Sex is Such a Turn Off

Written by Ace2

In most western media, especially TV shows, there is a lot of sex. Sometimes as a very poor plot device, sometimes tastefully done but still unnecessary. Finding something to watch that doesn’t offend your eyeballs gets harder and harder with each month. Netflix is drowning, it’s dripping with sex-driven shows, so much that it might as well be PornHub. Everywhere, sex is talked about, mentioned, sought after (this is a university and hormones are running rampant with each new batch of freshers that come in), and messily achieved in some not-so-private spaces. Are the walls thick enough in the halls to avoid hearing your pod-mate fuck someone? No, no they are not. Invest in some noise-canceling headphones, earplugs, or earmuffs, I implore you. As much as sex is ‘cool’ (as long as you get consent, consent is important, fam), the thing to do, the thing to pass time, there is more to life than fucking or getting fucked. How do I know this? As an asexual, I am well versed in things that are Better Than Sex™.

“An asexual? Isn’t that what plants do?”

Yes, and no. Asexuality (in humans) is the lack of sexual attraction, not the lack of sexual drive. It is also NOT the lack of romantic attraction; sex and romance are two very different things and are something that is often ignored. But, like most aspects of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s less of a definition and more of a metal slide covered in dishwashing liquid and water. Asexuality is a spectrum, a multi-faceted diamond, a 3D model of a castle with all the secret passageways and booby traps and pitfalls that scarily mimic real life, but on steroids with an enthusiastic Italian plumber in stripper heels to guide you. It can be scary to navigate, difficult at times with a shit ton of eMOtioNAL DAmaGE from the constant external pressure to be fucking normal, dammit! It’s the constant need to defend yourself, to explain that yes, you would like a romantic relationship; hold hands and cuddle and support and lean on someone, go on dates, and have that constant reassurance that someone loves you for you, you just don’t want sex. Can we have a stable, meaningful relationship that doesn’t revolve around sex? Yes, it is possible. But no, I think the favourite part of being asexual is the constant need that other people feel to fix this…fix my

sexuality, as if there was something to be fixed. As if it were a disease, a virus; something you could get vaccinated against but people wouldn’t want you to cos “vaccines cause autism” or some bullshit like that. The constant need to stick their beaky noses in where it’s not welcome and offer their 2 cents, except we don’t have 2 cent coins in New Zealand anymore, so that makes it just as useless. Things like “Oh, there’s a medicine that can fix that.” Nothing is broken. Our brains are just wired differently. We do not require sex to function, it isn’t a necessity, no matter how much the first years and animal science department want to disagree (stfu Craig). Some people, as weird as it may sound, do not require sex, do not like sex, or are just flat out not interested. It’s that simple.

“Oh no,’ I hear you cry, ‘it’s rare, right? There must only be a few of you, correct?” Weeellll….in a study done by Williams Institute, at the University of California (Los Angeles), they determined that 1.7% of the population is asexual. So, if we apply that to the population of America (about 333 million), then around 5.6 million of them are asexual. Now. Apply that to the world. 7.9 billion people. 1.7% of them are asexual. For those of you who hate math, who suck at it, or just avoid numbers for personal reasons, I’ll tell you. It’s 134.3 million. For context, that’s more than the population of Japan. If you got all of us together and shoved us in a country, we would be the 10th most populated country in the world, above Mexico. So yeah, I guess we’re rare in the way that sleeps attainable during exam week; a small percentage, but there nonetheless.

“You haven’t found the right one.” The right one for what, exactly? The right one to piss me off so significantly that I’d probably go to jail for premeditated murder? The right one to forge the sword of the Chosen One? Bring balance to the Force? This one vexes me greatly. Please, for the love of cheesy garlic bread, be more specific.

“How do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t tried it?” Look. Sex is like food, right? Some food looks gross, like week-old vomit on the window of Colombo’s common room, or the slightly dubious Sunday Frittata in the dining hall. You don’t want to touch it, you don’t want to eat it, and frankly, it’s gross (sorry Mike, it was a student poll). That’s okay. No one is going to force you to eat it. No one should force you to eat it. That’s assault. That’s Bad. BAD! Some food looks kinda…meh, tbh. Like, you’ll eat it if you’re hungry, but sometimes you aren’t hungry for it. Most of the time you aren’t hungry for it. That’s fine. Sometimes, the food looks really good, and you want to eat it, even if you don’t normally. That’s fine. Others may want to eat all the time, others don’t want to eat at all, and some people are picky eaters. Others will only eat a certain type of food. Others may want to try new food, and some once they try, find that they don’t like it. That. Is. Okay.

“Oh, you’ll change your mind.” Bitch, I think the fuck not! This one really annoys me. Society expects me to have a clear idea of a career, of a future, what I want to do with my life, right? Somewhere in there, sometimes along the way, some asshole decided that needing to procreate was essential for any young woman. So, when any of us express ideas like ‘I don’t want kids’ or ‘I don’t want to get married, people immediately say that it’s the wrong thing to want. But that is a topic for another time; I have spreadsheets and charts and the rage of a repressed gay who has been denied acceptance because ‘A’ stands for ‘Ally’, apparently (it doesn’t, and anyone who wants to dispute that can meet me outside on Forbes Lawn after this is published, with their weapon of choice, their last rites completed and ready to die).

“What if your husband/partner wants sex?” Admittedly, this one hasn’t come up all that often, since I cut certain people out of my life. But…bold of you to assume that I’d a) marry a man in the first place when there are also *women* and b) date someone who doesn’t respect my boundaries. Any fool who decides that they want to spend their life with me and try to coerce me into sex will find themselves at the wrong end of the sword, and not in a kinky way either.

Despite all that life throws at me; the constant pressure to have sex, to submit, to conform to what society wants me to do, there are constants that I hold onto. I am asexual. I am proud of it. This bloodline ends with me.