Inspire or Expire

I’m just really happy to see that there’s other people like me. I’ve struggled with my identity for so long and putting a label on my sexuality just felt so wrong.

I know that being abrosexual is still considered controversial, seeing as many people argue it as being something that everyone goes through or that it doesn’t make sense or that it’s “just another silly word made up by the LGBTQIA/social justice warrior communities of tumblr”, but all of those arguments are just stupid. First off, I’ve called myself straight, I’ve called myself bi, and I’ve called myself lesbian. I’m currently 18 and I’d labelled myself as bisexual since I was 11; not because it was cool or trendy at the time, and I wouldn’t find out about tumblr until a year or two later– not to mention that was WAAAY before tumblr was anything but hipster blogs and jamjars and kindracantspell. I identified as bisexual because all I knew at the time were that, gay/lesbian, and straight. And as far as I knew, those were the only sexualities. 

I liked girls, which I knew from a young age, but I also liked boys. I’d never met a trans-person or a non-binary person until tumblr started becoming more LGBTQIA focused, so of course I didn’t know I could be attracted to them, too. I’ve only ever dated guys, even though I’ve had feelings for the other genders, both sexual and romantic. 

I’ve had times, both when I was in a relationship and when I was out of a relationship, where I wouldn’t feel sexually attracted to anyone. I’d look at girls that I’d previously gawked over and feel like I just wasn’t into them. I’d have times where my partner wanted to have sex, but I just wasn’t feeling it and still let it happen anyways– not on matters of rape or anything like that, which I’m sure it sounds like, but just because I knew they were feeling sexual and we would be in a trusting enough position in the relationship together that I’d want to help them feel reciprocation. I wouldn’t complain or feel guilty or anything, I just didn’t feel anything sexual and would pretend in order to satisfy my partner’s needs. 

Now do I feel bad for not informing my partners of this? Eh… it’s half and half. I didn’t know what to call my sexuality and I figured that it was normal for things like this to happen, and that it happened to everyone. At the same time… yeah, I do feel kind of bad, because it was dishonest and I should’ve told them that I wasn’t feeling sexually attracted to them at that time. Not only that, but there’s the possibility that they wouldn’t understand and would get upset, since the way I feel is hard to explain in the first place. 

Basically, the way I feel varies from person to person and from moment to moment. I’ve called myself straight and felt… weird about it. Same with being bi or lesbian, but bisexuality is technically the closest thing to how I feel since it varies between genders. 

This doesn’t make me selfish or picky or a “slut”. I’ve never cheated, I’ve never been raped or molested, I didn’t have a traumatic childhood or anything that could’ve happened in my youth that would’ve made me feel this way (that doesn’t mean that members of the LGBTQIA community who have had one or more of those experiences feel the way they do because of those reasons). I’ve lived pretty normally and I’ve done some cool stuff, like travel and study in amazing places and meet phenomenal people. 

My sexual attraction makes it difficult for me to get into relationships now, only because people enjoy the cupcake/honeymoon phase and my feelings toward it vary on a momentary basis. Sometimes I just… don’t want to be involved and I can’t explain it. I don’t like feeling forced to do anything. Sometimes I want to have it and sometimes I don’t. Also, there’s the fear that my partner may believe that I’m cheating on them, especially if there hasn’t been enough time to establish trust. And it sucks.

Putting a name to my sexuality is very important to me. Yes, the word Abrosexual was created by a person on tumblr to explain the sexuality itself, but that does NOT mean that the sexuality was made up by someone on tumblr. Words are created by prefixes, suffixes, and roots so that we can explain different things. Someone created the word “rock”. Someone created the word “Felis catus” to explain the fuzzy, sassy little creatures that some people keep in their homes and old ladies sometimes tend to hoard crazily. Words are created to put labels on things. Just because someone on tumblr came up with “Abrosexual/Abroromantic” does not mean that the feelings a person has that fit the definition of the word are just made up by the same person who made the word. Tumblr created the word, not the feeling itself. We’re trying to expand language, not create new sexualities. 

Do you know what feels good about being Abrosexual? I now know what to call myself once I feel comfortable enough to come out to my family. I now know what to tell people when they ask if I’m gay or straight or bi. I now know what I am instead of having to stick with calling myself “unlabeled”.