It’s Pride Month! Let’s talk about the last letter in the LGBTQIA acronym: Asexuals. “An asexual person does not experience sexual attraction – they are not drawn to people sexually and do not desire to act upon attraction to others in a sexual way.” That definition is from the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which has a nifty FAQ about asexuality if you’re curious to learn more.
I’m going to tell my story. Please be kind if you choose to comment. This post is just an explainer about one asexual person and my feelings, my experiences, and what I wish people understood about what it’s like to be asexual in a world where everyone (not just the Church) assumes you have to be paired up in order to be happy.
Growing Up
I was born in the covenant to two pioneer descendants in the shadow of the everlasting hills (meaning I was born in Utah to parents who were married in the temple). I am a natural rule follower and loved Mary Ellen Edmunds’ statement: “Don’t you just love the commandments? Don’t you wish you had more of them?” I served a mission, graduated from BYU, married in the temple, and spent ten years as a stay-at-home-mom. I loved reading the scriptures and rarely missed a day.
Also, I was so incredibly virtuous and chaste that I was not even tempted to break the law of chastity! I was so pure and innocent that I did not know how sex actually worked until my mother gave me “the talk” a year after I started menstruating. Dirty jokes and double entendres usually went right over my head. (That level of ignorance was a result of the Mormon cocoon that I was raised in; it has nothing to do with being asexual. The cocoon just made it impossible for me to realize that I was different.)
I had some sexual feelings, though. In my teens and twenties, I would develop all-encompassing crushes. I usually crushed on boys, but there were several girls too. I typically had sexual feelings and sexual fantasies while having a crush, but I could make the crush go away by actually talking to the subject of my crush (when he wasn’t a movie star, I mean). For example, at a high school dance, I worked up the courage to ask my crush for a slow dance. By the end of the dance, the crush was gone. I did not like being physically close to people.
And Then I Got Married
No, I was not sexually attracted to the man I married. By this time in my life (early 30s), I was aware that there was something a bit off about me, but it was nothing that faith couldn’t fix. I’d faithfully taken callings I didn’t want and learned to love them. Surely sex would work the same way.
It did not.
The purity culture that surrounded me growing up caused me a lot of angst and guilt during my marriage. Purity culture teaches total abstinence before marriage and total fidelity after marriage. There is a strong strain of making the women responsible for men’s chastity as well, such as telling women they must dress modestly so as not to tempt men. Then, if both of you can make it to your wedding day as virgins, you will have a fulfilling and wonderful sex life as a reward.
I really expected that. The corollary to staying virginal until marriage is that after marriage, the wife is responsible for meeting all of her husband’s sexual needs. The Church doesn’t teach consent. It teaches chastity. After I got married, I didn’t feel like I had a right to say no to sex. In fact, I did my best to act like I enjoyed sex and initiated sex. I was sure that if I had a good attitude, combined with all the praying I was doing, I would eventually like sex.
I did not.
I read books. I went to therapists. I fasted. I prayed. I went to the temple. I did everything, except I never told my husband about my feelings (or the lack thereof). I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or make him feel inadequate. And besides, I didn’t have words. You can’t talk about something that you don’t even know is a thing to talk about. One relationship book I read scolded wives for withholding sex because of marital problems. There was no acknowledgement that maybe a wife didn’t want to have sex at all; no, the implication was that she was withholding sex in order to manipulate or punish her husband. Feeling guilty that I was withholding sex, I initiated sex more often. My husband never pressured me. I pressured myself, and I did my best to never let him know what I wasn’t feeling.
Divorced
I filed for divorce just a few years into the marriage. In some stifled and wordless part of my brain, I knew a large part of the reason was because I never wanted to have sex again. We had lots of problems, though, and I relied on those other reasons to explain why I divorced him.
Discovering Asexuality
I did not hear the word “asexual” until several years after my divorce, when I was in my early 40s. I read an article about the asexual character in the animated show Bojack Horseman. Huh, weird, I thought. I can’t be asexual, though, because of that endless string of crushes (including sexual fantasies) when I was younger. It had been years since I’d had a crush. Once I went to therapy, I realized that my crushes weren’t what most people call crushes. I would form an imaginary attachment to someone cool and imagine that if they liked me, maybe I would be worth something. After recovering from my self-esteem issues, I stopped latching onto people in hopes that they would validate my existence.
After yet another bad experience on a dating app, I started reading a bit more about asexuality and realized that sexual fantasies could be part of asexuality. There is no test to determine if someone is asexual, just like there is no test you have to pass to say you’re bisexual, or lesbian, gay or trans. Asexuality is like any other identity – it’s just a word that people use to help figure themselves out, then communicate that part of themselves to others.
I was horrified. I spiraled into self-hatred. I wrote the sentence, “I am asexual” in my journal, and then ripped out the page and tore it up into tiny pieces. I contemplated the end of my hopes to make it to the highest levels of the celestial kingdom, and wept, wailed and gnashed my teeth at the idea of being confined to a ministering angel role for eternity.
Acceptance
During the pandemic, I got desperate for more social connection and joined Tumblr, one of the lesser-known social media sites. Tumblr is full of queer people, including asexuals, and I started reading thoughts written by asexuals who were not ashamed or scared to say they didn’t experience sexual attraction and didn’t want to have sex. I started to wonder what would happen if I just …. accepted that this is the way I am and I don’t have to hope for change, either in this life or the next.
An odd thing happened once I found a community who could normalize my thoughts and feelings. I got angry. I got angry at the Church for being so adamant that sex is the Sacred Procreative Process and is So Epic and Wonderful that having sex is one of the most central rewards of the celestial kingdom. I got angry that the Church’s teachings made me feel inadequate and broken and less than I should be.
Another thing that happened once I accepted that I’m asexual is that I started leaning into who I really was. When you’re pining away in hopes of changing a fundamental part of your nature, you’re not finding out who you really are and what you enjoy. I discovered that I’m an artist. I found out that I love flower gardening. I stopped hoping my sons would grow up to meet all my expectations and I abandoned those expectations. My relationships with them are better. My friendships deepened as I became more accepting of everyone else. I’m a better listener. I wake up happy.
Aromantic
Besides being asexual, I’m also aromantic. Some asexuals can fall into romantic love with someone. I wanted to be a romantic; I wanted to fall in love. Asexuals still have the same emotional needs for closeness, emotional intimacy, loving support and acceptance that everyone else has. I really struggled with the idea that, if I couldn’t offer someone sex, no one would want any other part of me either. I wanted to at least be romantic.
But then I noticed a pattern about myself and my sporadic attempts to date. I only signed up on dating apps when I was afraid of being elderly and alone. Who will drive me to the doctor? Who will help me navigate the healthcare system? Who will take care of me after a surgery? The only time I want to be in a relationship is when I’m scared of my golden years. When I’m happy and confident, I have zero interest in being in a relationship.
Sigh.
I had a mini-spiral about being aromantic too, but with the Tumblr community to normalize and talk things through, I didn’t plunge into despair. I was able to accept that I’m not hard-wired to fall in love.
Friends are everything to me. I have a strong and plentiful network of friends. I sometimes feel lonely, but never enough to seek out a relationship.
I feel best when I focus on my art, my hobbies, my career, my friends and my children. I avoid stuff that’s obsessed with romantic relationships. That includes Church, but it also includes romance novels, lots of movies and shows, and people/ideas that insist that heteronormativity is the best thing for everyone in society. “Heteronormativity” is the term for the assumption that everyone should want to be heterosexual, and everyone should want to live in a heterosexual relationship.
I don’t have any issues with the law of chastity. If I attended Church, probably I would be welcomed as one of the “good” queers who isn’t choosing to live a gay lifestyle. I don’t attend for several reasons:
- I don’t want to be pitied, or be around people who assume I’ll be fixed in the afterlife.
- Once I accepted that I don’t want the lifestyle that we’re promised in the Celestial Kingdom, I lost interest in doing the things the Church tells me I have to do to get there.
Being aromantic and asexual means I need a culture and society that allows women to be fully independent from men. Church culture is all about pairing up, and many of the MAGA Republicans there are fine with rolling back women’s rights. That’s a terrible situation for someone like me. Marriage should not be mandatory. If family really is about joy and fulfillment, then it should be voluntary. That means there must be options to marriage, or it isn’t really a choice.
Questions:
- Did you know anything about asexuality before this post?
- Do you recognize aspects of yourself or a loved one in any of these experiences?
- Do you think more thorough sexual education would help people figure out their sexual orientation sooner?
- Can you think of fictional characters whose behavior matches the descriptions of asexuality and/or aromanticism? Do they get happy endings?
Wheat & Tares 
Wow. Amazing and beautiful post, Janey. Thank you.
One of my best friends got married last month. We are both the same age (41) and after many years of relationships and knowing that it was something that he really wanted in life, I am so very happy for him. Plus he is moving from the UK to Atlanta with his wife, so I am looking forward to a place to stay. I’m hoping to end up in Nashville at some point to check out all those music venues people recommended!
Weddings can often be the times when us single folks are confronted with a yearning for something we do not have. I must say I have experienced this in the past, but this time around I was surprised that I felt nothing of the sort. As they exchanged vows, the whole crowd were in tears, myself included. But I had no yearning whatsoever to be doing what he was doing. Later that evening, me and a couple of friends were chatting to some women from Utah. I was asked:
“Are you married?”
“No”
“Are you looking for someone?”
“No. I’m very content”
Now I have always fielded these questions with good grace. And to be fair to this lady she was a fellow ‘nuanced’ Mormon and so we had a good chat about that. But part of me always thinks these are very personal questions to be asking a stranger. But oh well.
I wouldn’t consider myself asexual or necessarily aromantic – perhaps ‘relationship neutral’? I have had one relationship in my life many years ago with a friend at university when I was a postgrad. It lasted for six months and was enjoyable. We never actually ‘dated’ as a precursor. I’d already known her for three years, she liked me, she kinda pounced and before I knew it we were together! Plus we were studying in Rome at the time, so why not! But beyond that I have never been on a date, in the sense of asking someone out. The potential for social awkwardness is just too much to think about.
Relationships are by no means a motivating factor for me in my life, and I become less interested as I get older and become more settled in who I am. I can definitely be a romantic at heart and can appreciate all the wonderful things a relationship can bring, but when I think about the practicality of always having someone ‘there’….then no thanks. If I were to meet someone and be in a long-term relationship then it would have to be someone who is similar and we could be together but also live quite individual lives as well. But I don’t know. All I know is that I’m not looking but I have an open mind if someone comes along, as they occasionally do. One such ‘potential’ from a few years ago, that didn’t amount to anything, I actually found out a year or so ago that she has come out and is in a relationship and is by all accounts very happy. Which makes me happy. It just made me smile to think that we are all just fumbling around trying to find our way. Plus, now that I have stopped attending church I don’t feel any conflict with the cultural, social and spiritual expectations of others.
“When you’re pining away in hopes of changing a fundamental part of your nature, you’re not finding out who you really are and what you enjoy. I discovered that I’m an artist. I found out that I love flower gardening. I stopped hoping my sons would grow up to meet all my expectations and I abandoned those expectations. My relationships with them are better. My friendships deepened as I became more accepting of everyone else. I’m a better listener. I wake up happy.”
Amen to that!
Thank you for this post. Much of it resonates with me. I do believe thorough, scientifically enlightened, sex education would help a great deal, reducing stigmas and pressure to conform to heteronormative culture, or the also-real pressure to declare one’s self gay (because, y’know, if one were straight they would of course be chasing the opposite sex incessantly.) *rolls eyes* Sadly, I have little faith in our current society to achieve such enlightenment.
Love the question about fictional characters. None came immediately to mind. There is a movie called An Unfinished Life, which may not be a true example. Morgan Freeman and Robert Redford are a couple of old roomies on a ranch. I remember a scene where Redford is rubbing oil on Freeman’s scarred torso. We’re meant to wonder, as they provide each other care. A visiting granddaughter asks the two men if they’re gay. They laugh. One of them says something like, “I think one of us would have figured that out by now.”
The other movie I’m thinking of, in a negative way at the moment, is Horse Whisperer. Again Redford. His character seems asexual for half of the film. But at last, he experiences the urge to love again. Praise be! He begins a courtship with the film’s leading lady, even though she’s already married. He says something like, “I never expected to feel this way again.” Seems a depiction of asexual as a synonym for being in a slump. Beautiful movie, but also a classic case of insisting that humans deserve couplehood, sex on demand, and other bull crap. No group quite so naïve as people who are good at sex and enjoy it on a regular basis. I work at a hospital, I don’t believe in happy endings anymore. Maybe graceful and dignified ones, aided by a lot of compassion, but “happy ending” is a marketing term for religions and shady massage parlors.
I knew a bit about asexual and aromantic.
I think the biggest “cost” paid to be asexual and/or aromantic is understanding that you are going to be doing things “alone by default” – and that rightfully scares people into thinking it is “have a spouse” or “don’t have a spouse” choice instead of a 3rd option which is “spouseless – but vibrant social network”.
I also think that conversations about sexuality and romance also need to include that there are “seasons” where both may or may not be a factor. Chronic (physical/emotional/mental) health problems do a number on sexuality and romance – and are not limited to over age 50 by a long shot:)
I think it might be a part of a more effective “life education” scenario. But this “life education” scenario would also need to include the book “How to Keep House While Drowning” as required reading and a section on “the anatomy of a W-2” (US-based government form).
I think the hardest part of codifying “happy endings” is the definition. Is it an “ending” they wanted/were satisfied with – is it even happy? The end of the movie, “Stranger Than Fiction” actually asks the question about “writing happy endings” – what that actually looks like.
First, thank you for sharing your experience and explaining how being asexual has impacted your life and your experience in the church! It is hard to make yourself that vulnerable, and I really appreciate you opening yourself up like this.
To answer your questions:
I had heard about asexuality before this post. Several of my siblings and I had wondered about one sibling who didn’t date (to our knowledge). Turns out, though, that she is gay and was in the closet until she met someone important enough to introduce to the family. Unfortunately, it is only in retrospect that we’ve realized how happy she wasn’t, if that makes sense.
I wish we had better sex ed that mentioned the wide variety of sexual orientations that exist! I live in a very conservative area, though, and just the existence of LGBTQ+ folks is currently a huge problem for a depressing number of people. I know way too many people who grew up thinking there was something wrong with them because they didn’t fit into the heterosexual, cis-gender world that was all they saw. I also know too many people who have ruined relationships with their children because they felt they had to constantly make sure their child knew they “don’t believe in that” or that the child’s orientation was an “abomination in the sight of God.” There are a couple that I’ve helped claw their way back from that, and one that listened to me enough to stop before the relationship was torpedoed, but it’s a rough road.
I’ve read a few books that include ace characters in the last few years. Most recently, the Secret, Book and Scone Society series by Ellery Adams. He’s not the main character, but part of the ensemble around the main character, starting in the second book, I think.
Also, What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. The main character is ace, and will have another book later this year or early next year.
Upon further reflection, the main character in What Moves the Dead is just nonbinary. I don’t remember anything romantic, etc., but it’s horror so (1) that kind of overshadows everything else, and (2) happy ending = surviving the story.
Thank you so much for sharing Janey.
A lot of things in this post resonate for me, but in a different way.
For example
Also, I was so incredibly virtuous and chaste that I was not even tempted to break the law of chastity!
I had a lot of thoughts like this growing up, and a lot of people commented on such, but I think it was for me because most of the adults around were thinking about young men fooling around with young women, so as a gay guy, I could definitely say I didn’t have any temptations to do anything wrong with any young women.
But I still have to unpack that last paragraph. I could hear someone saying, “Well, since you’re gay, wouldn’t that just mean you would have had temptations w/ guys?” and growing up, it wasn’t a problem. I did think of myself as asexual for a while, but that also didn’t fully fit. I definitely have a type.
More and more, I like the nuanced terms in the asexuality and aromantic communities — things like demiromantic/demisexual and greyromantic/greysexual. I know that to people on the outside (or, to use the lingo: allosexuals and alloromantics), these all probably seem confusing or made up, and yet…terms in this space feel closer to capturing some of the nuance for my own feelings and desires.
Even writing this comment makes me feel like there are probably some things I really need to continue unpacking for myself. I had an essay that I wrote for Holly Welker’s Revising Eternity collection and there are things that I said and thought then that I wonder if they couldn’t be reinterpreted differently now. Ugh, i probably need to not take over the comment section here and need to write my own blog entry.
Thank you for this post–I gained understanding about what being asexual actually means. You did a great job of highlighting the disconnect between the church’s teachings about “ideals” and eternity and the REALITY that many people experience. One would think that for something so significant (i.e. this disconnect between the way eternity is (according to the church) and the way people are) that the church could offer some REAL insight or comfort. Instead, LGBTQA+ members are either told “don’t worry, you’ll get some sort of ‘reward’ (ministering angel)” or “don’t worry, you’ll be ‘fixed’ eventually to fit into the plan of salvation / happiness as we teach it”. Both these “answers” are insulting and just seem wrong.
Though I (personally) do believe the church is true (has authority, has the (possibility of benefiting from the) gift of prophecy), I am disappointed in the utter lack of anything approaching an adequate answer for those who are LGBTQA+ as to how THEY fit into God’s plan. What exactly such an answer would look like coming from God, I don’t know / can’t say. But what I can say is that the “answers” we’ve gotten so far from the church seem more like the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.
Thank you for bravely sharing Janey. It opens a little crack towards understanding for me.
One thing I have come to know is that there’s so much I don’t understand, and I simply cannot understand because I don’t have the experience to understand.
I feel like there’s an assumption in our society (at least at church) of everything applying to everyone, instead of the reality that we are individuals. That if one person experiences the world in a certain way, they can assume that applies to everyone. That if we preach at people enough they can decide to just be us. And of course the corollary to this is the idea that, if others aren’t like us, there’s something wrong with them that needs to be fixed.
But reality is we are all different. I like to believe that God created us that way on purpose and loves us exactly the way we are and is annoyed with the people who try to force people with differences to, conform to what they are believing is an ideal.
But reality is, you are supposed to be who you are. That is your ideal. That is what’s eternal and beautiful for you.
We’ve made up this fantasy ideal which matches a certain group’s reality. Then we step forward with blinders on. We aren’t learning, open and curious about what reality is for other people because we think we already know. If we just hit them hard enough with the obedience hammer our realty will be their reality too (not).
It’s hubris and pride to believe you know and then go out trying to make the world fit your vision. I have come to see that I don’t know. It’s a good place to start to try to accept whatever reality is.
What an interesting post and topic for an LDS discussion. Because, in one sense, asexuality is sort of a Mormon virtue. As more and more discussion of sin in LDS discourse has become about sex (I mean sex in all its varieties is really the only Mormon sin these days, apart from not paying tithing), asexuality has become in an odd way the unspoken virtue of Mormon discourse. At the same time and in a rather jarring contrast, sexuality is supposed to happen, indeed thrive, within a heterosexual marriage. But for everyone else, asexuality is the ideal. There are close to a hundred thousand young LDS missionaries out there serving, and everyone wants them to be asexual for two years.
There’s also the obvious physiological fact that as humans age they tend to become less and less sexual. Asexuality is sort of the asymptotic endpoint of human aging. So imagine a conference room with half a dozen nonagenarian GAs, all more or less asexual in that normal human way, sitting around discussing the latest change to LDS sexuality policies and commandments. Regularly. It’s the central topic of LDS sin thinking, so they must talk about it all the time. I wonder if the natural asexuality of the increasingly old LDS senior leadership explains how sex has become the central sin, almost the only sin, on the current LDS menu of sin?
“I got angry at the Church for being so adamant that sex is the Sacred Procreative Process and is So Epic and Wonderful that having sex is one of the most central rewards of the celestial kingdom.”
Both of these thoughts are indeed commonly taught by “pioneer descendants in the shadow of the everlasting hills,” [I love that phrasing!] but IMHO both of these are doctrinal errors. We seem wholly unable to discern between folklore and doctrine, and we have a tremendous amount of just-plain-wrong weight in our cultural backpacks. We certainly seem to insist on re-creating God in our own image. I regret the harm that commonly-taught-but-false doctrine causes among our church members. I differ with some other observant Latter-day Saints, even highly-placed Saints, on what constitutes doctrine. I appreciate the OP’s candor and wish her well.
At nearly 60 years old, and after 34 years of marriage (recently divorced),I realized that I am on the asexual continuum. I always ascribed my lack of desire to the fact that he was a controlling, workaholic, absent husband/father (which was part of it, I’m sure). But the reality for me is that I just don’t feel sexual attraction. I have so many thoughts pinging around my brain about this realization:
1. SADNESS that this means there is no hope I will ever feel the attractions that most people feel, and that is expected in most relationships. Something I didn’t even realize I was missing.
2. RELIEF that I’m not broken. I no longer hope that the right person will spark something in me, only to have those hopes dashed again and again. Instead, I can seek to expand my circle of friends in a more authentic way.
3. GUILT for not being the wife my ex-husband thought he was marrying.
4. COMPASSION for my ex-husband, who was desperate to feel loved and I just didn’t get what the big deal was. I now realize that I gave off so many “leave me alone” vibes that it’s no wonder he didn’t feel loved.
Thank you for being so open and vulnerable. It helps me feel less alone.
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I’m aroace as well (aromantic & asexual for those who haven’t seen it with this way before) and I almost never hear anything about the experiences of other Mormons along those spectrums, and it was wonderful reading how you’ve navigated your understanding of yourself as an adult.
I find there is very little community support to navigate adult life as asexual and/or aromatic Mormons. Even the queer Morning community is largely focused on supporting same-sex relationships (I also think trans experiences are not well supported) with hardly any recognition that there are also challenges that come with not desiring marriage at all. It took me a long time even after identifying as aroace to believe that I’m not a bad, selfish person for not wanting to get married, and it took even longer to feel at peace with my eternal future. If the celestial kingdom meant eternal marriage and eternal procreation it may as well be hell, and yet, it was hard to let go of it when I had always been taught that securing a place in the celestial kingdom was of utmost importance. It was hard to feel that, no matter how Christ-like I was, no matter how much I repented and turned to God, I could never be “good enough” in the eternities because I can’t bear the thought of being married. These days I have a much more vague idea of what the next life may be like, if there is one, and I am doing better for it.
I am an asexual male in my late 70s. I was also born in the covenant to parents of pioneer ancestry, but not in Utah (thank goodness). I knew I was different when my peers developed heterosexual interest and started dating, and I had no interest in it. My sexual outlet was masturbation, but I didn’t have fantasies of a partner and didn’t use pornography. I just focused on my own bodily sensations. In college, I fell in love with a woman, but my attraction to her was personality based, and I wasn’t attracted sexually to her body. Ultimately, she married someone else. I was then single for many years and didn’t date. I think most people, including my family, had decided I was gay, and although I did appreciate aesthetically a handsome athletic male body (as well as an athletic female body), I didn’t have any desire to have sex with a male or even less so to live with a male partner. When I was in my late 40s, a woman fell in love with me. She was very persistent, and we shared many common interests. After a short time, I fell in love with her and we were married in the temple. She was divorced with an adult child, and she was post-menopausal. I was not attracted to her body, although she was strongly attracted to mine (and amazingly, still is). I was able to have sex with her, but my enjoyment came only from pleasuring her, not that it was better for me than masturbating. We also used vibrators to pleasure each other. Fortunately, I also like physical contact, and we have cuddled almost every day (usually twice) since we were married. We are still in love and married 30 years later, and I eventually confessed to her my asexuality. She understands and claims not to be hurt that I am not sexually attracted to her, although I do think she feels a little bad about it. I am very glad that I am not aromantic, as my life is happier with my wife than it was as a single person. Both of us are in agreement about the Church and we no longer attend. We stopped about the time the Church was persecuting our gay friends and had excommunicated other friends of ours for telling the truth about the Church, historically. I think human sexuality is far more diverse than anyone believed. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I realized that there were others like me. I knew I wasn’t really gay, but didn’t know there was a category for what I was. But actually, everyone is a little different. I doubt there is any therapy that would have changed me into a normal heterosexual male any more than there is one to change a homosexual into a heterosexual. We are born that way and have to make our way as we are. I am not unhappy with the way it worked out for me.
Thank you Janey for a well thought out, clear. and informative “testimony” of your journey. It’s hard for each of us to unpack our own sexuality no matter what it is. We are told one thing by the church and end up finding out that there are exceptions, excuses, justifications, and plain old misunderstandings and misrepresentations about sex, gay or straight.
I have a step daughter that is asexual and aromantic. I can accept it but your article helped me understand it better.
I also liked what you said about the freedom of a woman. When we say we believe in freedom we don’t really see that it’s not slanted for a woman. With the more traditional right wing view, a woman is not free to divorce because she’s dependant on the man for home, income, health insurance, retirement, and many other things. If we were more like Scandinavia countries, we’d value individual freedom more because the before mentioned things wouldn’t be depended on a person, or that person’s job but would be available for all.
Thank you for helping with our vocabulary and vision about possibilities of what individual freedom would really look like.
I don’t know that “sex is one of the most central rewards of the celestial kingdom.” Do spirit children only come into existence through some sort of sexual act? I don’t think the scriptures teach this. They do teach that we will have flesh and bone, but not blood and presumably not other fluids. Blood and fluids are necessary for sex as we know it. As ji mentioned above, “we certainly seem to insist on re-creating God in our own image.” This is dangerous. I don’t know how spirit children come into being. Unlike some people, I try not to make up an answer where we have no knowledge. Eternal sex sounds like what we’re told that Muslim men look forward to: their seventy virgins in heaven, clearly for eternal sexual pleasure. All that I seek is what is promised: to be a joint heir with Christ, redeemed from death and sin, and somehow becoming as He is. I am happy to get the details later, but I won’t speculate to satisfy my prurient interests.
We in the Church might err to the extent that we teach that family life in heaven will be a mirror of “perfect” family life on earth. I’d rather we say that we don’t know, which I think is closer to the truth. Making up answers, and teaching those answers as truth, goes beyond the mark, and that is dangerous.
I submitted a comment via WordPress, but I don’t think it went through. So I’m trying again:__________________________________________________________________________ At nearly 60 years old, and after 34 years of marriage (recently divorced),I realized that I am on the asexual continuum. I always ascribed my lack of desire to the fact that he was a controlling, workaholic, absent husband/father (which was part of it, I’m sure). But the reality for me is that I just don’t feel sexual attraction. I have so many thoughts pinging around my brain about this realization:
SADNESS that this means there is no hope I will ever feel the attractions that most people feel, and that is expected in most relationships. Something I didn’t even realize I was missing.
RELIEF that I’m not broken. I no longer hope that the right person will spark something in me, only to have those hopes dashed again and again. Instead, I can seek to expand my circle of friends in a more authentic way.
GUILT for not being the wife my ex-husband thought he was marrying.
COMPASSION for my ex-husband, who was desperate to feel loved and I just didn’t get what the big deal was. I now realize that I gave off so many “leave me alone” vibes that it’s no wonder he didn’t feel loved. Thank you for being so open and vulnerable. It helps me feel less alone. RaeOfLight
Dave B.,
just wanted to respond to something you wrote because I think it misses the mark in a very important way to realize for LDS culture and belief. You wrote:
Asexuality and celibacy are *not* the virtue in Mormonism. Rather, the ideal is always heteronormative marriage with children. Anything less misses the mark.
Chastity is not fulfilled by lifelong celibacy. it is fulfilled by a temporary celibacy until one marries, and then a marriage that produces children. “Sex in all its varieties” is not a Mormon sin. Just all the forms of sex not done by a man and a woman in a heterosexual marriage. But someone eschewing marriage is also viewed as stunting their progression…something to lament if it’s involuntary, but something to admonish if it’s voluntary.
So, this is why the church also isn’t “great” for celibate people, whether they are asexual or not.
We can definitely question about whether sex continues on in the afterlife and the eternities, but in the *here and now*, we still privilege sex because having children and raising them is viewed as *part* of the covenant of marriage on the covenant path. The message is that young men and young women need to marry one another and have children and raise them in the church. Someone who does not do these things — who eschews marriage when they could be seeking it –is seen as missing the mark. Even if two people marry, if they choose not to have children when they could — this is seen as missing the mark. If someone cannot find a spouse, this is lamented as unfortunate. If someone cannot have children, this is lamented as a challenge. There is never the acceptance that being unpartnered and child-free may be the “ideal” for someone. It’s always a loss.
Even if we do not believe that spirit procreation requires spirit sex and spirit pregnancy, we do not have a very strong idea that someone who is unpartnered and remains unpartnered in the eternities is or can be exalted.
@Janey, thanks so much for sharing your story. Sharing stories like yours can be very powerful. Back in the early nineties, it was reading the vulnerable stories of gay people that caused me to realize that the Church’s teachings on LGBTQIA people were incorrect and led me to pretty quickly completely change my worldview on my LGBTQIA brothers and sisters. Honestly, the only other information I’ve read about asexuality are from the sex ed books I read with my teens (let’s just say we didn’t use “Church approved sources” since I actually wanted my kids to learn the truth about sexuality) and from the comments you’ve made in some of your other posts, so this post is very helpful for me.
God created a very diverse world.
The problem is, “His” church is very narrow and assumes those who are different from what the church teaches need to change and conform.
I’ve come to believe “His” church is (should be) a big tent and rather than prescribing an “one size fits all” approach the goal should be to stop
judging those who are different from ourselves and to exercise love, compassion, understanding and not judge—love your neighbor and treat them as you would want to be treated.
The Church also needs to stop pretending we don’t practice polygamy. Obviously since mean can get sealed to more than one wife we believe in eternal polygamy.
Thank you all for your thoughtful and thought-provoking comments. It was surprising and comforting to find several of you sharing experiences that might also put you under an asexual umbrella, or at least able to nod in understanding at those of us who identify as aroace (aromantic and asexual).
There is something to the idea that libido ebbs and flows throughout our lives. Someone might identify as heterosexual, but with low libido due to a mental illness. When the mental illness is treated, the sexual desires return to normal. Libido isn’t orientation. Sexual orientation is less likely to ebb and flow throughout life. Though some people have to consider several different orientation labels to find the one that fits. That means some people do temporarily identify as asexual, before realizing that another label fits better, like Andrew S mentioned.
I’m glad Andrew brought up the microlabels – like being demiromantic or demisexual, or grayromantic or graysexual. I didn’t want to overload the post. Those labels are useful to help someone who doesn’t feel like they’re completely asexual find some terms that seem to fit their experiences. The more words you have, the better you can communicate with others, and think through your own experiences.
Dave B. brought up a thought about asexuality that’s probably really common, and Andrew S’s explanation of why that isn’t technically asexuality answered it really well. There’s a difference between being celibate (wanting to have sex but choosing not to) and being asexual (not wanting to have sex). Andrew’s explanation of the law of chastity was really good.
Occasional Reader – I wish there was more community as well. We’re kind of unusual even in the queer community. I don’t know why – we’re just the flip side of bisexuals. If a group of people are attracted to everybody, then there should be a group of people attracted to nobody. Hi, yes, that’s me! Another challenge I’ve found in searching for community is my age. Every support system is aimed at teens and young adults. I don’t begrudge that at all, but it does assume that people who didn’t figure things out until middle age don’t need support. There just aren’t very many of us, I guess. I went to a pride festival last year and there was someone offering hugs. I actually went and asked for a hug, and then teared up and got embarrassed because I was 50 and I’m getting teary because I got a mom-hug from a woman who probably only expected teens to need a hug.
I also liked reading the ideas about fictional characters. The one that I was thinking of Charlotte Lucas from Pride and Prejudice. She tells her friend that she’s never been romantic. Then, when main character Elizabeth Bennet turns down a marriage proposal from Mr. Collins, buffoon extraordinaire, Charlotte gets engaged to him. She’s not in love, but marriage is her only chance for social status and economic security. I’m glad I don’t have to be married just to be able to exist comfortably.
Again, thanks for the wonderful discussion going on in this thread. And if I didn’t reply to you personally, know that I’m one of the ‘thumbs-up’ ticks on your post!
This was really great and informative! Thank you for sharing your experience!
This is interesting, and while I knew a bit about asexuality, I learned a lot here too! I agree with the comment that it’s a huge miss that the Church hasn’t put much thought into these matters, instead mostly assuming everyone is secretly heterosexual like they believe they are, what they consider to be not only “the norm” but are comfortable prescribing to others.
Fictional characters–there’s definitely a case to be made that Charlotte Lucas in Pride & Prejudice is asexual, and I would add Edward Causabon from Middlemarch as another prime candidate. Also, I could easily make a case for the apostle Paul.
The rejection of heteronormativity along with thorough sexual education would help people figure out their orientation sooner.
I recently saw a clip on TikTok from a pastor named Mike Walrond who said, “don’t try to diminish somebody’s humanity in Jesus name because you don’t understand the complexity of God’s creativity.” I want to live in a world and belong to a church that accepts those complexities and celebrates them- not one that just rewards people who either are cis/hetero or who can pass as such. Thanks, Janey for sharing your story and helping me broaden my understanding.
I’ve been thinking about this lately and I wonder if being sexually repressed looks a lot like being asexual.
I think sexual repression is common in people growing up in religious purity cultures. I think being told about the evils of (uncircumscribed) sexuality and intimacy trains us to try and repress sexual feelings, and when we get to the point and context in which the church allows us to be sexual, we maybe don’t enjoy that much after years of repression.
on a different note, I’ve heard that over-exposure to sexuality might lead to asexuality, it was an offhand comment on a radio show I was listening to, but one of the hosts said:
“I believe these zoomers when they say they’re asexual, getting a whole blasted in your brain by having access to every kind of pornography at the age of 13, would burn me out too”
apparently lots of gen-z age people are identifying as asexual, and I wonder if it’s related to having instant access to a all kinds of porn that we older folks didn’t have when we were that age
but I also think there’s some larger, not necessarily porn-related thing going on to, I’ll have to dig this up, but I remember reading some article about movies and the title was something like “everyone is hot but no one is horny: romance and body image in modern cinema”
and there’s the whole “gym-cel” people, young angry men obsessed with working out and suffering from “muscle dysphoria” but seemingly have no interest in finding a sexual partner of some kind
this all adds up to something maybe, but I don’t know what
I am trying to understand, not judging. Could 2 people who are both asexual live together and even give hugs? After all there is more to marriage than sex. Might they enjoy that more? It could be less lonley?
Geoff-Aus, yes absolutely! I love platonic affection (once I know someone well enough). Hugs are great and so are cuddles and handholding. It would definitely be less lonely. In fact, I met a current friend on the ace dating website asexualcupid dot com. (We have a dating website! There are twelve other aces within 200 miles of me! There aren’t very many people on the website.) We ended up more as casual acquaintances rather than besties, but I’m still very glad I met her.
Your comment that there is more to marriage than sex is basically the heart and soul of queerplatonic relationships. As you suggest, queer people who aren’t sexually attracted to each other can form a very strong emotional and social bond. Some even marry because of the legal benefits. Queerplatonic relationships aren’t limited to just two people, even though just two people can be married. I would love to find a queerplatonic relationship with three or four people in it. My challenge is the scarcity of other asexuals in my life stage. The fact that I have sole custody of three teenagers means I’m staying where I’m at and can’t cross the country to pursue a relationship.
One question on my mind as I’ve read through this post and the comments is the question of what the church punishes most harshly as a reflection of where the church stands on various types of sexuality and sexual behavior and even nonsexual but reproductive behavior. If someone enters into a same-sex marriage they risk harsher discipline than if they attempt celibacy but end up having multiple partners because they “slip up.” If a single woman becomes pregnant using donor sperm she risks being disciplined more harshly (even though no sex is involved!) than a single woman who becomes pregnant (thank goodness that discipline has eased through the years, but the contrast still remains).
Personally I’m am advocate for a larger tent where we allow adults to make decisions about their lives and include more discussions of consent. And I’d love to see member input having more influence on overarching church policies
Thank you for this post and the comments for helping me to expand my understanding of my fellow humans.
Anon – I think what you’ve identified for discussion (and it’s a good point) is the difference between agreeing and disagreeing with the Church’s standards. A gay person who tries to live a celibate lifestyle, but slips up and has gay sex a few times, is still agreeing with the Church that gay sex is a sin. A gay person who marries has shrugged off the Church’s standards entirely.
A woman who gets pregnant using donor sperm has deliberately chosen to have a child out of wedlock. A woman who makes a mistake with a boyfriend and gets pregnant may still fully accept the Church’s teaching that children should be born to heterosexual married parents.
The Church is harsher towards people who tell the Church its standards are wrong. If you agree with the Church but “make a mistake” then the Church tries to help. If you disagree with the Church and live however you want, the Church imposes harsher discipline.
Janey, a stark and interesting look at mistakes/sin vs. willful intent. Yes there could be an article written about this topic. But to take it one step farther. When we stand before God to make an accounting of our lives, are we with our families or do we stand alone? Will the church be with us or will we be alone? I think we can agree, we will be alone making an accounting of our own life. I’m sure mistakes/sin will be judged accordingly but do we really know how a willful behavior that rejects “church” standards will be judged? I don’t think we do understand or comprehend how God will judge. We don’t know the intent of the heart and have all the “standards” to cloud our understanding of what conflicting standards mean to an individual, for instance, procreate vs. sexual purity. I also know from my own experience that the independent mind can be both a pain to deal with but also a breath of fresh air. I’m glad I’m not making the judgements.
My comment is not an answer to any of the question Janey posed at the end of her excellent article but is a comment referring to something Instereo asked about how we might be judged when we finally stand alone before God.
In Matthew 25 Christ tells us a bit about what we will be judged on.
In this chapter we are told that a lot of weight will be given to how we have treated our fellow man, a lot of weight.
This comes from Christ Himself, who also said “As I have loved you love one another”.
The second greatest commandment seems to be of great importance to our Heavenly Father.
That seems to be the most important thing that will “seperate the sheep from the goats”.
Janey, thanks for sharing your experience. I learned a lot from your op and comments. I had not realized before how sensitive a topic this could be and how vulnerable you may have felt in sharing. Your plea for commenters to be kind, it is something I need to remember when I comment in any post, as I don’t always know when a poster is sensitive about a topic.
Not that I think I would have said anything harsh or judgy to you. I don’t think people choose their sexual orientation or desires. And I do think the church obstructs some people’s sexual self awareness. It’s not surprising to me that people in the church get married without realizing (or perhaps admitting) they are gay or asexual.
Janey, Thank you so much for you open and beautiful post. I gained much from the comments as well.
On the subject of Celestial baby making, I developed a theory as a 12 year old in the early 70’s: world’s are populated with spirits created using the Polaroid method of gestation.
Thank you for this post. I’m on the ace spectrum as well. I only get romantically or sexually attracted if there’s a personality/ intellectual component. When that’s there, it’s like fire, but the older I get, the more reclusive I get, and the less likely there’ll be that connection.
I, too, was not sexually attracted to my husband and tried to compensate. It didn’t help that for two years, sex was excruciating. He guilted me and several times raped me. By the principles of consent, I was rarely “enthusiastic.” For the longest time, I felt that was a failing in me.
Only recently am I realizing that I WANT to be a “ministering angel.” Parenthood has been almost pure hell for me. I want no part of that at this point. Orthodox members can’t compute that. I am still active, but every time I go to church, it’s like emotional barbed wire.
In the end, I trust God more than I trust the Church. Whatever the afterlife might be for me, it will be right and being me joy.
Janey – do you recall any redeeming qualities in the books you read early on in your marriage?
I am just curious because I keep suggesting to my TBM wife that our purity culture has more than a few negative consequences, i.e. male unawareness of consent within marriage etc.
If the Church is going to corner the market on heteronormativity then bishops and SPs should be giving a reading list to those being interviewed for temple marriage recommends. My wife says parents have the responsibility to teach all this which is not always easy.
But I also think the Family Proclamation is a joke – I took my copy out of its frame and now have a great picture of the late Latino singer Selena instead.
Giving equal time because my home office has become a shrine to Elvis…
Rockwell – I appreciate your kindness. Most of my posts aren’t personal and vulnerable (though I do have a few more coming). The energetic discussion and debate in the comments is one of my favorite thing about W&T. But yeah, on this post, I didn’t want to have to feel attacked or invalidated. It is vulnerable. It is scary. All the LGBTQ community faces a lot of cruelty, and there’s so little known about asexuals that sometimes we even get targeted by others in the LGBTQ community. Like we’re making it up or just going through a stage or something. I’m in my 50s. This is just the way I am.
BeenThere – that sounds like a much easier way to make spirit babies!
Chet – I don’t remember any useful books that I read. I remember one that was particularly horrible. It was one of the “marital intimacy” books written by an LDS author, “And They Were Not Ashamed” by Laura Brotherson. The entire second chapter was a collection of quotes from male Church leaders directed at women, telling them that they should enjoy the sacred procreative process. I believe they were trying to counter purity culture by trying to tell women it isn’t a sin to enjoy sex after they’re married. After reading about 10 pages of quotes from old men telling young women to enjoy sex, I was so creeped out that I gave that book away without finishing it.
There is a book published recently that’s entirely about asexuality that I found very helpful and validating. Perhaps if anyone is interested in knowing more, this would be a good place to start. “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex” by Angela Chen (Beacon Press 2020). The author is a journalist. The book is full of stories and research and is very readable.
I’ve been watching posts from a young woman, not LDS, that is asexual/gray sexual. She mentioned that there has been a few people she felt attracted to, but, it seemed to be fleeting. Nothing about being scared of sex. She did choose to go through anonymous sperm donation, and recently had a child. She does love the child. Her comments have taught me some things on the asexual subject.
Too often, those that aren’t married in the Church by their early 20’s are branded as unfaithful, that they just need to jump into marriage and all will work out. Or, they are being too picky on who they marry. So, the asexual get dismissed too easily.
I want to thank Janey for writing this article, I learned a LOT about something I had just barely heard of before, asexuality.
I also want to thank the commentors for their input which was thoughtful and helpful as well as sensitive and kind.
I often learn as much from those commenting as I do from the origional blog entry.
Thank you Janet for your vulnerability. This post is very educational.
A thought that keeps occurring to me is “What would the Church (and American culture at large) look like if we truly believed everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” In American culture, if you pay taxes, you should have the same rights as everyone else. You shouldn’t be killed, you should be free from enslavement, and you should be able to pursue your own happiness. Happiness doesn’t imply hedonism which often doesn’t lead to long-term happiness (to paraphrase a comedian “an orgy won’t take you to doctor’s appointments when you’re old”). Choice doesn’t imply there are no consequences to those choices (e.g. you can choose to marry someone who is abusive, but you should also be free to divorce them). When we tell people how they should feel, how they should pursue happiness, how they should live, we are often going to get it wrong. And as individuals, we all need to be a lot more wary of those who try to tell us how to be happy and how to choose because they might have their own motives (e.g. increasing church membership numbers) that could in fact *not* lead to our happiness.
Answering questions:
1&2) I became acquainted with asexuality a decade or so ago. After years in a sexless marriage, asexual seemed then and continues to describe my wife. In the months just before and just after marriage, she seemed as sincerely interested in sex as I did, so I wonder if her experience includes some of the “fluidity” that some describe. Or maybe there’s a demisexual aspect to it that requires something in our relationship that we had then but no longer have in order to awaken her sexual interest and desire. Or maybe something else — who knows.
3) Yes, better sex-ed would help people come to understand their sexual experience better and be better able to integrate that into their lives.
4) Not sure about fictional characters. Perhaps I have not encountered the right stories.
In some obscure corner of the internet years ago, I once made the comment that I think the ideal sexual orientation as far as the Church is concerned is solidly heteroromantic + heterodemisexual. These people would be motivated to form romantic opposite sex relationships. They could then develop those relationships — become friends, get to know each other, discover compatibility in all areas of life without sexual attraction and desire to muddy up the process of getting to know each other. Late in the relationship, after deciding that they could make a solid marriage couple, sexual attraction would develop, the couple could marry and live happily ever after.
Just writing that reminded me of an episode of the “Sit Down with Sky and Preston” podcast (now “Sit Down with Sky and Amanda” since Preston left the podcast at the end of last year). For those unfamiliar with Sky Sorenson and Preston Jenkins are both LDS men who describe themselves as (almost) exclusively attracted to men, who both married women within the last 5 to 10 years (refer to their podcast and/or their books for more biographical info). In this particular episode, they talked about their courtships and how each courtship could begin and progress without sexual attraction and desire interfering with each of their ability to get to know their future wife and make wise relationship decisions. It was a very difficult episode for me to listen to mostly because I will never experience that kind of courtship.
I don’t know if I made any real points in there, so I will stop to avoid rambling. Just to conclude that one of the best things I think the 2SLGBTQIA+ (emphasis on the A for this post) has shown me is that human sexuality is very diverse thing, and we as individuals and as a society at large will be well served to come to know something about that diversity of experience. Even if I as one person cannot live others’ experiences, it is valuable for me to recognize and learn about others’ experiences.
Thank you for sharing your story. Fascinating, given your strict religious upbringing.
Did you know anything about asexuality before this post?
Yes, three years ago we discovered my wife is and always has been asexual. I’ve been celibate since and it led to a long grief process for my own sexuality. But we’re both in our fifties, and thankfully my libido has diminished anyway. It’s been a process and a struggle for me.
Do you recognize aspects of yourself or a loved one in any of these experiences?
Yes, my wife’s lifetime of “going along to get along” because of societal expectations. I also recognize the fear of being alone in our golden years and our vows “for better…or worse.”
Do you think more thorough sexual education would help people figure out their sexual orientation sooner?
Yes, but it’s doubtful it will happen in formal conditions, given our social trajectory. It’s much more likely to happen on the internet.
Can you think of fictional characters whose behavior matches the descriptions of asexuality and/or aromanticism? Do they get happy endings?
Can’t think of anything specific, but the whole experience has definitely changed how I view popular media and the often unnecessary injection of sexuality.
I just finished reading a passage in a book that reminded me of this post and your last question. The main character is trying to understand herself and what will bring her happiness. Part of that process involves getting a better understanding of her mother, who she had always seen as unloved or unlovable.
The passage is the main character’s mother explaining her story. The mother knew she needed to get married (the book is set in the late 1800’s), but had never been interested in any of what she felt everyone else was so focused on. She and the main character’s father got married and had a wedding night, which eventually resulted in the main character’s birth. However, they both realized that they had no desire to ever have sex again. They lived, raised their child and ran a business together and were pretty happy. The mother expresses what a miracle it was that they found each other, and how grateful she is for that miracle.
As a result of this new understanding of her mother and her parents’ relationship, the main character is better able to move forward in her own relationships and find her own happiness.
Anyway, it’s not a long passage, but it made me tear up a little. Not that anyone will see this, but I figured I’d share anyway.