La douleur exquise

Words.

I’ve always known I was different. In a lot of ways—personality, mindset, passion, dreams, career choice and so on.

But it took me years to come to terms with my sexuality—or lack of it?

I noticed that I wasn’t that fond of affection, of skinship, didn’t really want or need or care about sex, about boys.

It made me uncomfortable, itchy. It felt wrong.

I first thought it was because I liked girls, which was already scary as heck.

Then I realized that even kissing a girl didn’t change anything. It didn’t make it better nor worse, just more confusing.

Who the fuck I am? What am I?

My mind wouldn’t shut up, always inquiring about the same questions, again and again.

Until it made me physically sick, emotionally drained, to the point of curling into a ball, sobbing because I was frightened and so lost at the fact that I was never finding any answer.

I had read about psychological traumas when I googled “I don’t like sex”, “I don’t find anyone sexually attractive” and the likes, wondering if something happened to me that I was unaware of.

I even asked my mom, so many times. (I still do.)

I didn’t really talk about it, but I didn’t try to hide it to my friends either.

I wasn’t sure anyone got it though. But it was okay. I didn’t either.

It wasn’t like I wanted to talk about it, to let it out in the open, because it would make it real.

I wasn’t ready to put words on it—

Hell, I didn’t even know the word.

Until, that day, that word was brought up on the internet and I finally found it.

That word.

Asexual.

My word.

Or...?

Am I?

Worth.

How someone like me could hope to find someone who would love me?

It’s been a struggle for so long, one I’m still not totally free of, even now, and probably never will.

I just didn’t think I could be loveable in a society where sex was everywhere.

At every street’s corner.

On TV.

In movies, series, music videos, ads.

On the radio.

In songs, lyrics.

On the internet.

In people’s mouth.

Each time someone tried to flirt with me, they would make some innuendos or sex jokes.

When it happens, I felt so shitty, so abnormal, so wrong.

I felt like I was lacking, incomplete.

Am I not enough?

Am I broken?

Is there something wrong with me?

Why am I born this way?

How can I change?

Can I be normal? Just once?

It wouldn’t leave me for days.

I would usually flirt back if I was interested, or just because it made me feel good knowing that someone was attracted to me.

Sometimes, I even found myself hoping.

“This person is nice, perhaps we could?”

“Perhaps they would be okay with it?”

“We hit it off so well, surely they would give me a chance?”

Only to be let down, my hope crushed.

Sometimes, I wanted to run after another lame sexual joke.

Instead, I would force myself to smile, bite the inside of my cheek so hard it drew blood. I would clench my jaw until my teeth hurt, or dig my nails into my palms. 

Anything to control myself not to lash out, not to yell at them, not to cry.

It was a coping mechanism.

A very unhealthy one.

In a sense, I was hurting myself because I thought I was the problem.

And that wasn’t okay.

Kisses.

Kissing, in my opinion, was overrated.

Everyone always gushed about it, even in movies and books they described it so beautifully, so poetically.

People feeling nervous and giddy, getting butterflies in their stomach, shivers down the spine, sparks and all that.

It was all a lie.

The first time I kissed someone, I thought “that’s it?”, disappointed out of my mind at the lack of feelings.

I thought it was because I was young and inexperienced and that perhaps I didn’t do it right.

But, I tried again, and again. And nothing happened. It was still bland and boring.

Even when I liked the person I was kissing, I didn’t feel anything.

When asked, I’d always say, “for me, it feels the same as watching a football game”, which meant it was a distraction like any other one. Nothing special.

Later, I came to terms with it being another ace thing as I liked to call it.

My partners would feel turn on, getting really into it as we made out, while I just kissed back passively, uninterested.

I developed a habit; I would bite down on my partner’s lip when they started getting too excited, just to slow them down.

I hated it when it became too sexual, when they tried to suck on my tongue and whatnot.

It’s safe to say that I wasn’t that much into kissing, knowing it didn’t do shit to me. I still did it though.

In hindsight, I probably needed to reassure myself that at least I could do this, could suffer through it and feel relatively “normal”.

It wasn’t an extraordinary experience but I could do kissing—innocent kissing that is. As long as my partner didn’t get greedy and didn’t ask for more, it was fine.

It’s not like I magically started to enjoy kissing, to feel butterflies or sparks as we made out, it would be a ridiculous lie, but it was relaxing and overall very nice. Like cuddling.

Just being able to be close to someone, intimately, to share the same air, to feel their mouth on mine, our bodies glued together—it made my heart swell in happiness.

It felt right.

Until it didn’t.

Because they always wanted more.