Asexuality: Coming Out by Jo LeGall

Coming out for some is a one time thing. For me, an asexual, I have to "come out" at the beginning of every single relationship. Those who are Gay or Bi or Straight simply say those words with a preceding "I am" which provides anyone with the gender they are sexually attracted to and "Voila!" no problem.

All of my relationships seem to start the same. I explain that I am not sexually attracted, not interested in sex yet I do like talking to them, spending time and they pretend to listen, while interpreting what I've said to mean I simply need time to get to know them before the passion explodes. Saying "I am Asexual" only starts the crickets chirping and then explaining that no I do not self-replicate.

I never had a word that someone could look up that explains my sexual orientation until 2006. It was left up to me to try to pull the millions of little pieces which create the entire picture to explain it to others. There were so many conversation detours when I tried to explain it all that in the end I just mentally said "Oh, to hell with this! Believe what you will!" in sheer frustration.

I tried to explain that my lack of sexual interest has nothing to do with the orgasm experience and it never got any further than that. There were so many questions on how could I not want an orgasm. What sexual dysfunction did I suffer from? Did I get therapy for my sexual dysfunction? Did I stop my medication and was I at least considering surgery to fix whatever had to be wrong with me? Am I a lesbian? Am I bisexual? Did I secretly hate men?

Explaining that I have experienced orgasm by myself, yet, see no reason to repeat the experience is met with slack jawed shock. How can you not like masturbation? Everyone loves masturbation!! Well excuse me for having a "Meh" experience with myself. I never said I hated masturbation, it just does not "blow my mind" the way it does yours. I have other things I would much rather be doing. The first couple orgasms are okay and then I find myself becoming rather bored with the whole thing.

The conversation took so many twists and turns off subject since many can understand that you want to have sex and orgasm with someone of the opposite sex, or the same sex and the idea of not wanting either short circuited their synapses. I had to want someone else. If I wanted to sleep with someone else, fine, it was my fault not theirs. I would be bi or gay and it was just something they could not give me sexually. Being Asexual, on the other hand, sounded like I was sneering at their sexual technique.

How could I not enjoy it? Why would I not think of "moving on" to someone else who may be sexually compatible if they were not? I had to move on to someone more sexually compatible. I had to. They did not want to be known as the one who made a girl go entirely celibate. The idea of being so bad you "turn someone gay" no longer applies in this day and age. Everyone finally understands that there are different sexual orientations and you were simply not sexually compatible to begin with. The problem is that no one understands that Asexuality is a sexual orientation and still see it as a "medical problem that can be cured".

Eventually we would end up at the subject of my children, as their "Aha! I gotcha!" topic. If I were "Asexual" and had no sexual attraction to anyone of either gender why did I have children? You have to have sex to have children? If you have no desire to have sex that means you have no desire to have children!

Well that answer was simple. I possess a reproductive urge which is separate from my sexual orientation. Just like many ask gay men and women why they have biological children when they are gay, or why a reproductively healthy heterosexual woman will opt to adopt or use IVF. I wanted a child. I had a child. Internal fertilisation is only one way to reproduce and I direct them back to their biology classes on the subjects of internal and external fertilisation in nature.

I always saw myself being a parent. I may never have given a thought, when I was a teen, as to what I would have to do to have one yet I knew I would have children. I will confess to seriously considering being a foster or adoptive parent directly after giving birth. These were all the many detour subjects that I went, and go through, with my never ending coming out.

Sometimes having to revisit previous conversations for more clarification due to a significant lack of knowledge. When we finally got to the different types of asexuals; homo-romantic, hetero-romantic, bi-romantic, pan-romantic, aromantic etc., that sets off new rounds of questions and amazingly actually has more than a few people understanding their own sexuality better.