SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE

DEAR DAN: I recently came out to my husband as asexual. I’m a 56-year-old female. He is 57. We have been in a monogamous relationship for 35 years. We both come from culturally traditional families. We married young and raised two boys who are now adults. Our oldest son came out to us as bisexual five years ago when he fell in love with a man. This was a catalyst for me to look into the nature of my sexuality. My husband’s response to my asexuality was, “Of course you are — we aren’t having sex anymore.” Before I came out to him, he urged me over and over to look into remedies for my situation so we could have intercourse. Menopause has made intercourse unbearably painful for me and he is not open to other forms of sexual intimacy. He doesn’t understand asexuality. After all, for many years we did have sex. I felt that it was part of my duty as a wife. In hindsight, I believe I was more interested in having children than having sex. I have a lot of guilt that I somehow “duped” him into a relationship. This was not my intention. Asexuality was not part of my vocabulary any more than bisexuality was. I have suffered for years with depression, thinking there was something wrong with me for not being interested in sex.

We love each other and we want to stay together. I know he has sexual needs that need to be satisfied. I have urged him to find other outlets. I’ve told him that I’m open to an open relationship. He said that he is afraid that if he had sex with anyone else that he would fall in love with them. He doesn’t want to do that because he loves only me. He still thinks there is some remedy and that I could find that would make it possible for us to still have sex. What do you advise?

— Asexual Characteristic Explains Dilemma

DEAR ACED: Your letter — your question, your predicament, your marriage — demonstrates why the awarenessraising conversations we’ve been hav- ing about asexuality over the last decade-and-change are so important. If “asexual” had been a part of the conversation 40 years ago, ACED, you wouldn’t have spent 35 years wondering what was wrong with you. With “asexual” part of the conversation now, people who are asexual are likelier to know who they are, know there’s nothing wrong with them, and know they’re free to make different choices — more informed ones. Likewise, allosexuals who date out asexuals are free to make informed choices of their own.

(Allosexual is the opposite of asexual… and, yes, you could call allosexuals plain ol’ sexuals, but confusing new terms that have to be unpacked in parentheticals > simple and clear language that doesn’t have to be unpacked in a parenthetical.)

But what do you do now, ACED? Nothing. You know who you are after all these years, you’ve explained who you are to your husband, and your husband has your permission to seek sex elsewhere, if he so chooses. If he needs to feel a deep emotional connection in order to experience sexual attraction — if your husband just realized he’s demisexual (sigh) — he can seek out women who are… I don’t know… unhappily married to emotionally obtuse men they don’t wanna leave for the sake of their kids and might be seeking some dick and affection elsewhere. Romantic love isn’t a zero-sum game — loving someone else doesn’t mean your husband has to love you any less, or any differently, than he does right now.

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