r/BestofRedditorUpdates: Asexuality Edition

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. And today we are back to reading Reddit on a brand new subreddit entitled r/BestofRedditorUpdates. So these are all stories that were originally posted elsewhere on Reddit, but after the original post had some sort of update that makes it especially noteworthy. So we are going to do what we always do and we are going to find stories that are somewhat related to the world of asexuality.

Courtney: Our first story was originally posted on r/RelationshipAdvice, entitled: My Brother-in-Law is on Grindr. The OP is a 22 year old woman. The brother-in-law in question is mid thirties. The original post states: “My sister has been married to him for 10 years and dated him for 2 years before getting married. My best friend is gay and he found his account on Grindr. He took screenshots and sent them to me. My sister and her husband have such a great relationship, I don’t know how this could have happened. Even if I can’t believe this, I am so scared. And I know the right thing to do, but I don’t know how I will go about it. I love my sister and I know this will crush her. They seem so in love and I don’t know how I can show this to her. I am just really scared on how I will go about this and could use some advice. TLDR: Best friend found my brother-in-law on Grindr. Idk what to do.” And apparently the comments on this original post before we got the update were generally all saying, “Yeah, you need to tell your sister about this ASAP.”

Royce: Apparently they did, because this update came fast. It is two days later.

Courtney: Two days later we have an update. [reading] “I decided to just tell her as quickly as possible, so I called her and asked her if we could meet to get coffee, and she was down. I showed her the screenshots and she wasn’t surprised and the first thing she said was that he still isn’t using the picture she took for him.” Ah! [claps] Yes! [resumes reading] “She said she knew about it and it was not something I needed to worry about, but she thanked me for bringing this up to me. She then changed the topic and we drank coffee and when I was about to leave she went quiet and then said that she wanted me to know it is not something she was bullied into and she didn’t mind it at all.”

Courtney: “She said she had other partners too and that she is asexual. I told her that it was very different, the image they projected, but it was not my business and all that mattered is that she is happy. It is pretty weird, as I saw them as the old school puppy love kind of couple, and it is wild that they date other people. But at the same time she seems happy and content. I think nothing else really matters. TLDR: my sister is poly and my brother-in-law is not cheating.” [laughs] That is very, very good. That makes me happy. Also, just super casual, coming out as asexual at the same time that you’ve been, like, revealed to be non-monogamous. We obviously don’t have all the details, but it is– It is fascinating just to speculate about that intersection.

Courtney: And does their asexuality inform their views of monogamy, non-monogamy, things of that nature? That is so funny. So I’ve never had, like, a family or a really, really, really close person where I was absolutely confident like these people are monogamous and then having a fear that one is cheating on the other. I have had some friends who haven’t necessarily been super forthcoming about where they are on the monogamy spectrum. And the way I have always handled this is to, instead of having a sit down like, “Now, what I’m about to tell you may shock you, but I am here for you and I think you should know.” Instead, I just ask. I’m like, “Hey, if you’re– if you’re willing to share, like, what kind of relationship do you have? Are you monogamous? Do you guys do hall passes, what’s–? You know, do you have that kind of relationship?”

Courtney: I sort of started as a question first, and usually it’s like, “Oh yeah, we’re–” Like, I don’t know. That almost to me seems like you can pose it in a way where they know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re very cool with non-monogamy. Because then I always kind of worry, like in this situation, if it wasn’t a sister, if they weren’t as close, if she wasn’t as open about it, would this have been an ‘oh fuck’ moment? Like, now I basically have to come out. I have to come out as non-monogamous because we, you know, we got caught.

Royce: Yeah, this is a difficult situation because the poster here just saw what they thought was evidence of betrayal. And so I don’t know how they would have gone about it in any other way. But the initial response being, “Oh, he’s not using the new pictures.”

Courtney: That’s hilarious.

Royce: Like that’s a very disarming comment.

Courtney: “He’s not using the pictures I took of him. He is not going to get matches on Grindr that way.” [laughs] That’s so good. I love that. And you know, honestly, like when, when I have been in situations where I’ve been like, “Do you have a relationship like that?” The weirdest answer I’ve gotten is like, “Uh… Sometimes, it could be.” Like okay, it’s complicated, I get it. Past that it’s really not any of my business. Outstanding. Love it. Next.

Royce: Okay, this next post is called: My Asexual Friend Said She’s In Love With Me and It Makes Me Sad. The original post says, “We’ve been friends for five years and she told me the other day that she’s developed romantic feelings for me. She’s asexual, though. I had to tell her no, because I can’t be romantic with someone I’m not also sexually involved with. I just don’t function that way. She said she completely understood, but she broke down and asked me to leave and give her some space. I don’t want to lose a good friend over this, but I also can’t live my life in a sexless relationship. I’m so sad right now. Edit, for those confused, I know ace people sometimes still have sex. She said she never wanted it and never will, even with me.”

Courtney: Ah, the telltale signs of someone says, “Oh, I can’t be in a relationship with this asexual person because we can’t have sex,” and all of a sudden everyone’s like, “Actually, some aces do have sex!”

Royce: Not this one though.

Courtney: It is funny because you know there are situations where if someone’s just talking about asexuals in general, they might have a misguided view about what asexuality is and perhaps that would warrant a correction. But there’s always a situation that gets me where it’s like, “You’ve been friends for five years and you knew going into this conversation that they’re asexual.” It’s like, I assume this person who is close friends with an ace person knows a little more about that person’s personal experience, you know? But anyway, what are the updates?

Royce: Before we get to the updates, there are a few relevant comments that OP responds to that I’m going to read through. Someone does ask what would change from your current relationship, your friendship with her, if it did become romantic. I assume there would be some level of exclusivity, and OP says, “Yes, dating, cuddling, official status like holding out to the public and monogamy, exclusivity, would be the changes.”

Courtney: That’s a fabulous question. Though I like that question, I think more people need to ask themselves that question.

Royce: What they’re getting at here is– it’s another way to jump into the discussion of have you considered an open relationship, without putting that forward as an option. Just asking the open question, like what would this relationship be like? Which I think is good because it’s not leading.

Courtney: And it doesn’t necessarily have to lean into the monogamy. Their follow up question was, “I assume you’re talking about exclusivity,” but truly that’s a great question for anybody to ask, because a lot of people have different ideas of what romance is and what a romantic relationship is. And even two people who are part of the same couple might have very different ideas of what they want out of a romantic relationship. So I think– I think that’s just a question everyone should ask before getting to that point.

Royce: Another comment that was highlighted here says– this must have been in response to something, because they say, “It isn’t necessarily the case that it’s viewed as a chore.” It, I assume, meaning sex. [resumes reading] “I’m asexual and would compare it more to taking an interest in my partner’s interest the same way I would enjoy hearing someone ramble about their favorite book, even though I’ve never read it. I like it because I like them and like spending time with them, even if it’s discussing something I have no context for.” And OP responds saying, “I was already bummed out, but this comment made me even more depressed. The idea of an– of the intimate act of sex with my partner, compared to her tolerating an old favorite movie with me, is heartbreaking. I get that it’s different for everyone, but damn, that made me sad.”

Courtney: Hmm, there is this fascinating thing that happens with allo people where they will get very, very up in their feelings about the fact that their partner might not experience things the same way that they do. And there are levels, right? Like, this person started out, “It’s not necessarily a chore.” Some aces do view it as a chore and some are more okay with it than others if they view it that way. Some like, do say, “I do like it because my partner likes it,” and that’s not lying, that’s not an exaggeration for folks in that camp. But there’s sort of a dismissal of, “No, I do actually like this, I do get something out of this because you do.”

Courtney: But I don’t know, I suppose, between engaging so heavily with asexuality, aromanticism, gender diversity and even neurodiversity, like, I have so many people that I love and care about who experience something or another differently than I do. Very often I’m the weird one, often I’m the one who’s further outside of societal norms than others, but I know so well, even if it comes to emotions like anger or excitement, like I sometimes experience those different from the people around me. So sex just becomes kind of this sacred thing where it’s like if you aren’t feeling exactly what I’m feeling then this cannot work.

Royce: Yeah, it is hard for me to say how much of this is just one factor of an orientation, this is just a part of how some people are wired, and how much of it is the act of sex being overly romanticized or like sanctified in some way. Like foretold to be more than it often is.

Courtney: I also want to know, because we have not actually heard yet what OP actually wants. Because in the– in the original post we went from, “She said she developed romantic feelings for me. I said no, because I want sex.” Do you have romantic feelings for your friend too? Like, are– are you bummed out because you do want a romantic and sexual relationship with this person?

Royce: That’s an interesting question, because OP said that they don’t want to lose a good friend, but then saying they can’t be in a sexless relationship makes me– makes it seem that if that wasn’t an issue, they would try dating.

Courtney: And also just saying, “This bums me out, like on– on some visceral level I am upset at the thought that I might have a sexual relationship with this person and they won’t experience it the same way I do.” Like, they’re clearly putting themselves theoretically in that situation, as a thought experiment at least, so.

Royce: Well the update, made about a month later, this post was made around end of the year holidays, it would have passed over Christmas and New Year’s and whatnot. Anyway, [reading] “TLDR of my first post: My asexual friend of five years expressed romantic feelings toward me a month ago. I’m not asexual and it wouldn’t work out between us, so I was unable to return her feelings the way I’d like to. Her response was to ask for some space and she had stopped communicating with me. I gave her space. She reached out a few days ago and it was a rough but inevitable conversation.”

Royce: “After thinking about it this entire time, I realized I have to step away from my friendship with her completely. She says she still has those feelings for me and I have them for her, and it isn’t fair to either of us. We can’t have each other and we both agree it hurts too much to pretend to be happy being friends. It sucks, but I also think it’s best for the sake of any future partners either of us may have. There’s a difference between friend who is female and female friend who has had mutual romantic interest with me that I can’t ignore. Cold rationale aside, there was a lot of crying and hugging. We’re going to miss each other. I hate it, but this was the right decision for both of us.”

Courtney: Hmm, I don’t like the framing of: I’m making a decision for my life now based on a theoretical future partner. Like, if this is so, so emotionally ruined for you that you genuinely need to walk away from the relationship, okay, make that decision for yourself. But I don’t– I don’t like anytime someone frames like, “Well, my future– my future spouse.” You know, that person does not currently exist. I don’t really know why this is on Best of Redditor Updates and why it has, like, over 8,000 upvotes. There didn’t seem to be anything shocking or revelatory or…

Royce: No, the update was kind of what was expected from the original post. It may have just gotten a good amount of commentary?

Courtney: Well, the first few top comments, just scrolling, are praising the OP for maturity.

Royce: Oh, I went beyond those and there are a bunch of ace people grieving over this post.

Courtney: Oh… Well, I want to hear those. Because I don’t like maturity as praise, just as a general rule of thumb. But I also– Maybe I would have different commentary on it if that last line about future partners was just completely omitted. Because they did say other, you know, points that led them to this decision before then. But I don’t think making a decision for your life now based on a theoretical potential someone that you might develop a relationship with at some unforeseen time, I don’t think there’s anything mature about that. What are some of the ace comments?

Royce: Uh, there are quite a few. I’ve been skimming. I didn’t see anything that immediately jumped out to me as something we needed to read and discuss, but I’ve seen several that have said, you know, as an ace person who has basically been in this scenario, it really sucks. That kind of a thing.

Courtney: It’s sort of a different level. We almost need a new phrase for it. Because we encounter issues of this type in the Ace Community all the time. And in this case you can’t even just call it unrequited love, because he’s saying, “She has romantic feelings for me and I have romantic feelings for her.” So that’s not unrequited love, it’s unrequited sexual attraction. Which, outside of an ace context, if someone were to just say that that sounds mean. It sounds like, oh, what was the phrase on that subreddit that we were reading once? Oh, low libido for you.

Royce: Oh yeah…

Courtney: It sounds like low libido for you. [chuckles]

Royce: Yeah, of other commenters, I mean, one– one person jumps into the monogamous relationship math, you know, 8 billion people cut down by the gender that you’re attracted to, cut down by age, cut down by language... And you know, it just– It gets narrow very, very quickly.

Courtney: Math is not for relationships. Math is for Dungeons & Dragons. So one thing that I find very funny about this subreddit in particular, and every time we get on a brand new subreddit, some of them have like their own little lingo. You have to sort of discover what their language is. And to a certain extent, I mean all different social media sites are different. Social media sites have their own sort of culture and verbiage. But we say OP for original poster. That’s said a lot on Reddit. But since this one is: you’re taking a post someone else put elsewhere and putting it here, they’re saying OOP. So original, original poster, and it just looks like oop! Posted by the OOP.

Courtney: So this one is called: “OOP’s parents keep insisting he’s gay and he’s getting tired of it.” I really hope I know exactly where this one’s going. So the OOP was 18 and said, “Parents keep insisting that I’m gay, I’m getting tired of it. About a year ago I overheard my parents talking about me when they thought I wasn’t around and I was really surprised to hear that they think I’m gay. I got really angry at them. I know there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but I got angry because I’ve been bullied at school because people think I’m gay for years, and to hear my parents agreeing with the bullies just made me really angry. My parents weren’t being mean or anything, I was just really tired of people thinking I’m gay. Anyway, I got really angry at them, but they never apologized or anything. They just said that they want me to be happy and love me no matter what. I decided I should try to get a girlfriend because I was tired of everyone thinking I was gay.”

Courtney: Terrible reason to get a girlfriend in real life. Wonderful plot of like an ace sitcom. [resumes reading] “I never really tried to get a girlfriend before because I barely have time to hang out with my friends because of school and work, so I didn’t really have time for a girlfriend. But I found a girl that I actually really liked and she was cool with me not having so much time for her, so it was a perfect match. When I started dating her, my parents again gave me the whole ‘we love you no matter what’ speech, and it just infuriated me that they still thought I was gay. The bullying at school got worse after I started dating her, but I thought that after some time they’ll get bored now that I have a girlfriend and they’ll stop. I was wrong and it just kept getting worse and my girlfriend started to notice it too. I never told anyone about the bullying because nothing can really fix it, so telling my parents or a teacher would just make things worse.”

Courtney: “We dated for about six months and then she got tired of dating a loser who got bullied almost every day and she broke up with me. And again my parents gave me the ‘we love you no matter what’ speech. I don’t really care if people think I’m gay, but it’s very annoying that my own parents keep giving me the same ‘we think you’re gay’ speech and won’t listen to me when I told them I’m not gay. The bullies I’ve just– I’ll just have to deal with until I’m finished with school here, but I wish my parents would stop.

Courtney: I don’t really know why everyone thinks I’m gay. I don’t feel like I give off those vibes, but apparently I do.”

Courtney: A commenter asks if OOP has a close friend who can tell him why people think he’s gay. [reading] “Reading this made me anxious. I’m not sure if I want to know. I wouldn’t call myself masculine, but I don’t think I’m effeminate or anything like that. I don’t dress fancy or anything. I’ve heard my voice recorded and I don’t have a - quote - ‘gay’ voice either. Edit: I never thought about asking my friends, but now I feel like I need to know. I’m texting my friend asking him. There must be something I do that makes everyone think I’m gay.” Oh no, we have OP’s friend’s response. [reading] “Duuude, are you sure you want an honest answer? Okay, here we go.” No! [laughs] No! “The thing is you never seem interested in girls. You never talk about them and you never look at them. Even when you dated Sarah (not her real name) it didn’t really look like you were dating. I never saw you kiss her once and you dated for like a year.”

Courtney: [reading] “You seemed like friends who held hands once in a while. You seem way more interested in guys than girls. Like when hot guys are around, you stare at them and if they talk to you you get all weird and flustered. You don’t really do it at school that much anymore, but you used to. And when Sarah broke up with you she said some stuff about you that might have made things worse. I think that’s the reason some people think you’re gay, but I don’t care about stuff like that dude, if you say you’re straight, I believe you. And if you were gay that’d be cool too.” Ah, what an ally of a friend. “So yeah, I’m a bit shocked. I wasn’t aware that I did that.” Oh no! OOP is getting a heavy dose of self-awareness today. Okay, so before we get any further, I did keyword search this and I know the word asexual comes up, so.

Royce: Oh yeah, we’ve had posts in the past where I don’t know how they got logged or categorized, but we got through reading a whole post and went, “Wait a minute….”

Courtney: Wait a minute!

Royce: “This has nothing to do with asexuality at all.”

Courtney: I know this does have something to do with asexuality, but listen. This is something that when you tell someone who is not asexual and is– or at least is not in very close community with asexual people, they get really shocked and surprised. Because unfortunately, whether people admit it or not, sometimes it’s thrown around in a hateful way, you know, like, “Oh, aces are just straight people who want to feel special.” Some people will say that in a hateful way. There’s a more latent version of that, where someone who does fancy themselves an ally still don’t really dig deep enough to understand what ace culture looks like, what ace political issues are, so they just sort of sit at this standard level of like, “Yeah, aces are valid, hooray.” And leave it at that. And those people oftentimes, even if it’s an unconscious bias, still kind of default to straight in their mind. Which is so ironic. Because we have said time and time again that the people who would bully you for being queer, they can smell it on you. Like, for as much as people will say, “Aces are just straight.” Oh, no, no, no. Do you know how many ace people I know who have been pegged as gay, who aren’t even gay aces?

Courtney: So many! Myself included. And like honestly, I’m sure I’ve shared this story before, but this is so funny to me because I was bullied for being a lesbian in school. And at the time, just like chronologically in my life, that I was bullied for being a lesbian, I was like, “I’m not a lesbian,” but I also was like, I’m not going to fight that assertion because I don’t want– I don’t want any lesbians who might be in the room to think that it’s a bad thing or that I’m getting defensive. You know, I did the very ally thing. I was like, “There’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian, so you’re not even actually bullying me right now.” I didn’t think I was a lesbian but at that time in my life the only person I had ever kissed was a girl. The only one! That was my one and only kiss up to that point. And yet, I was like, “I’m not gay.”

Courtney: But also I was in this weird on and off thing for three years with a boy in school. And this was like well known that we had this weird– it wasn’t even– I can’t even call it an on and off thing, because it was like an on and then we just forget about it for a little bit until it was on again. It wasn’t like a makeup-breakup thing at all. It was just, we were trying to perform what a relationship should look like, even though, at least on my side, the feelings were not correct for those behaviors. And so that confused me even more. I was like, “Why are people calling me a lesbian when it’s well known that I’m kind of dating this boy and have been for like three years?” So I was like, that’s just silly. But that absolutely does happen, because the people who will bully you for being queer can sense if you’re not straight, but they’re almost always going to default “If not straight, must be gay.”

Royce: Exceptions are when you mask too hard, like I did. Because one of the things, one of the stereotypical masculine traits, is being stoic. And if you just don’t make a lot of facial expressions and don’t say too much, it fits.

Courtney: Royce is like, “Ah ha ha!”

Royce: I figured it out.

Courtney: “If I fancy myself a stoic, nobody will know that I am in fact queer and neurodivergent.” But yeah, so I was absolutely where this guy was. I wasn’t upset about it like that, which I understand and believe him when he’s like– Because there’s a frustration about just not being believed, especially from your own family.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: So that is a very justifiable frustration. But he’s sitting here and he’s like, “I dated a girl! What do you want from me? Isn’t that a thing gay people don’t do?” [chuckles]

Royce: The framing of, “I’m gonna date a girl and then they’ll know.” That is foreshadowing for what I assume is going to be in the latter half of this update.

Courtney: That’s such a baby ace thing to do. I did it! [laughs] I know lots of other aces who did this for one reason or another. So let’s see where this goes. Continuing, “My first post left me very confused. I had a hard time believing it was possible to be that in denial about my own sexuality. I honestly considered deleting my post and to try forgetting about it, because it just made me so uncomfortable. I didn’t delete it, but I tried to not think about it and just focused on what I was going to do about the bullying. It didn’t really work, though. And a couple days after, I was hanging out with my friend, the guy I asked why everyone thought I was gay, and he asked me about it, and I sort of had a meltdown. I told him I was confused about everything and that I wasn’t sure anymore if I was straight, and that his text and your comments had really screwed with my head.”

Courtney: “He was great, though, and managed to calm me down. I felt a lot better after talking to him about it, and when I got home, I read your comments again. And a certain commenter said: ‘Considering your edit, you might want to engage in some self-reflection about who you’re actually attracted to. I can completely understand why they think you’re gay, and this isn’t about just engaging in stereotypes. This is about other people noticing signs in you of arousal and interest. You don’t need to tell me these things, but think about them for yourself. What do you think about when you masturbate? Do you get aroused around girls or guys? Who are you drawn to? Where does your energy focus? Pay attention to how you feel and how your body responds when you interact with each sex. When you kissed your girlfriend, was it super exciting and physically arousing? How do you feel if you imagine kissing a girl? What if you imagine kissing a guy? To which did your body respond? Maybe both? Also, don’t discount the possibility of being asexual or demisexual, but homoromantic or possibly heteroromantic. That could make things more difficult to figure out.’

Courtney: “The first time I read this comment, it literally made me feel sick, and the second time it made me feel sick as well. That night I actually took her advice, though, and for the first time in my life, I actually imagined what it would be like to kiss a guy, and I’m definitely not straight. I’m not sure if I’m bi or gay, but I’m not straight. I’ve done a lot of reading and exploring after that night and it’s been difficult to accept it, but I feel like I’ve come a long way in a short time. I still think it’s weird that I was that deep in denial about it though. My whole life I was 100% sure I was straight and then now I’m 100% sure I’m not straight. It’s weird. I told my friend about it a few days ago and he was awesome about it. I knew he would be okay with it, but I was still nervous. I haven’t told my parents yet and I’ll probably wait until I have it more figured out. I haven’t decided what to do about the bullying, though. I feel like it won’t bother me as much anymore and maybe if they see that I don’t really care, they’ll get bored of it. I just hope it doesn’t get worse. I just wanted to update you guys and thank you for your advice and comments. It literally changed my life and I’m not sure how long it would’ve– I would’ve kept living in denial if it weren’t for you guys. So thank you. TLDR: needed advice on how to stop my parents insisting I was gay. Turns out I’m not actually straight.”

Royce: Oh, so OP did not come to a definitive conclusion by the end of the post. Um.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: The concept of asexuality was just thrown into that comment.

Courtney: Which kudos to that poster for throwing that in.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: Sounds like maybe– maybe a little bit gay, maybe a little bit bi. He did say, “I’m not sure.”

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: “But I am not straight.” But it is so fascinating to me that, even if it does turn out at the end of this that he is gay, I know so many aces that this exact thing happened to. Which I think is still important enough to draw attention to any commonalities that we do have in experience across different places of the spectrum of queerness. Because I mean, goodness knows, with the recent, uh, big old spotlight JK Rowling shone on our community, uh, directing a lot of hate and a lot of questioning about whether or not we are actually queer and specifically saying that we are just straight people, like straight people don’t have stories like this usually. Usually. Not as often or at as high a percentage as I have seen in the Ace Community. Well, we kind of got tricked with the name drop of asexual and demisexual and homoromantic and heteroromantic, but I still like that story. I think that’s a good story, so I’ll take it.

Royce: [reading] “OOP didn’t know his wife was asexual till after they got married.”

Courtney: Oop.

Royce: Is that the mood for this post, oop?

Courtney: Yeah…

Royce: I’ve been seeing a format that is different in this subreddit that I haven’t seen in a lot of other ones, where there is a– like content warning, spoiler tags are not uncommon, but there’s also been mood spoilers.

Courtney: Mood. Well, don’t spoil me on mood.

Royce: This one doesn’t have one, but the last couple did.

Courtney: Let me feel whatever I will feel, damn it.

Royce: The original post: “I grew up with a religious family and a very anti-sex mentality and decided to wait until marriage. After leaving home, I still– I have still kept the chase till marriage mentality because I have never had a sexual attraction to anyone due to some traumatic experiences. I met my wife and fell for her really fast. She was also the first person I really felt any sort of sexual attraction to in years. After a few years we got married. We didn’t do anything that would be considered super sexual, just making out type stuff, and neither of us really talked about sex as an issue while dating.”

Royce: “I knew that she had slept with people in the past and I never had a problem with it because my waiting until marriage was my own personal decision. The day we got married, on our way back from the celebration, she told me she didn’t want to have sex due to being worried about unwanted pregnancy. She said that she had a pregnancy scare once and wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. I was a little upset, but I also get that it is a scary thing for a woman. We have now been married for about two years and about six months into the marriage she said she was actually asexual and didn’t want to have sex ever. It was obviously a huge shocker for me, seeing as I thought this would have been a good thing to let me know before the marriage, but honestly, it was no deal breaker.”

Royce: “The problem that has started arising is that I have always been super attracted to her and have had to force myself to keep all forms of sexual attraction suppressed, because what else can I do? It also bugs me that she has slept with people before, but won’t sleep with me, her husband. I know this is not a great mindset, it’s just one of those pesky thoughts that gets me sometimes. My problem is I’m now starting to lose that feeling of sexual attraction and I don’t want to lose that because, due to traumatic experiences in my past, this is the first time in years I’ve actually experienced sexual attraction to someone and I’m still head over heels for her. I just feel like I’m in a no win situation right now and don’t know what to do.”

Courtney: Mmh… So communication is a problem in this relationship.

Royce: Yeah, those pesky conservative households.

Courtney: Yeah, I mean, even if you decide to wait until marriage and you start a relationship with someone who’s super cool with that, like you would think, before you actually walk down the aisle, that you would have some sort of conversation about what a sex life might look like or what your hopes are. Because I– even, like, on the wedding day, like, “Oh, let’s not have sex because I’m worried about unplanned pregnancy.”

Courtney: Like you just got married, you didn’t– Like, if clearly this was something this person did not want to do, so that might’ve just been an excuse, but in my head I’m screaming like, you had time, you could have gotten a prescription. You could have talked about options. Like there, there was time. Stop at the convenience store and pick up a bag of condoms. Plenty of options.

Royce: Yeah, I just scrolled back up to see how long they dated, but I don’t see it. The only time frames were after the marriage. Oh, after a few years we got married. So it was they were dating for a while and didn’t seem to have this conversation

Courtney: I wonder if they had a conversation about kids. Because was– was OOP also like, “Damn, I thought we were gonna start for kids right away. I didn’t know you didn’t want kids yet.”

Royce: Oh yeah, let’s see if the update says anything about that at all. [reading] “To update you all, I talked to my wife about it last night. She did listen to what I had to say and we had a very long and emotional talk. Obviously we didn’t solve everything, but couples therapy does seem to be in the near future. A lot of this is brand new information for me, so I am still processing it, so sorry if this isn’t the best update. Just to cover down on a few of the bigger questions asked. Of the bigger questions asked: number one my wife has never been diagnosed…? As asexual. It was more of a self-evaluation.”

Courtney: Oh no! Oh no…

Royce: Don’t know what they mean there.

Courtney: Oh no! Shut right the fuck up! [laughs] Were people in the comments actually asking that?

Royce: [reading] “She also wasn’t trying to hide the fact from me. She thought she could honestly bring herself to have sex with me comfortably but sadly realized that she was repulsed by the fact later on.” Continues on by saying she has had traumatic experiences. [reading] “Just FYI still trying to get all these suppressed memories out without it being too painful. Two, she has been an amazing wife in all other aspects. She has even helped me financially during difficult times, along with helping me through some of my toughest life problems. Number three, I know we made a lot of mistakes before getting married and we are trying to perform damage control now. Number four, I am not very religious anymore and my wife never was. Five, her sexual experiences earlier in life happened before said trauma and she felt pressured into it when she did due to societal expectations. Six, I posted this on Reddit because I need different ideas and approaches that I could discuss and talk out without causing people who my wife knows to look at her differently or treat her poorly. She already has a difficult life as it is.”

Royce: “And the last one, I don’t personally want an open relationship. That isn’t really an option for me personally. Thank you for all the help, even from the people that I disagree with. Everyone here gave me different options and approaches to go after. I myself am super shaken and completely drained from all this, but we’ll be fine, as always. I can’t wait to talk more about it and answer your questions in the comments.”

Royce: A couple of– Just to finish this up real quick. Apparently there are a couple of users pointed out some comments. I’m trying to see if there’s any other context behind them. Apparently, there is a comment thread that OP responded to that I don’t have access to, it’s not linked here, but I’m going to try to deconstruct some of this comment. One of OP’s replies in this thread was: “That’s something that has always bugged me. I’ve never been able to figure it out. Is that really all that it could be though? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but there are often other things at play. I have asked if she has traumatic experiences, medical problems, et cetera. She has always said no.” That seems to me like people are trying to clarify what asexuality is and OP doesn’t want to hear it.

Courtney: Yeah, I did go to the original post and just searched the word like diagnosed and doctor and things, just to see, because it was like to cover some of the bigger questions. So I was like, were people in the comments being like, has she seen a doctor? I did not see anyone in the comments say the word diagnosed. That came from the OOP.

Royce: Yeah, yeah.

Courtney: And that is a big oop!

Royce: That is, um, when we’ve looked through a lot of these, and unless we’re on a subreddit where we kind of expect people to be shitty, like the Dead Bedrooms or something like that, generally there are a lot of informed queer people in the comments here.

Courtney: Yes. And the fascinating thing, although I didn’t see people asking if she was diagnosed with asexuality, I saw a hell of a lot of people saying this is a textbook case for annulment. “You didn’t consummate the marriage, so technically it never really existed at all. Get this annulled.” Several comments saying that. Which is fascinating to me. Because all of these Reddit weirdos are in the comments saying, “I know this is grounds for annulment.” And yet every time we talk about marriage consummation laws, there are a ton of people being like, “Huh, I didn’t know that that existed, I didn’t know that’s a thing.” Why, why, why? Uh, I’m getting spicy now.

Royce: The last comment on this repost was from a comment that said, “Just get an annulment and stay friends.” And OP says, “That’s not off the table. But I do want to at least pursue helping things get better before leaving completely. I’m also at fault for waiting years before truly approaching the subject. This is the first time I have gone at it with conviction.” And that is the end of the post. That’s the end of the update.

Courtney: This is the fascinating thing too, because, along with all of the comments calling for annulment, saying the marriage isn’t real anyway since it wasn’t consummated, the OOP said specifically: “She wasn’t trying to hide this fact from me. She thought she could honestly bring herself to have sex with me comfortably.” If you are the one who is saying, “I want to wait until marriage to have sex,” that means that mutually, as a couple, the two of you were never at that stage in this situation for her to come to the realization of, “Oh, actually, I don’t want to go any further.” And yet all the people in the comments are saying, “She lied to you, she married you under false pretenses.” Several commenters saying that. That right there is clearly disdain towards asexuality, very thinly veiled disdain.

Courtney: Because there were a situation where, yes, this is someone who knows they are asexual, knows that they are sex repulsed, knows that they never want to have sex, ever, that is something you should disclose to a presumably allosexual partner of yours before you get married. However, both sides of this relationship seem terrible at communicating. Just absolutely god-awful at communicating. And again, if she thought in her heart of hearts, “This is not going to be a problem when we get to that point.” Why is it 100% her fault? That now they’re married and she doesn’t want to. When it was his decision to wait until marriage. You know? Because if he had not made the decision to wait until marriage, which is his right to do, it is his right to make that decision, but it is also her right to withdraw consent or to decide, like, to learn more about herself to– you know? [groans]

Royce: I’ve gotten distracted by this comment thread, the first one that started it just says, “Diagnosed with asexual. I’m dead.” Under that, “I’m sad to say your asexuality is terminal. There’s nothing we can do. I choked on my salad at that point. I didn’t realize it was fatal, my condolences.” One of them underneath this thread says, “Reminds me of how Sweden classified homosexuality as an illness until people protested by calling in sick to work claiming they felt too gay to come in.” Did that happen?

Courtney: That happened.

Royce: That is hilarious.

Courtney: I think that was Sweden. I think that was Sweden that that happened.

Royce: I said Sweden.

Courtney: Oh, I didn’t even hear you say Sweden. I’m familiar with this case, yes. Because I mean Sweden has better social safety nets than we do, just all around. But yeah, classified as a mental disorder, they’re like, “All right, give me my disability benefits.” Which is fabulous, absolutely beautiful. Yes, I have read about that. And the thing is like, asexuality is still incredibly medicalized as an orientation. We have a lot of words in the DSM that the definition sounds like it could be asexual and, thanks to asexual activists, we’ve gotten a little asterisk sort of put in saying, “Oh, if you know the patient self identifies as asexual, then maybe this is not something you should diagnose them with.”

Courtney: But that is really, really a baby step. Because a lot of the diagnoses that you could get for having a lack of sexual attraction, for having a low libido, all starts from a base assumption of this is something you should have and if you don’t have it, it is disordered and that is fundamentally a problem. This is a really funny chain of comments. We’re gonna put the links to all of these in the show notes on the website and the description on YouTube, as usual. But pop these open and look at them. We’ve got cake references, garlic bread references. We’ve got a, “The cake is a lie.” We’ve got a Portal reference thrown in there?

Royce: Yeah, I’ve been scrolling through the comments as we’ve been recapping. The latest one I chuckled at: “Yeah, to be queer, you have to be diagnosed. My trans friend was confused for years as to why she thought she was a girl until her doctor said, ‘I now diagnose you with girl’”

Courtney: [laughs] “Diagnosed with girl.” [laughs]

Royce: And she went, “Oh, that explains it.”

Courtney: [laughs] You know, sometimes getting a diagnosis can be freeing, because then you have the language to discuss your experience. Maybe we have our activism all wrong. Maybe, instead of trying to remove any traces of asexuality from the DSM and try to make it so that this isn’t a mental disorder, what if we hard push the other way, and say yes, asexuality is a diagnosis, the only cure is cake. Therefore, write prescription for cake, please.

Courtney: Okay, so this next one was originally on r/AmItheAsshole when OOP asked: am I the asshole for outing my wife’s asexuality after she let her friends gang up on me? [reading] “A little backstory: been together nine years, married a little over three. We both had incredibly high sex drives in the beginning and, like normal, after some time they began to come and go.”

Courtney: “We used to never go more than a few days without having sex. We got married just before the pandemic, which might have added to things. But the long and short of it is after some personal therapy at the beginning of 2020, my wife concluded that she was asexual and mostly had sex for my benefit and to maintain the relationship. Looking back, I can kind of see it now. It would have been nice to know beforehand, but it is what it is. She still offers sex once in a while because she knows I want to have it, but I turn it down every time. It’s no fun having sex with someone just doing it for your benefit. If I’m going to have sex with someone, they should actually want to have sex with me, not just for maintenance.”

Royce: That’s an interesting framing that goes back to an earlier post that we read. The act hasn’t changed, OP just knows something different about it now, and they were fine with it earlier.

Courtney: Yeah, we’ve talked about this a lot in previous episodes, even. Because when you get into certain posts like Dead Bedrooms you get into– even the comments of the last one I was seeing some people who are like, “You need to tell her that you need sex and if she won’t give it to you then you’re going to get an annulment.” Like there are people who often think that in a what they would call a sexless relationship, that they just want sex or that they need sex in the relationship, but that is not always what they actually want. Sometimes that’s lacking a lot of self-awareness. Because very often in those situations, if there is a concession made, it is still not good enough. But, continuing on this post. [reading] “Fast forward to this past Friday, we went to a party at one of her friends’ house. I know a few people, so it’s never too bad, although I’m not a big party guy. As usual, we end up being one of the last to leave.”

Courtney: “The last hour or so of these parties are usually chill. Just sit around in the living room, chat, catch up. It’s quiet. But the conversations eventually turn sexual and personal and I hate it honestly for obvious reasons, namely having to hear all these women talk about how much they love having sex with their husbands/partners and all the things they do, and knowing I’ll never have that. The worst part, though, is my wife makes up all these wild stories and things we do. Not even have done in the past, just flat out lies. But because she’s embarrassed of her asexuality, I just kind of nod along, since she’s not really comfortable with other people knowing. I had come back from the bathroom to them having a conversation about oral sex. One story about how someone didn’t like it at first and now they love it. Another about wishing they got it more. Another about liking it more than sex sometimes.”

Courtney: “Then, it comes time for my wife to talk, and they’re prying for details. For whatever reason, my wife decides to tell the truth and say that she can’t remember the last time someone went down on her. Of course, she left out a key bit of context, which turned into this group haranguing of how I need to put in more effort, how my wife probably gives me head all the time and I don’t return the favor, and how it’s typical of men to be selfish lovers. I took it for a few minutes, hoping my wife would jump in and stop it. She just kept quietly saying it’s okay, it’s okay, I don’t mind, he does other stuff, blah, blah, blah. But they kept going.”

Courtney: “Finally, one of her friends who, as an anecdote, I fucking despise because she’s overly confrontational for absolutely no reason, demands to know why I don’t eat my wife out more often in a room full of like nine other people. I look to my wife and ask if she’d like to chime in, but she doesn’t. I shrug and say that I actually really enjoy performing oral sex on women, but that my wife doesn’t let me because we don’t have sex. My wife’s face dropped as she shot a look at me. I didn’t even explicitly say she was asexual, I just said we didn’t have sex and haven’t for a few years. When further harassed about it, she immediately begins apologizing for me, explaining that things have been rocky so we haven’t been having sex much, which I immediately shut down because that’s not even remotely true.”

Courtney: “If anything, things have been great lately. If she’s been having issues or doubts, this would be the first I’m hearing of them. I finally gave up. I told my wife I was going home, but she said she wasn’t done yet or ready to leave. I logged into Uber on her phone so she could use my account and told her she can take it home or stay the night, but that I would not sit here being a punching bag because she was ashamed to admit she was asexual. My wife immediately ran to the bathroom and I was told to leave. She came home not long after me and hasn’t spoken much to me since, except to half-heartedly apologize, but that outing her like I did was worse. I apologized for ‘outing’ her,” – which is in quotes, by the way, if that matters – “But that she didn’t leave me much choice.”

Courtney: “A few of her friends have messaged me, calling me every name up and down the book and saying they’re going to convince her to leave me. One or two of the boyfriends/husbands messaged me to say they were sorry and didn’t know and offered to buy me a beer if I wanted. Another of her friends, in an openly poly relationship, actually offered to have sex with me, which I showed my wife immediately. She says she knows it must have been shitty to sit there and take it, but that they’re not really my friends, so some momentary discomfort from people I don’t really associate with isn’t comparable to her prolonged discomfort of significant people in her life now knowing she’s asexual. I completely disagree, but can kind of see where she’s coming from. So am I the asshole here?” There are a couple of edits, so let’s give the first ruling before we see what the edits are.

Royce: And then the– the updates afterwards. Okay. I mean this is, we can talk about varying levels of severity, but this is a definite everyone sucks here.

Courtney: Everyone sucks here. He sucks, she sucks, the friends suck.

Royce: Oh yeah.

Courtney: He probably sucks the least based on what’s been presented to us. But well… [sighs] Well, everyone sucks here. This is terrible.

Royce: He could have pulled back and should have pulled back earlier, before just having this– what was essentially a couple’s relationship argument at a party in front of a bunch of people. Like, they should have talked about this privately, but also like–

Courtney: All these friends. Are friends why?

Royce: Yeah, yeah. They should have also– I guess they didn’t clarify. I’m just assuming that they have not had this conversation, but like the two of them should have had a conversation before this event of like, “Hey, you making up stuff about our sex life makes me uncomfortable, maybe don’t do that.”

Courtney: Yeah, it’s also really fascinating because it does seem like there is some amount of resentment for not having sex, and yet he’s the one who said I’ve made the decision to stop having sex, even though she offers it sometimes.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: Which is also a fascinating layer to this. Very, very fascinating layer. But one arena of consent that I don’t think gets enough discussion is: how forthcoming are you to other people about your private life? And that in this case is and can be sex related. It can mean sexual intimacy. But when you are in a relationship with another person, people don’t often have the conversation of, like, “You cannot just go tell your buddy about everything you did last night. You can’t be just, like, talking about the positions and this thing and that thing.” Because now all of a sudden, that is not just your story and your intimate experience. You have that with another person. And people have varying degrees of comfort about, just in general, sharing that with other people. And that can and does go both ways, about whether you are or are not having sex. Because clearly we have a situation of an asexual person who would rather people not know that she’s not having sex. But the answer to that is not lie and make up stories and let your friends dogpile your husband. The answer is: I don’t want to talk about that. And if they are real friends, they respect that.

Royce: Side note, it is baffling to me to regularly hang out with a friend group where your spouse says they despise one of your friends.

Courtney: Yes, also fascinating. Honestly, couldn’t imagine that. But yeah, it does sound like this guy has a little bit of resentment for not even not having sex, it’s just purely not having reciprocal sexual attraction. There’s a little bit of resentment there. I’m at least glad that it seems, if you take him at face value, that he has come to terms with that and in fact himself been the one to make that decision. But yeah, it’s not okay to out people. His wife was also very not okay. She should have never let the friends get to that point. The friends were also way out of line! Because even if she was, it said something like, “Oh, she was trying to say like no, I’m fine with it, stop.” So it sounded like she at least lightly tried to stop them and they were not picking up the hint. Bad friends all around, dump all of them.

Courtney: But also to then get a message from a friend being like, “I’ll have sex with you,” You just said– Your wife says– like I’ll do it. No, that’s not the time, that’s not the time. So the first edit: [reading] “1. I actually don’t mind not having sex because I genuinely love her. There are times it does get to me, and this was admittedly one of them, but they are very rare, maybe two or three times a year. No part of me believes she bait and switched me for a ring. That’s not– just not who she is.” Oh! Every time in a subreddit that we’re talking about my wife is asexual, actually, you get those bait and switch comments. So clearly this guy did also. That’s unfortunate. [reading] “2. She is asexual. She’s not fucking other guys. I’m not some cuck waiting at home like a few DMs insinuated. I went with her for a few therapy sessions where she let me know. I fully support her”. And that’s people thinking asexuality is not a real thing and the only reason she’s not having sex with him is because she’s getting it elsewhere.

Courtney: [reading] “3. Yes, I’m aware that technically it is, quote, ‘my fault’ we don’t have sex. Asexuality is a spectrum. Yes, she feels no desire to have sex, she physically likes sex but otherwise she could live without it. My boundary is: I don’t want to have sex with someone who doesn’t desire me. I’m not undermining asexuality to have– by having that boundary.” I’m trying to wrap my head around that boundary because, without trying to make this an entire conversation about boundaries, because that– that gets to be a lot very quickly. But it says she physically likes sex but otherwise she could live without it. So we’ve gotten a picture where she does still offer sex, and when sex is happening, she does like it. And he’s like, “No, because you don’t want it bad enough.”

Royce: This is something where, okay, this could theoretically be something that I just don’t, fundamentally don’t understand, and if so, I’ll just throw my hands up in the air and go, “Whatever.” It can be what it is. But it seems to me that when we see viewpoints like this, it could be that their view of what sex is supposed to be is so rigid that they aren’t open to trying to reframe the activity a little bit.

Courtney: Yes.

Royce: They could talk more about it. Because there are a lot of ways that a person could enjoy that activity that are not exactly what the OP experiences. And doing something together, and having a fundamentally different experience, like those two experiences are not– like complete opposites. I feel like whenever someone with this viewpoint is discussing the aspect of someone who does not experience sexual attraction having sex with them, that the metaphor that they used to describe it is just laced with negative connotations. Like it’s this horrible thing that they’re making themselves do. And, no, they– There could be a lot of enjoyable aspects to it, it’s just not the same type of enjoyment that you’re getting. It doesn’t come from the same place. Like, one isn’t necessarily better than the other, or one isn’t a contradiction to the other, it’s just– It can be different and that can be fine. You just have to actually talk through it.

Courtney: And his fourth and final edit on this first round of updates is: “The issue here isn’t that I’m with someone who is asexual. I’m not sure why people keep telling me my marriage is over. I never suggested it. The issue is how she handles it and expects me to take the brunt of this kind of bullshit because she’s ashamed of it.” Yeah, that’s the acephobia in the comments. And judging by the previous list items on this edit, like I’ve seen these comments 100 times on 100 different Reddit posts, there are people who say, “You can’t be married to someone who is asexual. This, fundamentally, will not work. There’s no way to make it work. Also, she’s evil. She manipulated you. This was a bait and switch. Or are you sure she’s asexual? Has she seen a doctor? Are you sure she’s asexual? Are you sure she’s not just cheating on you? Are you sure she’s not low libido for you?” These are all things we see over and over again.

Courtney: Yeah, no. First of all, I really, really hope that this wife can accept this aspect of herself and get to a place where she is not ashamed of it. Because I don’t want anybody to feel ashamed of who they are. And asexuality is not something to be ashamed of. But there is also, very much, a toxic way of carrying shame that does harm other people around you. And that’s what we saw here. I’m also kind of wondering too, because there was a line like, “Oh, these are my friends anyway, so why can’t you just have some momentary discomfort?” And he did say that he absolutely hates at least one of the people here and doesn’t seem to like him all that very much. So I wonder like, how much of this is– and it’s probably a bit of both, but I’m wondering levels here.

Courtney: He said it got to him a little bit this time. So how much of this is him being bothered by people knowing that they aren’t having sex, and how much of this is just he doesn’t want to be in the room for it? Would he be okay with this if his wife was super duper closeted, had her own friends, had this own fictitious life that she could talk about with them? But he’s not in the room. She just goes to these parties on her own. Because then is it like an out of sight, out of mind, and he doesn’t actually care all that much? Or is this still, like I was saying earlier, needs to be a conversation about what are our boundaries when discussing our sex life, or lack thereof, with other people? Do we just not do it? Do we…? Do we have like a pre established ‘This story is okay,’ if you need to? Like that– That needs to be a conversation in and of itself. But sounds like he didn’t want to be here even before this conversation turned that way. But I also can’t imagine it’s very enjoyable for the wife either if, if these parties frequently get into sexual conversation and she feels so ashamed of her own asexuality that she feels the need to lie to these people. That doesn’t sound like a fun time to her either.

Royce: Yeah, I guess OP doesn’t really go into that. I can say that, uh– You said something earlier to the effect of like, in a different post, not being believed can be incredibly frustrating. But beyond that, there is something about the idea of a public misconception that just irks me at an extremely, like visceral level. And it can be something that doesn’t matter at all. But like, like, if I walked into a room full of people and a friend was like, “This is Royce, they are shit at badminton.” I’d be like, “What the fuck? We have never played that game before.”

Courtney: [bursts out laughing] Not the badminton slander!

Royce: It’s like– It doesn’t– It only matters because it’s wrong. [Courtney laughs] And it doesn’t need to be stated. Like it doesn’t need to be stated. It is a distortion of reality that is completely unnecessary. And now I have people looking at me funny, and I don’t want to be the center of attention in this room. And that’s kind of the thing here. Like even if this was her own little compartmentalized life, which I have to say is probably not great for a relationship that’s already rocky. But the idea that, oh, I could just be walking out about my day and see someone – because these are her friends, she’s around them sometimes – and they have this entirely different, potentially negative perception of me…? Like so much of my social anxiety is around projected ideas of perception. Like that’s where a lot of the anxiety comes from is other people’s either their actual expectations of me or what I’m projecting their expectations might be. And so that just that would feel like an incredibly uncomfortable situation for me to be in.

Courtney: Well, and it’s also worth flipping this on its head as well, to just redouble down on how awful all these friends were behaving. What if he was the asexual one?

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: What if he’s the asexual one and now they’re like, “You, man, are a selfish lover!” I– how many people talked about the, like, orgasm gap in that conversation? I was waiting to hear that. So already this is a conversation with a group of people who have a very rigid idea of what they view as a good sex life, but it’s already kind of framed as compulsory sexuality too. Because the way he said it too, “It was time for my wife to speak. They were all going around the room.” So the new update: [reading] “To get this out of the way first, no, we haven’t divorced or broken up, despite the dozens of comments suggesting we do. A couple of weeks after my wife being shown the Reddit post, my wife asked me if I would come with her to a therapy session. I was a bit apprehensive about it, because she’s very private about her therapy, to the point where she won’t even let me drive her to the appointment. But I agreed.”

Courtney: “We get to the appointment and the therapist asked me to wait a minute while she gets settled in. Shortly after she calls me in and introduces herself. I sat down and she asked why I think my wife asked me to come today. I said I figured it had to do with her being asexual. Honestly though, I thought maybe my wife needed a safe space to say she wants to split up, so I was pretty nervous about the whole situation. My wife sort of nods along, and as the conversation progresses, I gave my perspective of the incident at the party. The next bit felt like a classroom lecture. Specifics about asexuality, explanation of it being a spectrum, how lack of desire doesn’t mean not enjoying sex, and so on. The therapist turns to my wife and asks if she’d like to speak now or if she’d like to do it for her. My wife tries, but whatever words she wants to say aren’t coming out.”

Courtney: “The therapist goes on to explain that my wife wants to make an effort to have a sexual relationship with me, not out of guilt, maintenance or my benefit, but because it’s something she wants to pursue. She asks how I feel about that and I just answer honestly with more or less what I’ve said here. I don’t feel like it’s mutually fulfilling for two people to have sex if only one person has any desire for it. I admit that I don’t understand how her having sex with me is not being done strictly for my benefit But my wife starts sobbing and tells me that, despite being at peace with being asexual, she really wants to want me in that way. I try to reassure her that she isn’t broken or needs to be fixed, which are things she told me she feels like. But she says it’s something she desperately wants in her life. She begins telling me how supportive of her I’ve always been, how amazing I am, how much she loves me, and how happy she is to find someone who actually loves her.”

Courtney: “The therapist cuts in and asks if I’d at least give it a try, and that if it still makes me uncomfortable, then I can just admit that, since we already have communicated that well to each other. I’ll admit I wasn’t comfortable with it, but with seeing my wife cry because it’s something she does want to make an effort into, I said I would. We talked about it some more and my wife concluded that she will ask me when she’s ready to take that step. Nothing happened in a little over a week since that therapy session. One day my wife called my office and asked if I could get out early. Admittedly, I kind of wrote off anything happening so I didn’t factor it into my mind. It wasn’t unusual to ask me this anyway. There have been days where she’s been pretty low and I have a pretty flexible work schedule, so knocking out a few hours early wasn’t something new. I asked if everything was okay and she said she just wanted me to come home. So I did.”

Courtney: “When I got in, the curtains had all been drawn and she had lit a candle in the kitchen. When I walked into the kitchen she was completely naked and bent over the counter. I won’t go too far into the details, except when I tried asking what she was doing, she cut me off and said I wasn’t allowed to talk until after. Things have been really good since then. I’ve gone to some more sessions with her to try to understand her more.

Courtney: A lot of our sex is still me pursuing her, but there have been times where she spontaneously climbed on top of me or unzipped my pants while watching TV. When we were walking home from dinner once, she pulled her dress down to flash me her breasts. She had seen it in a movie we watched and thought I’d get a kick out of it. Maybe she doesn’t desire people sexually or feel that usual sexual desire, and part of that does still bother me a little, but she seems happier now and she seems to enjoy our sex life. I’ll admit I’ve gotten kind of used to being flatly asked, “Do you need a blowjob today?” Even if the approach is more mechanical than anything else.”

Courtney: “Unrelated. But she’s more or less cut her friend group off.” Oh good! There it is. I was gonna say, like, happy for you both, but those friends… [reading] “There was some other weird stuff going on that I won’t get into, but she said how they’ve been after the whole incident has made her uncomfortable. She started a new job and made some new friends with hobbies and they all seem great. It feels like forever since she’s been this happy and it feels like I’m dating her for the first time all over again. Anyways, that’s it. This will be the last update. Sorry if it was a bit long winded. TLDR: Wife brought me to therapist to explain that while she doesn’t feel any sexual desire, she still wants to desperately make an attempt at a sex life, have been having a lot of sex. Life is good.”

Courtney: I think it’s really interesting, going through all the comments, apparently a lot of people missed the final, “Life is good.” Because a bunch of people were like, “I’m with the OOP, I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone who doesn’t desire me either.” But then we also have a lot of comments saying how awful the therapist and the wife are for, in their reading, what they’re saying is pressuring him into violating his own boundaries by having sex that he didn’t want to have. And everyone’s saying that that is toxic and manipulative and crossing his boundaries. Which is – before we get further into the boundaries conversation – fascinating to me. Because how often on subreddits do we have a like, here’s a married couple, wife is asexual, husband is not asexual, and all the comments are like, “No, you tell her she needs to have sex with you or you’re out. If she doesn’t have sex with you, you’re getting a divorce. Give her that ultimatum.” Why do we only get these compassionate, “But this is the boundary. You can’t violate the boundaries,” when it’s not the asexual one who’s saying no to sex?

Royce: Yeah, I see why people are reading it that way but, like, the whole point of couples therapy is to have an independent third party tell people when they’re being a little too rigid in their thinking that they might need to talk more and try other things. Like that’s the whole point. And he did that and it worked.

Courtney: Yes. And I’m just gonna make the case that the perception of what is a healthy and acceptable boundary, and the rules of consent, absolutely go out the window when it is an asexual person refusing sex. Like asexual people are held to a different standard when we say we don’t want to have sex.

Royce: Yeah. The whole interpretation of enthusiastic consent as a form of lust or as a form of sexual attraction, and enthusiastic consent being the only situation where sex can happen ethically, is kind of infantilizing in a way that removes autonomy from an ace person.

Courtney: Yes, very much that. But also, this was not a clear-cut situation of someone who does not want sex. Because there are absolutely situations. If you don’t want sex, that’s it. You haven’t given consent. No is a complete answer. For sure, there are those situations. But this was not a guy saying, “I do not want to have sex with my wife.” This was a guy who was projecting his preconceived notions about what he was thinking asexuality is, the limitations he was falsely putting on asexuality, and his own perception of what that would mean and what that would look like to his wife. But the fact of the matter is you can communicate over and over again – and it looks like with therapy they are getting better at that and that is a good thing – but you are never, ever going to be in someone else’s head.

Courtney: But people have this idea of what the societally approved sexual relationship marriage looks like and they have an idea in their head. It’s going to involve romance, it’s going to involve desire, it’s going to involve lust. It’s going to involve– Initiation might be a factor for some people. But at the end of the day, sex or no sex or type of sex is going to look different for every single couple. So if you go into a relationship with this idealized image in your head of what you think it ought to look like, it’s not necessarily a good or productive thing to throw it all out the window if there’s one little facet that didn’t look the way you pictured it. Especially if you’re projecting your own biases on the other person.

Courtney: Because in this case he was like, “Well, if she wanted to have sex with me, then, yes, I would want that, and sometimes it bothers me that we don’t.” And he even admitted in the edit. He’s like, “Life is good, we’re having more sex and I’m liking it.” He even said, “I still can’t quite wrap my head around how she likes this without that sexual attraction.” So he still has that bit of a hang up. But this to me seems more of an issue of trying to bridge that gap in that misunderstanding and communicate rather than does he or does he not want to have sex?

Royce: Yeah, his conceptualization of that boundary was unfounded. And oftentimes it is difficult to talk about an individual person’s experience on the asexual spectrum without getting into an extreme amount of detail. Because the perception of this situation hinges on the definition of the word ‘want’, and that is a deceptively complicated word.

Courtney: [chuckles] That’s a good way to put it.

Royce: That people think they understand what it means and they might understand what it feels for them, but it is extremely variable. Again to go back to what I said earlier, you can have a nice, enjoyable, consensual situation where the definitions of that word ‘want’ are not identical.

Courtney: Very excellent point. So, on that note, that is going to bring us to today’s featured MarketplACE vendor: Laya Rose Art. She is such a phenomenally talented artist. In fact she did the cover art for the book Baker Thief, which we did an entire episode on. You can go listen to it. Fabulous book with A-spec representation. This is the artist who made that book cover, as well as many other book covers.

Courtney: But you can go to the shop and find just so many amazing things. Some are a little bit fandomy. We’ve got, like, Chappell Roan. We’ve got a really awesome reference to Our Flag Means Death. There is a bookmark of a dagger behind oranges.

Courtney: There are actually a lot of fabulous bookmarks. Some of them are all like daggers and knives, other ones are like fungus, mushrooms, or look like old spell books. And it probably took me two hours to decide which bookmark I wanted to order, because I have too many bookmarks. I have more bookmarks than I read books at a given time. But I love these bookmarks so much that I wanted to order one, and I think I ended up ordering three actually. Oops. We’ve got some Koisenu Futari stickers and prints, which is still maybe one of my favorite instances of ace rep that we’ve ever seen in the media. I think we did two episodes on it. We’ve got Takahashi and his cabbage, which is iconic.

Courtney: So please, please, please, check this artist out. The link is going to be in the show notes on our website and the description on YouTube. I even just read here on the website that she won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist in 2024, so. You can even read an original webcomic. So tons of things here. I think there’s a little something for everyone. Go check her out. As always, thank you all so much for being here and we will talk to you all next time.