Editor’s note: Please be advised this editorial references to sexual assault, abuse, and self-harm. Consider this when deciding when and how you will read. 

Up until 2022, I identified as asexual. It came to me that it might explain my sexual expression up until then. My partner at the time was as well, and when we first discussed the role sex (or lack thereof) in our relationship, more and more things seemed to feel right to me. I had always seemingly had an absence of those sorts of feelings of sexual desire like my peers did. I had relationships in the past that ended mostly because of my hesitation with physical intimacy. It clicked for me at the time, it made perfect sense both in retrospect and in the future with my partner, as it seemed we were basically on the same page. 

It goes without saying, I don’t identify with that label anymore. So when reflecting on Sex Week, I’m reminded of how I’m still struggling with this aspect of my life, but with more perspective on how I got here. I decided to publish this, perhaps a bit for my own closure, but to share some of my thoughts and experiences as a resource to other students. 

I am a man, and like most men my age, I was raised thinking heterosexuality was the default. When my friends all started getting girlfriends and boyfriends, the pressure weighed on me like a ton of bricks. It was like I was falling behind in a race where my shoes were glued to the ground; I had no idea how to move forward or why I was stuck in place. I had a few partners up through high school, but ultimately they all came to an end in one way or another. 

So when asexuality was introduced to me by my then partner, it felt like the missing puzzle piece I needed. Suddenly, I was able to give an answer to myself as to why I felt so out of place. Moreover, it made me feel closer to my partner, who was happy to know we shared common ground in not prioritizing sex in our relationship. As we grew closer in our relationship, we’d come to confide in each other that our perceptions of our sexualities were greatly influenced by past negative experiences we had experienced involving intimacy. 

Trauma. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot. Unfortunately, a word that has all too unfortunately been intertwined with sex. I had never considered myself to be one with trauma for the longest time. At some point in our relationship, it hit me like a lightning bolt: I was sexually harassed multiple times and groped by a classmate of mine many years prior. All at once, the realization crushed me and liberated me. Part of it was knowing I had a partner who could respect that those experiences created walls to intimacy for me. 

But, those walls in time came down for me. We began to branch out physically with each other, pushing on what we thought our boundaries were, and being pleasantly surprised that it led to good things. I was still asexual, as was my partner. Contrary to some perceptions, asexual people can still engage in romantic behavior, because romantic and sexual attraction are two split feelings. We continued together, through highs and lows; even as distance separated us for college, we stayed committed to one another. Through this time, we definitely hit our snags; every relationship does. She had a lot going on, which put significant strain on the relationship at times, but it was all worth it for me to be with the person I cared for most. 

We both struggled with mental health issues; what started as a secure and healthy relationship for me turned into an anxious obsessive nightmare. I became a worse version of myself, what I can firmly say now in retrospect was codependency. Because of this, I started medication, revisited my therapist for the first time in years, and worked to navigate what was becoming a complicated relationship. All the while, my feelings of trust with my partner grew. This came at a cost of my mental health: I was a shut-in, avoiding plans to make more time with my partner, anxious to the point of breakdowns because of the distance between us and the problems it had caused for communication, and my self esteem was at an all time low. I knew it was unhealthy, but I ignored it. 

I’d tell my friends things about our relationship when things were going wrong. Partially to vent, but I never spoke these things with the seriousness they likely deserved. I’d joke that my partner was a completely different person in front of my friends: she’d always go out of  her way to make fun of me, even to the point of embarrassment. But that was okay, I said to myself, most people act differently around other people. She’d also frequently withdraw affection at random times with no explanation. But that was okay too, I’m not entitled to affection in a relationship all the time, this is just how it is. When I’d try to express how these things made me feel to her, I was always told why I was wrong, but that’s alright because it just goes to show how smart my partner was. She was always quite critical of my family and friends, but that made sense because they didn’t seem to like her either. There was the time after we had a fight where she said she was going to walk off down a highway and never be seen again. Or the time after a series of arguments and bad things happening that she told me the ways she wanted to hurt herself. I justified that too, we were both struggling with mental health problems— she was patient with me, shouldn’t I be patient too? There was that one time where she hit me, slapped my arm and pushed me, but it wasn’t even that hard, and I probably deserved it, I should have known better. 

I began to justify every instance of toxicity, one way or another. After the day she hit me, we stayed together for another year. I just continued to compartmentalize each little instance or transgression made against me. Nonetheless, I still felt my feelings growing towards her. I began to realize that maybe I wasn’t asexual. Maybe what I wanted out of a relationship wasn’t what I had. Once I began to express this to my partner, that is when the relationship ended. She told me it had become clear to her that what we wanted had become drastically different things. Over the last few months of the relationship, we ended up hurting each other a lot. Crushed as I was to admit it, I did want something else. 

Wow, “This took a turn” you must be thinking. I promise there’s a happy ending. 

I’ve gotten enough distance from that phase of my life to talk about it decently well. I’m certainly more open in expressing my sexuality, but I must admit, I have a lot more work to do to be in a healthy place with it. As a man, it’s difficult to admit when I am hurt. Not hurt in the tragic-hero way, where it’s made me stronger; hurt in the sense that things happened to me that shouldn’t have to happen to anyone else. 

Trauma isn’t just the lightning bolt that can strike at any moment, sometimes trauma is like a poison, something that slowly builds up in you, bit by bit. Something you don’t realize is affecting you until it stops seeping into you. Even then, it’s not an easy process: I go through phases of doubting everything that happened to me; if it even occurred the way I think it did. I try to intellectualize these moments of abuse to find that one undoubtable thing, a nugget of truth to justify how I feel about the whole relationship. Eventually, when I worked down to it, what I came to was that the closest thing to the truth was that I deserved it— and that is simply no philosophy I want to live my life by. 

So I started going out more. Making more friends, trying new things, seeing what I liked out in the world. I got back into therapy again, and have gotten to a place where I feel okay. I still struggle sometimes; the thought of me being that close to another person again scares me. However, I’ve reached a point where I can realize that the script for that anxious part of my brain— the one that tells me that the pain I went through didn’t happen or was deserved— wasn’t written by me. 

So instead, I decided to write this. The only reason I realized about my past of abuse, when another man shared his story. So in part that’s what I want to do in honor of Sex Week. I want to put my story into writing so that other men, women, really anyone, can take it down from the shelf and learn from it. I think it’s hard for men to acknowledge when they’ve been truly hurt. Toxic masculinity is one hell of a box to try and communicate from when you’re struggling. But, if men don’t put these stories on the shelf for others, who is going to borrowand learn from them? I decided I wanted my past to be an intellectual resource for other people, and maybe help someone who needs it.

I don’t want what you take away from this story to be pessimism, pain and sadness. It’s not about me, or the person who did this to me. I want the results of my story to be something good. If you do have trauma, if this week makes you feel uncomfortable because of something in your past, or if you’ve been hurt by a partner, I only have to say this, and it’s possibly the most powerful words in the English language:

 I understand how you feel.