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I identify as an asexual lesbian. It took me around 47 years to figure that out.
An asexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction -- that is what most people in AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, accept as the basic definition. (As far as I can tell, this definition has not made it into any dictionaries, which instead give fun biological definitions like "having no sexual organs" or "having the ability to reproduce without another organism involved.")
Beyond the basic definition, asexuals come in all shades. Some will have sex if someone else initiates it and enjoy it. Some are OK with having sex as a way to please their partner. Some do not enjoy sex. Some are absolutely repulsed by the thought of sex. Some want to fall in love and have a romantic relationship without sex while others have no desire for romantic relationships at all. Some are romantically attracted to the same sex and some to the opposite sex. I could go on but it gets very convoluted and complicated the amount of permutations you can get among asexuals.
It has been a long twisty road to come into this identity. I was a very shy kid. I never felt sexual attraction to boys or girls in high school, and attributed this lack of desire to my shyness and how unhappy and lonely I was. I often thought I was just a late bloomer. I just wasn't ready for sex yet. In time I would be ready. I definitely believed that when I got to college, I would fall in love with a man and have sex with him and enjoy it. I also thought I would get married to a man and have a family. It was a great fantasy, and I looked forward to it coming true.
So off I went to Purdue University with hopes of becoming an engineer and getting a good job upon graduation -- and finding true love along the way. I did have a few boyfriends during college, but I did not find my true love, nor did I have sex with any of my three boyfriends. I felt very abnormal. I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn't want to even kiss my boyfriends, let alone have sex with them. So started the long road of attempts to fix myself because I wasn't "normal." I did some heavy petting with boyfriend number three, but it was only for his sake and I was just enduring it -- the start of a pattern of trying to convince myself that I was enjoying it, when in hindsight it was just unpleasant for me. Two of my breakups were absolutely because I wouldn't have sex with them. I am glad that I held my ground about the sex, even though it was difficult to do and I felt really bad about it. At least I had some inkling of listening to my feelings at the time and following my gut.
I graduated from Purdue and went off to graduate school at Cornell, where I had my first serious relationship with a man. The old sex bugaboo came up, of course. He wanted to have sex and I didn't. I again tried heavy petting and did not enjoy it -- but again did it, as it seemed a requirement for having a relationship. I was getting psychotherapy for depression at the time, and my therapist tried to talk with me about my lack of sexual desire for him. She even asked me, "Do you think you might be a lesbian?"
I answered, "That would be too easy an explanation." I don't know if that was prophetic on my part about the asexuality, or whether it was a touch of homophobia about being a lesbian. Eventually, we broke up because I didn't want to have sex with him, and I continued to think there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed.
I graduated from Cornell and set off to Mountain View, California for my first job in the real world. I liked my new job -- but was struggling with my nonexistent social life. I managed to make some friends through the local tennis club. I played with one guy in particular. We were well matched as tennis players. He was a handsome and intelligent man, and all pistons should have been firing -- if I were
