Finding Sexual Autonomy as a Demisexual

I spent the last two months or so recovering, trying to recover, hoping to recover, and unfortunately, failing to recover from a very toxic relationship. Infidelity was the breaking point in my already broken relationship. It has left me trying to make sense of a lot of things, my sexual identity being one of them.

My ex-boyfriend cheated, and he told me it was because he wanted to have sex —  something that I did not want to have in the same way he did and most definitely not the same number of times he did. Sex was a key part of his life, but was never a key part of mine. I’ve never been a very sexual person — sure, I like it sometimes and mostly when it’s with someone I love — but I consider cuddling and watching a movie with a few kisses here and there a perfect night as well. 

This was my first serious relationship, and have discovered through it that my sexual identity falls somewhere in the spectrum between asexual and demisexual. 

Along with other toxic residue, this relationship made me feel that I will never be “sexually good enough” (whatever that means) and will never last a relationship because I can’t sign up for routine sex. These were never his direct words, but rather things I started to tell myself after we ended. 

Our understanding of sexual autonomy is inherently anti-asexual and heteronormative. He used to look at me with actual pity when I struggled sexually in bed, and only on the rare occasion when I was more confident, was when he looked at me as a sexual figure. Contrary to how I felt above the sheets, I almost always felt suffocated with gazes of desexualization under them. 

Making the decision to break up was difficult, even after finding about the cheating. There were many moments of final goodbyes. It was so hard to leave because I felt like he was willing to sacrifice something to be with me, and he promised he would never cheat again and that I was more important than sex. By staying in the relationship, he was perhaps giving up something that meant a lot to him. However, I was willing to trade my self-respect for halfhearted love because I thought that’s all I could ever get as a demisexual person. 

I was never able to truly tell him how much he hurt me (the hurt, while centered around infidelity, also went beyond it), because that would mean I’d have to lose my cool and be completely honest about the pain he put me through. I couldn’t do that because I was terrified of losing him. On top of having a less-than-perfect body, I didn’t want to fuck, so I assumed that being with me was a sacrifice that only someone who truly loves me was willing to make. I finally discovered that I need to stop making myself feel and look like an embodiment of a compromise and that loving me is some sort of sacrifice. 

It is perhaps by way of legislation, media and culture that sex has become so engrained into our society. But what’s contradicting is that it is made important by being shrouded in secrecy and when spoken, is embellished in heteronormative terminology (the birds and the bees narrative, for example). Asexuality immediately becomes excluded from those conversations around sex which becomes encroached by a couple of hegemonic narratives. Even many of the conversations I’ve had in pro-sex feminist spaces are centered around the freedom to say yes without being judged but not the safety in saying no or never to sex. 

I am honestly still figuring it out. I am not completely comfortable in my body just yet, but if anything, I am proud that I am finally being honest with myself. I’ve spent quite some time fooling myself, thinking that sex was for me. I also unknowingly lied to him, saying that I just need time and would eventually get to a more comfortable place with sex. The truth is I won’t, but maybe I might, but don’t think I will. Who knows? I guess I should try and find comfort in not knowing yet, and perhaps never knowing.