an attraction that wasn’t romantic or platonic, but somewhere in between. There was little relevance to queerplatonic attraction in relation to my aromantic experience so I accepted my confusion and moved on. Only when my relationship with my identity began to change it became more applicable.
A queerplatonic relationship is a partnership which does not fit the "traditional" models of friendships or romantic relationships. Queerplatonic relationships often have characteristics commonly associated with romantic relationships, such as deep emotional intimacy, prioritization, and commitment, while still defying a "platonic or romantic" categorization
Source: Queerplatonic relationship | LGBTQIA+ Wiki | Fandom
Queerplatonic Attraction is a form of attraction that is neither romantic nor sexual, but involves the desire for a close emotional bond and a high level of commitment
Source: Queerplatonic Attraction and Orientation - LGBTQIA
What I’m about to say is the reason why my identity confuses so many people, and I fear I may lose some of you here but just hear me out. In a sense, my inability to feel romantic attraction has been replaced by my very strong ability to feel queerplatonic attraction, and because of that I realised I would be open to having a relationship. Much like the puzzle piece falling into place analogy I used for discovering I was aromantic, I felt the same way upon finding and truly understanding what Queerplatonic meant.
It is very important to me that there is an understanding that a queerplatonic relationship is not just a ‘friends with benefits with extra steps’ situation or ‘just friends that don’t want to commit’ because I see that sentiment everywhere and I am really sick and tired of it. I know it’s hard to understand what you can’t physically feel, and there’s a lot of labels these days but no one has the right to criticise an entire community just because you want to dumb a term down to make it more palatable. It is an intense very strong attraction that does not confirm to the restrictions of romantic or platonic attraction. It exists in its own space. It is the desire to be with someone because of how deep your emotional bond is with them. And I’m very sorry I can only provide such a small description of what it feels like, I find it incredibly hard to communicate feelings so abstract.
Romantic and sexual desirability are not the only valid forms of attraction, there’s multiple that stand on their own or combine together in synergy. Aesthetic attraction, intellectual attraction, platonic attraction, emotional attraction, I could go on but my point is there isn’t just one way to be attracted to someone. The use of the word ‘attraction’ does not just mean sexual desire even if that’s the assumption.
They way that my experience changed my aromantic identity is because it changed my view on relationships. For the first time in my life I realised that I wanted a relationship, even if it’s one one a little more unconventional. Despite my lack of romantic feelings I enjoyed the closeness and companionship. Having someone I felt that emotional bond and physical attraction to with the added physical closeness that went beyond just sexual touch brought up a lot of these feelings in me. It’s not something I like to admit but had he asked to be with me at the time I think I would have said yes. I wasn’t in love with him, but I did love him, I cared about him and I had a really close connection. I didn’t understand at the time where my more negative feelings like jealousy and clinginess came from because I knew I wasn’t in love. It was just a very strong queerplatonic attraction, that disappeared just as quickly as it arrived when things started to take a turn. I have so much love in my heart, and what I do feel is strong and complete. I know what I can give and I know what I want, even if my loved ones struggle to understand it.
Because of the similarities I have, on more than one occasion, got mixed up on what if I’m feeling was platonic, romantic or queerplatonic and if you think it’s confusing to read about just remember I actually have to feel it and explain it to people.
I am 100% stone cold certain in my aromantic identity, but I’m gonna tell you something that changed the change. For the first time in 5 years I had to genuinely sit myself down and confront the possibility that I was in love. It was a very very close call, the only close call and it very much shook me to my core. For the first time I am so happy to say that I’m not in love, just a little bit of queerplatonic attraction and a lot of sexual feelings I was once again mistaking. Just like the last time once I confronted it and really reasoned with myself those feelings disappeared just as quickly as they had arrived and I’m finally right back where I should be, platonically loving someone I care about. I got caught up in how good it felt to be wanted. Never before or since has anyone ever made me feel like I was something worth looking at, something worth touching, and I will hold out hope it wont be the last time.
When I realised I wasn’t in love, I felt something I never thought I’d feel- Relief. I have spent so long resenting being aromantic, I already said it but for years I would have given up anything to change and fall in love and I thought I was in for a lifetime of depression because of it. But do you know what I recognized in myself? If I truly was in love that would have changed everything again. Everything I have been, everything I know about myself, the life I have built around my identity would have crumbled. It would have been a shock to my system that I know I would not have been equipped to handle. When I thought I was in love I was so scared. When I collected myself to continue this essay I felt different about my identity, for the first time in my life I wanted to be aromantic, I was happy about it, and you cannot know how I felt in that moment.
I’m not incapable of love I just love differently in a very unique way, and I am trying to find the privilege and beauty in that. I see the world in a way not many people can and for the first time in a very long long time I am content, I am more accepting of myself.
I’m a very deeply romantic person I’d wager some people would agree. The concept of romance doesn’t repulse me as much as it used to, and of course that could still change again but I’m enjoying how I feel currently. Valentine’s Day is a day I love so much I have the word tattooed on me and that’s really saying something.
I understand there are very mixed feelings on identity labels. “There’s too many” or “you don’t need a label for everything” and while I agree to some extent, I struggle without them. With them they help make sense of myself and the intense spectrum of abstract feelings I feel. I’ve never at all found them restricting, and if I do I reevaluate.
Demisexuality and a new chapter
I had a speculation I was Demisexual some years ago, but with my lack of experience and unruly sex drive, I chalked what I was feeling up to being picky and particularly with my taste. I was never bothered about the race to have sex, nor am I embarrassed to admit that I only saw a penis for the first time at 19 years old. I was eager and lord knows I have the appetite, but I was content in not rushing anything.
At the time I started to resent being aromantic as a teen I found comfort in the fact that I wasn’t Asexual. I remember thinking to myself that if I ever ended up being ace it would be the worst thing that could happen to me. I don’t mean that in any way as an attack on people who are asexual, it was my own inner self-hatred driving me to think that way. With being aromantic that meant that my entire future would change from what I expected it to be, and I didn’t want to ‘lose’ any more than I already had. Demisexuality was on the back burner and I had completely ruled it out, but as I have established, what you try to hide doesn’t just disappear.
I knew that I was Demisexual a year ago. I fucking knew. I was, and have been, in a very deep state of denial even though I was absolutely certain then. For the third time in my recent years, I would discover a new facet of myself though the entanglement with another person. I was rescued from my sadness by a friend I’d known a few years. I was pretty certain any physical attraction on my end was out of the question but that night was the first time I really felt like I really knew him on a deeper emotional level.
When I finally got back home I replayed the night in my head, and something in me was itching. A teeny voice sneaking through with a quiet burn of attraction in my chest, and I cast it aside. In that moment I knew what I was, it was all the confirmation I needed and instead of doing anything about it I went to sleep. Throughout the months of flirting and close contact I tried so hard not to acknowledge it. I went out of my way not to engage with any demisexual or asexual content online because I just didn’t want it to be true, it wasn’t me it didn’t make sense in my mind. Eventually it did start to fade into the background of my mind like a distant memory I’d never recall. Honestly the denial was really working for me up until the night we kissed. He was the second person in a row that I had kissed with a genuine emotional connection, and liked it. It was without a shadow of a doubt the best kiss I have ever had. As much as I tried to tell myself I had got over my aversion to kissing, I knew that wasn’t what was happening.
Did that mean I was ready to admit it to myself? No it did not. It wasn’t until last month during my trip to Berlin that I was finally ready to accept and admit that I am Demisexual. The story begins in the very well known sex club KitKat. My intentions for being there were very obvious, I was horny and eager to find a man to blow. I hyped myself up so much and I made the promise that no matter what I was going to do it. After watching a couple have sex right in front of me I took to the dance floor to have a little fun and dance to not put too much pressure on myself. The night went on and after a 30 second interaction with a guy he shot me a look that said ‘do you wanna?’ and I thought ‘fuck it.’ So there I am lying on the sex swing with this guy leaning over me.
The very second this stranger kissed me I knew I couldn’t deny it anymore, and I remember thinking ‘oh yeah I’m definetly demi.’ I hated everything about it, and that repulsion to kissing came right back. I excused myself as nicely as possible, walked over to my friend and said “Yeah no I’m not sucking any dicks tonight” and that was it. For the half hour we stayed after I very much withdrew into myself, trying to confront this admission to myself with loud techno music blasting in my ears.
I have found myself back where I was five years ago but now on another journey, experiencing a feeling I never thought I’d feel again. The very same feeling the minute I realised I was Aromantic. Again, everything has just clicked. So many things make sense to me now. It’s the reason I hate kissing and dirty talk when they are with/from people I don’t actually have an emotional connection with, the reason why I wasn’t out having sex at 16 and never really bothered with it. Without it I am unable to feel genuine sexual attraction, without it, it repulses me completely.
There’s nothing wrong with me. There was never anything wrong with me.
It’s a very big pill to swallow that I’m still struggling to come to full terms with. There’s something scary but exciting about having uncovered another aspect of myself to explore. The part that scares me though is letting someone else in. I promised myself I would never let another man I cared about to see me so vulnerable. I don’t want anyone else to see me naked because I see my vulnerability as a weakness that has only ever got me hurt. I wanted to be able to have sex with no strings attached so I’d never get hurt the way I did back to back again.
Now my only option is to never touch another human being again, or take the risk. I don’t know where my feelings truly lie right now it’s all so fresh.
I don’t know if I feel a little more broken, or a little more whole.
From the bottom of my heart, if you made it this far, thank you for reading.
Until the next, stay weird
Kaci xc
"After all how could two people who didn’t love each other make a baby who could love others?" Such an amazing line and such an amazing essay. Honestly, I was initially worried I wouldn't be able to fully immerse myself in it, as I can't completely relate to a lot of what you shared. But the way you write in such an emotional and deeply honest way makes it so that shared experience isn't necessary to be moved by your words. I truly enjoyed this and thanks for sharing!