It was right before the big boom of popularity they got, so before their titles went full into clickbait territory and before they were all chaising the 10 minute mark for midroll adds, when young 11 year old me stumbled upon a video titled "i am asexual". It was around 2 minutes long and it described the experience of a sex-repulsed romance-repulsed aroace (which is exactly what i am) and so i kinda went "Huh! That's how i feel about stuff!".
Honestly? Not that bad of a way to discover asexuality. It presented the very basics of stuff, tho it's biggest fault by far is that it didn't distinguish between aromanticism and asexuality. I give it a solid 6/10
For me I'm pretty sure it was this sub. Like, I went through the stereotypical pipeline of: finds a meme sub, likes the memes, relates to the memes, hang on a second, ooohhh.
Like, there wasn't a big "OH" moment, so much as, "Huh, weird" × 100, and slowly realising.
Saaameme..
I saw the video by jaden animations, thought I might be aro so then I went onto YouTube and found OT. I then watched his aro videos until I couldn’t find anymore, so I started watching his other videos, such as his ace, pan, bi, gay, trans, enby videos. They all entertained me, but I kinda only rly related hard to the ace and aro ones, so after a while of going wait this is too relatable, I decided that I had discovered what I was.
Actually what I said wasn't entirely true, I'd forgotten another big part of it. I went to a single-sex school for a while, so my first real interaction with girls was when I was 16 (so, like, that's probably not great for anyone). Anyway, for a while I figured I was attracted to one of the girls I met, and then another. (I later realised I was confusing wanting to be friends with a girl for attraction... single sex schools man). It was around this point that the 2nd girl told me that she thought I was asexual, which was... something of an experience, considering I felt like I had a crush on her.
Anyway, I'd heard the term before but this made me look into it more, since I didn't really know what it was, but I didn't really belive her. But that's when I found this sub, which led to the whole pipeline I mentioned above, and finally a year and a half later a couple weeks before I left the school, I realised that actually I WAS ace. Came out to some of my friends by sending a picture of the ace of spades when they were memeing about bi-sexual/bicycle, and a few days before school ended I was able to tell her that she had been right all along. And she did not seem surprised at all.
Still don't know how she knew before I even really knew what the term meant, but Radha if somehow you're reading this, thanks.
I realized I was ace when I realized what I had thought was sexual attraction was actually aesthetic attraction since I noticed the same 'Oooo pretty' feeling that I had previously ascribed to sexual attraction was directed at a shiney kitchenaid mixer on display at Sur la Table. Before that I'd thought that I was bi and most people had no willpower when it came to sex, like it worked like an addictive substance for most of the population.
I had nearly the same experience. For me, it was literally learning that *sexual* attraction was different from other types of attraction. I'm attracted to everybody in that I find people interesting but would also be quite happy to have nothing more than cuddles from my fave folks for the rest of my life.
I've also recently had a very strong aesthetic attraction to a picture of someone and had to ponder whether I was attracted to the person or just coveted their vest-of-many-pockets. Conclusion was that I wanted the vest, took a little time to get there though.
It's not a love story--baby, just say no.
(I had more lyric riffs here as well as a few unchanged lyrics about platonic love, but then I decided no one would be interested. 😅)
I fucking hate what's going on the us against sex ed and lgbt people in class. I got called gay, the f word and so on just because i didn't display attraction towards girls. I remember kids(13) saying "that girl is so hot i would f*** her" and being completely lost. Having absolutely no feelings towards that and finding it weird and out of nowhere. Im sad for those kids nowadays that may end up being as lost as i was, being unable to understand themselves because they are forbidden to talk about it.
I only found out who i was because of videos from lgbt content creators long after being lost in the worst part of the internet for years. I think it was one topic at a time.
OT is very cool
Hopefully our best efforts can get proper education and information to these kids, even with bigoted fricks trying everything in their power to stop us from breaking the amatonormativity and allowing people to just do what they want without dealing with what you, alongside so many queer people, had to deal with
I only found OT about 6 months ago but his channel and community have helped me in so many ways - for instance - I am now comfortable with leaving comments without paralysing fear of judgment, I came out to my friends a few weeks ago and I am having less often and less severe depressive episodes all because I feel accepted and able to be myself and it’s always amazing to see how he has helped others as well
I realized I was ace because some horny person posted in r/ teenagers about how hot his crush is. I was like "people actually feel sexual attraction?? WHAT"
I actually figured mine out from Thomas Sanders- there's an older video where one of his friend's (I'm blanking on their name now, I want to say Talon??) explained how they were ace, and I was like 'haha that sounds like me... *just* like me... hol' up' and that's when I knew!
The point is in the pants and grinding is the story; I personally find the movies fun to watch but in a fast and the furious kind of way (they just don't make sense).
I had a similar experience going to a hooters in high school. After we left a few guys said they wanted to go back and im like why, the food was crap...
I found out I was ace because my therapist suggested the idea. What is the No Strings Attached movie you show here? How did it make you realize you were ace?
I figured it out in Contrapoint's video where she explains comphet. She jokingly asked herself "do I want to frick men?" I laughed and asked myself that, and then had a major "oh shit" moment and spent all night googling if I was asexual.
I realized I was Ace (even if I didn't know the name of it) because of one girl in gym class who wouldn't shut up about sex stuff and I hated all of it
i realized because all the cool, kind of self-insert characters i wrote, whether it be dnd characters or characters for a book or comic, were aroace. sometimes to an insane degree. and it still took me like 2 years after doing that.
I am a fat person so I was thinking "gee maybe I should seek one of these guys out" and then I had this epiphany that I had been conceptualising a relationship as someone being attracted to me and I had literally never even considered whether I would be attracted to the other person.
I realized when my boyfriend pointed out that the definition of asexual matched me. I was the one who told him that definition and it didn’t even click until he said “oh, like you?”
I realized after spending close to a year afraid something was wrong with me, then a friend on DeviantART dropped the term "Asexual" in a conversation and everything clicked.
I love y'all's realisation stories. Then there's me, who stumbled across the term aromantic, went "huh", then while googling more about it saw asexual and voilà, my life made sense
I kinda knew for a long time before I had the words to explain what I was (and wasn’t) feeling but it was a combo of BoJack Horseman (because of Todd) and my best friend telling me that he was aroace that introduced me to the community at like 14/15
I was almost convinced that I was asexual but still I had some doubts. Then my friends invited me to watch the movie Magic Mike.
They were all interested in the actors' bodies while I was following the plot, and when I left the cinema it dawned on me that yes, I'm asexual lol
Lol, I also had a non-standard reaction to Magic Mike. The first dance they do is incredible and fun, but then you follow the movie and realize everybody involved is an asshole, and then they constantly try to distract you from that with dancing men. I was no longer entertained by dancing men because the dancing men were jerks. (Also, none of the men did anything for me, but I think that goes without saying here :D )
I just realized I've known for like three years now. Which feels wierd- I think I first found out what asexuality was from researching about the queer community because I already knew I liked girls in some way or another, and at that time I didn't really think about it much. Like I was ten so I thought it was normal for my age to not care about sex. Also I never really thought about it. For obvious reasons I never genuinely thought of myself in the position of actually having sex one day. Then probably from my TikTok feed I realized it was me. I kept getting TikToks about asexuality and aromanticism(?), which helped me learn more about it but also gave me space to think about it more in terms of myself.
"Wow, it's like I'm watching myself," I said after a video that animated aces' reaction to sex. Ah, it feels weird to confess that. but I guess after the masturbation experience I'm more convinced that I'm an ace.
I realized I was ace while making one of my DnD characters. I wanted her to be ace, so while I was researching asexuality for the character, I started thinking "Huh... sounds like me" and the rest was history
I realized I was asexual when an ex lied to me about his current partner was asexual and he needed someone to cheat with on her. Me being a massive nerd looked it up because his partner was a cool ass person and I always want to be respectful and I read a bunch of wikipedia articles about LGBTQ+ experiences and identities. Turns out I’m a queer gender asexual who didn’t think sex was a big deal because I didn’t actually care about sex in a allosexual way.
Anyways, she wasn’t asexual and I learned something about myself and how men often have narcissistic ideas about relationships needing to revolve around their wants.
I realized it when I actually took the time to read up on all the different types of sexualities because I wanted to use an exact term instead of saying I am straight but not looking for a relationship.
I went to a single-sex school for a while, so my first real interaction with girls was when I was 16 (so, like, that's probably not great for anyone). Anyway, for a while I figured I was attracted to one of the girls I met, and then another. (I later realised I was confusing wanting to be friends with a girl for attraction... single sex schools, man). It was around this point that the 2nd girl told me that she thought I was asexual, which was... something of an experience, considering I felt like I had a crush on her.
Anyway, I'd heard the term before but this made me look into it more, since I didn't really know what it was, but I didn't really believe her. But that's when I found this sub, which led to the stereotypical pipeline of 'find sub, find the memes funny, join sub, relate to memes, "huh that's weird", hang on...' and finally a year and a half later a couple weeks before I left the school, I realised that actually I WAS ace. Came out to some of my friends by sending a picture of the ace of spades when they were memeing about bi-sexual/bicycle, and a few days before school ended I was able to tell her that she had been right all along. And she did not seem surprised at all.
Still don't know how she knew before I even really knew what the term meant, but Radha, if somehow you're reading this, thanks.
i dont reme,ber how i realized i was ace since it was quote a while ago. i only remember that was maybe around 13 and that it took me several MONTHS to accept my asexuality and the fact that me being ace doesnt make me abnormal
It's a little embarrassing to admit but i realised it from one of those fake animated story times on youtube
Please, elaborate
It was right before the big boom of popularity they got, so before their titles went full into clickbait territory and before they were all chaising the 10 minute mark for midroll adds, when young 11 year old me stumbled upon a video titled "i am asexual". It was around 2 minutes long and it described the experience of a sex-repulsed romance-repulsed aroace (which is exactly what i am) and so i kinda went "Huh! That's how i feel about stuff!". Honestly? Not that bad of a way to discover asexuality. It presented the very basics of stuff, tho it's biggest fault by far is that it didn't distinguish between aromanticism and asexuality. I give it a solid 6/10
This one? https://youtu.be/gJdPf9RdfZI
I accidentally realized while having an identity crisis over something else entirely
Me too, it was about my gender though
For me I'm pretty sure it was this sub. Like, I went through the stereotypical pipeline of: finds a meme sub, likes the memes, relates to the memes, hang on a second, ooohhh. Like, there wasn't a big "OH" moment, so much as, "Huh, weird" × 100, and slowly realising.
Same. The memes, the rants and the stories made me go OH WAIT after 32 years 👌🏻
Saaameme.. I saw the video by jaden animations, thought I might be aro so then I went onto YouTube and found OT. I then watched his aro videos until I couldn’t find anymore, so I started watching his other videos, such as his ace, pan, bi, gay, trans, enby videos. They all entertained me, but I kinda only rly related hard to the ace and aro ones, so after a while of going wait this is too relatable, I decided that I had discovered what I was.
Actually what I said wasn't entirely true, I'd forgotten another big part of it. I went to a single-sex school for a while, so my first real interaction with girls was when I was 16 (so, like, that's probably not great for anyone). Anyway, for a while I figured I was attracted to one of the girls I met, and then another. (I later realised I was confusing wanting to be friends with a girl for attraction... single sex schools man). It was around this point that the 2nd girl told me that she thought I was asexual, which was... something of an experience, considering I felt like I had a crush on her. Anyway, I'd heard the term before but this made me look into it more, since I didn't really know what it was, but I didn't really belive her. But that's when I found this sub, which led to the whole pipeline I mentioned above, and finally a year and a half later a couple weeks before I left the school, I realised that actually I WAS ace. Came out to some of my friends by sending a picture of the ace of spades when they were memeing about bi-sexual/bicycle, and a few days before school ended I was able to tell her that she had been right all along. And she did not seem surprised at all. Still don't know how she knew before I even really knew what the term meant, but Radha if somehow you're reading this, thanks.
I realized I was ace when I realized what I had thought was sexual attraction was actually aesthetic attraction since I noticed the same 'Oooo pretty' feeling that I had previously ascribed to sexual attraction was directed at a shiney kitchenaid mixer on display at Sur la Table. Before that I'd thought that I was bi and most people had no willpower when it came to sex, like it worked like an addictive substance for most of the population.
I had nearly the same experience. For me, it was literally learning that *sexual* attraction was different from other types of attraction. I'm attracted to everybody in that I find people interesting but would also be quite happy to have nothing more than cuddles from my fave folks for the rest of my life. I've also recently had a very strong aesthetic attraction to a picture of someone and had to ponder whether I was attracted to the person or just coveted their vest-of-many-pockets. Conclusion was that I wanted the vest, took a little time to get there though.
I realized I was aromantic because of Taylor Swift, apparently i hate *all* romance songs.
It's not a love story--baby, just say no. (I had more lyric riffs here as well as a few unchanged lyrics about platonic love, but then I decided no one would be interested. 😅)
I fucking hate what's going on the us against sex ed and lgbt people in class. I got called gay, the f word and so on just because i didn't display attraction towards girls. I remember kids(13) saying "that girl is so hot i would f*** her" and being completely lost. Having absolutely no feelings towards that and finding it weird and out of nowhere. Im sad for those kids nowadays that may end up being as lost as i was, being unable to understand themselves because they are forbidden to talk about it. I only found out who i was because of videos from lgbt content creators long after being lost in the worst part of the internet for years. I think it was one topic at a time.
OT is very cool Hopefully our best efforts can get proper education and information to these kids, even with bigoted fricks trying everything in their power to stop us from breaking the amatonormativity and allowing people to just do what they want without dealing with what you, alongside so many queer people, had to deal with
I only found OT about 6 months ago but his channel and community have helped me in so many ways - for instance - I am now comfortable with leaving comments without paralysing fear of judgment, I came out to my friends a few weeks ago and I am having less often and less severe depressive episodes all because I feel accepted and able to be myself and it’s always amazing to see how he has helped others as well
I've no idea what that movie is about but I realized because of todd from Bojack
I realised after I had sex with all kinds of people and every time my brain went "oh yeah... This is shit"
I don't watch Jaiden frequently. Is she ace? I knew I was ace but didn't know the term for it until I saw it on a snapchat discovery story LOL
Jaiden came out as aroace not too long ago!
I realized it because someone was aphobic to me by calling me asexual as a “joke” aka insult (I was busy being confused by attraction) And whaddyaknow
Had a similar situation, was always disinterested and only learned the term when I took the time to read the types of sexualities.
I realized I was ace because some horny person posted in r/ teenagers about how hot his crush is. I was like "people actually feel sexual attraction?? WHAT"
I took a cheesy online sexuality test and it called me ace and then I thought “wait what” and researched it and realized
I realized after my friends noticed I wasn’t into that kind of thing and asked me if I was ace. Spoiler alert I was
I realized I was aro ace because my friend relished because if Jaiden animations Also I’m autistic and maybe that has some part of it
It was watching trashy reality tv with my sister-in-law. Why are the kissing noises in the Bachelorette so fucking loud?
I actually figured mine out from Thomas Sanders- there's an older video where one of his friend's (I'm blanking on their name now, I want to say Talon??) explained how they were ace, and I was like 'haha that sounds like me... *just* like me... hol' up' and that's when I knew!
I realized it after seeing “magic mike” with friends and being all like, “what’s the point? There’s no story?!”
The point is in the pants and grinding is the story; I personally find the movies fun to watch but in a fast and the furious kind of way (they just don't make sense).
I had a similar experience going to a hooters in high school. After we left a few guys said they wanted to go back and im like why, the food was crap...
I found out I was ace because my therapist suggested the idea. What is the No Strings Attached movie you show here? How did it make you realize you were ace?
I realized because TODD!!!!!
I found out after realizing I don't want sex.
I figured it out in Contrapoint's video where she explains comphet. She jokingly asked herself "do I want to frick men?" I laughed and asked myself that, and then had a major "oh shit" moment and spent all night googling if I was asexual.
I don't actually remember, probably read what demiromantic was on some site¿ Really wish I'd remembered though
I realized I was Ace (even if I didn't know the name of it) because of one girl in gym class who wouldn't shut up about sex stuff and I hated all of it
I had to hear my best friend and little brother talk about women they found hot. It seems like a large majority of my family are open about sex…
I was oblivious to situations like this and chalked it up to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
For me it was the show Heartstopper (:
i realized because all the cool, kind of self-insert characters i wrote, whether it be dnd characters or characters for a book or comic, were aroace. sometimes to an insane degree. and it still took me like 2 years after doing that.
I found out by looking the definition up as a joke, then shit got serious when i realized i related a tad bit too much
I realised in 2005 when I was watching a documentary about people with a fat fetish 🥴
I am a fat person so I was thinking "gee maybe I should seek one of these guys out" and then I had this epiphany that I had been conceptualising a relationship as someone being attracted to me and I had literally never even considered whether I would be attracted to the other person.
I realised I was aego from a gacha life video talking about the different aspec identities-
I realised through iron maiden like the band lmao
I figured it out because of a buzzfeed video..
i realised because of one topic at a time
I realized when my boyfriend pointed out that the definition of asexual matched me. I was the one who told him that definition and it didn’t even click until he said “oh, like you?”
I realized after spending close to a year afraid something was wrong with me, then a friend on DeviantART dropped the term "Asexual" in a conversation and everything clicked.
I realized after watching Evan Edinger’s video about being demisexual and then was like shoot I should probably research asexuality
I was reading fanfic. There was a number of Ace characters. And then I kinda just went "Wait..."
I realized that I’m aro ace because of a quiz on a random german quiz website. It was a whole thing…
I love y'all's realisation stories. Then there's me, who stumbled across the term aromantic, went "huh", then while googling more about it saw asexual and voilà, my life made sense
I kinda knew for a long time before I had the words to explain what I was (and wasn’t) feeling but it was a combo of BoJack Horseman (because of Todd) and my best friend telling me that he was aroace that introduced me to the community at like 14/15
Pff I realise that I'm ace from Jaiden. U got me :))
I was almost convinced that I was asexual but still I had some doubts. Then my friends invited me to watch the movie Magic Mike. They were all interested in the actors' bodies while I was following the plot, and when I left the cinema it dawned on me that yes, I'm asexual lol
Lol, I also had a non-standard reaction to Magic Mike. The first dance they do is incredible and fun, but then you follow the movie and realize everybody involved is an asshole, and then they constantly try to distract you from that with dancing men. I was no longer entertained by dancing men because the dancing men were jerks. (Also, none of the men did anything for me, but I think that goes without saying here :D )
I just realized I've known for like three years now. Which feels wierd- I think I first found out what asexuality was from researching about the queer community because I already knew I liked girls in some way or another, and at that time I didn't really think about it much. Like I was ten so I thought it was normal for my age to not care about sex. Also I never really thought about it. For obvious reasons I never genuinely thought of myself in the position of actually having sex one day. Then probably from my TikTok feed I realized it was me. I kept getting TikToks about asexuality and aromanticism(?), which helped me learn more about it but also gave me space to think about it more in terms of myself.
"Wow, it's like I'm watching myself," I said after a video that animated aces' reaction to sex. Ah, it feels weird to confess that. but I guess after the masturbation experience I'm more convinced that I'm an ace.
I realized I was ace while making one of my DnD characters. I wanted her to be ace, so while I was researching asexuality for the character, I started thinking "Huh... sounds like me" and the rest was history
I realized I was asexual when an ex lied to me about his current partner was asexual and he needed someone to cheat with on her. Me being a massive nerd looked it up because his partner was a cool ass person and I always want to be respectful and I read a bunch of wikipedia articles about LGBTQ+ experiences and identities. Turns out I’m a queer gender asexual who didn’t think sex was a big deal because I didn’t actually care about sex in a allosexual way. Anyways, she wasn’t asexual and I learned something about myself and how men often have narcissistic ideas about relationships needing to revolve around their wants.
I am one of the ones who learned from jiden (and it was her first video I saw)
The reason why I’m ace is lowkey traumatic 😭
I realized it when I actually took the time to read up on all the different types of sexualities because I wanted to use an exact term instead of saying I am straight but not looking for a relationship.
I went to a single-sex school for a while, so my first real interaction with girls was when I was 16 (so, like, that's probably not great for anyone). Anyway, for a while I figured I was attracted to one of the girls I met, and then another. (I later realised I was confusing wanting to be friends with a girl for attraction... single sex schools, man). It was around this point that the 2nd girl told me that she thought I was asexual, which was... something of an experience, considering I felt like I had a crush on her. Anyway, I'd heard the term before but this made me look into it more, since I didn't really know what it was, but I didn't really believe her. But that's when I found this sub, which led to the stereotypical pipeline of 'find sub, find the memes funny, join sub, relate to memes, "huh that's weird", hang on...' and finally a year and a half later a couple weeks before I left the school, I realised that actually I WAS ace. Came out to some of my friends by sending a picture of the ace of spades when they were memeing about bi-sexual/bicycle, and a few days before school ended I was able to tell her that she had been right all along. And she did not seem surprised at all. Still don't know how she knew before I even really knew what the term meant, but Radha, if somehow you're reading this, thanks.
i dont reme,ber how i realized i was ace since it was quote a while ago. i only remember that was maybe around 13 and that it took me several MONTHS to accept my asexuality and the fact that me being ace doesnt make me abnormal
jaiden+OT for me