You are 14. You want to try dating. You wouldn’t want to date an 11 year old though, right? No, no way. You want someone your age!

At 15, an 11 year old is out of the question! That’s just silly. Even 12 is too little– you might even have a younger sibling that age. Gross!

At 16, would you date someone who is 13? (a middle schooler). You wouldn’t, right? As a high schooler, 13 is just a baby.

[Handwritten in yellow and purple: “cranky cuz ur cishet arent u”]

[Handwritten in orange and purple: “op im outside your house.”]

And when I tried to come out during Pride, I got alot of exclusionists essentially telling me I don’t exist, I’m not valid and a bunch of shit that caused a massive mental breakdown on my part.

But today I say

SCREW IT!

I’M A DEMISEXUAL HETEROMANTIC AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT YOU CAN SUCK IT!

[handwritten in yellow and purple: “Don’t call nonaces allos”]

“Not starting a fight” asexuality is explicitly about sexual feelings (specifically lack thereof), lesbianism isnt. When I tell people I am a lesbian, I am making no statements about my personal sexual feelings or preferences, just as other orientations like bi and straight give no indication of sexual feelings. A 13 year old who identifies as straight is not telling you anything about their sexual feelings and isnt weird.

Any and all sexualities are statements of “sexual feelings and preferences” (to use your odd choice of words) in an equal amount. Just because asexuality is the only sexuality that experiences a subtraction of sexual feelings instead of the more “typical” addition of sexual feelings doesn’t mean that the inherent and overall value of that sexuality is any different. 

Sexual identities are blanket statements that describe categories of people we’re attracted to. If you’re gay you’re sexually attracted to men. If you’re a lesbian you’re sexually attracted to women. If you’re bi you’re sexually attracted to both (or more than the binary depending on personal definition). If you’re ace you’re not sexually attracted to any gender. And that’s it.

Of course, obviously, identifying as asexual comes with the knowledge that everyone you tell will know that sex will not be part of any future relationship that you’re going to be involved in. (Or maybe it will! Life and identities aren’t finite - they’re fluid. But that’s not the point right now.) But just as identifying as ace comes with its own section of assumptions, so does identifying as any other sexuality. If you identify as lesbian, the people you tell are going to know, then, that sex will be part of any future relationship you’re going to be involved in.

The problem here, I think, is that you seem to be viewing asexuality as a sort of…. sexual kink, if you will, or at least along those same lines, because you’re saying it’s “inherently” sexual. Because what SHOULD be happening when a teen/preteen tells you that they identify as asexual is that you should go “okay cool thanks for telling me.” But what you’re ACTUALLY doing is saying “GROSS I don’t want to know what you do/don’t do in the bedroom.” Do you see how that’s similar to how people view kinks? Because you’re saying that asexuality is explicitly about sexual feelings in a way that lesbianism isn’t, but if they’re both just terms we use to let other people know who we’re DTF, then what you’re really saying is that asexuality is more similar to someone saying they’re into BDSM than a woman saying she wants to have sex with her girlfriend. Which is ridiculous, right? Like that’s so mind-bogglingly stupid to say that a sexuality is anything like a kink. Like that’s So Fucking Dumb. But here you are saying it.

“Does not experience sexual attraction” is literally just the binary opposite of “experiences sexual attraction.” Stop treating a lack of sexual attraction as a kink and a window into some child’s bedroom. Stop thinking about the sexualities of 13 year olds in the first place except as a step towards them being more comfortable with themselves. Stop thinking that a fucking child saying that they’re not attracted to anyone is in any way different from a child saying that they’re only attracted to girls.