Asexuality and My Body

A drawing of a killer whale, in the colors of the asexual flag. Image text: "Asexuwhale." Image source.

This is my post for the March Carnival of Aces. The theme this month is "Physical Health and/or Our Bodies." This month I've actually written several posts about sex, sex ed, masturbation, etc, from my perspective as an asexual who grew up in Christian purity culture.

Purity culture is built around the belief that unmarried sex is an unthinkable, horrific, life-ruining sin. Furthermore, it's bad to have any sexual desire at all, because it might lead to sex. You can imagine how weird and confusing it is for aces in this culture- asexuality is presented as the ideal to strive for (if you're not married, that is) yet they never acknowledge that asexuality actually is a real thing that exists.

So I got out of purity culture, discovered I'm asexual, and now I have Some Things To Say about it. Here are my posts from this month, on the topic of asexuality and my body:

They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie.
[about sex ed, or lack thereof]
"When you have so little experience that you're not even clear on what a vulva is, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE ONE, something is terribly wrong."

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts.
[about fear, "lust", and "sexual sin"]
"I'm asexual- I spent so much time afraid of my own desires, and now it turns out I don't even HAVE those desires, and having sex with my husband is confusing as hell. I'm asexual and I'm angry."

A Post About Masturbation
[about masturbation]
"Just because we're in love and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with him, why on earth would that mean that he needs to be present every time I stimulate my genitals?"

What Sex Is Like (According to Purity Culture)
[about how sex was described in church]
"You may be asexual if you don't get why everyone says it's THE BEST FEELING EVER to do things with their partner's genitals, but you assume it will be self-explanatory once you try it. Yeah, turns out it's not self-explanatory. It's even more baffling when you actually do it."