Asexuals commonly referred to as ACE are those described as lacking sexual
attraction to others or having low to absent interest in sexual activity,
despite implications of asexuality existing since the dawn of humanity,
asexuality as a sexual orientation and field of scientific research is
still relatively new with the first recognition in a scientific document
dating back only 120 years ago.
As made evident by the thousands of comments from aces on my video with
sex therapists who did not acknowledge aces, asexuality is extremely common
yet rarely recognized in our culture.
My name is Anthony Padilla, and today I'm going to be sitting down with aces
to learn the truth behind this sexual orientation that far too many have
written off as outrageous or ridiculous.
Is asexuality a valid sexual orientation or is it really just a way for people
who are too scared of a romantic relationship to emotionally regress
and avoid human connection altogether.
Are asexuals truly able to live happy and fulfilling lives without
strong sexual desire, or are they simply convincing themselves that
the deprivation of this basic human desire is normal in an attempt to suppress a
deeper or darker insecurity or trauma?
[music]
Hi, Lauren.
-Hi.
-Hello, Andrew.
-Hey, Anthony.
-Hey, Shelby.
-Hello.
-Thank you so much for coming out and teach me about the
wondrous world of asexuality.
-It's very wondrous.
-What do you consider yourself, asexual, ace?
-I'm asexual.
-Gray asexual.
-I usually just would use the word asexual although I haven't used it a lot,
because I haven't said it many times.
-You haven't talked about asexuality much?
-I've never talked about it.
-This is your--
-It's my debut.
-Your debut, congratulations.
-You're lucky, you get this on camera.
-What does being asexual entail?
-The definition is you don't experience sexual attraction.
-A straight guy feels about another guy or a straight girl feels about another
girl, I just feel that about both genders.
-People are just 100% I want to have sex.
Definitely not me.
I'm more like maybe a 2% type of guy.
-2% of the time you want to do it?
-Asexual simply means someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction.
Gray asexual is someone who experiences just a bit.
-How long have you identified as asexual?
-I went to an all-girls Catholic Academy, so we were taught abstinence.
-Oh, great.
Abstinence is great.
-We even had a club that was called True Love Waits, where we had a
whole ceremony where we wear white dresses, we put on purity rings.
-The implication from the title alone implies that love is intrinsically
connected with sexual desire?
-I just went along with it to have an excuse to get myself out of dealing
with that for a while, and then when I started dating at 21 is when I realized.
I didn't really work the same way as everyone else, I put it off for so long.
I was like, I don't think everyone else feels the way that I feel.
-Started in high school and everyone was into boys.
When I kissed someone, how kissing a wall.
Another thing I said which he didn't like was, "I don't understand
cheating, what's the big deal?"
-You said that?
-I said that because I've never understood it.
I have multiple friends, why not have multiple-- What's the difference?
-Are there different ways to identify as asexual within the-- Is there a spectrum?
-You can be sex-positive asexual which I am, and this
is someone who's fine with sex.
They're fine with having sex, or fine with other people having sex.
There are sex repulsed asexuals who will never actually have sex.
They have no desire to.
-The idea is disgusting to them?
-Correct.
Demisexuals, who are people who are very much asexual but once they find a
partner that they really connect with then they're like, "Okay, I'm fine.
I'm actually attracted to this person."
They're some asexuals who are aromantic, they don't fall in love.
There are others who are very much romantic and they're like, "Okay, I do
want a partner, maybe a lifelong partner who will connect with me emotionally."
-How do you identify within this spectrum?
-Asexual, that's the word that I feel the most comfortable with.
I think that I would probably say heteroromantic.
-You'll find heteroromantic relationships desirable but that's where it ends?
-Yes.
Which is all right, because that just means I'm dating a bunch of
straight guys who don't really get it.
-Do you find that people commonly assume asexuality is the same as celibacy?
-Yes.
Very often people think that.
I've had people tell me, "I'm also celibate.
I don't want to have sex anymore this year."
It doesn't work like that.
This is not a seasonal thing, this is like every day.
-I've dated a lot of people who are not asexual, whenever I do intimate stuff
it's more like an invasive medical exam.
-Oh, really?
That's how you feel?
-That's how I feel.
We're on a date and it's like, "Oh, this is fun.
We're getting to know each other."
I'm like, "Oh, no.
Is this part of the night?"
It's not that it's necessarily bad, it's just I feel nothing so it's awkward like
if you imagine taking all the emotion out of it, it would feel like a medical exam.
-Do you proudly tell people that you're asexual or do you
keep that more of a secret?
-It's a need-to-know basis.
If I'm at a bar or something drinking with some people, and someone comes
up to me, "I really want to fuck."
That's when I got to let them know.
-Does that happen to you?
-It has happened to me.
- [laughs]
-I swear it's happened to me.
- [laughs] Before we learn more about the wondrous world of asexuality,
I want to mention that videos discussing anything sexual, whether it be for
educational purposes or journalism are almost always demonetized by YouTube.
Meaning this video will likely earn $0 despite the hundreds of man-hours,
and the financial investment required to make this video and every video in this series.
When YouTube demonetize the video, they don't just take the money away,
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This basically means the multi-billion dollar companies behind most of the
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they feel should be discussed, based on their own personal values,
no matter how close-minded they might be.
I personally feel these topics, and the people affected by their discussions
are extremely important despite YouTube's advertisers blacklisting
this content from being discovered.
Thank you all so much for supporting this series and subscribing and turning on
all notifications so you ensure that you always see each new video
as I release it, despite whatever YouTube decides you should or shouldn't see.
That's all I wanted to say.
Back to learning about the wondrous world of asexuals.
Have you found that it's possible to experience a happy and healthy
relationship, that doesn't include any sexual attraction whatsoever?
-I actually have a loving boyfriend of the year.
The answer to that would be yes.
-Congratulations.
-Thank you.
Me and my boyfriend do have sex, we are physically intimate and maybe
not as much as the average couple.
-For you, it's more about making the intimate connection rather
than a primal drive that you feel.
-Right.
It's more of an emotional act as opposed to a physical one.
-My first boyfriend was at 21, and then really quickly, he realized
that I had never had sex before and he wasn't okay with that.
He said a lot of things that were pretty manipulative to tell me that
there's something wrong with me.
Part of me wanted to make it work and I, at that point, was like it's
my fault, I'm doing something wrong.
-Of course, society is constantly telling you that it's normal to feel these things.
If you don't then it's something wrong with you.
-There's something wrong with you.
He thought I was making a big deal out of it and I just needed to get it over with.
It didn't matter if I didn't want to.
I got out of there real quick.
-That takes a lot of strength to get out of a situation like that, especially
when you're constantly being told from every angle that you're in the wrong.
That you need to be giving someone something in order to be true to yourself.
-For a relationship to work.
That led me on the search to figure out is there a word for it?
Is there something wrong with me?
Do I need to go to a doctor?
That's how I found the word asexual and that there are other people like me.
-How do you feel about our culture's affinity for overly
sexualizing almost everything?
-It makes me a little uncomfortable.
Most things make me uncomfortable anyway.
[laughter]
-That's not an asexual thing.
-As someone with anxiety I can relate.
-Always uncomfortable.
-I still find it entertaining.
I don't know why.
-You think sexual things are entertaining to see.
-I love romantic comedies.
You don't really see the sex on screen, it's about the intimate relationship.
It's interesting to me.
Watching porn on the other hand, probably entertained by the plots.
- [laughS] People wonder who watches porn for the plot and here we are.
[laughter]
-Have societal pressures ever made you question your own
sexual desires or lack thereof?
-Yes.
I don't feel I'm missing out on anything.
I've seen friends go through just really stressful times and I'm like,
"That just seems like a lot of work."
- [laughs] Like breakups and stuff.
-Pregnancy scare, Pregnancy happening.
-Do you plan to have children someday?
-I don't know.
More than I'm scared of the whole pregnancy thing.
-You're scared of pregnancy more than the children.
-Oh, yes.
[laughter]
-Children are scary.
-I have no desire to raise a small little human being.
- [laughs]
-Has nothing to do with sex or anything.
I just don't have that type of commitment for 18 plus years.
-Not into small creatures that need something every single moment
of their lives until they're 18-
-Correct.
--or plus?
-You got to pay for them to go to college and everything.
It's too much work.
-What's something you wish you could say to people who question
asexuality as a sexual orientation.
-First of all, fuck you.
Second of all, educate yourself.
Third of all, I think all identities are valid at the end of the day.
-If you look at the other sexual orientations, if you think of it as a box,
there's heterosexuality, there's homosexuality there's bisexuality.
What's the opposite of that?Asexuality.
It makes perfect logical sense of it.
It exists and it does exist.
-The idea of sexuality and asexuality it's never for anybody else, it's for you.
It doesn't need to be anybody else's business and whether you believe asexual
is a thing, whether you think it's how they were raised, if they were raised
in abstinence like I was has a factor.
Why does that matter?
If that's how I want to feel?
What do you have a say in it?
-Carrot juice wants to know if you consider yourself to be
part of the LGBTQ+ community.
-There's a little bit of discourse of whether asexuals even belong in LGBTQIA+
spaces or in the community at all.
Some people will say we're just straight people looking for
attention or we don't have different experiences from someone who's
heterosexual, which I would disagree.
We don't have to worry about being kicked out of her houses, that I
wouldn't compare but my experience, especially my battle with myself where
I wasn't accepting of myself, I didn't want to be asexual, it was hard.
-In the LGBT community, there is still a problem of people
who are more than just gay.
Like being LGBT stands for bisexual and even then bi-erasers still exist,
both in and out of community.
There's me even more on the fringe is asexual and I don't really have a letter
in the acronym and it's like a struggle.
-Patriziapie wants to know if you ever find it difficult to find
other asexuals who understand?
-I have one friend.
-You guys connect over that.
-She's the only person that I know, who is they say maybe
1% of the general population.
-I just did the math.
That's like 75 million people in the world.
That's a lot of people.
-So they're out there.
-Azure wants to know if you ever wish you had more sexual desires to fit in
more or do you prefer being asexual?
-I thought that I would or I did wish that when I was just discovering who
I was because I thought it would make everything easier in relationships.
-I am who I am.
I really can't change that.
Once I came to the realization that was actually a big moment
for me because I was finally comfortable in the body that I'm in.
I was like we're good to go.
-What is it about being asexual, if anything that brings you the most joy?
-Probably, just the fact that it makes it easier to find good people
because people will show their colors much faster if you're not giving
them what they want right away.
-I guess the thing would just more time to do the things that I want to do.
-I'm sure a lot of asexuals agree.
You got so much more time.
-The cake.
-What?
-You haven't found about the cake yet?
-The one at the end of portal?
-That cake is a lie though.
Not that cake.
In the asexual community, we absolutely love cake but don't ask me why.
-Does that have to do with sexuality?
-Absolutely not.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you're having
sex, don't you want a cake more?
I think that's how that works.
-A good way understand if you are asexual or not is when you are
experiencing something sexual, you'd rather be having cake.
-Correct.
-Has anyone in your life ever made you feel less than?
-I wouldn't say guys made me feel less than but they just didn't understand
and tried to push it anyway and that made me feel like I wasn't being
listened to or respected as a person.
-It was almost like they didn't even accept that to be a reality.
-I remember I told this one guy I was like, "Look I asexual."
We had this deep conversation and he's like, "I feel like we've
gotten closer because of this."
I think then he kissed me or something.
-Totally missing the point.
-Yes.
-Has being asexual affected any of your relationships?
-Yes, absolutely.
I used to have a three-month exploration of any relationship that I was in.
-Like once the honeymoon phase ends.
-Once the honeymoon phase ended, it was like just is it going to work?
That's usually how it went.
I wasn't able to communicate very effectively.
Communication breaks down overall.
I'm not broken.
There's nothing to fix here.
I'm absolutely perfect.
10 out of 10
-Never it's here.
Never a problem in life.
-You'd be lucky to have me.
-Do you ever get anxious when you're about to disclose to
someone that you're asexual.
-Yes.
You want to find a person that you can be comfortable doing it with
because your knees are knocking.
Your teeth clink.
-It's a lot of this [clapping], and I'm not clapping.
is there anything that you would like to say to anyone who is asexual or maybe is
considering that they might identify as asexual but maybe they're uncomfortable,
maybe they're unsure about coming out because they're afraid of judgment?
-When I was doing a little bit of self-discovery, I was using the word
'broken' a lot, and I don't want other people to feel like there's anything
wrong with them or anything to be fixed.
You're not broken and whatever word you feel like identifying with is
there for you to feel comfortable.
It doesn't need to be for anybody else but you.
-You are valid.
Don't let anybody else tell you any different.
-Listen to yourself and be true to yourself.
You'll know if you're not attracted to someone.
You'll know if you are.
Don't let people tell you what to do.
Don't give in to people just because you think that you should
or just to make them happy.
Just be in touch with yourself and you'll know what orientation
you are if you allow yourself to believe the truth about yourself.
-I actually have a parting gift for you
- [exclaims]
-The Best Interviewer shirt which you could get at padildoshop.com, but
I'm going to give it to you for free.
-Thank you so much.
Did you make this yourself?
-Obviously, I made it.
-I can tell.
[laughs]
-How is that?
-It smells free.
- [laughs]
-The best smell.
Subscribe or I'm going to bake you a cake.
Wait.
Subscribe and I will bake you cake.
- [laughs] All right, you got five seconds to shout out or promote anything you want.
Directly into camera, go.
-You can find me anywhere on the internet as shubble or shelbygraces.
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr.
-Hi, my album's coming out at the beginning of next year.
It's called Psychward by Lauren Rhodes.
Follow me on Instagram @thebluemannequin.
-I'm just here for sex and giggles, but follow me on Twitter at ADifferentRealm.
I don't do shit there though.
-Thank you so much, Shelby.
-Thank you.
-I feel like I fully understand the wondrous world of asexuality.
-I'm so glad.
-Congratulations on coming out to the entire world.
-Oh my God, I forgot already.
[laughter]
-After spending the day with these aces, I've come to understand how
broad the spectrum of asexuality is and just how vastly different
sexuality is for each and every person.
In a society that encourages diversity and freedom of expression,
shouldn't we strive to bring awareness and support for those who don't feel they fit in
with sexual standards and expectations?
See you later, bye, guys.
-Press the like.
[music]
-A lot of people when they hear the term 'asexual', they're like, "Oh, do you like,
split into cells or something?"
-Oh, because they think it means impregnating yourself.
-Yes.
- [laughs] You don't do that?
-No, no.
Trust me, I do not do that.
Nor do I think I'm capable of doing that.
-Good, so we cleared that up.