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Interview With An Asexual – “Why not just sleep with someone else?”
21:36 by bcalendar · 17 Comments
There are many, many reasons why men and women cheat. In the last few articles we’ve talked a lot about cheating from the female point of view. This prompted a couple of our male readers to ask about the guys. More specifically, they said that their wives aren’t as interested in sex as they are – so in some ways, they feel like they have to cheat. “What am I supposed to do,” they ask, “live like a monk just because she isn’t that interested?”
It doesn’t have to be that way – in any relationship, there is always room to compromise. That’s why I want to introduce you to “Jane.” This woman realized after several years of marriage that she was asexual and would be quite happy never having sex again. Her husband, on the other hand, knew he couldn’t live without sex. Because she loved him she got an idea – she’d find him a girlfriend, and that could save their marriage!
I spent a little time talking to Jane the other day, so she could share her story with you! I hope you find it as fascinating as I do!
How long have you been married?
We are about to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary, but have been together nearly 12 years.
When did you realize you were asexual?
Two years ago. I was sitting at home watching a Montel Williams show, which happened to be on the topic of asexuality. I had heard of the term before but didn’t know much about it. They featured an online community, AVEN, a place for asexuals of all types. That’s when I learned there are different types, and that I fell into a category I finally understood. I was so happy that I began to cry. I had spent my entire sexual life being told something was wrong with me, either by my partners, my friends, society, doctors; finally I saw that nothing was wrong with me at all, and there is no “condition” causing my “problem.” It was a wonderful feeling.
I had only ever had sex to appease others. I rarely had ever wanted to have sex at all. The type of asexual I identify as is referred to as Romantic Asexual. That simply means I want the closeness and intimacy, the hand holding, the cuddling, but that’s it. I don’t want to be naked with you. It’s not something I think about or envision. For this I’ve been labeled a heartless cock tease. At the same time, it doesn’t mean that I could never want to have sex with you. I may at some point, but it’s very rare. And it also doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy sex. I can. And lots of times I do, but I’m still glad when it’s over and I can move on to more enjoyable things like sleeping. My afterglow usual includes my satisfaction in knowing I’ve satisfied my husband and won’t have to do it again for a few days.
What does being asexual mean to you?
For me it means we are a group of people that are a bit more evolved in the area of sexuality. In our society, sex sells. Well, it doesn’t sell to me. For anything to appeal to me, it has to prove its value or appeal to my intelligence. You won’t find me guffawing at a stupid movie or listening to really bad music. The general population seems to celebrate anything over-sexualized even if it’s not good. That annoys me to no end.
How did your husband react to your asexuality?
I remember well the day I told my husband I was asexual. We were making the bed and I was reliving the Montel Williams experience I had. I remember he finished my sentence for me: “…so it was then I realized…” “…YOU’RE ASEXUAL!” He was elated! Because the years he’d spent trying to figure me out and all the times he’d told me something was wrong with me and all the times he’d asked me if it was him – suddenly he had his answer. And it wasn’t him!
I didn’t realize until then that all these years he’d really thought deep down that I wasn’t attracted to him! That must have been maddening for him. Especially when I seemed to be attracted to actors and musicians, these unattainable people, but not to him. He was thrilled and we were both immediately relieved to have an answer to this huge underlying issue plaguing our lives.
How did you get the idea to try to find a girlfriend for your husband?
Well, I’d visited the AVEN message boards and read lots of posts from people who were married and then realized, like me, that they are asexual. Most of those people were getting a divorce! I knew this was not the option for me. I couldn’t imagine divorcing someone you love over something as trivial as sex. We have two kids and that would not only rob them of the life I want for them; it would just suck. Giving as little regard to sex as I do, I then posed the question to myself, “Why not just sleep with someone else?” And I liked the idea. Less sex for me, more sex for him. Sex is something my husband values highly.
Say he really likes ping pong. He wants to play ping pong every day. Because he loves me, he only wants to play with me. Even though I hate ping pong, I love him, so I’m gonna play; but man is it boring. I mean, I like the little paddles and the little ball and the way it sounds bouncing on the table, but I don’t actually want to play it. I don’t want to be on the other side of that table. So why not find him another partner?
Was it more difficult than you expected? Was there anything surprising about the experience?
What we typically ran into were women who didn’t believe him. And the ones who did weren’t what we were looking for. They thought that either he only wanted a lot of NSA sex or that he was secretly looking for a replacement for me. He wanted someone he connected with but who wasn’t looking for a life with him. He really wanted a meaningful friendship with whomever he was sleeping with. That may be too much to ask.
Most women are searching for someone special to share their lives with, and even when they claimed to be on the same page as he was it turned out they weren’t. They wanted more. What was even more surprising was the outrage directed at us from strangers who lead “normal” lives. I could not care less how others lead their lives as long as no one is harmed. It seems that isn’t a two way street.
Did any jealousy issues crop up during the search?
Once we decided this is what we were going to do, I had one day of a mixture of emotions. I was in a bad mood, was a bit jealous and even pouted a little bit. But I felt sure it would pass and he gave me my space. He was perfectly fine if I decided to scrap the entire plan. The thing is once I decided to go this route I had to talk him into it. That took months. It wasn’t something he gladly agreed to. One thing he was nervous about was getting back into the game of dating and all that goes along with that. We’d been together for nearly a decade and he felt out of practice.
My day of jealousy passed and after that, I was fine. I was cheering him on, getting him ready for his first date, giving him advice, etc. That first one didn’t go well and he went through a lot of those. I am there for him when that happens to support him however he needs me to.
How did it all sort itself out?
Well, where we are now is essentially an open marriage. We are both free to see whomever we please. There are rules, however: We both have the right to veto who our partner is seeing. Also, we don’t break plans with the family to go out. We don’t bring anyone to our home or around our children. But where we are, really? We aren’t seeing anyone but each other. His last girlfriend ended up getting a boyfriend and discontinued relations with my husband, which is fine. He hasn’t really put any effort as of late into finding someone else. And that’s just fine with me.
Would you recommend it to other asexual women married to sexual men?
I would suggest it for other asexuals, but only if they are in the same place we are. If you truly harbor no jealousy and have an unconditional love for your partner like no other, if you value your love over all else and really truly put each others happiness over your own, go for it. Especially if you live in an area where open-minded people abound. That is not the case for us. We live in the heart of the Bible Belt of the southern U.S., and not easy to find people who are like minded.
How is your husband dealing with your asexuality now?
Well, he isn’t perfect. He tries not to pressure me to have sex, but he is still a man and still whines every now and then. And I still shake my head and roll my eyes sometimes, wondering why it’s such a big deal. So we have our moments. But overall we are handling things just fine and have learned to live with our differences just like any couple has to. This is just another thing we have to accept about each other, like anything else that annoys us. He doesn’t like our cats to sleep with us; I do. I have to sleep with my feet uncovered, and it drives him crazy. He doesn’t mow the lawn nearly enough. He can’t stop biting his nails when we watch Survivor. All those little things you have to live with when you love someone, all those little things that really don’t matter, this is how we view our sexual differences.
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Wow. Kudos for working it out but what a tough road.
“For me it means we are a group of people that are a bit more evolved in the area of sexuality.”
That’s funny. I heard the “we’re evolved” story from people with ADHD, Autism, OCD, and transsexualism. I guess Darwin forgot to include the chapter where evolution requires a therapist and message board in his book.
More evolved ? I’d say you’re under-evolved woman. Instead of fueling your excuses with theories that never been proved, you better go visit a good sexuologist, and a psychologist.
Cause there IS definetively something wrong with your sexual awarness, with your sexuality in overall.
We descent from less intelligent beings, and we are far more intelligent than any other species on Earth, but we are still animals, designed to reproduce in a specific way, and to feel pleasure while doing it.
And you are just a faulty design, misshapen somewhere in terms of sexuality, natural desire.
This problem’s fundament is clearly psychological, and I’m 100% sure that your current state would be considered a problem by most psychologists out there, and that some of them would offer help of conquering this.
Asexuality isn’t something good,
It isn’t something that you accept and live with it.
You ARE sexually handicapped, and must face it.
Dev,
Is English your first language?
Also, it seems to me that if nature can provide someone with a sex drive it can also naturally cause them to be born without a sex drive.
How is her being born asexual any different than if she was born gay?
No it is not my native, and yes, I’m aware that its too obvious.
Anyway, I dont know what they were teaching you at biology class, but saying that:
“nature can provide someone with a sex drive it can also naturally cause them to be born without a sex drive”
Is like saying:
“nature provides you with, genes, hormones, arms, legs, genitals and it can naturally cause you to be born without those” (or with something working improperly).
Your use of word “naturally” is clearly out of place there, ever heard of word – “undeveloped” ?
Dev,
Just because someone is different is no reason to say that they’re broken and wrong and need to be fixed. If that’s how Jane feels and she’s happy, who are you to say she needs to try and change? No one should feel obliged to live their lives in ways that make them unhappy just to conform to someone else’s ideas of normality.
I never said anything about “forcing” her to change.
She must herself acknowledge that the change is needed.
Otherwise there’s no point in trying to change.
And is that change needed, or what should be considered “normal” –
are questions that somehow cannot be answered in a neutral, non subjective way.
And that is the only problem here, nothing else.
Plus I felt slightly offended when I’ve read her statement about how she feels “slightly more evolved in terms of sexuality”, so does that mean that I, and people like me, are less evolved in terms of sexuality ?
It simply sounds very ignorant, and implicates just exactly that.
Especially considering the fact that for us, non-asexuals, SHE is considered “undeveloped”, and what she said is just an excuse for her, a blatant and offending excuse.
I’m not sure why you think change is needed. If she’s happy with the way things are why should she “need” to change. Being asexual isn’t a life threatening condition and it doesn’t seem to be hurting her marriage.
We do not know that.
I’d like the see an interview with her husband, maybe then things would be more clear.
I’d like to see her perform an act of self castration
if she’s not into sex at all, then why not prove it ?
Dev, While I can understand your point of view and taking offense to some of the things she has said, I have to say that I completely disagree with your statement about her non-action. She has probably done more for her marriage and her husband than 99% of those asexual couples that ultimately end in bitter divorce over infidelity issues. She is HELPING her husband deal with something that was left undiagnosed for a long time. She’s helping in some of the most OPEN ways possible by not only understanding his desire for sex, but ultimately ensuring it is fulfilled, if not by her, than by someone else, which is a hell of a lot more than the average (soon-to-be-ex) spouse would do.
In time, perhaps she will re-discover her own sexuality, so asking for an act of self-castration is just plain ignorance on your part. Give me a break. Just a bit extreme, don’t you think?
Shame on this woman for denying her husband of a sex life. She is clearly not educated on the male anatomy and needs. If a man were to never have sex, he would be at serious risk of developing prostate cancer. Forget the mental aspects, men need sex so they can so they can be healthy and cancer free!
If I ever have the misfortune of marrying a woman like this I will leave her regardless of how much I love her.
I agree with Dev and Dada.
I hate how asexual think they’re better than everyone else.
Go to the damn asexual.com (or whatever it was) website. Even they CONDEMN asexual supremacy.
Kay, well done. I understand that two people here have been offended by a claim of supremacy but that does not give then a green light to offend the offender by calling them mad. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
“nature provides you with, genes, hormones, arms, legs, genitals and it can naturally cause you to be born without those” (or with something working improperly).”
Good thing you mentioned arms and legs here. The correct statement would be Nature provides MOSTof us with arms, legs and hormones, etc but not all of us. That’s not the reason to call someone under-developed because it implies sub-human. Development isn’t only about being a physically and sexually perfect specimen (unless you are Mengele). By following the underdeveloped logic we relegate people without arms, hearing or sight to something lesser when they could more than make up for it with their personality, talents, integrity and altrusim. For example this woman compensated for her lack of sexuality by being supportive of an open marriage which is a degree of altruism many other women and people would never be able to have. I understand you feeling offended at her claim but you could also consider the possibilty of miscommunication. She might not have meant that asexuals are superior (because only superiority is of character not the presence or absence of sex) but maybe that being asexual can have certain advantages such as an extra sense of freedom due to not having a need, looking at a person more objectively (because whether we sexuals like to admit it or not attraction does bring a dose of subjectivity and selfihness to the extent that we sometimes have to wonder is it love or lust) and not worrying about STDs and teenage pregnancy, as well as being less suspectible to SOME forms of advertising (if someone is naive and asexual they will still buy trash the telly advertises just not the trash they advertise through bikini-clad models). As amazing as sexually bonding with a loved one is, remember that sexuality also has negative sides just like any other phenomena such as rape and paedophillia.
As for the “fixing” part, I say why fix it if it’s not broken? And is it broken is assessed by is a person endangering anyone’s life by being gay, asexual or Deaf? The answer is no. Anything that doesn’t put the lives of self or others in danger shouldn’t be considered a disease. Whether it endangers the agendas of states or large companies is another question. For example Hitler wanted a large natality for Germany inorder to have more soldiers therfore he patholigized homosexuals due to their inability to breed. The media might pathologize aseuals in order to sell more llibido-enhancing medecines. And her husband is probably happy with the arrangment because if he isn’t what’s to stop him getting a divorce. Come on, I mean most men would be going woohoo i get to sleep with whoever I want and still have a warm dinner waiting for me at home. I’d say he is repressing much less of his sexuality than is a man with a woman with an eqaul libido to his who is strictly monogamous because amonogamous relationship represses a large part of someone’s sexuality regardless of how much they get because the lure, intrigue and no-strings-attached you get from a one night stand is just as part of the fun of sexuality as is the person you are having it with if not even more. On second thoughts if there is a kind of asexual man with the altruism of the woman aboe can he please marry me coz I prefer one night stands way more than romantic sex rubish which becomes a routine after a while anyway? hahaha
Also, another reason why people react with “aww, poor you” to asexuals is because they think asexuls want something yet can’t have it. But they don’t want it in the first place. Just like many Deaf people oppose to cochlear implants because they don’t feel the need to hear. They view Deafness as a variation in the experience of life rather than missing something. I agree with them. I mean how amny things do we hear that’d we’d prefer not to hear from our best freind gossiping about us to the screaming kids when we want to nap. I mean there are people born without hands who play the guitar and do everything than they possibly can with their feet and there are supposedly healthy, whole people desparing because they don’t have the money to buy a bigger house. Now you tell me which attitude is more WHOLEsome?
Verdict: The lady was wrong for claiming supremacy but so were the posters here (apart form Kay) who were insluting the woman. And Mufesto you don’t get cancer due to celibacy otherwise no sexually active person would ever get prostate cancer and all the (non secretly gay) priests (there are some) would be dead.
@Liveand letLive
Just another thank you. I really don’t understand the hostility towards romantic asexuals ,she clearly had a rough road to walk.
Mufesto,
All the research I’ve seen on prostate cancer and sex…says that the more sex you have, the higher risk you have of getting prostate cancer.
Whoops.
As much as I respect her well to be an asexual, I must say that I am offended by her saying she’s more “evolved” than us sexuals.
That statement would imply that we are lower than asexuals, just because they feel different than we do.
With much respect for your sexuality, your statement is just offensive and ignorant.