“You just haven’t found the right person yet.”

M\y friend said. She said that she’d also gone through an “asexual phase” after her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her, where she felt as if she had not felt sexually attracted to anyone or turned on at all until she met her current significant other. She said that I was still too young to know what I felt (I was only a year younger than her), too inexperienced to set myself with a label.

“It’s just a phase.”

My mother said when I told her that I didn’t feel like having sex. She said that I’d understand when I was older; I was seventeen years old.

To be fair, seventeen years is not at all an old or experienced age. But it didn’t erase the statistic that over 50% of students at my public high school considered themselves to not be virgins, while I felt absolutely no desire to even hook up with someone. It didn’t get rid of my confusion whenever my friends made sex jokes or fawned over crushes who they’d never spoken to, while I couldn’t even imagine what it felt to be “turned on” or to fall for someone based on nothing but physical attraction. Now, in no way do I mean to shame people who are sexually active or who experience plenty of firsthand attraction; but, in my personal experience, all I felt was broken, like there was something I didn’t have that everyone else could understand.

That is (and please don’t mock me for this) until tumblr told me about asexuality.

To those unfamiliar with the terminology, asexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction to others. The Asexual Visibility & Education Network states that there is “considerable diversity among the asexual community; each [person on the asexual spectrum] experiences things like relationships, attraction, and arousal somewhat differently,” ranging from only experiencing romantic attraction, to only feeling sexually attracted to someone with whom an emotional connection has been formed, to being sexually active and experiencing arousal but not feeling the intrinsic desire or need for sexual contact.

Also, people on the asexual spectrum who experience other kinds of attraction, such as romantic or emotional, will often be attracted to a particular gender and identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight. Don’t worry — in a society where sex and romance are so commonly intertwined, asexuality can be a confusing concept to wrap our minds around.

But, that doesn’t mean that it’s invalid, because if sex without love can exist, why not love without sex as well?

Discovering that there was a community that understood and validated the way that I felt gave me an unbelievable sense of relief, realizing that I wasn’t the only one and that there wasn’t something biologically wrong with me. But it also engendered a new sense of fear and anxiety.

After all, sex is heavily integrated into our lifestyle, whether it’s in the sexualized images shown in commercials in order to promote products, to portraying sexual tension and sex-filled love triangles to dramatize movies and television shows, to our real-life interactions with others. Those who have no intrinsic desire to have sex can be subject to offensive or hurtful misconceptions. People who identify on the asexual spectrum can be mistaken as celibate, which is the conscious choice to not have sex rather than a sexual orientation in which one doesn’t feel sexual attraction; they’re invalidated with “you’ll grow out of that phase” or “it’s just a hormone problem” or “you can’t know for sure unless you’ve had sex;” they’re assumed to be people who can’t have sex or masturbate, who are virgins, who can’t fall in love.

I was afraid that identifying with asexuality would associate me with such misconceptions, possibly resulting in others writing me off as “prude” or “undesirable.”

But, my lack of sexual attraction doesn’t limit the quality of my interactions and my relationships. I’m still an emotional person, perfectly capable of developing new connections and forming best friendships. I’ve still had romantic crushes, developed feelings and been in relationships. I’m pretty big on physical intimacy and affection. I just don’t experience the same kind of attraction as many people do; it can play a part in how I interact with others, but not what defines me as a person.

Oh, and one more thing: Happy Asexuality Awareness Week (Oct. 22, 2017 to Oct. 28, 2017). Although I understand that the Dickinson LGBT community has had a lot on their plate this week in terms of celebrating LGBT History Month, I’m a bit disappointed in their acknowledgment of asexuality.

I was informed that there will be some online postings on FaceBook and Instagram related to Asexuality Awareness this week, but, after covering the Office of LGBT Service’s celebration of Bisexuality Visibility Day myself and seeing the pamphlets, cookies and general bisexuality representation laid out on Britton Plaza, I was excited for a similar event to occur for the asexual community.

Even so, to anyone who identifies on the asexual spectrum: you are not invisible.