Understanding Asexuality
If you've found your way to this page, you might be questioning your own experience of attraction, supporting a partner or friend who is, or simply trying to understand asexuality for the first time. Wherever you're starting from, this page is intended to be a clear starting point, and to explain how therapy can help if you'd like some support in exploring this orientation.
What is asexuality?
Asexuality is generally understood as experiencing little or no sexual attraction to others. It isn't the same as having a low libido, and it isn't the same as choosing celibacy. Libido is about sex drive (the physical urge for sexual release) whereas asexuality is about attraction: whether or not you find yourself drawn to people sexually in the first place. It's entirely possible to have a libido and still be asexual, just as it's possible to have no interest in sex for reasons that have nothing to do with asexuality. If you've been asking yourself "is this just low libido, or am I asexual?", that distinction is often the first useful place to start.
Asexuality is also a spectrum, not a single fixed experience. Some terms you might come across:
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Demisexual: experiencing sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional connection with someone
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Grey-asexual (grey-ace): sitting somewhere between sexual and asexual, with attraction that's infrequent, conditional, or hard to categorise
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Aromantic: experiencing little or no romantic attraction (distinct from sexual attraction, and not everyone who is asexual is also aromantic)
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Aroace: a shorthand term for someone who identifies as both aromantic and asexual
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Heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic asexual: being asexual while still experiencing romantic attraction to particular genders
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Lithromantic (or lithoromantic): experiencing romantic attraction but not wanting it reciprocated, or losing interest once it is
None of these labels are compulsory. Many people find them useful as a way of naming an experience they've had for years without the language for it; others prefer not to use labels at all. Both are valid.
What does asexuality feel like?
There's no single answer to this question, because asexual people are individuals, not a uniform group. But some things come up often enough to be worth naming. Many asexual people describe being able to recognise when someone is conventionally attractive, or feeling romantic or emotional closeness with someone, without that translating into a wish for sexual contact. Others describe a sense of relief on discovering the word "asexual", because it finally named something they'd sensed about themselves for years but had no language for. Some describe confusion or self-doubt beforehand, wondering whether something was "wrong," or whether they just hadn't met the right person yet.
If you've found yourself asking "is this just me being insecure, or am I actually asexual?", that question itself is common, and it doesn't have a quick yes-or-no answer. It's often something worth exploring slowly, rather than resolving through a checklist.
Common Questions
Do asexual people still want relationships, or to fall in love?
Yes, for many. Sexual attraction and romantic attraction aren't the same thing, so plenty of asexual people want and have romantic relationships, marriages, and deep partnerships, without those relationships needing to include sex, or with sex playing a different or smaller role.
Is asexuality caused by trauma?
No, asexuality is considered a sexual orientation, not a symptom. That said, trauma can genuinely affect a person's relationship to sex and sexuality, and it's understandable to want to make sense of your own history. The two things – a lifelong orientation, and a response to a specific experience – aren't the same, but sitting with the question of which one describes you (or whether both are true in different ways) is exactly the kind of thing therapy can help untangle.
Why bring this up in therapy?
People bring the theme of asexuality to therapy for a range of reasons, including:
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Feeling unseen, dismissed, or subtly pathologised by previous clinicians who assumed low desire was always a problem to be fixed
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Confusion or grief about not fitting an expected script for relationships, sex, or adulthood
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Working out how to talk to a partner about mismatched desire
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Navigating family or cultural expectations that assume everyone wants a conventional sexual and romantic life
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Exploring how asexuality intersects with other parts of identity, including neurodivergence. Many neurodivergent people also identify as asexual or ace-spectrum, and the two can be easier to make sense of together than apart
How can therapy help?
My approach starts from the position that asexuality is not a problem to be solved or a phase to be moved through, it's a valid way of experiencing the world. What that means in practice:
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You won't be steered toward a label, or away from one. The aim is to give you room to work out what's true for you, at your own pace.
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I'm currently involved in ongoing research and writing on the asexual spectrum, so this is an area I bring genuine, up-to-date interest and knowledge to, not just familiarity in passing.
Above all, you won't be met with pathologising or shame here. Asexuality isn't treated as a disorder, a defence, or something to be corrected, it's simply one of the ways a person can experience the world, and it's approached with the same respect as any other part of who you are.
Resources
If you're looking for further information on asexuality – whether for yourself or, as sometimes happens, because someone you know has asked you what asexuality even is – a good starting point is the section on my LGBTQIA+ resources page.
Getting in touch
If any of this resonates and you'd like to talk it through, you're welcome to get in touch. There's no need to have a label, or an answer, before you do.