I grew up immersed in Christian purity culture, which when you boil it down to its essence, says that women hate sex and men are constantly hungry for it. Thanks to this toxic mindset, I always figured that my sex aversion was typical. Didn’t all women hate sex? I got married really young, mostly so that I could have sex without worrying about getting pregnant out of wedlock.
But even in my early 20s, sex was a chore
I would much rather enjoy pizza and a movie with my husband instead of have sex. I actually felt depressed and weary at the thought of him pawing at me. After I had my first kid, the aversion only grew.
I started avoiding my husband (who I now refer to as my partner) because I didn’t want him hugging or kissing me, as he would inevitably want to have sex later.
Every time I turned him down, I felt guilty
Those persistent teachings from Christian purity culture kept ringing in my ears, telling me that sex was my partner’s need that only I could fulfill. That if I didn’t give him sex, I was failing as a wife.
Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how messed up that is?
There’s so much more to a life partnership than going skin-to-skin every few nights. There’s emotional support and companionship and working together to build a home full of love.
And for me, the only way to build that home full of love was to get rid of sex entirely.
I told my partner I would no longer be doing it, and that if he wanted to take action based on that (such as separate), I understood.
He refused. He said he didn’t mind. I still felt extremely guilty, but I knew that I could not suffer through it anymore. I had enjoyed it somewhat at one point, as a teenager, but now I had zero desire and plenty of shame and revulsion about it.
After researching sexless marriages, I stumbled upon the description for asexuality
I had heard the term “ace” before but wasn’t quite sure what it meant. In case you didn't know, it’s short for asexuality, wherein a person does not experience sexual desire.
That’s when I realized that I wasn’t abnormal. That there are plenty of other asexual people around. (There’s even a flag for asexuality). There’s a whole spectrum of asexuality, and after finding my people, I felt so much more seen.
Now I hug my partner more because I know it won’t lead to anything sexual. We can snuggle on the couch with our pizza and movie and I can just relax into it without worrying that he’ll want to do something later.
In short, I’m a better partner now that I know more about who I really am
I just wish it hadn’t taken so long for me to figure it out. It doesn’t help that so many people think that a “healthy sex life” is key to a happy marriage.
Because for some of us, a healthy sex life means no sex at all.
