From Straight to Gay to Asexual

[Wheatley]

Hey,

So I'm not gonna get into my life story (you could probably just search my previous posts for that). But basically I've spent at least 5 years openly gay and have no decided to go Asexual.

A common debate is whether or not sexuality is a choice, and I thoroughly believe it is on some level. For example, I decided to be Gay a long time ago because I felt closer to boys generally (its easier to open up to them because I can better understand them and they have more similarities to me then girls). I guess having that mentality for a while changes your perspective on a subconscious level (effectively turning one gay).

Recently I have decided to become Asexual as being gay opens up a world of problems (as if having hormonal urges isn't problematic enough!). I only like this one guy, and would do anything to see him smile and make him happy, all I wanna do is spend time with him (typical love stuff).He's straight and is in and out of relationships all the time and nothing will ever happen on a gay level between us. I know it, he knows it and so there's no point fighting it.

The heart wants what it wants and its the brains job to rationalize and compromise. I get really hurt seeing him with a girl and I can't help but view her as competition. Yet I feel so happy when he's with me that any pain is barable. Thus I need to change my perspective.

Becoming Asexual is a rational and logical plan as I am hoping it will reduce my jealous feelings for his sexual partners (obviously there'll still be some jealousy but not as much). Plus, if I can suppress any urges, I can spend my time more productively and live a "happier?" life.

So I guess the point of this post is to firstly help me in my transition and to secondly put forward my views and reasoning for choosing your own sexuality.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts :D

[Remora]

[-]1. You watch too much Game Theory.[/-]
1. I don't think -you- choose wether you're gay, bi, straight... in my opinion it mostly depends on what gender you love, and from there you can conclude that your preferred partners' gender leads to your sexuality and not the other way around.
2. Neither do i think you can just say "okay, i'm done with loving, activating asexual mode...". There'll always be this guy or girl that makes your heart beat faster C:

[TheN3rdyOutcast]

As many people have probably told you before, I don't think that you can choose to be a certain sexuality. You can always choose to ACT a certain way but you can't change what's inside without multiple years of lying to yourself, and even then your original urges and desires will always shine through.

[Wheatley]

[-]1. You watch too much Game Theory.[/-]
1. I don't think -you- choose wether you're gay, bi, straight... in my opinion it mostly depends on what gender you love, and from there you can conclude that your preferred partners' gender leads to your sexuality and not the other way around.
2. Neither do i think you can just say "okay, i'm done with loving, activating asexual mode...". There'll always be this guy or girl that makes your heart beat faster C:

That's the only episode of game theory I've seen, but from that I'm not gonna watch another :P

Yeah, I mean it's a bit of both really, when it comes down to it you as an individual are a single entity with lots of parts designed to work in unison. So I'd say that with enough will power, anything is possible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm working on the idea that asexual means not "sexually" attracted. There is one boy who makes my heart beat like some crazy dubstep/speed core/glitched noise thing. I love him and would do anything for him (and he knows this) but I enjoy his company and love his character. Obviously sex isn't an option as he is straight, but that doesn't bother me (or st least, doesn't bother me as much as it used to). I don't feel attracted to anyone else because of him. So if I continue to train myself to kill any sexual urges, that would be like being asexual? I prefer emotional closeness over sexual closeness anyday, sex is just an activity to me, it shouldn't really mean much. Whereas emotional closeness should be a special bond.

Also, with the choices thingy. I like to believe that everything is controllable (probably not true, but it gives me hope). Whether it involves subconscious processes that are for the most part out of your control, you can still "set the wheels in motion" for such change. I'm not a religious person by any stance, but I believe what I believe because it gives me the illusion of control and that makes me feel safer, so I guess that's the same motives for why some people are religious.

[Karkat]

I know you're not trying to be overtly offensive, but as someone who falls into the category of "asexual", I do find myself a bit offended.

-I did not choose to be this way
-It's been this way my whole life, I didn't just wake up one day and decide to not be sexually attracted to people
-I cannot force myself to be sexually attracted to someone I'm not. End of story. I'd rather die than try to, truth be told, and a large part of that is because I know it'd be detrimental to the other person involved. I wouldn't be able to do it.
-I do have to force myself to try and work up a libido, though this is by choice. I can become sexually aroused, or sexually attracted in a certain set of circumstances, but it's kind of hard.
-I'm also mostly aromantic, as well as mostly attracted to women. I can't just look at a guy and go "oh, he's hot", and I've never been able to. My mom and friends would always tease me about it. My whole life I've kind of just smiled and nodded my head, pretending to care because I don't want to make them uncomfortable or sound "gay" (a lot of my family is homophobic.). However with women? I can give you a million examples of attractive women. I've always been able to.
-Sexual attraction is ENTIRELY different than romantic attraction is ENTIRELY different from...Aesthetic attraction? Whatever you would call that. For me anyways.
-I mostly don't care about looks in a relationship, however I can distinguish when someone is good-looking.

It's not something I can just "change" about myself. Because I would if I could, at least to some extent. I'd have a normal person libido. I enjoy sex, and becoming aroused. I'd become more romantically-inclined. I'd try to be a little less squibbed-out by guys. But I can't change that about myself, so I just work with it.

I mean, I think some people can probably fool themselves into thinking they're something they're not, but for the most part you really can't change your sexuality, sorry. You really can't just "choose" to be asexual anymore than I can "choose" to be heterosexual, or sexual, or hell, even gay.

[indoxyl]

Hey,

So I'm not gonna get into my life story (you could probably just search my previous posts for that). But basically I've spent at least 5 years openly gay and have no decided to go Asexual.

A common debate is whether or not sexuality is a choice, and I thoroughly believe it is on some level. For example, I decided to be Gay a long time ago because I felt closer to boys generally (its easier to open up to them because I can better understand them and they have more similarities to me then girls). I guess having that mentality for a while changes your perspective on a subconscious level (effectively turning one gay).

Recently I have decided to become Asexual as being gay opens up a world of problems (as if having hormonal urges isn't problematic enough!). I only like this one guy, and would do anything to see him smile and make him happy, all I wanna do is spend time with him (typical love stuff).He's straight and is in and out of relationships all the time and nothing will ever happen on a gay level between us. I know it, he knows it and so there's no point fighting it.

The heart wants what it wants and its the brains job to rationalize and compromise. I get really hurt seeing him with a girl and I can't help but view her as competition. Yet I feel so happy when he's with me that any pain is barable. Thus I need to change my perspective.

Becoming Asexual is a rational and logical plan as I am hoping it will reduce my jealous feelings for his sexual partners (obviously there'll still be some jealousy but not as much). Plus, if I can suppress any urges, I can spend my time more productively and live a "happier?" life.

So I guess the point of this post is to firstly help me in my transition and to secondly put forward my views and reasoning for choosing your own sexuality.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts :D

This whole thing is just one giant mess.
If you were legitimately gay you would not be able to just change your sexuality just because it is "causing problems for you." You are either born gay or you aren't. So it's quite obvious that you are not gay.

Being Asexual means that you do not feel any kinds of attraction towards any person.
I really don't think that you can just choose to not be attracted to any gender at all. If you have to "suppress" your sexual urges towards someone it obviously means that you are not Asexual because you still have physical / sexual attraction towards them.

[Wheatley]

I dis/agree. What about when people say "you can be whatever you want to be"? With enough motivation and persuation you can change your sexuality.

Some are born strongly one way and they likely won't try to fight it. Leaving asexuality out of this for now. My feelings very much depend on the person, I wouldn't care if who I like is male or female, if they had an attractive personality then yeah why not?

I still thoroughly believe you can change though, going from anything to asexual is hard. But if you can reduce your libido enough then I'm sure its possible. As I touched on above, those who are born strongly one way are likely to stay strongly that way, likewise if you swing between them, you're probably not gonna be as strongly one way as those born like it. What I'm trying to say is that there are degrees of sexuality (one isn't simply straight).

I do adopt the idea of a blank slate from birth though so obviously this will influence my beliefs a lot. When I lived in London, my class at primary school were very close, after catching up with them 10 or so years later, most of them are gay. Which does suggest that it was a learnt behaviour.

But if people are born a certain sexuslity and they "go through a stage of sexual identity crisis", say, they are straight but have had a boyfriend (being a boy as well) before. How long does the "its just a stage" last before one realizes their true sexual identity? As surely you can only be one type if you are born like it?

[gothy]

Sexuality is not a choice. Choosing to live a lie and pretend you are straight if you are gay is a choice. In other words, what you feel attracted to is not a choice, but whether or not you follow your heart is a choice.

[Babs]

You can't train yourself to be asexual. And people who are asexual can be gay because they still feel romantic attraction.
You don't just become asexual as a tool to reduce jealousy. Its either you are or you aren't. You reduce jealousy you move on. Its not easy but its possible.

[metallic_pink]

Sometimes overthinking and complicating things too much will cause you more confusion. Just be true to yourself and go from there.

[ChrisTJ]

As someone who isn't asexual but one of my best friends is asexual I can tell you that I would find it hard to believe that anyone can choose to go asexual. The asexual community go to great lengths to stress the difference between abstinence and asexuality. You could choose to abstain from sex, that would mean you would still have urges but choose not to act on them and not to enter sexual relationships, that's fine. However an asexual gets no such urges, feels no sexual attraction or desire, to become asexual you would need to switch off the very natural part of you that feels sexual desire. So yeah maybe you could go celibate (have sexual urges but choose not to follow through on them) but I very much doubt you could go asexual (actually have no sexual urges).

[jacko]

You can't choose to be asexual. You're attracted to guys, so that makes you gay. You can try to control your desires, but that won't make you asexual. If you're asexual you don't have any sexual feelings and don't take pleasure from them.

[Passenger]

Becoming Asexual is a rational and logical plan as I am hoping it will reduce my jealous feelings

Like Ren said, how do you become asexual? As a (grey) ace, how rude are you?! You don't choose to become asexual, I was born this way, it isn't my fault I don't get much sexual attraction and my levels of sexual attraction are not something I have control over for example reducing them "to reduce my jealousy". So please go an research AVEN.org because judging from what you said I don't think you're asexual, you're just trying to reduce your jealousy towards someone by trying to be less sexually attracted which you can't really control. :)

[Passenger]

However an asexual gets no such urges, feels no sexual attraction or desire...

Hello

Just FYI, I'm grey asexual so I do get some attraction and desire (for things like cuddling etc) but it just isn't on level of what my friends experience. :)