- A lot of people take intimacy and they think sex
but intimacy and sex are completely different.
- So I describe myself as a queer cocktail.
Romantically I identify as Aromantic
and sexually I identify as gray ace and bisexual.
So it's like shaken, not stirred shots, shots, shots.
(laughs)
Just like everything else, asexuality is a spectrum.
- My name is Daley South.
I'm 33 years old and I am a polyamorous, panromantic,
gray asexual.
So, gray ace sexuality is on the asexual spectrum.
It essentially means someone who rarely ever experiences
sexual attraction.
- Hey, my name is Bri and I use she/her
or they them pronouns and I identify as asexual.
But if I'm being specific, I would say I use the label
pan romantic, demi asexual.
Pan romantic means I like people of all genders.
And then the Demi asexual part is I have to have
like a very deep connection in order to like someone
like I'm not really going to have a crush on someone
I just like based off their aesthetic appearance.
- Some people may have thought I could have been lesbian
but my partner is a beautiful, tall blonde Swedish man.
That doesn't seem queer until you realize I'm asexual.
- [Daley] When I experience sexual attraction for me
I actually don't feel it genitally like most people would.
Most people would have a reaction of some kind.
I feel it actually in my chest.
I'm like, "Oh my goodness, I just need this person."
- When I see someone I'm not like,
"Whoa I want to have sex with them."
I'm like, wow, like "I want to like deeply get to know them
and like learn everything about them."
Like, there's not a thought in my mind that's like, whoa,
I even like want to like kiss them or something.
I'm just like, whoa, let's walk around town.
- Most of the time I experienced aesthetic attraction.
Like I know with my eyes that people are attractive
or beautiful or sexy.
But when it comes to the sexual feeling,
my brain starts to make the windows error sound
like there's just, it's just not there.
Most of the time, imagine that I see the world in
black and white, right?
And then I'm just randomly doing something,
randomly walking down the street
and then like somebody walks past me
and they're in full color.
- [Bri] That phrase is very interesting.
I believe I don't need that to know I'm asexual
'cause it's like an ingrained feeling.
Just like, if you are a guy who likes women
you don't need to get with a guy or something
to know you're not straight.
- I have definitely had some really good
just really good sex.
Like some like fist pump, dumped the Gatorade (claps)
kind of sex.
Yes.
- I have definitely had good sex.
My husband is quite the sex fiend.
I am in a polyamorous relationship.
So some of my partners are actually hyper-sexual
and do enjoy having a lot of sex.
It's great for my partners to be able to have
other partners that might have the same type
of libido that they have.
- You know how, like sometimes you go to a restaurant
like this is maybe a once a year place we go to
because they get indigestion.
But it's great at the time,
that to me is what sex is like.
Maybe I want it every once in a while
but I definitely do not want it as much
as my partner wants it.
- Personally, I have not had sex or really had any desire.
I'm a sex positive asexual.
So if I were to be in a committed relationship
or something with someone I really liked,
I'd be down but I'm not going to go out of my way
to like have sex with someone.
- [Divinity] Do I masturbate?
Yes, I do.
I have a whole like cubby full of toys.
I'm a toys enthusiast.
Being gray ace, I do feel sexually turned on
but not to participate in sex with someone else.
It's just, I want to have that feeling on my own.
And I do.
- Yes. I masturbate all the time.
Have you ever played a video game with yourself?
And like you had total control
over everything was happening.
You didn't have to defer to anybody until like,
"Oh, I guess we got to work as a team on this."
- I do masturbate.
Maybe once a week at most.
And masturbation for me is just to fulfill a need,
like I'm horny.
I'm going to masturbate five minutes out of my day.
Good to go.
- I have, but I don't really have any desire to do that,
I guess that much.
Like, especially in the same way that person who
is like allosexual would masturbate
or something like I don't have sexual thoughts.
Looking back, there was this moment when everyone's like
"Oh my God, do you like ever have dreams of kissing boys
or something like that?"
And I was like, I'm like, absolutely not like no.
- My telltale signs was like being repulsed,
like not understanding why I had such a visceral reaction
to like "No, don't touch me".
Or just going long periods of time without ever
even thinking about hooking up with people.
- In society is mostly heteronormative
and rewards people who are into the,
what I call "Flamingly heterosexuals"
like "We have sex, we're going to have children.
They're going to go to prom.
We're going to graduation ceremonies.
And we're all going to ski together."
I'm not part of that, but I tried
and it always felt on some level, I kind of always knew.
- When I was like 16 or so, I remembered Googling,
like "Why don't I feel sexual attraction?
Or like "Why does everyone else, blah, blah, blah, blah".
And I found asexuality is a term through the AVEN,
The Asexual Visibility Network.
And through that and seeing some like Tumblr
and like quizzes and stuff about whether or not
you might be asexual, I was kind of like,
"Okay, this is something that really resonates with me."
- I found out that some people like actually go to a bar
or go out with the idea that I'm going to find somebody
to hookup with.
And I'm like "I have never really left my house
feeling like, oh yeah!"
(laughs)
So I think like my genuine, just disinterest,
in sex in general was like an alert to like,
"Hey, you know, check me out."
- I feel that being asexual has actually opened up more
because I'm being more honest with myself
and not feeling like I'm three kids in a trench coat
at parties going like, "Yes, fellow heterosexuals.
I too, I'm here for sexual shenanigans."
- I started noticing, "Okay, I don't need sex."
I don't think about sex.
I think about intimacy.
And a lot of people take intimacy and they think sex
but intimacy and sex are completely different.
You can have intimacy and sex coincide,
but for me, I don't need sex to have intimacy.
- My asexuality has not been a problem in my relationships.
I've had very supportive partners.
- I wouldn't say being asexual has made my relationships
have any problems or anything.
I feel like it just made them more complicated.
And some people just like completely reject me
after hearing that cause they think I will never
have sex with them or something?
Which is probably true.
- Donovan.
- Yeah?
- Can you come in here for a sec?
Hi handsome.
- Hi!
I have been with Eve for five years?
- Five years.
We're in a polyamorous relationship.
So I have another partner.
I kind of had a feeling that Eve was asexual
or that something was going on.
And then when she came out, it was like a relief to me
cause I kind of realized, "Oh, this is her.
This is her truth."
So the more, I feel like, the more people can be truthful
about who they are and what they want and what they need,
the better and I love Eve.
So I want her to like, have her needs met the same way
she wants me to have my needs met
and then we can all be honest.
- I always thought, yeah, you can be loving
and give your partner exactly what they want
instead of saying, this is what you have to settle for.
Because again, heteronormative narrative says that
two people together forever
cause that's what we think is stability.
Luckily we found the perfect person to be
in a relationship with.
It's hard to find somebody who loves Bob Fossey
as much as me.
And we found one.
- Hi.
(both laugh)
Hi, my name is Jeffrey Lord
and I am a polyamorous pan romantic homosexual.
- About a year and a half ago,
we started like hanging out more
and we started kind of like building a relationship
and he had come out as gay.
It was kind of hard for him at first
because he is a gay man and he's not sexually attracted
to women.
He's sexually attracted to men.
And so I was like, "Okay, well, what else is there?
Is there something else there?"
And that's when he came out as pan romantic.
- I can be in a romantic relationship with
pretty much anyone.
- Yeah.
- I'm only sexually attracted primarily to men.
- Yeah.
And I'm not really sexually attracted to anybody
(laughs)
So it works out.
- It works.
- We want to inspire people to be themselves
and love who they love without fear.
- Yeah.
- [Bri] I guess just an assumption is that asexual people
can't have relationships which is so not true.
Intimacy and stuff like that is still present
in a lot of asexual relationships.
- Like asking backhanded questions to discredit my identity
as a gray ace person like, "But you have sex though?"
And it's like spectrum.
What part of a spectrum don't you understand?
- As someone working in the sex industry,
I get a lot of questions.
"Well, how can you be asexual and work in the sex industry?
Like that just sounds like, you know,
you're faking it or you're being fake."
And I'm like sex industry is a job.
It's a job.
If you're watching porn and you think everyone
in that porn is like, "Woo hoo!
This is the best day of my life.
The best sex ever."
Then you're going to be sorely mistaken.
- Just because I'm asexual doesn't mean I don't have
like sexuality.
I feel like people have a stereotype
of what they think an asexual person should
look like or behave like.
So me, being the thirst trap that I am,
when I'm like "Oh yeah, I'm gray ace"
they're like "Liar."
(laughs)
- We get a lot of comments like
"There's no way you're a Virgin.
Oh my God. So you're a Virgin?
So you've never had sex?"
A lot of like virgin fetishsization, I'd say.
And like, just hearing like virgin,
even though I'm saying like asexual,
I feel like people think of those as synonymous,
but it's definitely not always the case.
- [Eve] I wish people would have told me that
just because society doesn't think you have power,
you have power.
- I wish that I knew that asexuality was a thing.
I can remember, like middle school, high school,
my friends were all like hooking up and stuff
and I was like buying action figures and dolls
and stuff still cause I was just like not interested
in entering that part of my life.
- I feel like I wish I just knew that asexuality
was a thing at all.
Just making asexuality more of an open conversation
would be great.
And just so people are aware of it.
- It's normal and it's okay.
And it doesn't make you a bad spouse.
It doesn't make you a bad partner.
It doesn't make you a bad person.
It just makes you, you.
- [Divinity] I've dealt with a lot of feelings of brokenness
as if the way I was existing
or experiencing connection was wrong.
Once I realized that there were like so many people who were
just like me having the same or similar experiences,
it kind of really helped me unpack all of those things
that I internalized about myself.
Community is everything.
- You're not broken.
Nothing is wrong with you.
And you're perfect just the way you are.
- If you think you're on the spectrum, explore it.
See what saying no feels like.
People feel like we owe it to other people
because that's just, again,
it's the heteronormative narrative in our society.
See what it's like to reject that.
And if it feels comfortable,
maybe you're just queer in some way.
- This world is not black and white
and it's okay to be something different than the norm.
(upbeat music)