"I'm ace... but I think I'm sexually attracted to someone."

Our sexual orientations aren't built in the moment. They're a long game.

N writes:

I came out as asexual a couple years ago after a long time feeling broken and unsure what was wrong with me. Finding asexuality was great. It explained everything. I never really got what people meant by being sexually attracted to someone, I just thought I something was messed up with me. But finding asexuality changed that, and I’ve been much happier being me.

But I recently met someone who’s really great, and we were getting along really great as friends. I started feeling what I can only assume is sexual attraction. It’s something I’ve never felt before for anyone, but I feel this thing with him. It’s made me very confused. I don’t feel it for others. But does this mean I’m not asexual anymore? I feel really confused and I’m worried I maybe got things wrong before and I’m saying I’m something I’m not.

Hey N,

One of the persistent myths about sexual orientation is that it’s fixed, immutable, immovable. You can see this in the way we talk about it: we’re “born this way,” it’s how we are “hard-wired,” it’s a thing we “are” as opposed to a thing we experience. We have framed sexual orientation as both singular and constant; you get to be one thing and you’re that one thing forever.

There are lots of reasons we’ve come to frame sexual orientation this way. Politically, it’s a shrewd move. If sexual orientation is fixed and immutable, then discrimination based on sexual orientation can be seen as a moral wrong, an injustice. This has been helpful to move public policy in a more equitable direction for queer folks over the last few decades (even thought that pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction these days). It’s also helped build more accepting and affirming interpersonal relationships for queer folks; loved ones shifting their concept of queer sexuality from “deviance” to “just who we are” has helped a ton.

The problem with this construction is that it’s fundamentally false. Sexual orientation is not always fixed and immutable. While many people do have a rather consistent experience of their sexual orientation over time, many others have sexual orientations that shift and change over time. Maybe they change totally. Maybe they shift in more subtle ways. And maybe folks experience different kinds of sexual attraction at different points in time.

This seems to be what you’re experiencing. You’re having an outlier experience of sexual attraction that isn’t consistent with your previous experience. It doesn’t mean you “got it wrong” when you figured out you were ace. It doesn’t mean your past experience was wrong or false. It just means you’re living the natural experience of flexibility and flux built into human sexuality.

In terms of this relationship with this person, I think you should lean into it and see what happens (as long as that’s comfortable for you and within your boundaries). You shouldn’t see this experience of sexual attraction as a malfunction. It’s just a thing that’s happening to you, and it’s completely natural. It may not happen with any other person, and that’s okay. You don’t have to pass a purity test to be who you say you are.

On that note: if we’re going to ditch the notion of sexual orientation as fixed and immutable, we need something to replace it. I advocate for thinking of sexual orientation not as “a thing I am and will always be in every scenario” but instead as “a description of the most common pattern of experience over time.” Your sexual orientation is what happens most often for you over the course of your experience. It can’t be changed by a one-off experience or, in your case, feelings you have for one particular person. Instead, it’s the larger view. And as you shared, you most often have not experienced sexual attraction for anyone. That’s ace. You can still confidently and authentically say that’s who you are, even if you’re feeling something new for this person.

This view, the long game that focused on patterns over time, is a way for us to embrace the fluidity of human sexuality while still articulating ourselves into communities and experiences with others who share them.