Sexualities: How About None?

Will I become asexual?

When I read about people who identify as asexual it really tests my empathy. How can you not want erotic expression?

Last night my own past came into perspective.

My adolescence has long baffled the heck out of me. It makes me wonder if I was screwed up or have mutant DNA.

I actually had three sexual experiences - all with other boys - when I was eleven or twelve. I even tasted my first cock. Only briefly I thought it tasted nasty. Nowadays all body parts of all sexy seem flavorful. Damn, I even almost had my first BDSM experience. I let the same boy start to tie me to a tree. But we heard voices and stopped. (He was in my sixth grade class but clearly far more worldly.)

At that age a friend taught me about masturbation. I remember my first time. It felt odd. Within two years my perspective underwent substantial revision.

By fourteen my young mind was full of lust. There was a blonde boy who made me burn (though I wouldn’t see this until much later). And girls whose hips made you feel lyrical.

I masturbated to these stimuli of course. Otherwise I never thought of sex. Never ever thought of relationships or marriage. Period.

Just before or after turning eighteen I decided I was gay. My delayed adolescence hit me with violence. Teenage sex obsession hit me, compressed into maybe a single year. With a big exception. A decent looking gay man in a big city - this was before AIDS - had no excuse to be frustrated.

I’ve always wondered how I blanked out my sexuality during my mid teens? I was a naïve kid but that all seems pushing things more than a tad.

Just as I’ve wondered why it was about seven more years until I found myself - to my great amazement - having sex with a woman why I thought I had no interest in women. Was my heterosexuality hanging out at some resort waiting for me to wake up?

When a woman I’d been in love me left me for a friend I was devastated. At first my sex drive peaked. Then it began to fade. I wanked but just as it was during adolescence during waking hours I didn’t think about sex or love. Work and various interests consumed me. I made no effort to meet anyone. Nor did I feel a lack.

Then all the normal longings came back. That was after I was diagnosed as suffering from hypothyroidism and started taking supplemental thyroid hormone.

So I’ve always felt those years of celibacy were rooted in biology. That wouldn’t explain my youth.

My on and off feelings of asexuality may be a symptom of relationship crash. Unlike other times when I’ve felt low sex drive I don’t have that sense that something has reduced my libido. That I write about sexual fantasies doesn’t mean anything: that is just reportage.

After the last eight years the idea of becoming truly asexual seems ludicrous. But my sexuality has long been a willful, surprising creature.

I’d rather not become asexual: despite my age and limitations there are still all manner of interesting possibilities to live.

And it sounds so unhealthy. Though if reports are true the average man’s sexuality affords him an occasional seven minutes of thrills.

As usual I view myself agnostically: how can I know where I’ll be a year from now?