How To Understand and Be an Ally to Asexual People in 2025
Speaking from my own experiences
As each year goes by, more and more people become aware of queer people and our experiences. Many of them grow to become sympathetic to us and our struggle, while some hit back at us with revulsion and hatred. Throughout this time there is one queer identity that despite everything, most people still are totally clueless about, and that is asexual people.
Even now, there is constant misinformation about what it means to be asexual, propagated by the usual bigots who lie and spread hatred. I remember a couple of years ago and Matt Walsh both made videos attacking asexual people, spreading the myth that we’re just lonely, reclusive, or selfish people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
People who are asexual are not simple loners who want nothing to do with anyone else. Asexual people are perfectly capable of having fulfilling friendships and even relationships with others, contrary to these prominent acephobic myths.
Being asexual simply means that someone experiences less other people do. Speaking from my own experiences, I don’t have any desire to have sex with people. Sure, I can acknowledge when someone is attractive (regardless of what gender they are). This is totally separate from wanting to have sex with a person, however.
Granted, people can also , which means they also have less of an interest in romance than the average person does. Once again, this does not mean that someone who is aromantic is emotionally cold or cruel to others; it simply means that they don’t have a strong desire for romantic relationships.
Typically, when a non-asexual person meets someone that they find attractive, they will try to pursue a relationship with that person, or they may just want to hook up with them and not have anything serious. Obviously, this isn’t an experience that many asexual people can relate to, because we don’t pursue sex for those reasons.
Again, speaking from my own experiences, I’ve tried using dating apps in the past, but it was never something I was able to stick to. I would usually get bored after a few days and uninstall because, ultimately, I don’t have any desire for sex or romance. I’m fine going through life without either, and I can honestly say it wouldn’t bother me one bit if I never experienced those things.
Now, it is true that many asexual people do have sex, but it’s often because they have a partner and they do it because their partner is sexual, not because they themselves have a desire for it. Another experience that a lot of asexual people of sex but not being too fond of the act itself.
It’s very common for people to be otherwise unbothered or not really care about sex but still to engage in fantasies or even watch porn and things like that. The idea of sex in this sense is something that asexual people can find exciting because it’s in the realm of fiction. Erotic novels or even just straight porn are things that someone can consume and enjoy without having a desire to engage with these things in real life.
As far as my own personal experience goes as an asexual person, sex is something that I truly have no desire to pursue in real life but I don’t necessarily mind the topic of fantasies or sex in fiction. When I play video games like Baldur’s Gate 3, for instance (), I do like to engage in romances with certain characters, because well, who wouldn’t?
I really enjoy this stuff, like I enjoy having relationships and experiences with characters throughout fiction, that’s simply how you should enjoy fiction in my opinion. You get to know characters and especially in video games or RPGS, and you spend a lot of time with them, and you build these relationships with them. As for sex in real life, I have no desire for it.
Don’t get me wrong, my own experiences as an asexual person are not the be-all and end-all, and I’m not trying to claim to be some universal arbiter of what being asexual is. More than anything, I think asexuality (and probably sexuality more broadly) is something that is largely up to each person to experience. Nobody has the same experience of asexuality because these things are so fluid, and that’s what’s so interesting about it.
